Gil Kaan - Page 51

All creative components align perfectly in Mike Kindle's Stanley Ann with the primary ingredient of this engrossing one-woman show - the luminous Ann Noble! Using her expressive face, her excellent line readings and her naturalistic miming; Noble allows the audience to actually see all the other characters in this play interacting with her. No easy feat that Noble consistently and seamlessly pulls it off!  Brava, Ms. Noble!

Playwright Wendy Graf totally deceives in naming her world premiere All American Girl. A much more appropriate and honest title would have been Anti-American Girl. All should run from this as fast as the main character did after she planted both bombs.

Oscar Quintero 'nails it' again with his alter ego Kay Sedia in his non-stop, laugh-inducing, thigh-slapping seventy minutes, Kay Sedia in Her Juan Woman Cho: Taco Kisses. Your laugh muscles, whistling lips and clapping palms will definitely get quite a workout experiencing Kay Sedia's Taco Kisses.

Neil Koenigsberg' Off the King's Road vividly illustrates the need for patience in dealing with your elders. The talented Tom Bower tackles the challenge of embodying a now single, unapologetic man going through his mundane everyday routines while grappling with continuing life alone without Betty, his wife of many years. Bower shines in the scene where he reveals what really led to his Betty's demise.

William Inge's 1953 Pulitzer Prize winner Picnic certainly holds up quite well in Antaeus Theatre Company's expert and streamlined production. Cameron Watson directs his talented cast without any extraneous beats, moments, or gestures. Every little detail quite essential and integral to Inge's tale of a drifter's affect on a bunch of traditional Kansas folks back in 1952.

Paul Sand's Kurt Weill at the Cuttlefish Hotel wows and astonishes with musical performances from two incredibly talented women Shay Astar and Kalean Ung. Sands has chosen various Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht compositions from their various hit shows and strung them together for a wonderful musical showcase of these two exceptionally expressive, richly voiced actress/singers extraordinaire.

Timeheart 's 'Let's put on a show' vibe succeeds primarily due to the talents and stage presence of Dave Reynolds as Bruce Greenstreet, the inventor of the time machine/capsule.  Reynolds' strong and pleasant vocals coupled with his sharp physical comedy antics and timing propel this story of how Greenstreet can repair all his noble invention's mishaps.

Scott Caan has written a very witty and smart script in his world premiere of The Trouble We Come From. Charlie, oh-so-comfortably inhabited by Michael Weston, has invited his leading man and best friend Vince home for some mano-to-mano advice to help him out of his relationship dilemma.  Caan's Vince's perfectly charismatic and charming as the all-bravado-on-the-outside, but sensitive- on-the-inside hunky leading man.

Harvey Fierstein's one-act On Tidy Endings, originally part of his 1987 Safe Sex trilogy, holds up very well in the abled reins of director Sara Wagner and her kick-ass cast. Set in a time when gay men only came out of their closets on a need-to-know basis (ex-wives, kids), contracting AIDS equalled a death sentence. Still, the after-effects of a gay man dying have similar revelancy in 2015.

Rogue Machine produces a stunning mounting of the West Coast premiere of A Permanent Image. Playwright Samuel D. Hunter has created a stripped down, no-nonsense portrait of a family separated by distance, both emotional and physical, and the methods the parents will attempt to manipulate their destinies.

Too damn funny! How generous of co-writers Jamie Franta and Don Colliver to spread the abundance of laughs and good bits around to their entire cast. Each one of the talented troupe achieves their moment to shine in their deserved spotlights.

This very black comedy, The Idiot Box written by Michael Elyanow completely went over this critic's head as laughter never escaped from his mouth. (OK, maybe once.) Scenes in which the actors obviously went for the laughs, punctuated by the cheesy canned laughtracks fell flat. However, scenes played for straight-up dramatics killed.

In the Los Angeles premiere of I See You Made an Effort; Annabelle Gurwitch adeptly performs excerpts from her bestselling  book of the same title. Gurwitch possesses a charismatic stage presence while definitively in control of her own storytelling. The main theme of her book/play revolves around her issues with reaching the magical age of 50.

The world premiere of Go Figure! The Randy Gardner Story receives a not quite taut mounting in its initial outing at the NoHo Arts Center. Director Josh Ravetch, who co-wrote this with Gardner, allows his star to proceed with his biographical tales, some quite riveting, some very candid, at his own desired pace.

East West Players has done it again with their spectacular production of The Who's Tommy. With an incredible band, vibrant vocals from the entire cast and stunning visuals, this 'little' theatre easily matches and betters many larger house productions. 

For those who like their black comedy extremely black, The House of Yes just might be the perfect show for you! The House of Yes' ideal for those with the combined acquired taste for incest, mental illness, and unsympathetic characters.

Groundlings Kung Fu Battle Island, the latest in The Groundlings' continued, well-oiled, laugh-filled Friday & Saturday night shows, just keeps the fine-tuned physical comedy and the hysterical jokes flowing.

Kritzerland's Berlin to Rome's theme unintentionally became 'generations,' as the youngster and the senior stole the show from the others of the talented line-up of singing pros. 

The West Coast premiere of Dominique Morisseau's Sunset Baby provides a wonderful star vehicle for the very talented Nadege August. As the title character, August wholly embodies Nina, the troubled daughter of her recently deceased mother Ashanti X and her estranged father Kenyatta (who deserted the two of them long time ago to lead his revolution).

The Theatre's Co-Artistic Director, Michael Michetti skillfully directs his two brilliant actors (Ed F. Martin and Michelle Azar) in a streamlined, no-fat depiction of two lonely souls possibly finding their ultimate purpose in life.