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Romeo Rocks the 80sReviewed by Julia Lloyd GeorgeArts Up! La’s theater at The Blue DoorThrough May 6RECOMMENDED As of now, Romeo Rocks the 80s is entirely sold out for the rest of its run through May 6th, which should tell you everything you need to know about the singular qualities of this musical Romeo & Juliet […]
44, the unOfficial, unSanctioned Obama MusicalReviewed by F. Kathleen FoleyThe Bourbon RoomThrough May 20RECOMMENDEDYou might ask if the time for a musical about Barack Obama has come and gone. So much fetid water has flowed under the political bridge since the time of his administration that such an endeavor could simply rake up painful memories […]
1776Reviewed by Socks WhitmoreAhmanson TheatreThrough May 7, 2023Just six months after Daniel Fish’s “sexy Oklahoma!” departed the Ahmanson Theatre, a new bold revival has taken up residence on Center Theatre Group’s main stage. The North American tour of 1776, a 1969 Broadway musical by Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone, directed by Jeffrey L. Page and […]
(Im)migrants of the StateReviewed by Socks WhitmoreThe Actors’ GangThrough May 13, 2023RECOMMENDEDSix months ago, the Actors’ Gang celebrated their 40th anniversary by returning to their roots with a revival of Ubu the King, the anarchic satire play that sparked the company’s beginnings. This spring, the King has been joined in repertory by a second momentous […]
FOOTLOOSEReviewed by Martίn HernándezSimi Valley Cultural CenterThrough May 14RECOMMENDEDSongwriter turned screenwriter Dean Pitchford took the gist of a 1980 news story about high school students challenging an 80-year-old ban on dancing in their small Oklahoma town and turned it into a script for the hit 1980s film, Footloose. Further success followed in 1998 when the […]
TornadoReviewed by Deborah KlugmanActors’ Co-opThrough May 28Red State meets Blue State, small-town Oklahoma meets downtown Manhattan in Chris Cragin-Day’s 3-woman one-act set in the aftermath of a calamitous tornado in Oklahoma in 2013. Fifty-one people died, including 20 schoolchildren in attendance at an elementary school leveled by the storm. A microcosmic take on the culture […]
Ava: The Secret ConversationsReviewed by Terry MorganGeffen PlayhouseThrough May 7 The Secret Conversations, a book consisting of a series of interviews Peter Evans conducted with Hollywood star Ava Gardner about her life, had an unusual and circuitous path to publication. The interviews were conducted in the late 1980s, until Gardner withdrew from the project, possibly due […]
Midnight ScreeningReviewed by Julia Lloyd GeorgeWrite LA at the Zephyr TheatreThrough April 30RECOMMENDEDMidnight Screening is, quite simply, a play about a meet-cute in a movie theater. It’s the kind of straightforward, appealing premise that isn’t as common as it used to be. Original rom-coms, whether they’re on screen or on stage, seem to be in […]
