Robert Allan Ackerman News

2020 Hollywood Fringe Scholarship Winner Tomoko Karina has just premiered her JAPANESE LOVE STORY – SHIZUKA at The Broadwater, with performances running through August 29, 2021. Had the chance to chat with Tomoko on her path to her JAPANESE LOVE STORY.

With the current theatre world on hiatus, I have created a Spotlight Series of interviews with some of am the many talented artists who make our Los Angeles theatre community so exciting and vibrant thanks to their ongoing contribution to keeping the arts alive in the City of the Angels. And like all of us, how are they dealing with the abrupt end of productions in which they were involved? This Spotlight focuses on Anzu Lawson, an Asian-American Actress, Playwright, Stand-Up Comic, and Yoko Ono doppelganger who I first met during the 2014 Hollywood Fringe Festival.

Al Pacino headlined the cast of a sold-out benefit staged reading of David Rabe's The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummer, at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, in Beverly Hills, CA.  In collaboration with The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, the Oscar, Emmy and Tony Award-winning Pacino reprised the title role of Pavlo Hummel

Al Pacino (The Irishman, Scent of a Woman, The Godfather) will participate in a benefit staged reading of award-winning Vietnam veteran playwright David Rabe's The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummer, at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, in collaboration with The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, on Sunday, March 8, 2020, 7 pm, in The Wallis' Bram Goldsmith Theater.

Go ahead a?" take the apple. Founding artistic director Ron Sossi directs a revival of The Serpent by Jean-Claude van Itallie a?" winner of the 1969 Obie award and arguably the most successful ensemble work ever created a?" as part of the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble's 50th Anniversary a?oeCirca '69a?? Season. Sossi previously directed the West Coast premiere exactly 50 years ago, in the spring of 1970, as the second production ever at the then brand-new Odyssey Theatre. The Serpent opens on March 7 at the Odyssey's current home in West L.A., where performances will continue through May 3.

Creation myths and family histories meld in a wildly theatrical, startling new comedy that explores what it means to walk the edge between cultures.The Fountain Theatre, in association with East West Players and with generous support form the S. Mark Taper Foundation, presents the California premiere of Hannah and the Dread Gazebo by Jiehae Park. Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Award-winner Jennifer Chang (Vietgone) directs for an Aug. 17 opening at the Fountain Theatre in East Hollywood, near Koreatown, where performances continue through Sept. 22.

Creation myths and family histories meld in a wildly theatrical, startling new comedy that explores what it means to walk the edge between cultures. 

Television, film and theatre triple-threat Garrett Clayton will debut his headlining cabaret show IT TAKES THREE at the Catalina Jazz Club June 18, 2019. Teaming up with his BFFs - fellow triple threats themselves - Ashley Argota and Desi Dennis-Dylan, Garrett plans to entertain and wow you with their harmonic vocals, jazz hands and lots of heart. Garrett managed to spare a little time for me on the phone Tony Awards weekend.

Ramin Karimloo, Broadway & West End music theatre star, will tour Australia for the first time in June 2018 for a strictly limited season, with special guest Anna O'Byrne, star of Australia's My Fair Lady. 

The world premiere of Robert Allan Ackerman's two-hander TOLSTOY IN SUFFOLK receives a strong mounting from Studio C Artists and Combined Artform. Ackerman's intricate, smart and very descriptive script depicts the meeting of theatre producer Greg and playwright Brendan at Brendan's remote cottage in Suffolk. Stephen Caffrey wows as Brendan. JD Cullum embodies his role of Greg.

Studio C Artist and Combined Artform present TOLSTOY IN SUFFOLK, written and directed by Robert Allan Ackerman, featuring Stephen Caffrey & JD Cullum, opening October 20th running through November 19th at Studio C - 6448 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90038.

Stage Raw announces the nominations for its third annual awards show 'A Wake and Sing!,' coming Monday, May 15 to Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring Street, Downtown.

