THOUSAND OAKS THEATER REVIEWS

In Is There Sex After Marriage?, a talented cast of six hysterically illustrate the pitfalls caused by a husband's off-the-cuff, but honest remark about sex with his wife....

Director Michael Arden gives the word discovery new meaning in a spectacular production of Steven Sater (book & lyrics) and Duncan Sheik's (music) Spring Awakening based on Frank Wedekind's 1891 expressionist play. Arden, who has had a long partnership with Deaf West that goes back to Big River, whi...

Multiple award-winning fashion designer to the stars, Octavio Carlin, is playwright, director and costume designer of his new world premiere comedy HOLLYWOOD PARTY now at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre. Carlin states in the program he has been eternally captured by Hollywood icons from Marilyn Monroe ...

Close to three hours of crazy behavior, with doses of disgusting, despicable action mixed in, make for an extremely intense, but trying evening....

Lovers of Shakespeare are in for a real treat when Shakespeare's Globe Theatre brings its all-male Original Practices production of Twelfth Night to local cinemas beginning September 22. Starring award-winning actors Mark Rylance as Olivia and Stephen Fry as Malvolio, the film gives audiences an exc...

It used to be, in days gone by, that hit Broadway shows would be made into movies; now, it's the reverse. With a dearth of ideas for Broadway musicals, the trend lately has been to turn to the big screen and revamp a popular film for the stage, adding song and dance. Such was the case with 9 to 5 an...

When Oklahoma! was first produced on Broadway in 1943 it became the first smash hit for newly formed collaborating team Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II and also the first real book musical, preceded only by Showboat. It was a breakthrough musical, which when given a first-class production, ...

Throughout two thirds of Bill Cain's political thriller EQUIVOCATION, a confused Shagspeare (known to us otherwise as Shakespeare and played by Ted Barton) keeps asking questions and getting answers that don't make sense. Finally a circumspect Father Garnet (Franc Ross) tells him to look for the que...

Does genius have to be accompanied by totally a-hole behavior? John Stark directs his uniformly strong cast in a slick, strong-handed pace, in which they vividly exhibit the demons alternately possessing and inspiring the playwright's writings....

Impro Theatre's mission is to create a play from scratch in a particular style, right before the eyes of its audience. Their improvised plays include: The Twilight Zone, and the works of Shakespeare, Chekhov, Dickens, Tennessee Williams, even Sondheim - all unscripted. This time around it's The West...

BILLY SHAKESPEARE is a spicy little independent film by Deborah Voorhees that imagines what might happen if William Shakespeare tried to make it as a writer in today's Hollywood rather than Elizabethan England. Quirky characters, compromising situations, and the kind of deadpan humor made famous in ...

Those with an affinity for fast-talking Valley Girl-speak should find a lot to enjoy in Chiara Atik's Women....

The world premiere of PSYCHE: A Modern Rock Opera is undeniably impressive, especially when you consider the scope of the author's vision and the level of detail that has gone into its execution....

The World Premiere of THE FACE IN THE REEDS by Robin Uriel Russin, directed by Sarah Figoten Wilson at Santa Monica's The Ruskin Group, centers on a dysfunctional family gathering to celebrate Passover, the Jewish holiday celebrating freedom. As the meshuge meshugas (crazy madness) plays out, the e...

One of the best ways to end the stress of a busy work week is with a few laughs. Best place to find those laughs right now is at ComedySportz LA, where the classically-trained, comically-proficient ladies of CHICKSPEARE take over the courtyard on Friday nights and improvise a one-act Shakespearean c...

Playwright Joanna McClelland Glass's autobiographical Trying is a two character play based on her working relationship as secretary to Judge Francis Biddle from 1967-68 in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. Now in a fine West Coast premiere at ICT in Long Beach, Trying recounts the difficult professional...

A trio of strong female performances anchor playwright Eisa Davis' Bulrusher; an intriguing story of a mixed-raced 18-year-old with psychic powers growing up in a predominantly white 1950s California town....

Actor/singer Dan Callaway has been revered over the last decade in New York and Los Angeles for his fine tenor/baritone voice, and so it is with mixed feelings that we say goodbye to him as he leaves to assume a teaching position in his home state of Elon, North Carolina. We are indeed happy that th...

Guiding a group of harmonious singers and a kick-ass band in their re-creation of past Motown hits, producer/director Michael Yorkell has transformed The Laguna Playhouse into a lively Las Vegas lounge....

From December 1986 to September 1988, Jason Alexander, the actor best known for his role as George Costanza for nine seasons on the television series Seinfeld, played older brother Stanley in the original Gene Saks production of BROADWAY BOUND on Broadway. It's a play that he loves dearly, calling i...

What a wonder is love in the hands of a writer like Shakespeare. Through comedy, tragedy, sonnet and poem, the way he captures lovers and their essence is pure magic. In MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, bringing that magic to life rests largely with its leading man and lady, and when a company gets the pairi...

'Up, Up and Away' is not only the signature tune of the Fifth Dimension but it expressed the overall uplifting feeling Saturday night when the group made a rare Los Angeles concert appearance at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills. Their positive energy made the entire audience want to fly right alon...

Neil LaBute is known for writing abrasive plays, in which aggression often leads to violence. And the characters are not criminals but ordinary people who find themselves reacting differently when placed in extreme circumstances. It could happen to anyone. Take Bash for example. In his latest work r...

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S THE TEMPEST, the last of his romantic comedies, was written in 1610 and published in 1623. This great romantic comedy has it all: danger, intrigue, politics, revenge, a mighty sorcerer, and his beautiful daughter who falls deeply in love at first sight with the handsome prince...

It begins with a wager and ends with a food fight and in between the laughs fly fast and furious in Independent Shakespeare Co.'s THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. Yes, throughout much of the play those laughs come at the expense of one woman, Katherine (Melissa Chalsma as the shrew of the title), but direct...