L.A. Theater 2013: A Preview

Comments (0) By Steven Leigh Morris Thursday, Dec 20 2012

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Director Nancy Keystone and her Critical Mass Performance Group developed a work-in-progress inspired by Euripides' Alcestis at the Getty Villa last year. The now more fully developed production opens June 29 at Boston Court, co-produced by the two companies.

Sacred Fools Theatre Company in Hollywood has a late-night show in which playwrights bring in a rehearsed sketch, along with an entourage of fans. These are performed in the troupe's late-night, weekly Serial Killers series. The audience votes on whether a continuation of the sketch is to be invited back the following week. A couple of full-length shows have evolved from this process and have been presented on the company's main stage, among them the upcoming world premiere of writer-director Jaime Robledo's Watson, and the Dark Art of Harry Houdini (opening June 14) — a sequel to Robledo's 2010 Watson, The Last Great Tale of the Legendary Sherlock Holmes. In the new play, Watson and Holmes travel to New York on the trail of a killer. There they meet Harry Houdini, who "seems to know more than he's telling," according to a description of the play.

PHOTO BY GREGORY COSTANZO

Nina Raine's Tribes is being staged in London and New York before its February Mark Taper Forum run.

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At the same theater, Brendan Hunt's Absolutely Filthy opens very soon — Jan. 25. Its intriguing premise concerns a homeless man who stumbles upon the funeral of his long-estranged best friend, and sees some of his childhood friends for the first time in years. The production will be directed by Jeremy Aldridge, who staged the original, astonishing Sacred Fools version of Louis and Keely, Live at the Sahara.

It would be remiss not to mention that UCLA's Center for the Art of Performnce presents Brit troupe Cheek by Jowl's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore from Jan. 11 and an Australian import, Back to Back Theatre's Ganesh Versus the Third Reich, which opens Jan. 24.

With these, and other offerings by the likes of Theatre of NOTE (whose acting company gets better and better), the macabre antics of Zombie Joe's Underground and metaphysical excursions by Son of Semele Ensemble, not to mention whatever scintillating new plays Rogue Machine might unfurl, or what classics Antaeus Company will unleash with double or triple casts, these in conjunction with dozens of other strong ensembles could make 2013 a worthy year for our theater. We can only hope.