Sometimes an actor is onstage when the house opens. Sometimes they are hidden, sometimes they are right down front in plain view. In the Loft Ensemble’s production of Art is Useless When You’re Being Mauled by a Bear, a new play by Alisa Tangredi, a woman in dim light (Jennifer Christina Derosa on the evening … Continue reading “Art is Useless When You’re Being Mauled by a Bear” at Loft Ensemble
There is a certain something about the Upper West Side of Manhattan, especially Riverside Drive with that ribbon of park, the Hudson flowing downstream, and the view of the New Jersey Palisades across the river. If you happen to live in a Riverside Drive apartment and are fortunate enough to have that river view, it … Continue reading “Between Riverside and Crazy” at The Fountain Theatre
I have seen and reviewed many one-person shows over the years. I love the bravery of the genre. Some have been brilliant, some disasters, but none are more exciting and unique than performance artist José Torres-Tama’s Aliens, Immigrants and Other Evil Doers. In a scintillating, utterly absorbing seventy-five minutes, Mr. Torres-Tama dissects the current immigrant … Continue reading “Aliens, Immigrants and Other Evil Doers” at Los Angeles Theatre Center
As much a searing drama as a vocal concert, Lanie Robertson’s Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill is the story of Billie Holiday’s life, a life filled with the joy of music and the pain of living in a segregated society that scorned and punished black people for the sin of their very existence. … Continue reading “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill”at International City Theatre
Mitchell Bisschop had a hit with his solo performance of Pit of Goblins in this year’s Hollywood Fringe Festival. Pit of Goblins has crawled out of that goblin-esque pit for a short run at The Complex’s Ruby Theatre. The show is not a rollicking comedy, nor is it quite a blood and guts horror scare. … Continue reading “Pit of Goblins” at The Complex (Ruby Stage)
The news out of the Middle East has been bad for a very long time now. It has been a hot bed of war and conflict since biblical times, with empires rising and falling, people enslaved, and tyrants in command. Paradoxically, it also happens to be the cradle of civilization—agriculture, writing, architecture, poetry, political organization, … Continue reading “Operation Ajax” at Little Fish Theatre
As I was absorbing Stephanie Alison Walker’s new play, The Abuelas, a song burbled up in my fevered brain. It was “Desaparecido,” from Spanish singer-songwriter Manu Chao’s debut album, Clandestino. Back in the miserable Seventies, a brutal military junta took power in Argentina. Anyone who opposed this coup were told “to make themselves invisible, or … Continue reading “The Abuelas” at Antaeus Theatre Company
