Legacies of shame and abuse play out in surprising ways in Rogue Machine Theatre’s
production of British playwright Sophie Swithinbank’s award-winning play Bacon, which follows two boys in a London high school as they form a fraught and manipulative relationship.

Rogue Machine isn’t saying much else about the play – even getting that much of log line required an email to the company’s marketing director and a referral to the play’s publisher. The company is hoping that audiences will come into the show blind and be completely surprised by what they see. So far, director Michael Matthews says the audiences who are turning up are appreciating the play’s twists and turns.

“Right before it goes to the blackout at the end of the show, there’s always a gasp, which is
always like, you got it, you’re with it,” Matthews said. “If you come see my show, I want you to
come in one way, but I want you to exit another. Even if this is a smile on your face, or like a tear or something, but to have some sort of movement. The audience is, so far from what I’ve witnessed, they’ve been along on the journey.”

Swithinbank’s own playwright’s note for the show says it’s ‘about what happens when teenagers learn to bully and humiliate each other before they learn to love,’ and that it was inspired by an act of bullying she witnessed and a toxic relationship she experienced growing up.

Matthews says when Rogue Machine approached him about directing the the play, the script gripped him from the first page, which isn’t surprising given the splash Bacon made when it debuted across the pond in 2022, earning three Off-West End Awards, and previously earning Soho Theatre’s Tony Craze Award for Playwrighting.

“It’s not just that I see myself in a play, but that my heart is pulled a certain way. That’s just me
knowing that this is something that I have to do,” Matthews said of the script.

And Swithinbank has been involved with this production as well, workshopping the script to fit it to Rogue Machine’s young cast, which features Brazilian-American actor Wesley Guimarães and Chicago native Jack Lancaster – you may have seen him on “The Bear.”

“One of actors is Brazilian, and so [Swithinbank] changed a lot of her words to add in that his
mother was Brazilian inside the play. She went so far as to put in Portuguese into the show,
which just adds on a richness that just works so beautifully. And then the other actor, his family is from Dublin, and so we changed a lot of the characterizations to have that Irish authenticity,” Matthews said.

That authenticity is essential, especially as the show is playing in Rogue Machine’s
intimate Henry Murray Stage, which seats just 37 people.

“It’s supposed to feel very intimate, like you’re walking into like some place you’re not supposed to be and you’re observing something you’re not supposed to be observing. And so you have that thing inside of you when you’re watching, like I should help. This is a foot away from me. I should do something, but you can’t, right? So it gives intimacy a whole brand new name,” Matthews said.

Bacon plays at The Matrix, 7657 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90046, through March 30.
Fri and Mon at 8pm, Sat-Sun at 5pm. Tickets available at The Rogue Machine Theatre site.

When Fountain Theatre set out to produce the Los Angeles premiere of Audrey Cefaly’s play
Alabaster, they were hoping that the all-female show about the power of art and the strength
and resilience of women would be a timely celebration of the country’s first female president.

That didn’t turn out, but in the wake of the fires that devastated Los Angeles last month, the
story – which follows a romance that blossoms when New York photographer Alice, who’s
travelled to the titular Alabama city to capture the portrait of June, a woman whose survival of a tornado has left her with physical and emotional scars – has become even more relevant.

“It’s very much a play about loss and trauma and grieving and how we process and move
forward,” says Casey Stangl, who’s directing the Fountain production. “It has this wonderful sort of straddling the fence of comedy and tragedy in the way that life does.”

And that includes the current political climate.

“On some level, it’s actually even more resonant because we don’t have [a female president]
and that’s yet another loss,” she says.

The LA fires are more than a backdrop for the theatre – they’ve directly affected the production, including delaying its opening to Feb 16. One of the actors was living in the evacuation zone, while another lived in a warning zone. Another had respiratory issues inflamed by the smoke that reached her home.