The Pasadena Playhouse (Danny Feldman, Producing Artistic Director) continues it FOUR BY TENN: A TENNESSEE WILLIAMS READING SERIES in celebration of Tennessee Williams with CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF. Performed in association with East West Players and directed by Snehal Desai, the reading will feature Suzy Nakamura of ABC's DR. KEN as Mae Pollitt. Also joining Nakamura are Laura Kai Chen, Ryun Yu, C.S. Lee, Amy Hill, Dana Lee, Jenapher Zheng, Greg Watanabe and Anil Kumar Bhardwarj. CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF will be read on Monday, March 13 at 8:00 PM at The Pasadena Playhouse (39 S. El Molino Avenue, Pasadena).

The Pasadena Playhouse (Danny Feldman, Producing Artistic Director and Sheldon Epps, Artistic Director Emeritus) announced today that they will present THE ORIGINALIST and HOLD THESE TRUTHS as part of the theater's 2016-2017 Season. THE ORIGINALIST, by John Strand (Charles MacArthur Award-winning Lovers and Executioners), directed by Molly Smith (Camp David and Artistic Director of Arena Stage), and starring four-time Helen Hayes Award-winner Edward Gero (Goodman Theatre's Red), tells the story about a liberal law student's nerve-wracking clerkship with Justice Antonin Scalia.

Actress Judith Light certainly needs no introduction. A familiar face to television audiences, she co-starred in the soap One Life to Live winning two Daytime Emmy Awards and in prime time with Tony Danza in Who's the Boss?She has also won two Tony Awards for her stellar work on Broadway. She is a gay rights activist and she and her husband Robert Desiderio have contributed greatly to the gay community in Los Angeles over the years. Co-starring in Amazon's web series Transparent, she is currently performing double duty: the TV show by day and at night a workshop play God Looked Away at the Pasadena Playhouse sharing the stage with none other than icon Al Pacino. I caught up with her this week, and she talked briefly but joyously about the play, her role in it and working with Pacino.

The Pasadena Playhouse presents their first development production, under the theater's new play development program PlayWorks, Dotson Rader's GOD LOOKED AWAY starring Academy Award- and two-time Tony Award-winner Al Pacino (Scent of a Woman) as 'Tennessee Williams' and co-starring two-time Tony Award-winner Judith Light (Transparent) as Williams' close friend 'Estelle' and Miles Gaston Villanueva (CBS's The Young and the Restless) as 'Baby.'

The Pasadena Playhouse presents its first developmental production, under the theater's new play development program PlayWorks: Dotson Rader's GOD LOOKED AWAY starring Academy Award- and two-time Tony Award-winner Al Pacino (Scent of a Woman) as 'Tennessee Williams' and co-starring two-time Tony Award-winner Judith Light (Transparent) as Williams' close friend 'Estelle' and Miles Gaston Villanueva (CBS's The Young and the Restless) as 'Baby.'

The Pasadena Playhouse has announced a new partnership with TodayTix, the theater ticket app, to launch a mobile Rush program for Dotson Rader's GOD LOOKED AWAY, directed by Robert Allan Ackerman, and starring Al Pacino and Judith Light.

The Pasadena Playhouse announced today that their first development production, under the theater's new play development program PlayWorks, will be Dotson Rader's GOD LOOKED AWAY starring Academy Award- and two-time Tony Award-winner Al Pacino (Scent of a Woman) as 'Tennessee Williams' and co-starring two-time Tony Award-winner Judith Light (Transparent) as Williams' close friend 'Estelle' and Miles Gaston Villanueva (CBS's The Young and the Restless) as 'Baby.'

Glenne Headly (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Dick Tracy, Mr. Holland's Opus), James Kyson (NBC's Heroes, voted one of "Hollywood's 25 Hottest" by TV Guide), Michael Yama (Betty White's Off Their Rockers) andRob Yang (The Americans, Twisted) join the cast when The Garage re-opens its acclaimed world premiere production of BLOOD. Written and directed by Obie and New York Outer Critics Circle Award-winner/ DGA Award, two-time Golden Globe and five-time Emmy Award nominee Robert Allan Ackerman, BLOOD returns to the The Complex in Hollywood beginning Oct. 28.