Love stories on stage risk drowning in sentiment or hardening into cliche. John Kolvenbach's "Reel to Reel" sidesteps both traps by anchoring its 55-year marriage in the textures of sound itself. This is theatre that trusts its audience to find meaning in the mundane symphony of shared life: footsteps, sighs, utensils on plates. The play's central conceit - that every sound effect is created live by the actors - transforms what could be mere gimmickry... Read more →
Donnie Jarman has written 20 full-length plays, so he knows his way around a stage. His latest, "Weigh Station," presents an intriguing premise that will rise or fall on execution. The setup is appealingly odd: seven strangers walk into a bar where a teenage bartender won't serve drinks unless you pay with a personal story. The patrons start betting on whether newcomers will stick around, but then everyone notices something unsettling about both their drinks... Read more →
Most people think Dungeons & Dragons is about slaying dragons. Qui Nguyen knows better. His "She Kills Monsters" uses the familiar trappings of fantasy gaming to tell a much harder story: what happens when you realize you never really knew your sister until after she died. Agnes finds herself playing through a D&D campaign her sister wrote before a car crash killed the whole family. What starts as curiosity becomes something closer to archaeology. Every... Read more →
What happens when you die and go to Heaven, only to find it's your personal Hell? That's the premise of Robert Intriligator's new 15-minute musical "Holy Hell!" His protagonist Brad is a snarky guy who discovers the afterlife isn't quite what he expected. The creative team calls it "The Good Place meets The Book of Mormon — but bite-sized." Intriligator knows his way around a melody. His compositions have been licensed by Disney, ABC, Hulu,... Read more →
Tennessee Williams' "Suddenly Last Summer" centers on a family crisis in New Orleans' Garden District. Violet, a socially prominent woman, arranges for her emotionally unstable niece Catharine to be interviewed by a physician. Violet wants Catharine lobotomized to suppress her knowledge of the homosexual tendencies of Violet's late son Sebastian and the details of his shocking death while they were vacationing in Spain. Catharine witnessed whatever happened to Sebastian. Catharine's mother and brother support the... Read more →
Chris Collins has written a play about a student filmmaker making a class project at Pasadena City College. George, the protagonist of "Achilles in Arcadia," is of mixed Chinese and Anglo parentage, and he's taken over his family's Chinese restaurant to rehearse a scene for his short film. His cast includes his younger sister Rose, his Chinese-American girlfriend Lilly, and his Anglo best friend Pat. But George's student film is actually described as "a blueprint... Read more →
Robert Bailey's "In Some Dark Valley" carries the weight of mountains and the burden of moral certainty. As Reverend Brand, a circuit preacher emerging from 1870s Appalachia, Bailey inhabits a character whose religious fervor burns as fiercely as the landscape around him is scarred. This solo performance, which claimed both the Best of the Fringe TVO Award and LA Gem Award for Outstanding Dramatic Performer at the 2024 Hollywood Fringe Festival, offers more than historical... Read more →
Paul Stroili's "A Jukebox for the Algonquin" arrives at Theatre Forty promising that aging need not diminish the human appetite for mischief. Set within the walls of Placid Pines Senior Care Center, the comedy follows former Brooklyn and Bronx residents who refuse to let institutional budgets dictate their musical desires. When budget cuts threaten their jukebox dreams, these aging New Yorkers devise a scheme that challenges assumptions about what senior citizens can accomplish. Director Larry... Read more →
Power assumes consent. Its persistent demands make refusal seem rebellious. Annalisa Limardi's "NO" transforms this into 35 minutes of visceral theatre that cuts through contemporary chatter about boundaries to reveal something more primal, namely, the physical toll of constant negotiation with a world that expects compliance. This isn't another meditation on feminine agency. Limardi's approach is more unsettling. She weaponizes the microphone, that ubiquitous symbol of amplified voice, turning it into her antagonist. The device... Read more →
A year after revising her family drama, Knudson has transformed a promising first draft into a penetrating family portrait. The revision sharpens the psychological architecture of her three-person drama, where past wounds surface during a family's final vigil. Most dramatically, Amanda's devastating revelation about a son given up for adoption reframes her entire character, shifting our perception from self-absorbed interloper to a woman carrying decades of unprocessed trauma. The playwright has refined her central question:... Read more →
