How much rage would a person need to feel to kill two people with 29 whacks of an axe? The short answer is, a lot. That's the number Andrew Borden and his second wife Abby actually sustained in 1892 - not the 81 immortalized in this haunting nursery rhyme.
The west coast premiere of THE VIEW UPSTAIRS bursts with a high-energied hodge-podge of some great vocals, charming performances and wonderfully executed choreography. Playwright Max Vernon, through the eyes of a present-day electronically dependent fashion designer, retells the stories of victims of a fire by arson at the gay bar UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans back in June of 1973.
The West Coast premiere of Ike Holter's HIT THE WALL vividly illustrates what might have happened that fateful night in 1969 when Stonewall became the flashpoint for what many consider the start of the gay liberation movement. With director Ken Sawyer's inventive staging, the audience becomes almost fully immersed in the play's actions. The stage seems to be every available space where an audience member's not physically sitting.
The Laramie Project Ten Years Later/by Moises Kaufman, Leigh Fondakowski, Greg Pierotti, Andy Paris and Stephen Belber/produced by Jon Imparato/directed by Ken Sawyer/The L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center,Davidson/Valentini Theatre/through November 16
THE LARAMIE PROJECT: TEN YEARS LATER is a play meant to be experienced, not just seen. And you will be fully immersed from the moment you walk inside this intimate theater-in-the-round staging. With the silhouettes of the audience seated across the room against the background of rolling hills, sky and prairie on the theater walls, you will feel as if you are right there in Laramie, literally pulled into the lives of every person represented onstage.