KCRW's longtime producer, host and cheerleader Matt Holzman, who died Sunday, only texted me once about my reviews. Matt Holzman is the reason I'm at KCRW.

Opening the Curtain

Matt’s Text

At the most fundamental level, the theater connects artists with an audience at one time, in one space. That's about presence. You show up at eight o'clock, the lights come up, you see a show. We are together. Dig deeper and the connection gets vastly more rich and complicated. Connecting with an audience means understanding the moment in time we are living in; appreciating the particular place where you are making theater. What is happening here and now? Theater must do more than simply reflect our moment. It must care for its audience's soul through that moment.

What do we do in the theatre when there is no theater?

The show "Home" begins with a magic trick. When you walk into the theater, you see an empty stage. As the show begins, an unassuming man, played by the show’s creator Geoff Sobelle, walks from the audience to the stage to survey things. 

‘Home’ review: domestic magic and the fleeting American dream

"Frankenstein" is a major work and a major leap for Four Larks: it’s a dark and visually stunning play but it's also a concert, opera, musical and a dance piece all in one. “Frankenstein” will punch you in the gut. 

Four Larks’ creepy and gorgeous ‘Frankenstein’ will punch you in the gut

Every couple of years LA's intimate theaters produce a musical that gives the big theaters a run for their money. Right now it’s IAMA Theatre Company's "Found: A New Musical." It starts off a little awkwardly. We're in a bar in Chicago with some disgruntled 30 somethings. Denise, the bartender, went to art school but can't find a better gig than slinging shots. She's got a punk vibe and a bruised heart — so you can sense the setup there. Mikey doesn't have a job or a lover but he's got his old friend Davy who pays the rent and generally keeps him afloat. Davy's our protagonist and — at least at the top of the scene — he's got a job but not one he likes. Davy looks around the bar and beefs that everyone is on cell phones; no one is really connecting with one another. He makes a half-hearted attempt to get everyone in the bar to put down the devices and be together. It sort of flops.

‘Found’ Review: Finding a musical in scraps of paper

Did you ever have a nerdy friend in high school? Or maybe you were the nerdy friend? Someone who was super into anime, comic books, sword fights; always had a corny joke or a geeky pop-culture reference; totally into cosplay; also super smart and knew really weird but cool stuff about history? Maybe queer? Maybe not? Super creative, super self-aware but also sort of a mess which kind of bugged you but at exactly the moment you were going to give up on them you realized they had a heart of gold and were doing the right thing? If you could roll all that up into a play, it'd be Qui Nguyen's world premiere "Revenge Song."

'Revenge Song' review: Geek theatre rules!

In the first scene of playwright Steven Leigh Morris' new play "Red Ink," our protagonist makes a cri-du-coeur: "What was he thinking?...Why would a successful business man do to his own property?"

The loss of the LA Weekly will drive you nuts

Dael Orlandersmith's one-woman show "Until the Flood" is set in and around Ferguson, Missouri. It's 2014, immediately after Michael Brown was shot 6 times by a police officer. Ferguson erupted in protest. The following year, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis commissioned Ms. Orlandersmith to write and perform a solo show to give voice to the city's racial divide. "Until the Flood" is based on interviews she did across Ferguson and St. Louis and boiled down to 8 poetic composite characters. We hear from black residents who are scared and angry. We hear from white residents who are angry and scared. Remarkably, Ms. Orlandersmith gives voice to it all.

Are we listening?

You know how the constitution has a preamble? "We the people of the United States ..."? Okay, before you go see the play "What the Constitution Means to Me" (and you definitely need to go see this play) - you should probably imagine a preamble to the play … not a disclaimer exactly, just an explanation for what you’re about to see. 

What does the constitution mean to you?

Miwa Matreyek’s work doesn’t fit neatly into a simple box.

What’s happening at REDCAT?

Stephen Adly Guirgis play "Between Riverside and Crazy" is one of those scripts that plays very differently outside of New York.

Roll with it

Happy New Year! LA theater is all about women in the new year.  There are one woman shows, re-imagining women from history.  Here’s a quick list of the shows I’m looking forward to this spring. Let’s start with a hit one-woman show … that now stars another woman.

Theater for a new year

Okay, Best of LA Theatre 2019 part two. Last week, I shared plays that tackled race head on. This week, one last favorite production that made an audience confront how race haunts our national drama from an unlikely source: The Getty Villa.

Best of 2019 LA Theatre: the gender act.

It’s time for the best of theatre of 2019. Like last year, the best theatre in Los Angeles - the theater that spoke with the clearest voice this year - was political.  But where last year the politics had to do broadly with who was leading who. This year, the politics were mostly about race and gender.  

“Best of 2019 LA Theatre: the race act.”

Matthew Bourne’s “Swan Lake” is the production that 24 years ago catapulted Mr. Bourne’s work into the international spotlight. Famously, he reimagines Tchaikovsky’s ballet about women trapped as swans by an evil sorcerers spell into the tragic and heroic story of a closeted prince discovering a secret world of male love.

A male swan’s spell

Musings on what Los Angeles theater is - and can be. Want to know more? Subscribe to Anthony's weekly Theater newsletter.

hubhopper

Opening the Curtain

hubhopper