Tony Award winning playwrights Edward Albee and Harold Pinter, who have left indelible marks in world theatre, both give voice to the outlandish and amusing behavior of humans in many of their dark comedies. Pacific Resident Theatre is offering a retrospective of two of their early one acts in tandem, both first produced in 1960. Albee's Fam and Yam, set in an upper Eastside penthouse, examines an encounter between two unnamed playwrights, one famous, one not, offering Albee's biting wit and incisive satire at its best. In Pinter's The Dumb Waiter, two working-class hitmen wait in a basement for their next assignment. I decided to speak with Pacific Resident Theatre's Artistic Director, Marilyn Fox, about the production.
THE INHERITANCE is designed to make an audience feel quite a few different kinds of emotions: sadness certainly over lives lost and squandered; seething bitterness over a country adrift; humor over the many creative ways in which smart people cope and endure; and perhaps even a strong inclination to read or stream E.M. Forster’s HOWARDS END.
As directed by Zi Alikhan with a pitch-perfect technical team and acted to the nines by Ana Nicolle Chavez, Miles Fowler and Kanoa Goo, SANCTUARY CITY is the kind of intelligent evening that may get you talking before the final blackout.
Carla Ching is among the first three recipients to win the Los Angeles New Play Project Award, which supports playwriting and producing in smaller Los Angeles theaters. Her new play, Revenge Porn or the Story of a Body, opening September 23 at The Pico, directed by Bernardo Cubría for Ammunition Theatre Company, was originally developed as part of the 2021 Ammo Writers' Lab. It takes a very public look into the private lives of people who hurt the ones they love most, and how or if revenge should be taken to offset the pain. I decided to speak with Carla Ching about the play and how it was developed for its world premiere.
Director Mike Donahue’s production on the Geffen’s Cates stage is so intelligent, well-crafted and downright fun that A WICKED SOUL IN CHERRY HILL seems destined to have a future beyond Westwood.
A Wicked Soul in Cherry Hill is now in previews at Geffen Playhouse. In this poignant true-crime story told completely through song, a tight-knit Jewish community gathers to recount, remember, and reckon with the details of what happened in—and to—their town. Get a first look at photos here!
Set in a hotel room on a mission trip to Thailand, MAN OF GOD four high school girls must grapple with the possibility of their Pastor being a sexual predator. Read our BWW critic's review.
Six women find themselves trapped on an email chain as they plan their friend's baby shower when IAMA Theatre Company presents Untitled Baby Play by Nina Braddock. Katie Lindsay directs the IAMA-developed world premiere for a five-week run that continues through June 27 at Atwater Village Theatre.
Man of God, now in previews at Geffen Playhouse, is set to open on May 20th! The cast features Shirley Chen as Samantha, Emma Galbraith as Jen, Erin Rae Li as Mimi, Albert Park as Pastor, and Ji-young Yoo as Kyung-Hwa.
Geffen Playhouse is presenting Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, directed by Gordon Greenberg and starring Zachary Quinto, Calista Flockhart, Graham Phillips & Aimee Carrero. Check out the first photos from the production.
The script is amusing, moving with sparkling briskness. The characters are defined and distinct, and the performers bring them to life in energetic and well-modulated ways. And while the meaning of life isn’t necessarily unveiled, it is sought and the intertwining relationships do find both unique destinations and common ground.
Geffen Playhouse presents the West Coast premiere of TRAYF, written by Lindsay Joelle (The Messengers, The Garbologists) and directed by Maggie Burrows (Spacebar, Damsels).
POWER OF SAIL is a smart firecracker of a play getting a blistering production at the Geffen Playhouse directed by Weyni Mengesha. Presenting itself initially as a debate masquerading as dramatic fiction, SAIL quickly pivots and deepens, morphing into a tale that is part character study, part thriller.
Geffen Playhouse is presenting Power of Sail, written by Paul Grellong, and directed by Weyni Mengesha. Set to open on February 17, Power of Sail features Hugo Armstrong, Amy Brenneman, Bryan Cranston, Donna Simone Johnson, Tedra Millan, Seth Numrich and Brandon Scott.
PARADISE BLUE, a play that contains music, begins with the sound of a sublime note issued by a trumpet and concludes, a couple of riveting hours later with an equally beautiful strain…followed by a far more discordant sound.
If you are a person who enjoys a good “out of sync,” then you belong in the turbulence-riddled realm of Arcadia by way of the Pasadena Playhouse where kings are queens, handmaids love above their station and amazons are…well, lots of things to a lot of people.
Even before the performance began, I was hooked. I couldn’t stop smelling the spices. Two of the three ticket levels for Geffen Playhouse’s world premiere of BOLLYWOOD KITCHEN include a Bollywood Box sent to your home. This beautifully designed box – easily a keepsake in and of itself – contains recipe cards, a shopping list, specialty ingredients, and jars of the most aromatic spices you can imagine, that you’ll use in Sri Rao’s recipes. Ground cloves, cumin, coriander, and cinnamon, the whole experience begins long before you start cooking. It’s a perfect example of how food conjures memories just by the way it smells.
As one of the nation's most prominent spoken-word artists, and a three-time national poetry slam champion and a four-time national finalist, Javon Johnson now takes to the Pasadena Playhouse stage in STILL. to share his very personal experience growing up as a Black man in America at a pivotal time in our history.