“Even once we got ourselves back in the room, we’re all still sort of dealing with that. The
physical effects, right? But also just the trauma of it,” Stangl says.
Still, all of that trauma in the room went a long way to building the emotional reality of the play – a literal use of art to process trauma through a play about using art to process trauma.

In the play, June takes up painting to deal with her own trauma, while Alice uses photography to process the trauma of others – and also as an escape from her own tragedies. But the play also explores some of the challenging moral issues around art as a sort of trauma porn.

“There’s a little bit of a dilemma for Alice, because the power dynamic is tricky. There’s an
automatic sort of unequal power dynamic between a photographer and a subject. And then
when things start to change a little bit, it’s a little bit of a thorny place to navigate ethically,” Stangl says.

Since its 2020 world premiere at the Florida Repertory Theatre, Alabaster has been produced
across the country to rave reviews. Fountain Theatre’s production has some secret weapons
that tie it to the play’s history while also invigorating it with new meaning.

Actress Carolyn Messina, who plays Weezy, one of June’s talking goats that narrate the play –
yes, it’s that kind of magical realist theatre – was part of the original production and has been
close with playwright Audrey Cefaly since high school.

And Virginia Newcomb, who plays June, actually grew up in Alabaster, Alabama, and brings a
natural authenticity to the show.

“That town is very much in her body and in her spirit,” Stangl says. “We don’t have a dialect
coach. I mean, we don’t need one. The actresses are kind of amazing. They’re just really talented and good and smart and charismatic and funny. It’s been kind of a feast in the room.”

Alabaster by Audrey Cefaly plays at the Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave, Los Angeles,
CA, 90029 open until March 30, Fri-Sat at 8pm, Sun at 2pm. PWYC
Mondays 8pm. Tickets available at https://www.fountaintheatre.com/events/alabaster

Playwright Samuel D. Hunter has long been attracted to telling stories about people that society often overlooks. So it’s fitting that his play “Clarkston,” getting its West Coast premiere this month from Los Angeles’s Echo Theater digs into the lives of two gay nightshift workers at a small town Costco.

Chris is a frustrated wannabe writer stuck taking care of his meth-addicted mom in the dead-end town of Clarkston, Wash. Jake is a distant relative of the explorer William Clark who’s fled his Connecticut hometown after receiving a fatal medical diagnosis. When they’re assigned to the same night shift in the warehouse, their mutual attraction grows into something more complicated. 

For Echo Theater Artistic Director Chris Fields, who is also directing the production, “Clarkston” is a love story about how American consumerism affects our ability to connect.

“Costco for me is a very difficult place. It’s sort of about gross consumerism. You go into Costco and after five minutes, you’re like, ‘There’s nothing wrong with getting 14 steaks,’” Fields says. “I think [Hunter] puts it in there because it’s really a symbol of consumerism and alienation. Now imagine being in Costco at night under the fluorescents, moving pallets of boxes of gargantuan size.” 

To prepare himself and his actors to inhabit the lives of Costco workers, Fields says he took his team to the big box store to do on-the-ground research.

“We did a field trip to Costco. We found a warehouse manager, the floor manager, and it’s like, oh, there are people that work here. And you know what? They were great. They were lovely. They couldn’t have been more charming and sweet and helpful.”

Fields says the Costco staff even gave them pallets to use on stage for that extra bit of authenticity.

“I tried to get them to give us a pallet jack, and they were like, ‘uhh …’” he says.

Hunter is best known for his play “The Whale,” which was turned into the Academy Award-winning film of the same name. 

But in contrast to the often dreary and miserable tone of that play, Fields says “Clarkston” finds great joy in the lives of its protagonists.

“There’s not only joy in the play, but one of the things that makes it so emotional is these boys get to be gay with each other,” Fields says. 

Playing the graveyard-shift lovers are LA Drama Critics Circle Award-winner Michael Sturgis and newcomer Sean Luc Rogers, a recent Yale graduate that Fields expects will make a big splash soon. 