Here's what happens when family mythology hits reality: Amber Patterson's debut play "After the Funeral" puts two adult siblings in a room after their father's death and watches their shared childhood fall apart. Sam and Grace discover they grew up in what might as well have been different houses. Same parents, same address, completely different experiences. Patterson gets that families are unreliable narrators of their own stories. She's written something that feels uncomfortably familiar to... Read more →
Patrick Hamilton's 1939 play "Gaslight" gave us a word we now use daily. As it returns to Pacific Resident Theatre, director Michael Rothhaar brings three decades of experience to this tale of domestic terror. The story is simple: a husband drives his wife mad in Victorian London. Hamilton makes the audience complicit. We watch Mr. Manningham dim the lights and move objects while his wife doubts her sanity. Each cruelty builds to psychological destruction. This... Read more →
Grove's solo performance confronts the grim arithmetic of genetic inheritance with startling honesty. In "Jello Brain," she turns the clinical facts of early-onset Alzheimer's into an hour-long reflection on love, loss, and the dread of one's own decline. The title captures the work's central tension: the brain as both remarkable organ and fragile jelly, holding decades of memory yet prone to collapse. Grove moves between her mother's diagnosis at 55 and her own genetic reckoning... Read more →
7wo men go off the clo ck(literally&metaphorically)shed corporate skins like snakes shedding winter from drones to pajama-clad revelers:watch them trans form linear time into fluid time into creative play in the intimate black- box they reach our souls(we identify completely)because they represent familiar lives punctuated by the mind less routine of office work for the first few minutes they are not in harmony with them selves.then: therapy clown therapy (what effective therapy) get off that... Read more →
Theatre Palisades' production of "Jest A Second!" carries weight far beyond its farcical premise. Five months after losing their venue to the Palisades wildfire, the company has found refuge at Kentwood Players' Westchester Playhouse, transforming what could have been a simple sequel into something more urgent and necessary. James Sherman's follow-up to his hit "Beau Jest" revisits the Goldman family with Joel's coming-out story at its center, but the real drama lies in the circumstances... Read more →
What transforms a footnote in history into flesh and blood? Michael Punter's "The Lost Gospel of Pontius Pilate" strips away two millennia of theological interpretation to excavate the man beneath the judgment seat. This is not reverent biblical drama but psychological archaeology, digging through layers of Roman imperialism, Germanic trauma and Judean politics to find something recognizably human in Christianity's most reluctant architect. Maxwell Caulfield inhabits this complexity with weathered authority, understanding that power often... Read more →
At the Fringe, you expect something edgy and unexpected. "Holy Holy: The Birth of Disco", directed by Natasha Mercado, delivers exactly that. It also makes us examine our own lives and encourages us to change them. It portrays drudgery to show us that change is possible through a play that is ostensibly about the birth of disco but is really about personal renaissance. The production is engaging, sharp, and profound. Beyond words, staging, and design,... Read more →
Writer's block has rarely felt more existential than in c. jay cox's latest play, which transforms creative crisis into a meditation on artificial consciousness. The central idea (a desperate playwright accepting help from an AI housed in a sex robot) could easily descend into cheap laughs or heavy-handed technophobia. Instead, cox crafts an intellectual sparring match between human and machine that questions whether creativity can be produced by algorithm without losing its soul. Playwright Luke... Read more →
Candace Nicholas-Lippman brings her solo show "A Rose Called Candace" to Los Angeles following its Off-Broadway run. The autobiographical performance draws on the actress and poet's life, examining family, faith, fear, and freedom through personal narrative. Co-director Bernadette Speakes, whose directing credits include "A View from the Bridge" and "The Bluest Eye," collaborates with Nicholas-Lippman on the production. The show carries a mature content advisory for ages sixteen and above. JuVee Productions, co-founded by Viola... Read more →
Melissa R. Randel's "Sorry." works as theatrical archaeology. It unearths the buried impulses behind every reflexive female apology. Through three women separated by millennia (Ancient Greek Persephone, 19th-century Lillian, and contemporary lawyer Francine), Randel maps how female acquiescence has persisted across history. Each character reaches a breaking point where "sorry" becomes impossible to say. Their silence proves more dangerous than their voices ever were. The structural audacity lies in Randel's refusal to soften these women's... Read more →
Melissa Ross's "Nice Girl" arrives when the Reagan-era fantasy of American prosperity feels both distant and eerily familiar. Set in 1984 suburban Massachusetts, the play follows 37-year-old Josephine Rosen as she confronts the gap between expectation and reality in middle-class spinsterhood. Under Ann Bronston's direction at Rogue Machine Theatre, this West Coast premiere avoids the usual paths of late-blooming stories. Ross sidesteps both redemption arc and cautionary tale. Her 1984 setting provides more than period... Read more →
