Joe Turner

Johnny Otis Is Dead: R&B Godfather Was 90

By Kirk Silsbee Rhythm and blues giant Johnny Otis passed away on Tuesday in Altadena. He was 90. At times a bandleader, talent scout, club owner, and broadcaster, among other titles, his caravan tours in the 1950s helped popularize R&B throughout the country. His influence on the genre is incalcul ... More >>

Music Picks: Nicole Eva Emery, Hard NYE, Peter and the Wolf,

Also, Jesus Makes the Shotgun Sound, Octavius, Cosmologic and others

Bennett Bradley: The Chef of the Fountain Theatre

Beloved director/producer found murdered in his apartment

Stage Raw: Ben Bradley Murdered

This week's stage features on The Best of '09 and The Best of the Decade.BEN BRADLEY MURDERED The Fountain Theater's Director of Audience Development/Director/Producer Ben Bradley was found dead in his apartment near Koreatown on Sunday. Police say it was a homicide and have no leads. Bradley was 5 ... More >>

Stage Raw: Film

FILM is this week's Pick of the Week. Photo by Darrett Sanders Failing Better The Absurdists' convention Local playwright Patrick McGowan's new play, Film, has no right to be as good as it is. The central character is the late theater director Alan Schneider (Bill Robens) -- known for stagi ... More >>

Stage Raw: Candida

CANDIDA Candida at the Colony Theatre is this week's Pick. Photo by Michael Lamont. At your fingertips: The 30th Annual L.A. Weekly Theater Awards NOMINEES.Tickets for nominee's guests and for the general public can now be purchased via  http://tinyurl.com/theaterawardsReviewed this we ... More >>

Stage Raw: Phil Newby

PHIL NEWBY A memorial service was held at Sacred Fools Theatre on Sunday for that company's young and beloved actor who was found in his apartment last week. More on Phil to come in the print edition one week week from Thursday. At your fingertips: This week's Theater Feature on Jim Leonard' ... More >>

Stage Raw: Monsters and Prodigies

Reviewed this week: Pippin at the Mark Taper Forum; Jack Chandlers' new comedy-mystery, Murder on the Bounding Main, at Sierra Madre Playhouse; a dance-rock fusion, Vibrating Sun, at Unknown Theatre; Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble's staging fof Macbeth; Echo One-Act Festival at Stage 52; Furious Th ... More >>

Stage Raw: The Biggest Thank You Ever Given

The Biggest Thank You Ever Given I'm thunderstruck and deeply moved by the outpouring and quality of your appreciations to me in your emails and in the comments to Friday's posting on the elimination of the L.A. Weekly's Theater Editor position. What a privilege: to read all that, to have served ... More >>

Stage Raw: New Troupes on the Block

NEW TROUPES ON THE BLOCK Under the umbrella of Cornerstone Theatre Company, a new company called Teatro Jornalero Sin Fronteras (Day Laborer Theater Without Borders) launches at the Hollywood Community Job Center, 5669 De Longpre Avenue; December 20 at noon. The 15-member troupe will voice the s ... More >>

Stage Raw: Babes in Toyland

BABES IN TOYLAND is this week's Theater Pick. Writes Tom Provenzano: "While visions of nutcrackers and victorian misers dance through the yuletide entertainment listings, this production offers a delightful alternative. Forty kids, age 9 to 19 romp, through Alice Hammerstein-Mathias and William M ... More >>

Stage Raw: Your Source for Free and Discount Theater Tickets

FREE AND DISCOUNT THEATER TICKETS RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW Plays411 is offering FREE & Discount Tickets: You only pay $3.50 Service Fee, or Half-off where indicated. Advance Reservations only: Go to: plays411.com, then select the show, use Promo Code: "LETMEIN" (unless otherwise instructed ... More >>

Stage Raw: Leslie Jordan's Trip Down the Pink Carpet

This Week's Theater Pick Leslie Jordan's Autobiographical Trip Down the Pink Carpet If a zest for life is infectious, there's probably no more delightful a carrier than Leslie Jordan. A diminutive stage, film, Emmy Award-winning TV actor, and fugitive from the Bible Belt, Jordan regales us ... More >>

Stage Raw: Ivanov

IVANOV Ivanov Photo Credit: Thomas Aurin Berlin's Volksbühne presents its U.S. premiere of Chekhov's Ivanov at UCLA's Freud Playhouse tonight and Satruday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 7 p.m. Click here for more information. FOURPLAY @ BOSTON COURT The Pasadena theater hosts readings of four new ... More >>

