Now Playing @ PLAY7

Black & Bluestein

szeitzew — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:05:36 -0400

You’ll laugh… You’ll cry…You’ll think. Extended! The return production of Jerry Mayer’s engaging dramedy, set in 1963 St. Louis and based on a true event, explores the ripple effect in the neighborhood when a well-to-do black scientist Dan Black, wants to buy a home in an upscale, all-white mostly Jewish neighborhood from the Jewish builder, Jeff Bluestein. Bluestein always tried to be a good liberal but breaking the color barrier could break his bank account and even his marriage. Tension, conflict, prejudice, fear of plunging home values, and Jewish guilt add up to gripping drama and laugh-out- loud comedy.

“Recommended”- LA Times “Invigorating, engaging, valid.”
“A surprisingly nuanced and personal play.” – L.A. Weekly
“The recent changes on the political landscape give the piece an added punch
and relevance” –BackStage West

Opening 03/08/2008

Dietrich & Chevalier, The Musical

szeitzew — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:18:58 -0400

by Jerry Mayer
Santa Monica Playhouse

A “heartfelt homage to two wonderfully courageous performers. Delightful, inspiring evening of theatre” - Drama Logue
In 1932 Movie stars Marlene Dietrich & Maurice Chevalier met and fell in lust, which turned into love and lasted two lifetimes. A fascinating, inspiring love story told with 15 of their signature songs.

In the 30's, Marlene Dietrich and Maurice Chevalier fell in lust, which turned into love and lasted two lifetimes. During World War II Dietrich entertained GIs at the front and became a hero, while Chevalier, in occupied France, sang, with Germans in his audience and was accused of collaboration and put on trial. The war had separated them; Chevalier¹s trial for treason brought them back together when Dietrich rushed to his side to help him. A fascinating, revealing, love story with 15 of their signature songs
“A heartfelt homage to two wonderfully courageous performers, a delightful, inspiring evening of theatre.” - Drama-Logue

Opening 03/09/2008

Magnum Opus Theatre

cklemow — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:24:16 -0400

by Vanessa Perkins (script selection)
Sacred Fools Theater Company

An Amazingly Awful Screenplay.
Word for Word. Unedited.
We Didn't Change a Thing.

L.A. TIMES FEATURE ARTICLE

REST assured, says "Magnum Opus" director Joe Jordan, "no puppy dogs were hurt in the making of this show."

Like everything in "Magnum Opus," that's meant to be taken literally.

"Opus" began as part of the Sacred Fools Theater Company's "Serial Killers" -- a long-running late-night show where serialized short plays competed with each other for audience favor and the right to return the next week for another installment. "Opus" presented itself as a mock "Masterpiece Theater" -- complete with theater-snob host Thurston Eberhard Hillsboro-Smythe (portrayed by actor Brandon Clark) -- and featured scrupulously faithful renditions of terribly written (hello, slush pile) screenplays, including live "dissolves," real-time montages and a handful of canine peepers (as in, "gives puppy dog eyes").

Something about the sincerely performed drivel struck a chord and "Opus" became "Serial Killers' " most popular act, racking up an unprecedented 36 episodes before finally succumbing to audiences' fickle tastes.

But now "Opus" is back...

"The comedy comes from taking these works and putting them in a theatrical context, out of translating them from screenplay to stage," Jordan says. "And that some of this stuff is so terrible, it's hilarious to hear it spoken out loud." Should one wonder how all this sounds to the authors of these works themselves, one will just have to continue wondering. "We're taking the tack that we're adapting it for the stage," Jordan explains. "It's not a strict interpretation. We haven't been in contact with the writers."

"I'm not sure they live in this country. Or speak English," Clark deadpans.

Although this lack of facility with the mother tongue can boost the humor (not even spelling errors have been corrected; "We just go with whatever the word turns into," Jordan says), people shouldn't look at "Magnum Opus" as a mere trifle, say the Fools.

"If it were just a joke, the audience would get over it," Clark says. "It's theater of the absurd, and it takes highly skilled actors. We're performing it as if it's Chekhov. The language of the production that Jordan has created is so specific and concise, it's almost a new style of acting. It could be taught, though I'm not sure who'd want to learn it."

There's also been the occasion when the Fools have forged a connection with these characters, momentarily elevating their stories.

"There's a show in there among all the silliness," Jordan says, before clarifying: "But it's mostly silliness."

-- Mindy Farabee
(c) 2007, L.A. Times

Opening 03/28/2008

Serial Killers

cklemow — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:31:41 -0400

by Various
Sacred Fools Theater Company

Five Shows Enter... Three Shows Leave.
Five stories.
Five cliffhangers.
Only three can continue.
YOU decide.

Sacred Fools' late-night serial sensation!

Each week, three continuing stories face off against two new tales.

At the end of the show, you vote for the three stories that you would like to see continue on to next Saturday night, where their subsequent episodes will then be pitted against two completely new storylines.

