The theme for this year AxS Festival, a project by the Pasadena Arts Council in conjunction with the city’s scientific institutions, is “Fire and Water.” In one of the shows, a site-specific performance at Pacific Asia Museum, Corey Madden follows the saga of poet Craig Arnold, who disappeared while hiking along the rim of a Japanese volcano. READ MORE
Directing The God of Isaac
by Darin Anthony | September 30, 2011
So this Catholic who has never set foot in a synagogue is asked to direct this play about what it means to be a Jew. Darin Anthony tells the rest of the story as he prepares to open his West Coast Jewish Theatre staging of James Sherman’s The God of Isaac. READ MORE
Being a Hyper-Chondriac
by Brian Frazer | September 30, 2011
Converting his memoir Hyper-Chondriac into a solo show at Asylum Lab, former stand-up comic Brian Frazer had to cut 256 pages down to 80 minutes and then learn to commit 100% to his own script. READ MORE
In Rehearsal, Covering All the Bases
by Thomas Fiscella | September 30, 2011
Thomas Fiscella, an actor in the baseball-oriented Honus & Me at MainStreet in Rancho Cucamonga, ruminates on the connections between theater and baseball. The production is in a promotional partnership with a minor league team. READ MORE
LA STAGE INSIDER
by Julio Martinez | September 29, 2011
Voice Lessons invades the Valley. Life Could Be a Dream in La Mirada. Plays by Juan Mayorga and Miguel Pinero are on their way. Michael Donovan wins casting kudos. Penny Safranek, who used to clean apartments, now plays a charming char woman. A capsule history of the Greek Theatre. READ MORE
Greenway Court Theatre Loves Lucy
by Gary Ballard | September 29, 2011
Staging I Love Lucy episodes in a 99-seat theater is harder than it looks. The actors, producers and director Rick Sparks talk about the challenges in the Live on Stage version at Greenway Court. READ MORE
The Birthing of a Play — Garbo’s Cuban Lover
by Odalys Nanin | September 29, 2011
Odalys Nanin didn’t quite believe it when she first read that Mercedes de Acosta and Greta Garbo had a long love affair. But then she saw the letters herself, and the result was her 2001 play Garbo’s Cuban Lover, which is currently being revived at the Macha. READ MORE
John Leguizamo is a Ghetto Klown
by Darlene Donloe | September 28, 2011
More tales from John Leguizamo’s life are about to take over the Montalban Theatre, in Leguizamo’s latest solo, Ghetto Klown. Here he talks about how he prepares for his on-stage self-therapy and why he’s happier on a stage than he is in the movies. READ MORE
Kerwin and Hicks: The Tragedy of the Commons
by Julio Martinez | September 28, 2011
Brian Kerwin and Leslie Hicks consider their roles as a middle-aged blogger and a luddite whose marriage may not survive the latest affront to the man’s peace of mind in Stephen Metcalfe’s The Tragedy of the Commons, at Ruskin Group Theatre in Santa Monica. READ MORE
Connie Chats on Opening Night — Cirque du Soleil’s Iris
by Connie Danese | September 27, 2011
Connie chats with Iris composer Danny Elfman, Joe Manganiello, David Patrick Harris, Christina Hendricks and others at Cirque du Soleil’s state-of-the-art opening-night Iris party, in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard on Sunday night. READ MORE
“Mutate, or Perish!” — Approaching Albee’s Seascape
by Charlie Mount | September 27, 2011
Director Charlie Mount found that Edward Albee’s Seascape, with its lizards wondering if they should continue to evolve, spoke to his own midlife sensibility. But he felt the need to extend the arc of one of the human characters in his staging at Theatre West. READ MORE
Could Cirque Help LA Theater Cultivate the Tourist Trade?
by Don Shirley | September 26, 2011
Cirque du Soleil’s Iris is likely to attract more tourists than the rest of LA theater productions put together. Are there ways that some of those tourists might at least become aware that there are a lot of other LA theaters? Can the theater community graciously welcome Cirque du Soleil into its ranks? READ MORE