Stage Raw: Cocks of the Walk

COCKS OF THE WALK The same people who brought us Naked Boys Singing are at it again -- this time showing considerable more restraint with a musical revue subtly named Hangin' Out -- described as "a celebration of the human body . . . exploring different aspects of nudity in song and dance." Now ... More >>

Stage Raw: The Little Dog Laughed

>NEW REVIEW THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED As Gertrude Stein once put it (but not about this play), "It's almost about something, and then it's just not." Douglas Carter Beane's comedy brings with it the New York cast that put the play on the map, and secured Julie White a Tony for her role as a Holly ... More >>

Stage Raw: Lodestone Says Goodnight and Good Luck

Check back here Monday after noon for the upcoming weekend's NEW THEATER REVIEWS of The Little Dog Laughed, Douglas Carter Beane's comedy about being oneself in Hollywood and elsewhere, at the Kirk Douglas Theatre; Deborah Pryor's mystical Appalachian one-act The Love Talker at Son of Semele Ens ... More >>

Stage Raw: Critic-O-Meter

CRITIC-O-METER In case you're wondering what Rob Kendt has been up to in New York City, since leaving his post as editor of Back Stage West, first look no further than his byline - now Rob Weinert-Kendt. That's what a wedding can do. He's also been having bowls of matzoh ball soup at the Polish ... More >>

Stage Raw: One Sucker's Lament

Woyzeck Photo by Andrew Rothenberg >NEW REVIEW THEATER PICK WOYZECK 19th Century German playwright Georg Büchner's an unfinished horror story of the common man crushed by military and medical machines, has been fodder for myriad adaptations throughout the last century, and there's no sign of ... More >>

Stage Raw: Broadway Cares

BROADWAY CARES This Sunday, November 23, 2008 at 10 p.m., the cast of Spring Awakening (currently at the Ahmanson ) will perform a special show at L.A.'s Upright Cabaret with proceeds to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and other local charities here in the southland. Mark’s Restau ... More >>

Stage Raw: Ovation Awards Tonight (Monday)

THE OVATION AWARDS ARE TONIGHTMonday at Luckman Auditorium, on the Cal State, Los Angeles campus. For more information, contact http://www.lastagealliance.com LATEST NEW THEATER REVIEWS BEAUTY OF ASHES Writer and star Peres Owino's furious semi-biographical poetry and dance piece about female ... More >>

Stage Raw: Fake Radio Sing Along

Check back here Monday after noon for NEW THEATER REVIEWS of Peter Shelan's speculative drama about challenging authority and Christopher Marlowe's death, The School of Night, at the Taper; Susan Kim's stage adaptation of Amy Tan's novel, The Joy Luck Club, at East West Players; Peter Wing Heale ... More >>

Stage Raw: A Conversation With Robert Lepage

Stage Raw: By the Waters of Babylon

Gem of the Ocean

Theater Reviews: Lions, Spring Awakening, A Man's A Man

Also, Gem of the Ocean, Mary's Wedding and more

Stage Raw: Surviving the Surviving Critics

Theater Reviews: Gulls, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Howlin' Blues and Dirty Dogs

Also Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer and more

Turpentine Jake

Rock Picks: Hank III, Joe Strummer Tribute, Wu-Tang Clan

For the week of Dec. 21 - 27

Lloyd Richards (1919-2006)

Helping to change the color of American theater

Theater Listings

For the week of May 26 - June 1

Theater Reviews

For the week of March 31 - April 6

Weekend Theater Reviews

Reviews of Chekhov and Maria, Joe turner's Come and Gone and Talk Radio

Minuteman Divisions

Internal squabbles tear at anti-immigrant movement

In Occupied Territory

Solo Sax

Plas Johnson and his eight-bar miracles

TRIBES: Kittens and Puppies and Birds, Oh My

Bamboozled

From ripoff to revelation: The Emmett Miller story

Femme Mystique

The Los Angeles Women’s Theater Festival, 2001

Heart Beats

Kid Loco's love song

Give the Drummer Some

Earl Palmer, rock & roll's heavy hitter

Pleasure Pits on Parade

A romp through L.A.'s rock, blues and country clubs

Honk if You're Hungry