“I wouldn’t be surprised if in a couple years he couldn’t work with us because he’s in Vancouver shooting a series for the rest of his life,” he says.

They’re joined by Tasha Ames, fresh off her own LA Drama Critics Circle Award win for last year’s “Do You Feel Anger?”, playing Chris’s drug-addicted mom.

“They’re heartbreakers, you know? They come on stage and their hearts are open,” Fields says.

Fields hopes that despite the enormous struggles the characters are dealing with in “Clarkston,” audiences will leave feeling like there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

“You know, it’s hard. To get a car with gas that costs too much money, you can’t go out to eat anymore because it’s so expensive, we might be electing a fucking dictator in the study.

“It’s hard, and I think what I want them to come away with is that feeling when the good guys win. It can work out and it’s really kind of wonderful to be you, despite the fact that we make messes all the time,” Fields says.

‘Clarkston’ opens Sept 14 and runs Friday, Saturday, and Monday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 4 p.m. at Atwater Village Theater, 3269 Casitas Ave., Los Angeles. Tickets are available here.

The hyper-masculine world of Hollywood stunt performers might not be the place you’d expect to find queer romance, but Rogue Artists Ensemble Artistic Director Sean Cawelti says he found the idea for his company’s new show, “Happy Fall: A Queer Stunt Spectacular,” among the real-life stories of stunt performers who had to remain closeted on the job.

Cawelti says he fell in love with the world of stunt performance by watching the live stunt shows at Universal Studios as a kid. 

“I started researching the stunt community and actually found articles about stunt performers that were wrestling with their identity and their sexuality and how they were treated and mistreated in the industry because of that,” he says.

Based on his idea, Rogue Artists engaged playwright Lisa Sanaye Dring to develop a script inspired by conversations with real stunt performers in the industry.  

The result is a multimedia spectacle that aspires to be a true stunt show in the vein of those old Universal Studios shows and a compelling love story about closeted performers.

“The play itself is a stunt show. It has all the things you would expect. It has audience participation, it has really amazing physical performances. And then also there are multiple camera feeds that allow us to create essentially on-the-fly cinematic experiences for the audience so that we can record things and play them back and manipulate them,” Cawelti says.

And the stunts serve as more than mere spectacle – they’re an integral part of building out the love story between aging pro Clay (played by David Ellard) and up-and-comer Felix (played by Kurt Kanazawa).

“Clay represents old school stunt world. He’s been doing this for a long time. His body is starting to get tired and is breaking down, and he loves what he does. His entire identity is baked into this notion of being this kind of invincible action hero. And he is incredibly closeted and has never been able to live fully and authentically in his life,” Cawelti says.

“And Felix, he’s new to Hollywood and is coming to the industry with a real hunger and zest, but also is living more authentically. Felix meets Clay and understands in the coded way that we often can understand that Clay is a part of Felix’s community.” 

The play arrives at a timely moment, as stunt performers have been pulled increasingly into the spotlight with the recent Hollywood rom-com “The Fall Guy,” and, for Hollywood insiders, increased attention on stunt issues in the recent SAG contract negotiations and the ongoing debate about whether stunt performances and coordination should be recognized at the Academy Awards.

Cawelti thinks the increasing attention on stunt performances stems from audience disillusionment over Hollywood’s increasing reliance on CGI to sell action.

“Maybe we are fatigued with this kind of CGI superhero cartoon disembodiment that we find in cinema so much. There’s something about seeing a real person do a real thing that feels real to the eye and has a real sense of gravity,” he says.

And, of course, that sense of gravity is amplified when you’re watching real performers on a stage in front of you, a sensation that can’t truly be copied on screen.

“A live stunt show is such an oddly surreal place that makes a really exciting playground for an experience like this,” Cawelti says. “If it was on film, there’s such a distance that’s placed where we can’t actually go into the audience, we can’t actually look at you in the eyes and talk with you and ask you questions about what you’re feeling.”

