Theater

  • 'Orson's Shadow' Is Citizen Screwed-Up

    The Long Beach Playhouse production fictionalizes Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier playing each other for one big gig

    By JOEL BEERS

    All warm and fuzzy Theodore Cleaver and Ozzie and Harriet nostalgia aside, the 1950s was arguably the most exciting decade in the history of... More >>

  • 'Topdog/Underdog' Is Black Like Us

    Suzan-Lori Parks' Pulitzer Prize-winning play resonates far beyond its African-American characters

    By JOEL BEERS

    Considering fewer than three out of every 100 Orange Countians refer to themselves as African-American, according to the 2010 U.S. Census, it's... More >>

  • The 12 OC Plays to Watch in 2012

    Sexed-up puppets, Nixon and more!

    By JOEL BEERS

    If the Mayan long-form calendar is right (and, obviously, any civilization that hit its peak 1,000 years ago was right about everything . . .) the... More >>

  • 'Theatre Uncut' Marks a Monkey Wrench Deferred

    The Fullerton theater collective concludes its too-short existence with a well-crafted bang

    By JOEL BEERS

    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

    Bizarre and all over the place, Cal Rep's latest is still a (atom) smash

    By JOEL BEERS

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

  • Theatre Out Offers Big Words In Small Spaces

    The Santa Ana LGBT company tries its best to stage the linguistically florid 'The Violet Hour'

    By JOEL BEERS

    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 afternoon in... More >>

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

    Horton Foote's masterpiece on the universal desire for one's roots

    By JOEL BEERS

    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 >>

  • 'How the World Began' Cleans Those Jesus Glasses

    The excellent South Coast Rep production is about more than creationism vs. reason

    By JOEL BEERS

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

  • The Hunger Artists Dance With the Devil

    The storefront's production of Marlowe's 'The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus' is strangely trifling

    By JOEL BEERS

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

  • Shirley MacLaine Is Still Out On a Limb

    Long Beach's Carpenter Center will host the gal who acts, meditates, takes out-of-body jaunts and is totally over what you think about that

    By STACY DAVIES

    Whether you loved her as the pixie-haired elevator operator in Billy Wilder's The Apartment or the feisty Aurora Greenway bellowing the iconic... More >>

  • 'Cockroach' Documents War In the Time of Love

    The Monkey Wrench Collective finds a stunner in this high-school drama

    By JOEL BEERS

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

  • When Life Hands You Steak Knives

    STAGEStheatre's production of 'Death of a Salesman' shows Arthur Miller's masterpiece is still scarily relevant

    By JOEL BEERS

    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 what... More >>

  • Would You Believe 'Get Smart' Is Funny?

    The star and director of Maverick Theater's adaptation's hope audiences will embrace the '60s-era cheese

    By JOEL BEERS

    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 the show. But... More >>

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

    The Hunger Artists version won't make any Top 5 listbut it won't make a 5 Worst list, either

    By JOEL BEERS

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

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

    The Chance Theater's staging overcomes a lame second half to satisfy your inner freak

    By JOEL BEERS

    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

    This Theatre Out production aims for Prohibition-era decadence, but settles for a lack of sexiness

    By JOEL BEERS

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

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

    [SUMMER GUIDE] And more from OC and Long Beach stages this summer

    By JOEL BEERS

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

  • 'Little Shop of Horrors' Rock!

    STAGEStheatre's ghetto musical is a riotous romp

    By STACY DAVIES

    Before the days when corporate businessmen disguised as producers injected millions into musical versions of any film that achieved a modicum of... More >>

  • 'The Superheroine Monologues' Features Damsels in Distress

    The Chance Theater production reduces the bad-ass women of comics into simpering wimps

    By JOEL BEERS

    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

    South Coast Repertory's annual showcase for new works gears up

    By JOEL BEERS

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

  • Missing, She Went

    Figuring out life without a road map in the Monkey Wrench Collective's staging of 'Disappeared'

    By JOEL BEERS

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

  • 'The Weir' Focuses on the Spooks of Life

    Tales of ghosts and fairies abound in South Coast Rep's staging of the play—but they're not the true scary story

