"The past is cracking off and the future is rushing in." Sandra Bernhard: Sandrology represents a new kind of science, one that takes hypocritical politics, extremist religion and prideful stupidity to task as satire-worthy targets in its "pop culture anthropology." Also, the show has way more... More >>

Dive into the trash behind Cartoon Dump and discover lost treasures of TV animation that frankly should have remained forgotten. Hosted by Erica Doering as Compost Brite, this children's show parody co-stars Frank Conniff as Moodsy, the clinically depressed owl, and a wacky cast of assorted... More >>

Celeste Bedford Walker's compelling drama is based on an obscure incident from the paleolithic era of American race relations. The script follows a small company of black WWI soldiers (Dorian C. Baucum, Bill Lee Brown, Kaylon Hunt, Dwain A. Perry), bivouacked in Houston, who are... More >>

Playwright Michael Elyanow transports Euripides’ Medea to the present day via a magic spell cast by a chorus member, an incantation that whisks the play’s two titular protagonists away from their homicidal mother to a Maine town in the middle of a Category 5 hurricane. Once there,... More >>

The early scenes of playwright Richard Martin Hirsch’s elegantly melancholic drama take place in 1969, as a trio of high school pals hit the road on a youthful cross-country journey. Forty years on, one of the pals, sporting goods magnate Paul (Bruce Nozick), is called to the bedside of... More >>

History is most powerful when we see the "all" through the small — the panorama of the textbook through the peephole of the personal. Acclaimed pianist Mona Golabek give us just that in sharing the story of her mother, Lisa Jura, a budding piano virtuoso in late 1930s Vienna. At age 14,... More >>

“It’s a protest. It’s a love story.” So begins the explanation by experimental filmmakers Chauncey and Rondell (Jack Kehler and Gray Palmer) to a world-weary L.A. actor, Gary (John Diehl), who’s in for an audition, in the latest, integrated pair of Murray... More >>

The fantastical "Loveland" sequence in Act 2 — showcasing Gregg Barnes' glittering array of costumes and Warren Carlyle's playful pastiche choreography — revivifies a Golden Age of musical theater with nostalgic longing. More >>

Four hundred years haven’t dulled the comic edge or the timeliness of this little-known gem of Molière’s. Director Heather Chesley has done a crafty job of fine-tuning the shtick and physical comedy, emphasizing the supple wordplay of Richard Wilbur’s sparkling... More >>

Hollywood divas Bette Davis and Joan Crawford have inspired more drag-show performances than anybody Ñ except perhaps Judy Garland. Too many of these shows have been chintzy, labored and obvious, but fortunately this one, which features both divas, is a cut above the rest. The clever,... More >>

Xylophone playing, ice skating and traditional Mexican hat dancing are just a few of the talents displayed by Bob Baker's marionettes in this south-of-the-border celebration. A favorite production at Baker's theater since its premiere in 1964, the show shines brightest when the colorful puppets... More >>

Some solo shows are so personal, it's difficult to separate the production from the protagonist's autobiography — and that might be one of the challenges in reviewing playwright-performer Doug Knott's fascinatingly complex and morally nuanced one-man show. An intense, deeply personable... More >>

L. Ron Hubbard: Insidious crackpot, or visionary leader? Scientology, the religion L. Ron invented in the late ’50s, will always be surrounded by controversy. But not everyone knows that BS (Before Scientology), Hubbard was a prolific writer of pulp fiction. On most Saturday nights, actors... More >>

Patton Oswalt may have said it best when he once called Cirque du Soleil "catnip for old people." Having colonized all of Vegas, the Quebec-based company years ago started taking on the dubious task of reinterpreting the music of Elvis and the Beatles. But if ever there was a showman who... More >>

Over the past two years, About Productions has been developing Evangeline, the Queen of Make-Believe, with Los Lobos' Grammy-winning songwriter, Louie Pérez. Written by Pérez and About's artistic director Theresa Chavez and associate director Rose Portillo, the story is set... More >>

While you were busy swing dancing, JC Coccoli's been hosting a night of "speakeasy-esque" standup comedy. Hear her explain why Keep it Clean Comedy came to exist. "Working comics in L.A. were in dire need of a speakeasy spot to work their showcase material. Prepping for performances on Leno,... More >>

Employing playful and inventive staging, director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott maximizes the Italian commedia dell'arte roots of 17th-century French playwright Molière's zany farce. Exposing the acting troupe's dressing rooms upstage, concealing certain incidental characters with masks and... More >>

Although coming out is integral to the story, that's not what makes Paul Elliott's drama so involving. It takes place in a small bedroom shared by an intelligent, upbeat teenager named Tyler (Joel Johnstone) and his mean-spirited, homophobic granddad, James (James Handy), temporarily boarding... More >>

Bryan Harnetiaux's new play focuses on family dynamics as the 51-year-old husband, Bobby (Barry Wiggins), in a childless marriage, enters a hospice for terminal liver cancer. It recalls a couple of Pulitzer Prize-winning, end-of-life plays — Michael Cristofer's The Shadow Box and Margaret... More >>

You don't have to be a Hobbit fan to appreciate this good-humored musical spoof of The Lord of the Rings, although familiarity does help. Under Joel McCrary's direction, with musical direction by Gary Stockdale, a multitalented ensemble sings, dances and exuberantly cavorts around a tiny... More >>