To enhance that live theatrical experience, Rogue Artists is also offering a series of complementary pre- and post-show events, including talkbacks and workshops.

“We have a really exciting slate of community programming that’s complementing the performance. You can learn stunt performance, you can take a workshop on puppetry, have conversations with the composer,” Cawelti says.

“Happy Fall: A Queer Stunt Spectacular” by Rogue Artists Ensemble plays at Renberg Theatre at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, 1125 N McCadden Place, Aug. 17-Sept. 8, Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 3 p.m. Full details and tickets at rogueartists.org.

Nearly 100 years before Challengers lit up screens with its teasing story of a bisexual love triangle, Noel Coward scandalized Broadway and London stages with his daring play Design for Living, that challenged norms around monogamy and sexuality with its frank portrayal of a three-way relationship. And now, Odyssey Theatre is bringing the queer classic back to the stage for a summer run from July 6-Aug 25 at the West Los Angeles venue.

Design for Living follows a trio of artists – playwright Leo, painter Otto, and designer Gilda – as they navigate an ever-shifting triangular relationship in the 1930s. It’s full of the characteristic wit that’s made Noel Coward one of the twentieth century’s most-produced comedic playwrights, but the play was considered so scandalous at the time that it the official censor of London theatre banned productions of it for six years.

Coward was inspired to write it by the open and polyamorous relationship of his longtime friends, the Broadway stars Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontane, with whom he starred in the original Broadway production.  

And while polyamory and bisexuality are hardly the taboo topics they were during the Great Depression, director Bart DeLorenzo says open and fluid relationships still challenge many people’s perceptions of propriety.

“I wouldn’t say that’s the last taboo, but it’s unusual. You see people struggling with their families and there are all sorts of heteronormative pressures,” DeLorenzo says. “I do think there are people in the world who aren’t happy themselves and don’t want other people to be happy.

“I don’t know why people want to regulate the intimate details of other people’s lives, but for some reason there’s a desire to do that. And so, I don’t think the issues of this play have really gone away.”

DeLorenzo says the play documents an important point in Coward’s life, shortly after his rise to fame, as he tries to navigate the limited opportunities he had to pursue romance and happiness as a gay man. 

“He’s writing it in the 1930s, and he’s had his first bath of success, and I think he’s looking around at the world and trying to figure out what kind of life he wants to live,” De Lorenzo says. “What’s funny about the play is that he will go on to invent a kind of a new family and a new way to live, not exactly like the play but similar. But he had no idea that that’s where he was headed.”

So even though the play is a hilarious comedy, DeLorenzo says it’s still one of the most serious dramatic works Coward wrote.

“I think it’s a look for new models because there should be more choices. There should be more possibilities. And I think it really helps to have models of people who have found other ways to be happy,” he says. “It’s about trying to find a way to live the life that you want to live, even when Society doesn’t appreciate it.”

One luxury this production has over the original Broadway production – and perhaps even over modern Hollywood fare exploring polyamory – is its freedom to bring the homoerotic sides of the polyamory polygon.

“There’s a very sexy and romantic scene between the two men. It’s a very funny scene. But I think it’s a very sexy scene but between them,” DeLorenzo notes of his production. “That’s what’s interesting about the play too. Is that Coward gives the biggest scene in the play to the two men. There’s a very nice seduction of a hetero couple in the piece but in a way, I think the gay couple gets the best romantic scene.”

Design for Living plays at the Odyssey Theatre July 6-Aug 25. 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90025. Tickets $20–$37, Fridays Pay-What-You-Can. OdysseyTheatre.com 

By Rob Salerno | SANTA MONICA, Calif. – For 35 years, Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica has been home to some of America’s most daring and experimental queer performing arts works.

