Darrett Sanders News

Interview with award-winning playwright/director Sharon Yablon whose love of surrealism, noir and the darker side of Los Angeles led to the creation of A GARDEN OF TERRIBLE BLOOMS, which offers a dreamlike tour of short plays led by characters through a city that is vanishing, even as they move through it. Each play is set in a different part of L.A., or in nearby places where locals go to escape the city, but find themselves still haunted by it.

Dear Marie, the newest episode in award-winning playwright/director Sharon Yablon's A Garden of Terrible Blooms “short plays of the weird and surreal set in Los Angeles” podcast series, is set to launch on Valentine's Day. To date, ten episodes are available for listening at www.terribleblooms.net.

'We hope you can help us understand what happened here so it never repeats itself and justice can be served.'

The Echo Theater Company's next production UNDERNEATH THE FREEWAYS OF LOS ANGELES will live-stream April 2 for sixteen Zoom performances. Written by playwright Matthew Paul Olmos, this interactive murder mystery experience has been inspired by historical events centering in and around the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights. Michael Alvarez directs the cast of Mia Ando, Morgan Danielle Day, Amy K. Harmon, Gloria Ines, Roland Ruiz and Darrett Sanders.

'Clue' meets Chinatown in a live-streamed, interactive murder mystery experience inspired by historical events. Set in 1960 in East L.A.'s Hollenbeck Park — newly divided by the Los Angeles Freeway Interchange that famously displaced over 15,000 residents in Boyle Heights — Underneath the Freeways of Los Angeles.

Echo Theater Company presents the world premiere of Poor Clare, a play by Chiara Atik about what happens when your eyes are opened to the injustice of the world around you — and you can't look away. Alana Dietze (Dry Land, The Wolves) directs for a March 14 opening, with performances continuing through April 20 at Atwater Village Theatre.

Perception is everything. Open Fist Theatre Company opens its 30th anniversary season with three programs of short works, performed in rotating repertory, by playwrights renowned for pushing the boundaries of theatrical invention. Rorschach Fest, featuring seminal work by John O'Keefe, Daniel MacIvor, Harold Pinter and Caryl Churchill, opened Feb. 14 at Atwater Village Theatre, where performances continue through April 5.

Rogue Machine is presenting the world premiere of DISPOSABLE NECESSITIES, written by Neil McGowan and directed by Guillermo Cienfuegos, at the Electric Lodge in Venice through February 23. The play's title refers to the physical body we all live with, a cage of meat and bones that signals the end of life as we know it when it breaks down and stops functioning. This new comedic fantasy examines what life might be like in Maryland in the year 2095 when those wealthy enough have the ability to live forever exactly as they choose to be, creating a future where our physical bodies have become disposable, something to be tossed aside and replaced with another model which is better functioning. But what does that mean to our personal relationships when anyone can completely change their physical appearance on a whim?

The dynamic story shared through comedy skits and songs deals with the journeys many women face from admiring their mother's chests (a?oeOne day I'll be like Mommy or Barbie!a??), to training bras and cup sizes, dating while dealing with wandering eyes (a?oeCleavage'), to pumping at work and breastfeeding in public (a?oeDon't Blame Me, My Baby is Hungrya??), to facing breast cancer. The energetic songs incorporate humorous pieces like a?oeLife in Boobs,a?? a?oeWife Beater Tank Top,a?? and a?oeSuck It, Cancera?? to the inspirational a?oeI'm Dianea?? which will tug at your heartstrings and inspire you to accept yourself exactly the way you are.

Open Fist's clever, hilarious World Premiere musical adaptation of Neil Simon's MUSICAL FOOLS is a hilarious musical adaptation of his play, Fools, with book and lyrics by Simon, and music and lyrics by Phil Swann and Ron West, a veteran comedy genius from Chicago's Second City, who has directed the laugh fest like a Monty Python version of Fiddler on the Roof performed by the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players. Off-the-wall hysterical choreography by Louisa Kendrick Burton greatly enhances the comedy, with musical direction by Jan Roper often adding in the flavor of Eastern European Klezmer music.

Theatre of NOTE closes its 2019 season with the world premiere of Fruition, by Alexis DeLaRosa, directed by Lauren Smerkanich.  Fruition will preview Friday and Saturday, November 1 and 2 at 8pm. It will open on Thursday, November 7 at 8pm and run through Saturday, December 7 at Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N Cahuenga Blvd (just north of Sunset) in Hollywood.  

The lines between myth and reality become increasingly blurred in Defenders. When Iceland was threatened with invasion by Germany in WW2, the allies decide to step in. The world premiere from Pandelia's Canary Yellow Company by Cailin Maureen Harrison, and directed by Reena Dutt, follows three American G.I.s who are shipwrecked on the remote island of Hrisey off Iceland's northern coast.

Driving Wilde, inspired by Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Grey, recently opened at Theatre of Note. Read what the critics had to say!

Theatre of NOTE continues its 2019 season with the world premiere of DRIVING WILDE by Jacqueline Wright, directed by Bart DeLorenzo.  DRIVING WILDE will preview Friday and Saturday, August 16 and August 17 at 8pm, and will open on August 22 at 8pm and run through September 21 at Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N Cahuenga Blvd (just north of Sunset) in Hollywood.                                                                            

Erik Patterson has made a name for himself in the LA Theater community. A mentor to burgeoning playwrights and a stinging satirist who has racked up nominations and awards, such as the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Writing award for 2017's ONE OF THE NICE ONES, Patterson writes confrontational plays about that most rickety of life forms, humanity. Patterson's new play HANDJOB opens at Echo Theatre Company, directed by Chris Fields, and stars Steven Culp from Desperate Housewives and The West Wing.

Following critically acclaimed, sold out runs, first in 2018 and again earlier this year, writer/performer Barra Grantreturns with her darkly hilarious mother-daughter story: the true, inside tale of Grant's seismic relationship with her mother, Bess Myerson. Pageant Productions and Canon Theatricals present Miss America's Ugly Daughter: Bess Myerson & Me written and performed by Grant and featuring Monica Piper.

Sultry heat and Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" combine to spark rich fantasies and broken dreams, passion and adultery. Open Fist Theatre Company presents Anna In The Tropics, the powerful, poignant and poetic play that garnered the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for then unknown Cuban-American playwright Nilo Cruz. Jon Lawrence Rivera directs, with performances continuing through June 8 at Atwater Village Theatre.

Fierce. Funny. Intense. The Echo Theater Company opens its 2019 season with theLos Angeles premiere of The Wolves, the debut play by "playwright to watch" Sarah DeLappe that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Alana Dietze (Dry Land) directs for aMarch 16 opening at Atwater Village Theatre. Pay-what-you-want previews begin March 13, and performances continue through April 22.

Theatre of NOTE announces its production of 1=0, written by Joshua Fardon and directed by James R. Carey. 1=0 will preview Friday and Saturday, February 22 and 23 at 8pm, and will open on Thursday, February 28 at 8pm and run through Saturday, March 30 at Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N Cahuenga Blvd (just north of Sunset) in Hollywood.

When is it time to give up the keys? Get ready for the laughter-through-tears magic that is Last Call by Anne Kenney. Open Fist Theatre Company presents the world premiere of this funny, sad and very human debut play by the Peabody Award-winning writer best known for her work on Switched at Birth, Hellcats, Greek, L.A. Law and, most recently, the first three seasons of Outlander. Open Fist company member Lane Allison directs for a Jan. 18 opening at Atwater Village Theatre, where performances will continue through Feb. 23. Pay-what-you-want previews begin Jan. 11.