Lovell Estell III

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Waiting for Godot

Lovell Estell III
This stellar revival of Samuel Beckett's absurdist classic Waiting for Godot makes it a fresh, new experience. Director Michael Arabian has shrewdly mined the play's comedic potential without diminishing fidelity to the playwright's bleak, despairing vision. His effort is accentuated by John Iacovelli's circular set that's surrounded by menacing rocks,......
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Working

Lovell Estell III
In a period of high unemployment and assaults on unions and public service pensions, this revival of Working, a musical homage to the proletariat, couldn't be timelier (an "Occupy" banner hangs above the stage). The inspired book is adapted by Stephen Schwartz and Nina Faso from Studs Terkel's original nonfiction......
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Three Year Swim Club

Lovell Estell III
Set on the island of Maui in the 1930s, Lee Tonouchi's drama tells the little-known story of schoolteacher Soichi Sakamoto, who took a group of youngsters from the sugar plantations and forged them into a world-class Olympic swim team. It's one of those feel-good sports tales that tugs at the......
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On Holy Ground

Lovell Estell III
Stephanie Liss' pair of one-acts explores the timeworn Israeli/Palestinian conflict through the experience of three women. "Daughter of My People" surveys the life of Zionist leader Henrietta Szold, who co-founded Hadassah and helped save the lives of Jewish children during World War II. It's a slightly overwritten monologue gleaned from......
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Buddha: A Fantastic Journey

Lovell Estell III
There are an estimated 500 million practicing Buddhists in the world today, one of whom is Evan Brenner, the creator and performer of this one-man play about the life and teachings of Gautama Buddha. Drawing on material from the Sutras, the sacred Buddhists texts, Brenner weaves a simple yet engaging......
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Moon Over Buffalo

Lovell Estell III
Ken Ludwig's zany farce centers on an acting couple on tour in Buffalo in 1953 with a repertory of Cyrano de Bergerac and Noël Coward's Private Lives. It's one of those dizzying, door-slamming affairs (James Spencer and Zachary Guiler's handsome set features five of them) with countless entrances and exits,......
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God's Ear

Lovell Estell III
He's in a coma, hooked to a respirator." With these simple words, Mel (Amanda Saunders) informs her husband, Ted (Paul Caramagno), via telephone, about their brain-dead son, a victim of an accidental drowning. It is one of the rare instances in Jenny Schwartz's eccentric drama where words and meaning coalesce......
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Camp Sunday

Lovell Estell III
In one of the best shows this reviewer has seen at Groundlings in a while, director Mitch Silpa's cast of comedians does a bang-up job with a slate of 17 sketches, complemented by excellent writing. What's impressive about this show is that Silpa and the cast consistently extract comedic tinder......
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On Holy Ground

Lovell Estell III
Religion or politics should never be discussed in polite circles, so they say, but Stephanie Liss' world-premiere play does both, focusing on the Israeli-Palestine conflict as seen through the eyes of three interconnected women. Henrietta Szold (Salome Jens), who proposed a binational state in Palestine and was a co-founder of......
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Baby Doll

Lovell Estell III
In this first-rate staging of Tennessee Williams' rarely produced drama Baby Doll, Tony Gatto turns in a stellar performance as Archie Lee Meighan, the owner of a broken-down cotton gin in Tiger Tail, Miss., whose luscious 19-year-old bride, Baby Doll (Lulu Brud), refuses to consummate their marriage until she reaches......