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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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[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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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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 >>
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'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 >>
