Evan Henerson - Page 6

Director Kent Gash’s production in Pasadena serves up equal parts heat and cool, a slick and sweaty celebration of a man who was as vibrant and dangerous as his music. Under the musical direction of Darryl Archibald and choreography of Dell Howlett – both of which are first-rate – the evening cooks.

The Bard is back and DURAN DURANTHONY & CLEOPATRA is up to snuff, zanily on point both in its concept and execution. When it comes to pop-Bard hybridization, Walker and his company know exactly what they’re doing.

The latest play by The Actors’ Gang, written and directed by founder/Artistic Director Tim Robbins, is a melancholy reckoning over the early days of the covid pandemic...The gods are around for TOPSY TURVY, but they’re contemplative, grouchy and decidedly critical of the poor blighters who have disturbed them

A moody dramatic dive into the life of a violinist whose celebrated waltz got him mistaken for Strauss. As lovely as Alberto Barboza’s production looks on stage at the Los Angeles Theatre Center – and as melodic as it often sounds – GHOST WALTZ’s impact is as fleeting as the spirits who populate it.

MONSTERS OF THE AMERICAN CINEMA, a whip smart and heartfelt play by Christian St. Croix produced in its L.A. premiere by Rogue Machine Theatre, argues that in the present, monsters and human beings aren’t easily distinguishable from each other.  Monsters can take human form and vice versa. I guess that’s the…uh…the Thing?

KING HEDLEY II is the eighth and quite possibly bleakest play of August Wilson’s Century Cycle. Pasadena’s A Noise Within is committed to producing the entire cycle, and ANW’s production, under the direction of frequent Wilson helmsman Gregg T. Daniel, wrestles with it valiantly.

Huzzah James Ijames’ FAT HAM. Bless its softness, its savory juiciness, its wit and its ostentation. And its Juicy! Hooray for the clothes, the music, the unabashed delight that this whacked-out literary homage enjoys in wrestling with Shakespeare’s existential conundrums and deciding, screw it! let’s get down to the food!

A second cousin once removed to William Rose’s GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER, ONE OF THE GOOD ONES finds the highly assimilated, upper middle class Gomez family losing their collective sanity when their daughter, Yoli, brings home Marcos, a man who, to her parents’ minds at least, qualifies as an “other.” A sweet, occasionally tart new play.

Whether or not he has personally ever put himself through this, Evan Marshall has imagined life from the floor of a big box store and infused it – literally – with poetry. Part love story, part workers unite-inspired corporate dramady, ALLSTORE hits some satisfying beats. ALLSTORE – like much of this company’s work – has much to recommend it.

In REDWOOD, a new musical by Kate Diaz, and Tina Landau partially conceived by Idina Menzel and enjoying a visually arresting if somewhat simplistic world premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, Menzell confronts something even more formidable than encroaching yuppie cyber cafes, enraged Oz-ians or life-altering roads not taken….

Part mystery, part cathartic family drama ruminating on legacies of evil and forgiveness, director Tiffany Nichole Greene’s production grips us tightly from the outset and does not easily let us go. Thankfully, along this 80-minute journey, we also get to laugh as well as exhale.

John Ross Bowie’s Cold War comedy BRUSHSTROKE considers the role of 'art' from a bunch of different angles and fashions a very nifty play around it.

The high wire act that is Tony Meneses’ play LA COCINCA is a feat that companies of greater capabilities than Loft Ensemble might not pull off. There are 19 performers barreling across that stage, dispatching orders, picking up plates, whisking, saucing, grilling and doing all the other things that we hungry oblivious patrons don’t see.

Nestled uneasily in a space between comedy and misery, SUKKOT makes shoddy use of a good cast to serve up a banquet of familial angst and misery.

Lenz’s production is solid family stuff, a little bit cock-eyed, and easy on the treacle. Knowledge of the original movie is by no means a prerequisite to enjoyment of ACS: TM. If you’re craving certain iconic moments from the movie, rest assured you’ll find them, possibly even amped up or with a musical number built around them.

The production directed by Andy Weyman for Pacific Resident Theatre taps the bile and makes use of Hunter’s scabrous humor. The journey to that resolution is an uncomfortable slog in which we share the company of some pretty despicable people who, at PRT, are portrayed by actors who embrace their characters’ meanness and little else.

Per playwright Howard L. Craft, the spirit of the human soul has the capacity to return to earth multiple times until it successfully learns…well…whatever it is supposed to learn. Can’t speak for the soul, but the performer J. Alphonse Nicholson needs no do-overs to embody the five incarnations of Abel Green within Craft’s play FREIGHT. Simply put, Nicholson nails each Green ably, in every possible way. Completely.

hot through with equal parts rancor and compassion, Jess McLeod’s production of this, IAMA’s first commissioned play, is effective despite some narrative speedbumps.

Director Michael Michetti has put thought and heart into his production and peopled it with a strong cast whose characters opt for playing the strength of their convictions over histrionics. A hurricane force this WIND is not, but there’s plenty to enjoy.

Neno Pervan’s production takes no risks and provides not a shred of insight - within the text or outside it - why this tale unfolds as it does. A few textual adjustments notwithstanding, Pervan’s production is standard issue ROMEO AND JULIET, fire or chill.