Email Author JOEL BEERS

Awards

• 2011 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published April 1, 2010

  "Family Not-So-Friendly"

• 2011 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published September 30, 2010

  "Man Loves Goat"

• 2011 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published November 11, 2010

  "Teen Cheerleader Orgy Porn"

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2011 Stories by JOEL BEERS

• 'Theatre Uncut' Marks a Monkey Wrench Deferred

  published December 15, 2011

  For nearly 15 years, Orange County theatergoers could see and hear things on stages connected with Dave Barton that they could experience in no... More >>

• 'Louis Slotin Sonata' Has Its 19th Nuclear Breakdown

  published December 1, 2011

  There were 100 directions playwright Paul Mullin and director Eberhard Koehler could have taken with Mullin's play Louis Slotin... More >>

• Theatre Out Offers Big Words In Small Spaces

  published November 17, 2011

  Time is not generous to most of the characters in Richard Greenberg's 2003 play, The Violet Hour. Though set in April 1919, on one... More >>

• 'The Trip to Bountiful' Shows Heart Is Where the Home Is

  published November 3, 2011

  For all its lip service to rural America and its salt-of-the-Earth folk, city mice have always dominated perceptions of rural life in popular... More >>

• WINNER'S CIRCLE: Janet Evans

  published October 13, 2011

  Olympic Gold Medalist Swimmer Eldrick Woods was born in Cypress and attended Anaheim's Western High School. Volleyballer Elaine Youngs... More >>

• 'How the World Began' Cleans Those Jesus Glasses

  published October 6, 2011

  It's unfortunate Catherine Trieschmann's new play, How the World Began, can easily be described as a conflict between an evolutionist... More >>

• The Hunger Artists Dance With the Devil

  published September 29, 2011

  From Joe Boyd in Damn Yankees to Robert Johnson at the crossroads, the whole selling your soul for wealth, power, talent or whatever... More >>

• 'Cockroach' Documents War In the Time of Love

  published September 15, 2011

  Hormones are a big deal in Sam Holcroft's gripping play Cockroach, the same hormones that turn teenage boys into physically aggressive... More >>

• When Life Hands You Steak Knives

  published August 25, 2011

  In a 1956 essay, Arthur Miller reduced every great play to one central element: "How may a man make of the outside world a home? How and in... More >>

• Kathy Griffin

  published August 25, 2011

  Though still largely a male-dominated genre, the fairer sex has proven to be just as capable—and equally foul-mouthed—on the standup... More >>

• Would You Believe 'Get Smart' Is Funny?

  published August 11, 2011

  It's rare to find anyone under the age of 60 who knows what The Colgate Comedy Hour was, let alone someone who has actually watched... More >>

• 'High Fidelity' Is Only at a Low-Grade Fever

  published July 28, 2011

  There's nothing to particularly dislike about High Fidelity, a musical based on the 1995 Nick Hornby novel that also inspired a 2000... More >>

• 'Jerry Springer: The Opera' Is Very Merry!

  published July 14, 2011

  As of last Sunday, the Chance Theater had received more than 19,000 emails and letters from outraged Catholic-leaning citizens protesting its... More >>

• 'The Wild Party' Is Straight Outta Brea

  published June 30, 2011

  At intermission, the musical The Wild Party was really growing on this reviewer—like a cancer. An hour and a half in, it felt... More >>

• 'Jerry Springer' Vs. Arthur Miller Vs. 'The Underpants'

  published June 23, 2011

  While most of us will gather around swimming pools, beaches, barbecues and other places afflicted by the unrelenting fucking glare of the... More >>

• 'The Superheroine Monologues' Features Damsels in Distress

  published May 19, 2011

  If erring is divine, some of us are the holiest rollers alive. We all make mistakes, stupid blunders and terrible choices that lead us to sift... More >>

• Pacific Playwrights Festival Shows the Plays Must Go On

  published April 28, 2011

  Two huge things are coming to Orange County's most entrenched cultural institution, South Coast Repertory. Newly anointed (by founding artistic... More >>

• Backhausdance: Incandescent

  published April 28, 2011

  If anyone warrants an artistic company named after them, it’s Chapman University alumna Jennifer Backhaus, whose 11-year-old... More >>

• Missing, She Went

  published April 21, 2011

  There is an incalculable sadness to most of the characters in Phyllis Nagy's 1995 play, Disappeared. From a police detective who... More >>

• 'The Weir' Focuses on the Spooks of Life

  published March 31, 2011

  A dark and windy night. Four rural Irish men and a comely lass in a tattered tavern on the edge of Ireland's rugged Northwestern coast. Nothing... More >>

• Andrew Barnicle Is Not Scraped Off At All

  published March 17, 2011

  Looking back over 20 years and the dozens of productions he produced as artistic director of the Laguna Playhouse, there's a great deal that... More >>

• 'Hyacinth Macaw' Is an Adolescent Episode of Theatrical Dementia

  published February 24, 2011

  There are thousands of words in Mac Wellman's 1994 play Hyacinth Macaw. Unfortunately, one word is missing: "stop," as in "Stop this... More >>

• Hunger Artists Theatre Stages a Great 'Godot'

  published February 17, 2011

  In 1998, Britain's Royal National Theatre polled 800 playwrights, actors, directors and journalists asking for their choice as the 20th... More >>

• Steve Hirsch's Octomom Obsession

  published February 10, 2011

  * This story was modified on Feb. 11, 2011. Steve Hirsch just can't seem to wrap his arms around Octomom.Not that the... More >>

• 'Circle Mirror Transformation' Is Waiting for Guff, Man

  published January 27, 2011

  The five characters in Annie Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation are anything but dramatic. The set-up of her 2009 play isn't very... More >>