Jon Lawrence Rivera

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

Is L.A. Theater Criticism Dead? Not So Fast

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 critics by posing "the question nobody asked: How are theater critics going to remain relevant in a ... More >>

Twilight L.A., 1992, Back in Town 20 Years After Swaths of the City Burned, and More New Reviews.

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 Angeles, 1992, honoring the 20th anniversary of our most recent riots. Smith is not performing in th ... More >>

Cages

Stage Raw: LA Weekly Fringe Award Winner

COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGSNEW THEATER REVIEWSStage FEATURE on Salome and J.M. Barrie at PRTCuriousjosh.comThe Burning Opera​The Burning Opera: How to Survive the Apocalypse, created by Mark Nicols and Erik Davis, and being performed at Syrup Loft downtown, is among the productions being revie ... More >>

Stage Raw: Bash'd

NEW THEATER REVIEWSStage FEATURE on Radar L.A.Sean LambertBash'd, A Gay Rap Opera​A string of recommends comes with this week's theater reviews: Bash'd, A Gay Rap Opera at Celebration Theatre, Blackbird at Rogue Machine, Blood Wedding at the Odyssey, Broadsword at the Back Dahlia, Closet Land at ... More >>

Stage Raw: Year Zero

COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGSNEW THEATER REVIEWSStage FEATURE on Jez Butterworth's Jersusalem, on BroadwayMichael LamontYear Zero​Productions that garnered high praise this week are David Wiener's Extraordinary Chambers at the Geffen, about Americans in Cambodia, which Mayank Keshaviah describes ... More >>

Theater Reviews: The Birthday Present, Broken Glass, The Eccentricities of a Nightingale

Also, Endgame, Girls Talk, Bonded and more

The Sonneteer

Stage Raw: The Sonneteer

NEW THEATER REVIEWSSTAGE FEATURE ANNOUNCING THEATER AWARDS NOMINEESNEW REVIEW GO THE SONNETEER ​Photo by Katie Pomerantz Nick Salamone's play examines the ways in which homophobia, guilt, self-delusion and hypocrisy cause the gradual disintegration of the Cardamones, a first-generation Italian-A ... More >>

Theater Reviews: Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, Looking for Paul, The Night of the Tribades

Also, The Sunset Limited, Uptown Downtown and more

Stage Raw: The Other Festivals

COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGSNEW THEATER REVIEWSCurrent STAGE FEATURE on Anton Chekhov's 150th Birthday BashTHE OTHER FESTIVALS Running concurrently with the Hollywood Fringe (June 17-27) is Arts Olympus (June 17-20) on board the Queen Mary in Long Beach. AO includes a contemporary Russian exhib ... More >>

Theater Reviews: It Ain't All Confetti, Tracers, Road to Saigon

Also, Crimes of the Heart, The Maids, Skylight and more

Stage Raw: Lease Subsidy Program Gets Another Lease

COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGSNEW THEATER REVIEWSCURRENT FEATURE ON BORN TO BE ALIVE and THE WOMEN OF BREWSTER PLACELEASE SUBSIDY PROGRAM GETS ANOTHER LEASE A recommendation by L.A.'s Chief Administrative Officer Miguel Santana to restructure (eliminate) the city's Lease Subsidy Program for non- ... More >>

Stage Raw: Tracers

COMPREHENSIVE THEATRE LISTINGSNEW THEATER REVIEWSCURRENT FEATURE ON AUDIENCESNEW REVIEW GO TRACERS ​ Photo courtesy of the Loft Ensemble Thirty years after its Los Angeles debut, writer John DiFusco's anti-war drama retains its relevance and power. Written collaboratively in the 1970s by DiFu ... More >>

Theater Reviews: Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, The Life and Times of A. Einstein

Also, A Tiny Piece of Land, The Blvd., L.A. Views III — Hunger and the City, Save Sheldon!