Melissa May Curtis's "A Woman's Worth" arrives at a moment when intimate family crises feel amplified by larger social tensions. Set in 1935, the play confronts the raw intersection of maternal instinct and medical uncertainty through Mary, a mother of five facing a troubled pregnancy. Curtis, whose previous work "The Deal" featured at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, builds her drama around the unspoken dread of dangerous pregnancies, a fear that transcends historical periods. The podcast... Read more →
Larry Biederman has built his Los Angeles reputation directing writers who refuse to behave. From Eric Overmyer's "Dark Rapture" with Nick Offerman to Sheila Callaghan's visceral premieres, Biederman gravitates toward material that demands more from us than polite attention. His latest collaboration, co-directing Melissa R. Randel's world premiere "Sorry.", continues this pattern of theatrical provocation. The play's premise operates like a linguistic curse: three women across history discover they can no longer say the word... Read more →
In "Sweet Air," playwright Matt Morillo strips away the typical romantic comedy scaffolding to expose something more authentic: the raw possibility that emerges when strangers connect without pretense. Set in a frozen subway limbo on Valentine's night, the play positions itself at the intersection of isolation and connection in our post-pandemic world. Morillo, whose previous works have earned festival accolades, here crafts a deceptively simple premise - two stranded strangers talking - that serves as... Read more →
Suzanne Dean's "As You Like It" transforms Shakespeare's forest into a psychological journey. Her subtitle, "Find Yourself in Arden," shows what matters in this production: the forest as a place of self-discovery. Dean preserves Shakespeare's language while making both its wit and wisdom accessible. She finds contemporary relevance through emotional truth rather than gimmicks. Rosalind's journey becomes a universal story of self-discovery that speaks to audiences of all backgrounds. Dean emphasizes how characters build new... Read more →
Davidson balances parental anxiety and psychedelic revelation in his solo performance. He asks a universal question: what wisdom can a flawed father offer his daughter? Instead of offering tidy moral lessons, Davidson explores personal reckoning through plant medicine. The show centers on a desperate father turning to ayahuasca (a powerful psychedelic brew used in traditional South American ceremonies) the day before his daughter's wedding. This creates tension through the collision of sacred ceremonies, one ancient... Read more →
New Swan Shakespeare Festival's production of "Much Ado About Nothing" arrives this summer as a Wild West reinvention that transplants Shakespeare's romantic warfare to the American frontier. Founding artistic director Eli Simon transforms Messina into a dusty frontier town where Beatrice and Benedick's verbal duels carry the lethal precision of gunfights at high noon. Simon's bold concept naturally suits Shakespeare's military comedy. The returning soldiers become cavalry officers fresh from frontier conflicts. The courtly intrigue... Read more →
Hollis Hart’s set designer for "Holy Holy: The Birth of Disco" serves as both canvas and catalyst, transforming the Broadwater's Black Box and dissolving conventional boundaries. Unlike standard theatrical settings that merely frame action, Hart’s work actively participates in the storytelling. The design refuses to remain static. The space shifts between practical function and abstract form, mirroring the production's contrast between work and play. Hart uses vertical elements for performers to climb, horizontal planes that... Read more →
"Holy Holy: The Birth of Disco" rebels against our culture's obsession with productivity. This ensemble-created work transforms the Broadwater's Black Box into what director Natasha Mercado calls a "surreal playground" – apt for a piece that defies conventional theatrical categories. Part physical comedy, part fever dream, the production shows women rejecting capitalism for play. The ensemble's physical commitment impresses throughout. When one character succumbs to work's appeal, her companions drag her back to anarchic revelry,... Read more →
History works best when it upsets cozy stories. "Greenwood 1964" shows the Civil Rights Movement plainly, revealing courage at its rawest. Mohammed Ali Ojarigi’s work doesn't just document Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte's dangerous journey through Mississippi; it turns their search for Fannie Lou Hamer into an urgent look at the risks of standing against systematic brutality. The play wisely doesn’t turn its characters into simple heroes. Instead, we see cultural icons facing terrifying uncertainty... Read more →
