Email Author Steven Leigh Morris

Awards

• 2011 - Southern California Journalism Awards/LA Press Club

  Theater Reviews

• 2007 - Southern California Journalism Awards/LA Press Club

  "Guerillas in our Midst"

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2012 Stories by Steven Leigh Morris

• Disney on Ice: Frank Gehry and Rodarte Design Don Giovanni

  published May 24, 2012

  In preshow publicity, director Christopher Alden has said that his staging of Mozart's Don Giovanni is focused on the score. This is... More >>

• Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in Bitchslap!; Patty Duke and Patty Hearst in Patty: The Revival and All the Latest New Theater Reviews

  published May 23, 2012

  Moliere's The Learned Ladies is this week's Pick. Nods also for Patrick Kennelly's musical mash up of Patty Hearst and Patty Duke: Patty, The Revival, at Highways Performance Space; Padua Producti... More >>

• What Fantasy Production Would L.A. Artistic Directors Put On If They Had Unlimited Money?

  published May 17, 2012

  How would L.A. stages change if the theater gods were able to wave their magic wands and transform the local scene into a utopia? We asked a... More >>

• Mona Golabek, in The Pianist of Willesden Lane, the Kennedy Center's Follies and the Latest New Theater Reviews

  published May 15, 2012

  Rapturous reviews this week for pianist Mona Golabek in The Pianist of Willesden Lane at the Geffen, based on her book, and the Kennedy Center's Follies, now at the Ahmanson after a Broadway transfer... More >>

• Cornerstone Theater Company's Hunger Cycle Kicks Off With Cafe Vida by Lisa Loomer

  published May 10, 2012

  Continuing its mission of interlinking theater with social justice, Cornerstone Theater Company launches its "hunger cycle" series of plays... More >>

• Fellowship!: Musical Parody of The Lord of the Rings Returns to the Steve Allen Theater, Plus the Latest New Theater Reviews

  published May 08, 2012

  Bryan Harnetiaux's new play, Holding On -- Letting Go is difficult to watch for the way it captures the realistic agonies of a wife slowly losing her husband to liver cancer. It is nonetheless a tend... More >>

• Is L.A. Theater Criticism Deadr Not So Fast

  published May 08, 2012

  On the heels of a panel discussion on arts criticism at KPCC's Crawford Family Forum last week, hosted by Los Angeles Stage Alliance, blogger Colin Mitchell of the website Bitter Lemons critiqued the ... More >>

• Long Day's Journey Into Night

  published March 29, 2012

  Last season, director Marianne Savell staged a King Lear for this company edited so severely, it played as a series of excerpts. Here, with... More >>

• The Heiress and Cyrano

  published May 3, 2012

  In Henry James' short novel Washington Square, set in 1850 New York, when a homely, awkward and guileless young heiress named... More >>

• Judy Holliday, a Gay Mormon Boy, and More New Theater Reviews

  published May 02, 2012

  Jessica Abrams comedy about Hollywood, The Laughing Cow, traffics in stereotypes but is nonetheless so delightful, says reviewer Rebecca Haithcoat, it grabs this week's Pick of the Week. Here are all... More >>

• The Convert and The Magic Bullet Theory, Plays About Accidental Killings

  published April 26, 2012

  Terry Tocantins and Alex Zola's The Magic Bullet Theory, closing this weekend at Sacred Fools Theater Company in Hollywood, is the... More >>

• Twilight Los Angeles, 1992, Back in Town 20 Years After Swaths of the City Burned, and More New Reviews

  published Apr 25, 2012

  Alan Aymie's autobiographical saga of his travails within LAUSD, A Child Left Behind, is this week's Pick. Other New Reviews also include Bill Raden's "GO" review of Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight Los ... More >>

• Billy Elliot, In Paris and Waiting for Godot

  published April 19, 2012

  Every once in a while, a stage production comes along that simply stops you in your tracks. Such a production usually is of the kind of play... More >>

• Quiara Alegria Hudes Wins 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama; Good People at the Geffen, and More New Reviews...

  published Apr 18, 2012

  David Lindsay-Abaire's Tony-nominated play about class rifts in America, Good People, now playing at the Geffen, is this week's Pick of the Week, by Neal Weaver. Paul Birchall was taken with Doug Kno... More >>

• Val Kilmer's Citizen Twain and Matthew McCray's Eternal Thou

  published April 12, 2012

  The constellations appeared as projected images in two productions last weekend. One was a workshop of a play-in-development, closing the day... More >>

• A Fake Funeral and a Roving Tuba Player in Moliere's The Bungler, and Other New Reviews...

  published Apr 11, 2012

  Moliere's lesser-known comedy The Bunglerr is this week's Pick, thanks to what critic Pauline Adamek describes as a riotously funny production. For all the latest New Theater Reviews go to the jump. ... More >>

• 33rd Annual L.A. Weekly Theater Awards

  published March 29, 2012

  So for this party, the attire is ancient Greek, you know, 450 B.C. give or take a century. Any toga will do. If you don't like the way your arms... More >>

• L.A. Weekly Theater Awards 2012: Greece Is the Word

  published Apr 05, 2012

  Blending droll wit and broad farce, sketch-comedy troupe Lost Moon Radio hosted the 33rd annual L.A. Weekly Theater Awards Monday night in a taut show at Avalon in Hollywood, handing out more than 30 ... More >>

• The Troubies Strike Gold Again in Two Gentlemen of Chicago, plus Theatre Banshee's Pick-Worthy Merchant, and Other New Reviews

  published Apr 04, 2012

  Just about recovered from Monday night's Lawees, described in a stream of personal emails as "the best ever," thanks to hosts Lost Moon Radio. r. Winners here. Check out our slideshow. Here are all... More >>

• We Don't Need No Playwright: How Ensemble-Created Work Is Changing L.A. Theater

  published March 29, 2012

  A row of actors sitting side by side in chairs, collectively unrolling a ball of string. The character of Death stands with a pair of scissors,... More >>

• A Waiting for Godot "Not to Be Missed"; LAWEES on Monday! Plus All the Latest New Theater Reviews...

  published Mar 28, 2012

  Lovell Estell III, a veteran aficionado of Samuel Beckett's works in general, and Waiting for Godot in particular, says rthat Michael Arabian's staging at the Taper, starring Alan Mandell and Barry Mc... More >>

• Green Day's American Idiot Disappointing, Says Our Critic, Plus All the Latest New Theater Reviews . . .

  published Mar 20, 2012

  The much-celebrated Broadway musical, born at Berkeley Rep and now at the Ahmanson, American Idiot, featuring the music of punk band Green Day, is less than it's cracked up to be, says Rebecca Haithco... More >>

• Yours, Isabel

  published February 16, 2012

  What may be intended as the point of Christy Hall's new epistolary play, in its American premiere, is a snapshot of gender attitudes during the... More >>

• American Night: The Ballad of Juan Jose, From Richard Montoya and Culture Clash

  published March 15, 2012

  Viola Pettus was a self-trained black nurse who, with the help of her husband, Ben, set up an encampment/tent hospital in the West Texas... More >>

• What to See On Stager This Week's Theater/Dance/Comedy Listings

  published Mar 15, 2012

  Richard Montoya's American Night opened rSunday night at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Developed in collaboration with director Jo Bonney and Culture Clash, the "fever dream" of a Mexican immigrant (Rene ... More >>