My biggest issue with South Coast Repertory’s production of Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice is that I know this play well and consequently what it should be. Actually, no. My biggest issue with SCR’s production is that I felt the need to immediately preempt my companion by reassuring him upon our departure, “No, really, this is one of my favorite plays; please read it.” Were one to base his assessment solely on this production, incredulity would be warranted and my own passion rendered incomprehensible.
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I would worry about over-hyping The Book of Mormon but I really don’t think such is possible. If you have not been indoctrinated into the fold, what you are going to need to do is Google “The Book of Mormon + 2011 Tonys” and “The Book of Mormon + 2012 Tonys.”
I’ll wait.
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I normally do not attempt to dissuade the approximately sixty (overestimate) Angeleno theatergoers from frequenting a show but I feel morally compelled to do so: think twice before seeing Playwrights’ Arena’s Helen at the Getty Villa. And, if you are still planning on going, think it through a third time.
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If I had to single out my biggest gripe with theatre in Los Angeles, it would be that it embodies a stereotype at which I would prefer to roll my eyes: that everything here is rife with superficiality. To deliver the eye roll, however, this needs to be untrue. Or at least less true. Which is why I am kind of pissed off by Pasadena Playhouse’s airy revival of Yasmina Reza’s 90-minute three-hander, Art.
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Nearly a year ago, Thought Catalog shared a piece entitled “How To Live In Los Angeles.” The piece traces how to “live in Los Angeles,” from birth to adulthood, in a very tongue-in-cheek manner…or is it? We tapped two writers who are from Los Angeles to share their thoughts on the piece, to counter how they think the way to live in Los Angeles is.
It was precisely forty-five minutes after I dropped my woolen circle-scarf in what is best described as an opaque liquid mass on the floor of a New York City bus that I was asked by two good friends whom I was visiting the current temperature in Los Angeles, the hometown to which I would be returning in three short days: “I dunno but I was wearing short sleeves when I left.” Indeed I was: even in January, it was sunny, clear and in the 70s. My friends cautioned that this begets weakness: “Come back to where it’s real.”
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