Wrestling was Kristoffer Diaz’ first entree into the world of theatrics. He grew up a half hour from Manhattan and was frequently taken to see wrestling live at Madison Square Gardens, where he soon began to figure out that it was staged. “Even at an early age, you start to get a sense that there are certain physical things in wrestling that wouldn’t happen in real life. If you pull the back of a guy’s head and walk down the aisle he doesn’t have to go with you.” His West Coast premiere of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity opens September 7 at the Geffen Playhouse. READ MORE
REDCAT NOW FESTIVAL: Edward’s House of String
by Cindy Derby | August 31, 2011
The inspiration behind Edward’s House of String came last year while I was laying out pages for a children’s picture book I was writing and illustrating. At the time, I was living in Glasgow where there was a puppetry community who exposed me to the beauty behind this mysterious medium. After witnessing a one-woman adaptation of Cinderella by Shona Reppe, I was inspired to craft my stories through intimate and surreal worlds using puppetry. READ MORE
Yankee Comes Full Circle at International City Theatre with Private Lives
by Samantha Mehlinger | August 30, 2011
After 15 years since the Long Beach Civic Light Opera (LBCLO) folded, the company’s former artistic director Luke Yankee has come back to the Long Beach Performing Arts Center to direct Noël Coward’s Private Lives for International City Theatre (ICT). READ MORE
Beverly Hills/Hollywood NAACP Hosts Star-Studded Theatre Awards
by Darlene Donloe | August 30, 2011
The night’s big LA theater winners were Ben Guillory’s Robey Theatre Company, who took home the Best Producer Award (local) in association with the Latino Theatre Company for The Reckoning. Their production of Transitions also earned Best Playwright (local) honors for Kellie Roberts and Best Ensemble Cast. Michael Matthews nabbed two directing awards for Celebration Theatre productions: Take Me Out and The Women of Brewster Place while Shirley Jo Finney added Best Director honors for The Ballad of Emmett Till to her Ovation Award laden mantle. READ MORE
REDCAT NOW FESTIVAL: Clara’s Los Angeles
by Marissa Chibas | August 30, 2011
The genesis for Clara’s Los Angeles came after hearing one too many friends, mostly from New York or Europe, say that LA has no history. I found myself needing to bring to light the history I was uncovering all around me on a daily basis in the City of Reinvention that LA is known for being. READ MORE
Theatricum Opens a Controversy — and a New Space — With Rachel Corrie
by Don Shirley | August 29, 2011
My Name Is Rachel Corrie, one of the most debated plays of the last decade, finally arrives in LA at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum — a venue not previously known for red-hot controversy. A statement from LA’s Jewish Federation protesting the play’s one-sided view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict will be distributed at all performances, which will be followed by organized discussions of the play — and perhaps also of a Corrie quote that isn’t in the play but is in the program. Rachel Corrie will be the first full-fledged production in the Theatricum’s smaller S. Mark Taper Foundation Pavilion. READ MORE
4th Annual NAACP Theatre Festival “Raises the Curtain”
by Darlene Donloe | August 29, 2011
It was a full-on celebration at the 4th Annual Beverly Hills/Hollywood NAACP Theater Festival held this past weekend at Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC). Utilizing the theme “Raise the Curtain,” workshops, performances and discussions reiterated the need for black theater because “if we do not tell our stories, they won’t get told. The play is the thing.” READ MORE
New Leadership at the Celebration Theatre
by Mark Kinsey Stephenson | August 26, 2011
Celebration Theatre’s new artistic director John Michael Beck and executive director Micheal Kricfalusi discuss their creative “marriage,” plans for the upcoming 29th season including What’s Wrong With Angry? opener and why they need to embrace all audiences. READ MORE
LA STAGE INSIDER
by Julio Martinez | August 25, 2011
INSIDER spotlights Firehouse, the little play that is going global over the Internet while Christine O’Donnell goes non-political at a LA Women’s Theatre Project event. International City Theatre unveils 2012 season; a slew of celebrities warble at closing party for Festival of New American Musicals; and INSIDER History recalls another gaggle of celebs that populated the 1940 offering of Noel Coward‘s 9-play Tonight at 8:30 to help fund the Allied war effort… READ MORE
The Comedy Stylings of Toliver and Guidinger
by Gary Ballard | August 24, 2011
If you were a teacher in grade school with both Linda Toliver and Gary Guidinger in your class, you’d quickly learn to separate the two of them to opposite corners of the room. Even then, by the end of the day you’d probably visit your principal with the recommendation that one of the two be transferred to a different class altogether. These two producers of 99-seat theater — including the current Day Drinkers at the Odyssey — make up a very close-knit couple. They complete each other with a comfortable congruency easy to comprehend yet difficult to categorize. READ MORE
Cody Henderson and Amber Skalski ExploreWonderlust
for Theatre of NOTE’s 30th Season
by Julio Martinez | August 24, 2011
Former CalArts classmates and longtime friends Cody Henderson and Amber Skalski discuss their first collaboration as playwright and director for Henderson’s Wonderlust premiering as part of Theatre of NOTE’s 30th anniversary. Can love be considered a science that can be studied and proven by observable physiological data? READ MORE
End Days of Our Lives and Psychosis With a Beat
by Don Shirley | August 22, 2011
Despair in dramatic characters isn’t necessarily dramatic. Woe-is-me on the stage can easily translate into woe-are-we in the audience. So should theaters ignore despairing, even suicidal characters? No, but playwrights and directors often feel compelled to go to great lengths to prevent us from falling asleep during their pity parties. READ MORE
