“Incognito” at the Son of Semele is a puzzle play.

Sarah De Lappe’s play “The Wolves” is having a bit of a moment.  On top of being a finalist for the Pulitzer, it’s slated for over 50 productions across the US - making it one of the year’s most produced plays.

If you’ve been patiently waiting for a play about roller derby, I have good news.  If you had hoped it would be a great play about roller derby - um…not so much.  “For the love of it (or the roller derby play)” takes us inside the locker...

The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts  latest offering, Pigpen Theatre Company’s “The Old Man and the Old Moon” is the ambling story of how the light gets into the moon told by seven guys who play all the parts and double as a...

What’s the difference between a play and a film?  That’s one of the questions that Brazilian director Christiane Jatahy asks with her stunning piece “What if they went to Moscow?” How Ms. Jatahy poses that elegant question is a little...

The Actors’ Gang has two things that run through their productions: style and politics.  The style is a distant relative of Commedia Dell’Arte, the Italian comic tradition built around stock characters like Harlequin, Pantalone, the corrupt...

Matthew Bourne’s “Cinderella” at the Ahmanson is fascinating as much for what it isn’t as for what it is.

For all it’s seeming simplicity, the Wooster Group’s latest show is complicated, dense experience.  Let’s start with the  title: “The B-Side: “Negro Folklore from Texas State Prisons,” A Record Album Interpretation.”  What’s a...

In Taylor Mac’s play “Hir” (spelled H-I-R - more on that in a minute), the old order simply won’t stand.

One of LA theatre’s hidden treasures is the theatre that happens at the Getty Villa. The Getty Villa’s latest production goes up this coming weekend with a site-specific show from Four Larks called “Katabasis.”  Four Larks - like the Villa...

Remember that cool kid in high school?  The one with the awesome jacket and that effortless edge. He was something of a rebel: used nasty language in just the right way. Made it all look so easy.  Now remember that other kid who tried to copy...

New Year - new theatre!  Here’s my short list for the plays you shouldn’t miss this spring.

Last week I started looking back at the theatre in LA that made a difference in 2018.  This week I round out that list with the kind of work I hope fills theaters in 2019.

Looking back at the best shows from a year of theatre is always a little strange.  It’s not like KCRW’s list of best albums that you can instantly download and enjoy.  Theatre is ephemeral - you can’t stream it or hit rewind. So reflecting...

This last weekend Taylor Mac, the fabulous drag performer and all around theatre genius, returned to the Center of the Art of Performance at UCLA with a holiday show: “Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce”.

I’m a sucker for theater in non-traditional spaces so when I heard about “The Nutcracker Suite” in a skyscraper downtown - even though it was ballet - I was in.

“Come From Away”, the new show at the Ahmanson, is basically a feel-good musical about 9/11. If that sounds a little far-fetched, think of the advice to kids from Mr. Rogers: in the face of catastrophe, look to the helpers.

There’s something so absurdly ambitious about Zombie Joe’s Underground production of “King Lear” - you really want it to work. 

When you enter the Geffen Playhouse for “A Christmas Carol” it feels like you may have entered a victorian funeral home.  The lights are dim, there’s a waft of fog blowing on stage and what appears to be a coffin surrounded by black floral...

Anthony Byrnes speaks with Steve Chiotakis about theatre and the upcoming elections on All Things Considered.

At first Eliza Clark’s play “Quack” feels like a thinly veiled take-down of a Dr. Oz-like TV doctor.

Beyond the 6 Tony Awards and the record setting box office, what’s fascinating about the musical “Dear Evan Hansen” is how it gets an audience to care.

What if “The Merchant of Venice” were told from Shylock’s daughter’s perspective? That’s the conceit behind Sarah Mantell’s play “Everything that never happened”.

When’s the last time, in the theater, that you saw a really good, slow spit take?

Watching Jose Rivera’s play “The Untranslatable Secrets of Nikki Corona” is a bit like flipping through the sketchbook of a talented artist who can’t figure out exactly how all those sketches turn into a big painting.