Stage Rows- Stage Raw Los Angeles Theater Reviews Column by Bill Raden.
By BILL RADEN Why would any performer or company in their right minds enter the Hollywood Fringe fray, where the biggest challenge can be simply getting noticed? To find out, Stage Raw reviewers conducted an informal survey of show-makers and audience members.
By BILL RADEN Not the best of weeks for titillating gossip, or even the other kind. "Stage Rows" was sworn to silence re news at Zombie Joe's Underground (and swearing to silence is not something we like, or do well). However, there were some tidbits from behind the footlights at the Odyssey Theatre, and we also learned that actress-playwright Jacqueline Wright is back in town.
By BILL RADEN "Stage Rows" tried to take a week-off from L.A.-centric hobnobbing by fleeing to NYC. Escape was thwarted, however, when we bumped into Bart DeLorenzo, and a cadre of L.A.-expats. Meanwhile, back in Hollywood, Martha Demson and her currently itinerant Open Fist Theatre received a Charlie Award for the company's contributions to local culture.
By BILL RADEN Bill Raden was out of town this week, so "Stage Rows" returns next Wednesday with the latest news-about-town. Posted here is last week's edition about the long and winding road to the LAWees, got really mad at "Vanity Fair," and got really sad when Jacob Sidney removed his handlebar mustache. That, and other tidbits from the gutters (uh, trenches) of L.A. theater
By BILL RADEN "Stage Rows" was out and about meeting our veteran and up-and-coming scribes, such as Sissy Boyd and Jeptha Storm; at an interview with Alan Mandell by Nathan Birnbaum; and taking a low-road response to some gutter-sniping by Jason Rohr.
By BILL RADEN with additional reporting by HENRI DE LA TRINE The earth was rocking last week, and Stage Rows was all over town covering the tectonic-scale issues of our arts scene.
By BILL RADEN with additional reporting by PAULINE ADAMEK and STEVEN LEIGH MORRIS Theater critics and gossip columnists as a class tend to be a rather narcissistic bunch. It is not a closely held trade secret, however, that whenever a critic criticizes, he or she is really writing about him or herself, some more than others, of course.
BY BILL RADEN We at Stage Rows would like to formally thank Stage Raw for inviting us to share the hottest if not-very-well substantiated L.A. stage rumors and bald-faced show plugs in this, the inaugural of what we hope will be a regular weekly column of scandalmongering and sludge-raking among the personalities that make the Los Angeles stage scene the fractious, fecund and incestuous community that it is.