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Evan Henerson - Page 2

Evan Henerson

Evan Henerson is a longtime arts and features writer who lives in Southern California. He is the former theater critic for the Los Angeles Daily News and has written for such publications as American Theatre, Playbill Online, Stage Directions and Backstage.






Review: THE ALLSTORE at Theatre Of NOTE
Review: THE ALLSTORE at Theatre Of NOTE
March 16, 2024

Whether or not he has personally ever put himself through this, Evan Marshall has imagined life from the floor of a big box store and infused it – literally – with poetry. Part love story, part workers unite-inspired corporate dramady, ALLSTORE hits some satisfying beats. ALLSTORE – like much of this company’s work – has much to recommend it.

Review: REDWOOD at La Jolla Playhouse
Review: REDWOOD at La Jolla Playhouse
March 6, 2024

In REDWOOD, a new musical by Kate Diaz, and Tina Landau partially conceived by Idina Menzel and enjoying a visually arresting if somewhat simplistic world premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, Menzell confronts something even more formidable than encroaching yuppie cyber cafes, enraged Oz-ians or life-altering roads not taken….

Review: BLACK CYPRESS BAYOU at Geffen Playhouse
Review: BLACK CYPRESS BAYOU at Geffen Playhouse
February 23, 2024

Part mystery, part cathartic family drama ruminating on legacies of evil and forgiveness, director Tiffany Nichole Greene’s production grips us tightly from the outset and does not easily let us go. Thankfully, along this 80-minute journey, we also get to laugh as well as exhale.

Review: BRUSHSTROKE at Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
Review: BRUSHSTROKE at Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
February 12, 2024

John Ross Bowie’s Cold War comedy BRUSHSTROKE considers the role of 'art' from a bunch of different angles and fashions a very nifty play around it.

Review: LA COCINA at Loft Ensemble
Review: LA COCINA at Loft Ensemble
February 2, 2024

The high wire act that is Tony Meneses’ play LA COCINCA is a feat that companies of greater capabilities than Loft Ensemble might not pull off. There are 19 performers barreling across that stage, dispatching orders, picking up plates, whisking, saucing, grilling and doing all the other things that we hungry oblivious patrons don’t see.

Review: SUKKOT at Skylight Theatre
Review: SUKKOT at Skylight Theatre
January 21, 2024

Nestled uneasily in a space between comedy and misery, SUKKOT makes shoddy use of a good cast to serve up a banquet of familial angst and misery.

Review: A CHRISTMAS STORY at Ahmanson
Review: A CHRISTMAS STORY at Ahmanson
December 17, 2023

Lenz’s production is solid family stuff, a little bit cock-eyed, and easy on the treacle. Knowledge of the original movie is by no means a prerequisite to enjoyment of ACS: TM. If you’re craving certain iconic moments from the movie, rest assured you’ll find them, possibly even amped up or with a musical number built around them.

Review: A PERMANENT IMAGE at Pacific Resident Theatre
Review: A PERMANENT IMAGE at Pacific Resident Theatre
December 17, 2023

The production directed by Andy Weyman for Pacific Resident Theatre taps the bile and makes use of Hunter’s scabrous humor. The journey to that resolution is an uncomfortable slog in which we share the company of some pretty despicable people who, at PRT, are portrayed by actors who embrace their characters’ meanness and little else.

Review: FREIGHT at Fountain Theatre
Review: FREIGHT at Fountain Theatre
November 29, 2023

Per playwright Howard L. Craft, the spirit of the human soul has the capacity to return to earth multiple times until it successfully learns…well…whatever it is supposed to learn. Can’t speak for the soul, but the performer J. Alphonse Nicholson needs no do-overs to embody the five incarnations of Abel Green within Craft’s play FREIGHT. Simply put, Nicholson nails each Green ably, in every possible way. Completely.

Review: RADICAL OR, ARE YOU GONNA MISS ME? at IAMA At Atwater Village Theatre
Review: RADICAL OR, ARE YOU GONNA MISS ME? at IAMA At Atwater Village Theatre
November 26, 2023

hot through with equal parts rancor and compassion, Jess McLeod’s production of this, IAMA’s first commissioned play, is effective despite some narrative speedbumps.