Few plays tackle human trafficking with such directness. Yolande Boyom's "The Road to Freedom," adapted from her documentary film, presents harsh realities on stage without dilution. The production works both as drama and as activism. Boyom's background in nursing and social work gives the project clinical precision. Co-directed with Billie King, the play draws on true accounts of women trafficked across borders. Unlike conventional issue-based theater, this work refuses to separate art from action. The... Read more →
Elena Martinez's "FUNERAL SHOW" explores mourning relationships with the living. In this one-woman dark comedy, Martinez dissects rather than merely acknowledges emotional wounds. She turns complicated parental relationships into a theatrical wake for people who are alive but absent from her life. The premise is both provocative and psychologically astute: how do we process the grief of estrangement? Martinez answers through musical performance, drag aesthetics, and clown work—forms that blend appearance with emotional truth. Under... Read more →
The Ruskin Group Theatre is moving from a converted airplane hangar to a purpose-built arts complex at 2800 Airport Avenue in Santa Monica. This marks a significant step for a company that has, for 23 years, produced world premieres that later transferred to venues from La Jolla to London's West End. The new Ruskin Arts Center, built in a former armory and flying museum, will house two theaters. This development comes as coastal Los Angeles... Read more →
In "Best. Dad. NEVER." Haig Chahinian defies expectations of both parenthood stories and one-person shows. His performance explores his overlapping identities - gay, Armenian-American, adoptive father to a biracial Black daughter - with refreshing clarity and honesty. Rather than relying on sentiment, Chahinian builds his story through well-observed moments of cultural clash and parental confusion that reveal universal truths about family-making. What sets this piece apart from standard parenting tales is how Chahinian questions his... Read more →
In "Ophelia's Refrain," Sheila-Joon Azim brings Shakespeare's Ophelia into the realm of contemporary identity politics. This solo performance follows a half-Iranian woman's journey from Seattle's streets to Amazonian ceremonies. Azim's work defies categorization, combining theatre, movement, song and punk rock to explore identity breakdown. The production challenges modern ideas about belonging through classical references. Under Shyamala Moorty's direction, Azim turns personal confession into universal questions. The show asks, "What if Ophelia took acid?”, reframing psychological... Read more →
Shelley Cooper's solo musical "Rag Doll on a Bomb Site" brings to life a crucial moment in theatre history clearly and purposefully. Set in 1928 Berlin, the piece shows Lotte Lenya facing a crisis minutes before the premiere of "The Threepenny Opera." Her name is missing from the playbill, and her husband Kurt Weill demands the show be cancelled. The drama unfolds in Lenya's dressing room as she tries to calm Weill while revealing fragments... Read more →
In the intimate setting of The Zephyr Theatre, Maria Fagan Hassani becomes Marilynn, an educational therapist whose weekly support group reveals struggle, resilience, and unexpected connection. "Atypical Grace" avoids the tearful sentimentality that often spoils single-performer shows about disability, instead offering a clear-eyed look at how learning differences affect entire families. Hassani's performance works on two levels: as Marilynn, she guides and participates, helping parents face their children's challenges while confronting her own unresolved issues.... Read more →
"Corktown '39" thrusts audiences into a taut political thriller rooted in a little-known chapter of history: an Irish Republican Army plot to assassinate the King of England in 1939. The play unfolds over just four days, creating an intense environment where ideals, loyalties, and personal relationships collide. The production rises above mere historical curiosity by confronting thorny ethical questions about political violence. When does resistance become terrorism? Can morally questionable tactics serve the pursuit of... Read more →
In "Earth, Wind & Car Fire," Janora McDuffie turns her personal story into universal insights in a tight 60-minute solo performance. McDuffie, known for her television work and as the voice announcer for the 94th Academy Awards, brings her storytelling talents to the intimate stage of El Centro's Main Space. The show explores Black and queer identity skillfully, mixing humor with serious moments. Building on her work with No More Down Low TV - an... Read more →
In "Me, Myself and Other," Diana Romero turns personal struggle into compelling theater, creating a solo performance that refuses to be defined by limitation. The 50-minute piece, directed by Maggie Whittum, examines identity, disability, and resilience with refreshing candor. Romero traces her evolution as a first-generation American woman navigating cultural boundaries before and after doctors diagnosed her with multiple sclerosis at 32. This production stands out for its honest approach to disability - neither maudlin... Read more →
