Opening the Curtain

It's about two thirds of the way through Martin McDonagh's play The Lieutenant of Inishmore, and the stage is covered in blood.  Not just a bit of blood - but literally gallons of blood.  And not just blood. There's a severed head. And a torso...

When I first came to LA from Colorado, I struggled with time. There was something about the loss of seasons, or at least seasons as I knew them - snow, mud, summer, leaves, repeat - without the context of weather I couldn't figure out, for instance, when I'd met someone. Was it last year? Or three years ago? It just seemed to be one sunny day after another...

Male Frontal nudity . . . . check.

There are works of theater that hold a mirror, or a magnifying glass to life. We go to the theater to examine life as we know it. Think: the Greeks, Shakespeare, Death of a Salesman...

"Don't play the idea of a king. You are the king" That's a note you'll hear in Shakespeare classes every time a young thespian tackles Macbeth, or Richard, or Lear...

Stick with me.  This is a long quote from 25 years ago but it's really relevant right now. "Los Angeles has no great public monument which focuses attention and serves as a backdrop for a festival. Its disparate elements, its sprawl, its multiple cultures, all contribute to the city's central paradox - its identity lies in its diversity.  This reality combined with the fact that Los Angeles is essentially vehicular and Private rather than pedestrian and public, might lead one to believe the city is ill suited to host an arts festival..."

I laughed, I cried. It's better than Cats. It's a play for the whole family. I'm going again. I heard Shakespeare for the first time. Now those are some terrible theater clichés. And that's what I want to talk about. There's a fascinating moment right before the end of Act One in Sarah Ruhl's play, Clean

Anton Chekhov is a daunting figure in the theater. One hundred fifty years after his birth, he's rightly revered as one of the great ensemble playwrights, creating dense dramas inhabited with these wonderfully eccentric and honest souls. But like all ‘great' works of literature, Chekhov's plays can get a bit dusty. There tend to be a few too many waistcoats and samovars and not nearly enough of the witty and racy charm that seems buried in his writing....

What if we started a slow theater movement? I’m not talking about boring theater or long theater but what if we stole an idea from the food world? Namely, the Slow Food movement and the idea of being a locavore...

Four shirtless men seem to float above a table. They're singing in