Formed during the peak of the AIDS crisis, Highways was established as a venue where queer work, often ignored, ridiculed, or censored by mainstream arts institutions, could thrive. Given a safe space to experiment and present work that challenged social, political, and cultural norms, generations of queer artists came up through highways and have gone on to become some of the most important names in performing arts.  

For Highways’ executive director Leo Garcia, that commitment to producing works that challenge the mainstream has been key to the institution’s long-term success.

“What excites me is our interest in the constant development of new works by artists who work with political, social, psychological, and personal narratives, and the hard work that we bring to make certain that the doors are open to provide access to the artists who are developing these new works and who bring their communities to our space,” Garcia says.

Highways was founded in 1989, amid intersecting crises in the LGBTQ community and the artistic communities in Los Angeles. 

“The AIDS pandemic had really surfaced, and… most of the performance places closed and much of the city’s infrastructure had collapsed back then, and that had to do with real estate crunches and bureaucratic red tape and people being able to afford space so work,” Garcia says.

“There was just this recognition that we were in a crucial time politically, and at a sort of a cultural intersection where the performance art that we were creating was suited to the social-psychological-cultural climate.” 

Despite the progress the LGBTQ community has made since Highways’ early days, Garcia says the organization is still presenting deeply political works that uplift the community and challenge the status quo. 

As an example, he cites trans choreographer Sean Dorsey, whose dance company will headline Highways’ 35^th Anniversary Party June 7-8, with a new performance called The Lost Art of Dreaming.

“The reason we’ve brought on Sean Dorsey is I feel that it’s the trans community that is really under attack in this country, and we’re just going to celebrate the beauty of a trans choreographer and their beautiful new work,” he says. “We’re also going to be honoring the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who have been a part of Highways for at least two decades.”

Artistic Director Patrick Kennelly says part of Highways’ success is that it’s constantly seeking out new generations of artists who keep the work fresh.

“So, there’s these different cycles, and it’s interesting now being older to see this fresher group dealing with the similar kinds of stuff that I was when I was starting out in this field 20 years ago,” he says.

Garcia became involved with Highways in 1992, just a few years after it was founded by writer Linda Frye Burnham and performance artist Tim Miller. Garcia says he had just moved to Santa Monica from New York and was just wandering around his new neighborhood when he came upon the theatre.

“There was no one at the door, and I walked in and peeked in the curtain. There were like seven people in the audience, and Annie Sprinkle was doing her show. She was inserting something into her vagina and you could go in and look inside of it. That’s the kind of work they were doing here,” Garcia recalls. 

He says he started seeing shows and getting involved with the theatre, until eventually he was asked to come on board as the fiscal manager. He eventually took over as artistic director in 2003, leading the company until he handing artistic duties over to current director Patrick Kennelly. 

Kennelly, who’s in his twentieth year working with Highways, first got involved as an intern while studying at CalArts. By that time, Highways had already developed a reputation for discovering and fostering important new artists.

“It was around the same time that there was a big article in the LA Times about the 15th anniversary, and there were names involved that I was familiar with from what I had been studying,” Kennelly says.  

Garcia and Kennelly estimate that they’ve helped foster hundreds of artists and shows during their time at Highways – regularly hosting a new show every week, fifty weeks per year.

Over the years, Highways has also expanded its programming to include works by and for other minority and marginalized communities, while still foregrounding work by and for the LGBTQ community.

Among the many artists who’ve come through Highways are Black Lives Matter founder Patrisse Cullors, Pulitzer Prize nominee Kristina Wong, MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Luis Alfaro, and international performance artist Ron Athey. Some artists and collectives from Highways’ earliest days are still presenting works at the venue to this day, including Guillermo Gomez-Pena and the Los Angeles Poverty Department.

“What’s been exciting to me is to discover and or present early works by artists who grow into huge big entities, whether it’s touring the world with their work or getting them huge mainstream platforming,” Garcia says.

