From left: Ben Beatty (Hally) and John Kani (Sam) in "'Master Harold'...and the Boys" at Geffen Playhouse (Photo by Jeff Lorch) South African playwright Athol Fugard’s “’Master Harold’…and the Boys” was first staged in 1982, before apartheid ended in 1990, but set in 1950, two years after that racially segregationist policy was implemented. The play features two Black South African men and the younger white “Master Harold” (or Hally) who is buddies with them — to a point. The

This review was originally published in the Long Beach Post ,  a nonprofit news organization, on April 17, 2026. Scene from "Harvey" at Long Beach Playhouse. Photo by Mike Hardy. Long Beach Playhouse executive director Madison Mooney recently said that “Harvey” is just the sort of play we need right now. And she’s right. If you are among those trading your smartphone for a flip phone, resisting ChatGPT and wondering where common decency went, “Harvey” is all that rolled up i

This article was originally published in the Long Beach Post,  a nonprofit news organization, on April 16, 2026. Ensemble cast of Musical Theatre West's current production of "In the Heights." Photo courtesy of the theater. Before his hugely successful musical “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote “In the Heights” — about a vibrant, close-knit New York immigrant community filled with songs and dreams, but also secrets.  Musical Theatre West is currently staging the Tony Award-

From left: Crystal Yvonne Jackson (Scilla) and Monty Renfrow (Renton) in "Twisted" at Theatre West (Photo by Garry M. Kluger) Chris DiGiovanni’s new play “Twisted,” directed by Marc Antonio Pritchett at Theatre West, is a contemporary drama set in the suburbs of Philadelphia that centers on Scilla Claroe (Crystal Yvonne Jackson), a struggling writer preparing to document the story of Renton Downey (Monty Renfrow), a man on death row for a mass shooting. As Scilla interviews R

From left: Pierre Adeli (Mr. Zero) and Mariana Jacuzzi (Ms. Devore) in "The Adding Machine" at The Actors' Gang (Photo by Bob Turton Photography) How do you enslave yourself? What soulless thing do you regularly do because you believe you have to, even though it detracts from your sense of life’s beauty and joy? Despite its calculating title, those are the questions behind “The Adding Machine,” boldly staged by The Actors’ Gang through this weekend. Creatively directed by Cih

From left: Mathias Brinda, Xol Gonzalez, and Khalif J. Gillett in “Level Up!” (Photo by Jenny Graham) From the moment you walk into the Latino Theater Company to see “Level Up!,” you feel like you’re in The Matrix . Credit for that goes to scenic designer François-Pierre Couture, lighting designer Xinyuan Li, sound designer Robert J. Revell and especially projections designer Hsuan-Kuang Hsieh. It’s not often that the creative team behind a play is mentioned first in a theatr

This interview was originally published in the Long Beach Post ,  a nonprofit news organization, on April 9, 2026. Scene from the touring production of "Hadestown," coming to the Cerritos Center on April 27. Photo courtesy of the tour. Hawa Kamara — who plays Eurydice in the touring production of “Hadestown,” at Cerritos Center on April 27 — says she’s been a fan of Anaïs Mitchell’s musical since she first heard its Grammy Award-winning soundtrack of soulful jazz, blues and f

From left: Sean Yves Lessard (Jamie) and Cat Rojo (Cathy) in "The Last Five Years" at Hudson Backstage Theatre (Photo by Sydney Belabin) Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown’s 2001 “The Last Five Years,” directed by Aaron Byrnes at the Hudson Backstage Theatre, is an intimate two-person musical that explores a relationship at its breaking point. The story unfolds through two timelines told simultaneously. Jamie Wellerstein (Sean Yves Lessard), a novelist, moves forward from t

Featuring two one-act plays by Harold Pinter: "Party Time" and "The Lover" Paul Marius (Terry), seated, and Michelle Ghatan (Dusty) in "Party Time," part of "Sex, Lies and Harold Pinter" at Odyssey Theatre (Photo by Jacques Lorch) The Odyssey Theatre is hosting a unique visiting production that presents two one-act Harold Pinter plays in one show dubbed “Sex, Lies and Harold Pinter.” “Party Time” (1991), a timely political satire, followed by the humorously twisted “The Lover

“Four thousand years ago, someone pressed a reed into clay to preserve this story. Tonight, we sing it forward.” — Diana Farrell, librettist and artistic director Ahmad Joudeh (young Gilgamesh), center, with ensemble in "Gilgamesh: The Opera" at Cerritos Center (Photo by Christina Gandolfo) The 4,000-year-old epic tale of Gilgamesh was brought to life last weekend in the form of a lush opera five years in the making. With culturally inflected orchestral music, a rich libret