In "Reservoir Dolls," Lani Harms delivers a sharp, meta-theatrical solo comedy that cleverly enters Quentin Tarantino's bloody cinematic universe. As both writer and performer, Harms tells the story of Atlanta Springfield, a barefoot call girl who suddenly realizes she's trapped in Tarantino's tenth and final film and must flee for her life while meeting the director's previous female characters. The concept compels because it works as both homage and critique. By making her protagonist self-aware... Read more →
Natasha Mercado's three new works at Hollywood Fringe 2025 show a director who freshly combines vulnerability with absurdity. Having built her reputation through solo performances and directing, Mercado now brings her "Soft Clown" approach to three productions: "Funeral Show," "The Birth of Disco," and "El Mago Loco." What connects these works is Mercado's commitment to emotional honesty within surrealist settings. Her directing avoids the ironic detachment that often plagues experimental theater. Instead, she creates spaces... Read more →
"Hellas" resurrects ancient Greek theatrical traditions with ambition and vision. Christopher William Johnson's production, with fight coordinator Jen Albert's combat sequences, follows the Greek tradition of a single-day performance. This world premiere honors classical roots while testing modern audiences' appetite for immersive storytelling. Twenty-three performers portray the birth of Western democracy, showing both social change and personal conflicts. "Hellas" stands out through its authentic form—verse, mask, rhythm, dance and combat create an experience beyond typical... Read more →
In "Blackout - No Hard Feelings," Kerri Van Auken crafts a darkly comic journey into the mind of Mary Lynn, a woman whose sunny disposition masks a life in free fall. Van Auken's one-woman show deftly navigates the troubles of middle-aged disappointment with humor and psychological depth. This production stands out for its fresh take on emotional avoidance. Rather than merely depicting escapism, Van Auken takes us inside her protagonist's head, creating a psychological landscape... Read more →
Rejyna Douglass-Whitman transforms personal struggle into theatre in "Trans Mom vs. Family Court." Set in 1990s Los Angeles, this one-woman show chronicles a transgender musician's fight for custody of her daughter while navigating gender identity, conservative attitudes and legal prejudice. The production avoids easy sentiment and predictable political messages. Douglass-Whitman, making her solo acting debut after years as a musician, brings authenticity to a story that balances personal revelation with social commentary. The show examines... Read more →
In "Hooligani," Venessa Verdugo becomes Tetyana Komisaruk, a Russian madam on trial for trafficking Ukrainian women into prostitution in 1990s Los Angeles. The solo performance unfolds as a courtroom plea where Tetyana attempts to secure leniency by recounting her journey from Moscow orphan to criminal. The true crime narrative compels not just through its topicality but by casting the audience as both jury and voyeur. Drawing on her training at Cal State Fullerton and Stella... Read more →
Rheagan Wallace's solo show reveals a common paradox in performing careers: those who push you toward the spotlight often cast the longest shadows. In "Stage Mamma," Wallace transforms her progression from Texas child actor to Hollywood professional into a universal story about finding independence within complex family relationships. The production goes beyond simple memoir by using a sophisticated multimedia approach. Wallace doesn't just tell her story - she embodies it through multiple character transformations, while... Read more →
"Jump or Fall" shows a moment of human connection at the edge of despair. Playwright Rich Nagle balances darkness and possibility as two strangers meet at a bridge, each seeking an end to their troubles. It's not just a story about suicide, but about chance meetings and how people move between isolation and connection. Director Yunyi Zhu handles these difficult emotions with actors Gina Elaine and Larry Coleman, who show the tentative dance between vulnerability... Read more →
After losing his home to Los Angeles fires, director Andrew Weyman finds refuge in staging “Fostered” at Pacific Resident Theatre. This contemporary comedy marks a departure from PRT’s usual classical repertoire, offering instead a timely look at authenticity in a world of pretense. Set during the 2016 election and its aftermath, Chaya Doswell’s play follows the Foster family of Scarsdale. Parents Karen and Sandy try to embrace change until their adult children return home with... Read more →
Odalys Nanin's reimagined "Frida - Stroke of Passion" transforms the traditional theatrical experience into a sensory journey that collapses the boundary between audience and art. This immersive staging resurrects Kahlo’s final days with haunting immediacy. The production doesn’t sanitize Kahlo's complex reality: her physical agony, her sexual fluidity, and her defiance of social conventions emerge unvarnished. The narrative architecture balances historical accuracy with artistic interpretation, particularly in exploring the mysterious circumstances surrounding Kahlo's death. Nanin's... Read more →