Evan Henerson is a longtime arts and features writer who lives in Southern California. He is the former theater critic for the Los Angeles Daily News and has written for such publications as American Theatre, Playbill Online, Stage Directions and Backstage.
Co-written by Oliver and James Clements and directed by Michael Cotey, GUAC embraces its rough-around-the-edges persona without laboring to break new ground.
No form of artificial intelligence will be able to recreate the experience of sitting through Lauren Gunderson’s ANTHROPOLOGY, and specifically what Rogue Machine Theatre’s John Perrin Flynn has accomplished with it for the play’s North American premiere at the Matrix Theatre.
JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING, completing a mini tour of regional theaters at the Mark Taper Forum following an acclaimed New York run in the fall of 2023, is a tender and humorous snapshot of a community and also a plea for community.
That lovely melodious “ka-boom!” you may be hearing down the 210 freeway emanates from the collision of strong wills, good intentions and a progressive ideology of five very conflicted characters.
Staged with take-no-prisoners verve by Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott, Richard Bean’s romp of a play is a joyride through a 60s England in which would-be actors ham it up gleefully, blondes are dizzy, would-be lovers are temporarily thwarted, and positively everybody is ready to cut loo
& JULIET proves rather emphatically that nobody really needs an original idea or song when you can just as easily get folks rocking out to Britney Spears or Katy Perry.
Jeff Gould’s THE MARRIAGE ZONE, a romantic dramady laced with dose of retro sci-fi, is not particularly deep or penetrating, but that doesn’t make this second LA staging at 905 Cole any less fun.
In the 100-minute, decades-spanning duration we spend with this woman who feels so very recognizable, Ziegler, director Maggie Burrows and actors Nadine Malouf, Ryan Vasquez and Michaela Watkins leave us affected, contemplative and more than a little bit heartbroken.
For his production of ALL’S WELL, director Peter Francis James has much to work with including plenty of solid actors and an equally strong technical team, but the production’s frothy overlay often feels off key
A dopey story combined with campy acting, an uninteresting score and a general air of corniness halt this sloppy mashup of history and mythology in its tracks.
Featuring a cast who seamlessly transport us to a working-class Dublin community in 1964 – with music to match – ANW’s production spotlights not just its leading player, but pens a love letter to the lure of the stage
Tenderly staged by director Fidel Gomez, the docudrama boils our stomach juices more over the circumstances of our country than over what we witness being played out among the central characters.