From left: Amy Melendrez (Rosalí), Blanca Araceli (Carmen García) and Laura Vega (Pancha) in "Real Women Have Curves" at Casa 0101 Theater (Photo by Steve Moyer Public Relations) Josefina López’s "Real Women Have Curves," directed by Corky Dominguez at Casa 0101 Theater, drops us into a small East Los Angeles sewing factory in the late 1980s. The story follows five Latina women racing to meet an almost impossible deadline while quietly navigating a constant fear of immigratio

From left: Sean Bell, Leo Roberts, Major Attaway, Blake Segal, Chris Collins-Pisano and Ellis C. Dawson III in "Spamalot" at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre (Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman) “’Tis but a flesh wound!” —Th e Black Knight So funny, so good, so many laughs. If you know Monty Python, you’ll know the British comedy troupe’s 1975 movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” and in “Spamalot,” you get to see it on stage as a musical that garnered several Tony n

Ins Choi (Appa) in "Kim's Convenience" at Ahmanson Theatre (Photo by Dahlia Katz) When Ins Choi and his fellow Asian Canadian actors in Toronto found limited performance opportunities, they decided to write plays in which to cast themselves, Choi said in an interview. It took seven years for him to write “Kim’s Convenience,” only to see it rejected by a number of theatre companies. Choi finally staged the play himself at the 2011 Toronto Fringe Festival, and the rest is AAPI

From left: Grayce Toon (Ivy) and Johncarlo Zani (Jones) in "Failsafe" at The Broadwater (Photo by Ariana Savci) “Failsafe” — a dark comedy by Phil Carroll that performed at the 2025. Edinburgh Fringe Festival following its New York City premiere — centers on Ivy (Grayce Toon) and Jones (Johncarlo Zani), two people locked in a toxic, self-perpetuating situationship. Written with a sharp, cyclical structure, the play follows the pair’s repeated, unsuccessful attempts to kill on

Sara Porkalob in "Dragon Mama" at Geffen Playhouse (Photo by Jeff Lorch) Sara Porkalob has returned to the Geffen Playhouse with “Dragon Mama,” the second installment of her Dragon Cycle trilogy, written and performed solo by Porkalob. While the first play, “Dragon Lady,” told the story of her grandmother, “Dragon Mama” focuses on her mother's journey from a young queer woman searching for love and belonging to a young mother seeking the freedom to forge a new life for hersel

From left: Bo Foxworth (Joe) and Matthew Grondin (Chris) in Antaeus Theatre Company's "All My Sons" (Photo by Craig Schwartz) Arthur Miller wrote his Tony Award-winning play “All My Sons” in the immediate aftermath of World War II. No doubt it carried that resonance when it premiered on Broadway in January 1947. Through excellent staging and acting, Antaeus Theatre Company’s current production of this gripping play carries some of that same resonance — its weighty themes ring

Marsha Norman’s musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple,” with music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray, is being thoughtfully staged by Chromolume at the Zephyr Theatre through March 29. Veronica Driscoll (Celie) and Minque Taylor (Shug Avery) in Chromolume's "The Color Purple" at Zephyr Theatre (Photo by James Esposito) Set in the rural American South in the early 1900s, the story follows Celie (Veronica Driscoll), a dark-skinn

From left: Gildart Jackson, Will Block and Adam Poole in "The Shark is Broken" at Laguna Playhouse (Photo by Jason Niedle) If you are even remotely a fan of the 1975 blockbuster movie “Jaws,” you will thoroughly enjoy the play “The Shark is Broken” at Laguna Playhouse, written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon about the off-screen dialogue among the movie’s three main actors — Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw. Ian Shaw based the play on stories his father Robert shar

Scene from "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" at Theatre 68 Arts Complex (Photo by Joe Falsetta) Stephen Adly Guirgis’ “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot,” directed by Leif Gantvoort at Theatre 68 Arts Complex’s Emerson Theatre, is a dark comedy set in Purgatory inside a courtroom where Judas Iscariot’s fate is reconsidered. Through a legal appeal, witnesses and historical figures are called to testify about Judas’s life, his betrayal of Jesus and whether or not he deserves forg

From left Rain Spencer (Connie), Ted Monte (Dad) and Emily Althaus (Brianna) in "Dad's Leg" at Hudson MainStage Theatre (Photo by Austin Cieszko) Written and directed by Zach Shields, “Dad’s Leg” is a dark comedy that follows two sisters with a strained relationship who reunite in their father’s hospital room. What begins as an attempt to reconnect slowly unravels as tensions rise over what should happen to their father’s leg after it is amputated. The disagreement exposes wo