Stage Raw: A Tiny Piece of Land

COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGSNEW THEATER REVIEWSTHIS WEEK'S STAGE FEATURE ON BLOGGERS VERSUS THE NEWS NEW REVIEW A TINY PIECE OF LAND​photo by Halstan WilliamsThis worthy but heavy-handed drama by playwrights Joni Browne-Walders and Mel Weiser is a well intentioned attempt to articulate the pro-I ... More >>

Theater Reviews: Cave Quest, Lobby Hero, Broads!, Wirehead

Also, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Forgiveness, Oedipus El Rey and more

Stage Raw: Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms

COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGSNEW REVIEWSTHEATER FEATURE On The Subject Was Roses and The Ballad of Emmett Till THE 31ST ANNUAL L.A. WEEKLY THEATER AWARDSNEW REVIEW KHARMFUL CHARMS OF DANIIL KHARMS ​Photo by Taso PapadakisHere's a fascinating oddity:  A series of short works by a now almost ... More >>

Theater Reviews: Friends Like These, The Crossing, Peace, Somebody’s Somebody

Also, F*ucking Men, The Kingdom Come, The Golden Gays and more

Stage Raw: Baby It's You

COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGSAlso, see the current STAGE FEATURE on The Night Is a Child at the Pasadena Playhouse, and Not to Be, at ZJUTHE LATEST NEW REVIEWSBABY IT'S YOUThe jukebox musical that's been playing since the spring at the Coast Playhouse, will be the final entry in the Pasadena P ... More >>

Stage Raw: Coming Home

COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGSFor the latest NEW THEATER REVIEWS and an update from the Grotowski Festival in Wroclaw, Poland, press the Continue Reading tab at the bottom of this section. NEW REVIEW THEATER PICK COMING HOME Photo by Ed KriegerA sequel to his 1995 post apartheid play Valley Song, ... More >>

Stage Raw: Angels in Poland

The latest NEW THEATER REVIEWS are embedded in this coming week's COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGS; Also, see this week's  THEATER FEATURE on Oleanna at the TaperANGELS IN POLANDMadonna and child in Wroclaw, Poland, where L.A.'s theater directors are making a strong showing as "core participan ... More >>

Stage Raw: Marry Me A Little

The latest NEW THEATER REVIEWS are embedded in this week's COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGS; also, see this week's THEATER FEATURE on Kevin King's The Idea ManMARRY ME A LITTLE/THE LAST FIVE YEARS Marry Me a Little Photo by Michael LamontNEW REVIEW MARRY ME A LITTLE & THE LAST FIVE YEARS For M ... 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: 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 >>

Adapting Oliver Twist and The Joy Luck Club for the Stage

Lit lite

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 >>

The Joy Luck Club

New Theater Reviews: The School of Night, The Joy Luck Club

Thystes' Feast, and more

Sea Change

Hillary Agonistes

Theater Reviews: Of Mice and Men, The Dying Gaul

Also, Mask, The Lost Plays of Tennessee Williams

Theater Listings

For the week of March 28-April 3

The Dying Gaul

Theater Reviews

Heads, Invasion! The Musical, The Complications of Purchasing a Poodle Pillow and more

Weekend Theater Reviews

Including Distracted, Sam Shepard’s Seduced, The Serpent and more

Theater Reviews

Including The Chronicles of Steve: The Bossy Bottom, Defiance and this week's pick, Dogeaters.

Theater Reviews

Including this week's pick, It Ain't No Fairy tale

Leaps of Faith

Shared hopes, private hells

Theater Reviews

Theater Reviews

Weekend Theater Reviews

Reviews of Into the Woods, Darwin's Pâté and Everything in the Garden

Theater Reviews

For the week of March 10 - 16.

As the World Burns

The national idea as soap opera

Edging Your Bets

Edgefest holds the answers to those handicapping the future of theater in L.A.

Shrink Wrapped

Larry Fineberg's Failure of Nerve

Rattling the Cage

Local theater artists you’ll be hearing from

Duck Logic

Plays that defy gravity