As for the future, Garcia and Kennelley say that they see Highways continuing to advance its reputation for experimenting with bold new art forms and developing important, unheard voices.

“I hope that the space can survive another 35 years and continue to support these emerging artists who are experimenting and discovering their process and maybe don’t have the accessibility at that point in their careers for larger shows,” Kennelley says. 

“We want to continue to work with the communities that we’re serving and it needs to be a place of alliances and collaborations for all these different cultures and genders and disciplines,” Garcia says.

Highways’ 35^th Birthday! will take place June 7-8 at 8:30pm at Highways Performance Space, 1651 18th St, Santa Monica, CA, 90404. Tickets: highwaysperformance.org  

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle has announced their award recipients for 2023. Kill Shelter (Theatre of NOTE) received the prestigious Production award, with additional honorees named in 17 other categories. In total, 14 different productions were honored, celebrating a wide range of Los Angeles theater.

Theatre of NOTE’s Kill Shelter and Pasadena Playhouse’s A Little Night Music received the most awards for a single production. Both productions were also factored into Special Awards, with Kill Shelter author Ashley Rose Wellman winning The TED SCHMITT AWARD for the World Premiere of an Outstanding New Play and A Little Night Music being a significant part of The JOEL HIRSCHHORN AWARD for Outstanding Achievement in Musical Theatre winner Pasadena Playhouse’s The Sondheim Celebration.

The 54th Annual ceremony took place on Monday, April 8^th at 8 pm PST. For the first time in LADCC history, a presentation was live stream simulcast on both Instagram and Facebook @LADramaCritics. The live replay can still be viewed on the LADCC’s YouTube channel at @ladramacriticscircle3508 or at https://ladramacriticscircle.com/2023-awards/.

As previously announced, the LADCC has named the following Special Award Honorees:The POLLY WARFIELD AWARD for Best Season by a Small to Midsized Theater is given to Rogue Machine: John Perrin Flynn (Producing Artistic Director), Guillermo Cienfuegos (Artistic Director), Elina de Santos (Co-Artistic Director), and Justin Okin (Producing Director).                                                                                                                               

The GORDON DAVIDSON AWARD for Distinguished Contributions to the Los Angeles Theatrical Community is presented to Joseph Stern.

The JOEL HIRSCHHORN AWARD for Outstanding Achievement in Musical Theatre is presented to Pasadena Playhouse for The Sondheim Celebration.

The MILTON KATSELAS AWARD for Career or Special Achievement in Direction is presented to Michael Michetti.

The KINETIC LIGHTING AWARD for distinguished achievement in theatrical design goes to Pablo Santiago who will receive a cash prize from Kinetic Lighting (https://kineticlighting.com/).

The TED SCHMITT AWARD for the World Premiere of an Outstanding New Play is awarded to Ashley Rose Wellman for Kill Shelter (Theatre of Note). Ms. Wellman will also receive a cash prize from our Schmitt Award sponsor, The Black List  (https://blcklst.com/).

The MARGARET HARFORD AWARD for Excellence in Theatre is given to Echo Theater Company, Chris Fields, Founding Artistic Director.

The complete list of award recipients for 2023 is as follows:

PRODUCTION

Kill Shelter; Theatre of NOTE

MCCULLOH AWARD FOR BEST REVIVAL

A Little Night Music; Pasadena Playhouse

DIRECTION

Shaina Rosenthal; Kill Shelter; Theatre of NOTE

WRITING-ORIGINAL Bernardo Cubría; Crabs in a Bucket; Echo Theater Company
Rosie Narasaki; Unrivaled; Playwrights’ Arena and Boston Court Pasadena.                       