Review: INHERIT THE WIND at Pasadena Playhouse
Review: INHERIT THE WIND at Pasadena Playhouse
November 16, 2023

Director Michael Michetti has put thought and heart into his production and peopled it with a strong cast whose characters opt for playing the strength of their convictions over histrionics. A hurricane force this WIND is not, but there’s plenty to enjoy.

Review: ROMEO AND JULIE: LOVE IS A FIRE at Santa Monica Playhouse
Review: ROMEO AND JULIE: LOVE IS A FIRE at Santa Monica Playhouse
October 30, 2023

Neno Pervan’s production takes no risks and provides not a shred of insight - within the text or outside it - why this tale unfolds as it does. A few textual adjustments notwithstanding, Pervan’s production is standard issue ROMEO AND JULIET, fire or chill.

Review: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM at A Noise Within
Review: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM at A Noise Within
October 23, 2023

Visually and acoustically, from performances to pacing, this DREAM directed by Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott is so beautifully thought out and rendered that the Noise Within brain-trust should consider filming it for posterity.

Review: BISEXUAL SADNESS at Road Theatre
Review: BISEXUAL SADNESS at Road Theatre
October 16, 2023

By its very title, BISEXUAL SADNESS plays and feels like it should be the topic of a seminar or an article in a clinical journal, maybe even the theme of a discussion group. Which is, in a lot of ways, how India Kotis’s play comes across in its world premiere at the Road Theatre.

Review: TACOS LA BROOKLYN at Latino Theatre Company At LATC
Review: TACOS LA BROOKLYN at Latino Theatre Company At LATC
October 11, 2023

A co-production with East West Players, Ulloa’s play makes the case for deeper investigation and against the kind of snap judgments that its hero, Chino, endures and fuels. Engagingly performed and containing plenty of cool visuals, Fidel Gomez’s production is a bit of a group hug. But it plays.

Review: THE UNTITLED UNAUTHORIZED HUNTER S. THOMPSON MUSICAL at La Jolla Playhouse
Review: THE UNTITLED UNAUTHORIZED HUNTER S. THOMPSON MUSICAL at La Jolla Playhouse
September 27, 2023

As the singing, dancing, attention-whoring engine of THE UNTITLED UNAUTHORIZED HUNTER S. THOMPSON MUSICAL, Gabriel Ebert gives Thompson the idol treatment. Featuring music and lyrics by BE MORE CHILL’s Joe Iconis and directed by Christopher Ashley, UUHTM blows the doors off the La Jolla Playhouse’s Potiker Theatre.

Review: THE ANGEL NEXT DOOR at North Coast Repertory
Review: THE ANGEL NEXT DOOR at North Coast Repertory
September 19, 2023

Two of Smith’s previous plays have been mounted at the Solana Beach company, and the company commissioned Smith to create a new work to kick off NCR’s 42nd season. That play, THE ANGEL NEXT DOOR, directed by Artistic Director David Ellenstein, is a kick and a hoot. Maybe that makes it a kick-oot.

Review: THE SOUND INSIDE at Pasadena Playhouse
Review: THE SOUND INSIDE at Pasadena Playhouse
September 19, 2023

when you’ve got a guy like Adam Rapp writing a cerebral two-handed dance between a Yale creative writing professor and her enigmatic new student, and you pepper it with scribes ranging from Dostoevsky to  Anne Tyler, and you give the whole shebang to the Pasadena Playhouse and cast Amy Brenneman in the lead role, well, what’s not to like.

Review: KILL SHELTER At Theatre of NOTE
Review: KILL SHELTER At Theatre of NOTE
September 12, 2023

A mother-daughter tale that traffics in regrets, dreams deferred, selfishness and the value of all lives human and animal, KILL SHELTER barely elevates the contrivances of its plotting. A larger problem in this four-character world premiere is the casting, which – at least as regards the Blue Cast (the production is double cast) – is lacking.

Review: HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING at Rogue Machine-Matrix
Review: HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING at Rogue Machine-Matrix
September 1, 2023

The L.A. premiere of Will Arbery’s HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING is an example of Southland live stage at its finest – an intelligent, slickly-cast think play, compellingly directed by Rogue Theatre Company Artistic Director Guillermo Cienfuegos for a company that rarely misfires.



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