    By JOEL BEERS

    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 to... More >>

  • Andrew Barnicle Is Not Scraped Off At All

    The longtime artistic director of the Laguna Playhouse leaves with with no regrets, lots of love and one final play

    By JOEL BEERS

    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 makes... More >>

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

    Cal Rep stages experimental theater that should've never left the laboratory

    By JOEL BEERS

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

  • Hunger Artists Theatre Stages a Great 'Godot'

    The Fullerton acting troupe's take on the Beckett masterpiece strikes the perfect balance of pathos and bathos

    By JOEL BEERS

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

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

    The latest South Coast Repertory play mines the richness of the relationships of characters

    By JOEL BEERS

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

  • STAGEStheatre Has Trial and Errors

    Its production of 'The Last Days of Judas Iscariot' does little justice to history's greatest traitor

    By JOEL BEERS

    Most plays that fail do so because they don’t say enough. A few fail because they try to say too much. You can place The Last Days of Judas... More >>

  • Preview Review Revue

    A look at what STAGES, Theater Out, Monkey Wrench Collective and other great OC theater companies will stage in 2011

    By JOEL BEERS

    From an opera about Jerry Springer to the monumental drama of Willy Loman, the theatrical landscape of 2011 will plumb the highs and lows of the... More >>

  • A Matterhorn of a Man

    Get past the name controversy of California Repertory's 'The Night of the Tribades'

    By JOEL BEERS

    So what to say about The Night of the Tribades, a play with little plot or dramatic action, no discernible conclusion or resolution, and... More >>

  • Christmas Plays Are the Reason for the Season

    From South Coast Repertory to the Cabrillo Playhouse in San Clemente, a ranking of the best and the worst Christmas plays this holiday season

    By JOEL BEERS

    Only the bitterest Grinch could dare find fault with any theater entity producing a holiday-themed play the month of December. So, in the spirit... More >>

  • Teen Cheerleader Orgy Porn With a Message

    'Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical' at the Maverick Theater goes soft on the sex, hard on the funny

    By JOEL BEERS

    Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical may not feature any graphic sex scenes or nudity, but it’s very much like a porno in one respect: It’s... More >>

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OCCCA Presents 'Gothic': Bleak Days, Black Nights OCCCA Presents 'Gothic': Bleak Days, Black Nights
By STACY DAVIES

Everyone I know has recently had a nervous breakdown—including me. It's the times, it's the age, it's the chorus of voices—in our heads and otherwise—telling us daily that everything sucks… More >>

ConRev Offers Titillating Toys ConRev Offers Titillating Toys
By MICHELLE WOO

Oh, Valentine's Day. Sure, men, you have to buy flowers and dinner, but you might be able to leverage that into getting her to later do the kinky stuff typically… More >>

'Orson's Shadow' Is Citizen Screwed-Up 'Orson's Shadow' Is Citizen Screwed-Up
By JOEL BEERS

All warm and fuzzy Theodore Cleaver and Ozzie and Harriet nostalgia aside, the 1950s was arguably the most exciting decade in the history of theater. In Europe, the absurdist works… More >>

Craftcation Time! Craftcation Time!
By MICHELLE WOO

I've always wanted to be a crafter. I've tried to make things—snow globes, pillows, wedding favors—but nearly every attempt has ended with me icing my hot-glue-gun burns while yelling, "D-I-WHYYYYY… More >>

'Topdog/Underdog' Is Black Like Us 'Topdog/Underdog' Is Black Like Us
By JOEL BEERS

Considering fewer than three out of every 100 Orange Countians refer to themselves as African-American, according to the 2010 U.S. Census, it's unlikely you'll see many black faces in your… More >>

Lookmatic Is Spec-tacular Lookmatic Is Spec-tacular
By MICHELLE WOO

Geek glasses are still cool. Blame the hipsters, or if you are a hipster, blame Buddy Holly (the original hipster). Or, if you're me, blame that damn Zooey Deschanel, whose adorableness… More >>

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