WRITING-ADAPTATION

Aaron Posner; Life Sucks; Interact Theatre Company

MUSIC DIRECTION

Alby Potts; A Little Night Music; Pasadena Playhouse

CHOREOGRAPHY 

Joyce Guy; Much Ado About Nothing; A Noise Within

Casey Nicholaw; Mean Girls; Hollywood Pantages Theatre

MUSIC & LYRICS

Michael Shaw Fisher; Exorcistic: The Rock Musical; Orgasmico Theatre Company

LEAD PERFORMANCE

Merle Dandridge; A Little Night Music; Pasadena Playhouse

Edwin Lee Gibson; Fetch Clay, Make Man; Center Theatre Group/Kirk Douglas Theatre

Ashley Romans; Kill Shelter; Theatre of NOTE

FEATURED PERFORMANCE 

Tasha Ames; Do You Feel Anger?; Circle X Theatre Co.

Casey Smith; Do You Feel Anger?; Circle X Theatre Co.

ENSEMBLE

Life Sucks; Interact Theatre Company 

SCENIC DESIGNAlexander Dodge; The Engagement Party; Geffen Playhouse

LIGHTING DESIGN

Dan Weingarten; The Tempest: An Immersive Experience; The Shakespeare Center LA and After Hours Theatre Company

COSTUME DESIGN

Kate Bergh; A Little Night Music; Pasadena Playhouse

Lou Cranch; Crabs in a Bucket; Echo Theater Company

SOUND DESIGN

Alyssa Ishii; Unrivaled; Playwrights’ Arena and Boston Court Pasadena.

SOLO PERFORMANCE

Daniel K. Isaac; Every Brilliant Thing; Geffen Playhouse

PROJECTION / ANIMATION DESIGN (was missing a comma)

Yee Eun Nam; Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; Center Theatre Group / Mark Taper Forum

PUPPET DESIGN

Emory Royston; Kill Shelter; Theatre of NOTE

Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle (LADCC) Info: The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle current officers consist of President Jonas Schwartz-Owen (TheaterMania, BroadwayWorld/LA), Vice President Dana Martin (Stage Raw), Treasurer Hoyt Hilsman (Cultural Daily), Co-Secretaries Martίn Hernández (Stage Raw) and Philip Brandes (Stage Raw, LA Times, Santa Barbara Independent), Website/Social Media Co-Chairs Socks Whitmore (Stage Raw) and Patrick Chavis (LA Theatre Bites, The Orange Curtain Review) and Awards Chair Tracey Paleo (Gia On The Move, BroadwayWorld/LA).

The current 2024 membership of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle (in alphabetical order): Lara J. Altunian (Stage Raw, L.A. Dance Chronicle), Philip Brandes (Stage Raw, LA Times, Santa Barbara Independent), Katie Buenneke (Stage Raw, TheaterDigest.substack.com), Patrick Chavis (LA Theatre Bites, The Orange Curtain Review), F. Kathleen Foley (Stage Raw),  Anita W. Harris (LATheatrix.com), Martίn Hernández (Stage Raw), Hoyt Hilsman (Cultural Daily), Travis Michael Holder (TicketHoldersLA.com), Deborah Klugman (Stage Raw), 

Harker Jones (BroadwayWorld/LA), Dana Martin (Stage Raw), Myron Meisel (Stage Raw),                                                                                                                                               Terry Morgan (Stage Raw, ArtsBeatLA.com), Honorary Member Steven Leigh Morris (Stage Raw), Tracey Paleo (GiaOnTheMove.com/ BroadwayWorld/LA), Melinda Schupmann (ShowMag.com, ArtsInLA.com), Jonas Schwartz-Owen (TheaterMania, BroadwayWorld/LA), Don Shirley (Angeles Stage on Substack), and Socks Whitmore (Stage Raw).