Each week's serials could live on for weeks... or be quietly smothered in their sleep – it’s up to you. But whichever pieces you vote for, one thing is for certain - by the end of the evening, you will be a Serial killer.

RECOMMENDED by L.A. Weekly!

THIS WEEK'S SERIALS! / READ A REVIEW!

Opening 03/29/2008

Nevis Mountain Dew

nancytowne — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:13:00 -0400

by steve carter
Towne Street Theatre Company

steve carter's eloquent, moving, and frequently funny play was originally produced by the Negro Ensemble Company and was deemed one of the Best Plays of 1978-79 by the Theater Yearbook. The play is set in 1954 Queens NY, and introduces us to the Philibert family - determined to celebrate the patriarch's 50th birthday, even as he languishes in an iron lung. Sparks fly and secrets are exposed as they all drink the potent rum from the island of Nevis; leading to a place of no return.

Opening 04/18/2008

Trapezoid

dcwolfe — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:18:18 -0400

by Nic Cha Kim
Lodestone Theatre Ensemble

A Korean American poet in love is hired by a technology think tank to put the "art" in artificial intelligence. When the robot creation falls in love with the human creator, it's man-made versus mankind with sometimes comic and sometimes tragic results.

Opening 04/19/2008

He Asked For It

rialtopr — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:41:19 -0400

by Erik Patterson
Theatre of NOTE

Theatre of NOTE proudly presents as the 3rd production in their "SEASON OF LONGING" - a world-premiere play by the award-winning playwright Erik Patterson!

HE ASKED FOR IT

In an era when HIV hides from sight behind the closet door... In an era where the emotional AIDS cocktail of love, sex and death pours forth in a dark ride though Internet chat rooms, Hollywood back rooms and nightclub bathrooms... How far will you go for love? How much will you forgive? Would you be willing to infect yourself or others in exchange for a sense of belonging?

In HE ASKED FOR IT, award-winning playwright Erik Patterson and director Neil Weiss strike a startling balance between comedy and tragedy as the characters navigate the casual thrills of one-night stands and the difficult sacrifices of true love.

Young Ted is an actor from a small town in Wyoming and, like tens of thousands before him, he just arrived in Los Angeles hoping to become the next big thing on the silver screen. While it's a journey that happens every day of every month in Los Angeles, Ted's story is far from the typical Hollywood tale. In Erik Patterson's controversial new play, He Asked for It, the young actor becomes emotionally entrenched in the world of bugchasing and giftgiving.

Opening 04/25/2008

Indecent Acts!

rialtopr — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:57:47 -0400

by various
Theatre of NOTE

Announcing the 4th production in Theatre of NOTE's "SEASON OF LONGING" :

An amalgam of madness and desire presented in FOUR SHORT ACTS!

INDECENT ACTS!
Four original one-act plays

ROOM 17C by Rosalyn Drexler - West Coast Premiere!
LUNA by Jason Grote - WORLD PREMIERE!
GLANCING AT THE WAR by Coleman Hough - WORLD PREMIERE!
TRUE LOVE WAITS by Boo Killebrew - West Coast Premiere!

Theatre of NOTE is proud to present INDECENT ACTS! as a kick-off to their "Season of Longing" late-night series.
Miss America, Jesus, cocaine, cockroaches and Willy Loman's wife Linda bring various skewed perspectives to the NOTE stage for a late-night snackof comical dysfunction, bizarre obsessions and off-beat humor.

Opening 05/02/2008

The Brain From Planet X

chancetheater — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:18:03 -0400

by David Wechter and Bruce Kimmel
The Chance Theater

Part of THE FESTIVAL OF NEW AMERICAN MUSICALS!

SEE... a musical so hilarious that it sold out theaters from coast to coast!
SEE... the first show told in "FEEL-O-RAMA"!
SEE... an all-knowing, all-singing, all-dancing giant brain!
... really, what more could you want from a night on the town?

A rip-roaring musical send-up of bad 50s sci-fi movies, The Brain From Planet X tells the story of an alien invasion circa 1958. When an ill-intentioned band of interplanetary travelers arrive on Earth with a plan to take over the world, an all-too regular, nuclear family is forced to defend the human race from will-bending extinction. Can YOU withstand the power of the Brain from Planet X?!

Opening 05/03/2008

Rabbit Hole

chancetheater — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:47:05 -0400

by David Lindsay-Abaire
The Chance Theater

2007 PULITZER PRIZE WINNER!

The Corbetts have everything a regular family could want... until the day their world is turned upside down. Teeming with heartbreak, compassion, wit and honesty, Rabbit Hole is a nuanced and delicate piece of theater about family relationships, loss and hope. Having won or been nominated for almost every major playwriting award in the country, Rabbit Hole is widely regarded as one of the best new plays written in the last 25 years.

Opening 05/11/2008