Jan Munroe

Stalin’s Master Class is enthralling, darkly funny, awkward, and thought-provoking about the eternal tension of politics vs art, censorship vs thought, modern art vs people’s tastes, groupthink vs ingenuity, and popularity vs quality. 

Politics collide with art when “Father of the People” Joseph Stalin and Soviet cultural minister Andrei Zhdanov summon composers Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich to the Kremlin for a vodka-fueled “music lesson” in “Stalin’s Master Class.” The wildly comic, music-filled ride by British playwright David Pownall opens this weekend at the Odyssey Theatre. Check out the photos.

Odyssey Theatre Ensemble founding artistic director Ron Sossi will direct Stalin’s Master Class, a wildly comic, music-filled ride by British playwright David Pownall.

Open Fist Theatre Company will present the world premiere of A Froggy Becomes, written by Becky Wahlstrom and directed by Pat Towne, opening March 9 and running through April 13 at Atwater Village Theatre.

Odyssey Theatre Ensemble will present “a lazy person’s guide to enlightenment” written and directed by Odyssey Theatre Ensemble artistic director Ron Sossi and set within the walls of West L.A.’s Odyssey Theatre complex.

Open Fist Theatre Company's world premiere production of To the Bone, written and directed by Catherine Butterfield, will get a four-week remount March 4 through March 26 at the Theatre 68 Arts Complex in NoHo.

Circle X Theatre Company starts off their new season with the west coast premiere of Mara Nelson-Greenberg’s Do You Feel Anger? opening January 21, 2023 at Atwater Village Theatre. Halena Kays directs the cast of Tasha Ames, Charlotte Gulezian, Rich Liccardo, Paula Rebelo, Casey Smith and Napoleon Tavale

Odyssey Theatre Ensemble joins with Tony Abatemarco to produce Thresholds of Invention, a new series of first looks at pieces-in-progress by prominent L.A. visionaries working in pop-up form.

Circle X Theatre Company kicks off the New Year with the West Coast premiere of a truly outrageous comedy Do You Feel Anger?, written by Mara Nelson-Greenberg and directed by Halena Kays, opens January 21 for a six-week run at Atwater Village Theatre. Performances continue through February 25, with two Pay-What-You-Can previews set for January 19 and January 20.

Directed by Ben Martin (Open Fist’s Under Milk Wood), the LA premiere of Anatomy of Gray is set for a November 19, 2022 opening at Atwater Village Theatre, where performances continue through January 21, 2023.

Open Fist Theatre Company is presenting the world premiere of To the Bone, a darkly funny comedy about family, baseball, and genetics, written and directed by Catherine Butterfield. The play centers on sisters Kelly Moran and Maureen Dugan from the 'Irish Riviera' south of Boston, where they were known as 'hard girls' back in high school. And since the adage says that it's better to write about the things you know, I decided to ask Catherine Butterfield about how much of her own personal life is reflected in the play and what it's like to write and direct it herself.

Sometimes you get thrown a curveball. Open Fist Theatre Company will present the world premiere of To the Bone, a dark comedy about family, baseball, genetics — and the unexpected vagaries of life. 

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM is given a fresh spin by the Open Fist Theatre Company, changing the setting from Athens, Greece, to Athens, Georgia, in the antebellum South to mixed results.

Director/choreographer James Fowler has moved his Open Fist Theatre Company production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream from Athens, Greece to Athens, Georgia circa 1855, where Shakespeare’s text remains intact, but casting and design land us in the world of the Antebellum South.

 How do families stay together, even when they are kept apart? Performances of Detained at Fountain Theatre will continue through April 10.

Certainly, almost every American can talk about how we are descendants of immigrants who dreamed of living in a free country and did whatever was necessary to arrive on our shores. As a direct descendant of four grandparents and one parent who escaped from Eastern Europe in the early 20th Century, when I read about the Fountain Theatre presenting the world premiere of DETAINED, written by The Lily's 2021 Lorraine Hansberry Award-winning playwright France-Luce Benson, 'a gripping new docudrama composed of a compilation of true stories that explores the rippling impact of mass deportations on families,' I knew I wanted to speak with her about her inspiration and vision for the play.

Open Fist Theatre Company returns to in-person performances with a funny, intriguing and highly entertaining comedy about sex, intimacy and equality. Lane Allison directs the provocatively titled In the Next Room, or the vibrator play by Sarah Ruhl for a March 18 opening at Atwater Village Theatre, where performances continue through April 23.

How do families stay together, even when they are kept apart? The Fountain Theatre presents a gripping new docudrama, a compilation of true stories that explores the rippling impact of mass deportations on families. The world premiere of Detained, written by 2021 Lorraine Hansberry Award-winning playwright France-Luce Benson and directed by Mark Valdez, winner of the 2021 Zelda Fichandler Award, opens February 19 at the Fountain Theatre.

In partnership, Skylight Theatre Company and Playwrights' Arena have launched the first of four World Premiere productions for the 2021/2022 Season with Inda Craig-Galván's play A HIT DOG WILL HOLLER. Read my interview with her about the process of bringing the play to life onstage at the Skylight Theatre.

The play explores the friendship between Gina, a self-proclaimed “wordsmith” whose liberal “activism” channels through her popular podcast and a pending book deal, and Dru, the young “Banksy of the Black Lives Matter movement”.