Citation Totals by Production

A Little Night Music; Pasadena Playhouse; 4 wins

Kill Shelter; Theatre of NOTE; 4 wins

Life Sucks; Interact Theatre Company; 2 wins

Crabs in a Bucket; Echo Theater Company; 2 wins

Do You Feel Anger?; Circle X Theatre Co.; 2 wins

Unrivaled; Playwrights’ Arena and Boston Court; 2 wins

The Tempest: An Immersive Experience; The Shakespeare Center LA and After Hours Theatre Company; 1 win

Mean Girls; Hollywood Pantages Theatre; 1 win

Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; Center Theatre Group / Mark Taper Forum; 1 win

Every Brilliant Thing; Geffen Playhouse; 1 win

Exorcistic: The Rock Musical; Orgasmico Theatre Company; 1 win

Fetch Clay, Make Man; Center Theatre Group/Kirk Douglas Theatre; 1 win

The Engagement Party; Geffen Playhouse; 1 win

Much Ado About Nothing; A Noise Within; 1 win

Citation Totals by Company

Pasadena Playhouse; 4 winsTheatre of NOTE; 4 wins

Center Theatre Group; 2 wins

Interact Theatre Company; 2 wins

Echo Theater Company; 2 wins

Playwrights’ Arena and Boston Court Pasadena.; 2 wins

Circle X Theatre Co.; 2 wins

Geffen Playhouse; 2 wins

The Shakespeare Center LA and After Hours Theatre Company; 1 win

Hollywood Pantages Theatre; 1 win

Orgasmico Theatre Company; 1 win

A Noise Within; 1 win

By Rob Salerno | WEST HOLLYWOOD – Boundaries between blood, race, and sexuality are tested to their limits in Rogue Machine Theatre’s newest production, Christian St Croix’s Monsters of the American Cinema, opening April 6 in West Hollywood.

In Monsters, Remy Washington, a gay Black man whose husband has recently died, finds himself navigating single parenthood to his husband’s white teenage son, Pup, while managing solo ownership of a drive-in cinema. While Remy and Pup bond over their love of classic horror movies, their relationship comes under strain when Remy learns that Pup has been bullying a gay kid at school. 

San Diego-based playwright St. Croix says he was inspired to write the play by the diverse family types he sees in his everyday life.

“We’re beginning to tell more and more stories about LGBTQ parents the new monsters of some of those relationships,” he says. “I wanted to share the spotlight on the gay parent who isn’t the biological parent of the child and oftentimes doesn’t share blood or even skin.”

Setting the play around a drive-in theatre and using classic horror movies as a motif allows St. Croix to challenge American cultural norms using major symbols of Americana.

“I wanted to create more stories centered around these symbols of Americana and how those of us who are outside the idea of what these things were created for – gay people, Black people – interact with them,” he says.

He says he was inspired to write the play after a sleepless night led him to catch the classic 1954 horror film Creature from the Black Lagoon on late-night TV.  

“The effects are so cheesy in that movie. It’s so old it’s so corny, but at the time when it was released, I imagine it terrified people. And it got me to thinking about things that once terrified audiences, and the stories that can be created from that.”

One of the interesting choices in Monsters is telling a story about homophobic bullying where the bully is centered. St. Croix says he wanted to present a take on bullying that isn’t often seen or discussed.

“You know how they say that oftentimes bullies are coming from a bad home life themselves? Or, if they’re anti-gay, they must be gay themselves? I wanted to explore that idea because I found with my experience with a being bullied…I found that none of those things turned out to be true,” he says. “A lot of the time, their home life is okay, you know? They’re not reenacting something that they’re experiencing at home. Something else is going on.”

The play has won plaudits for its deft blending of comedy, drama, and magical realism, as well as its handling of racial and sexual taboos in productions across the country since premiering in Seattle in 2022. It also won the 2021 Carlo Annoni Prize, one of the largest international honors for queer playwrighting.

For the Los Angeles premiere, St. Croix has mostly stayed out of the production process, but he says he’s excited to see what the cast and director John Perrin Flynn have created. He says he’s long been a fan of Kevin Daniels, who plays the grieving husband Remy.

“I met him the first time in the callbacks and I told him I’m a fan of your work, and I think he thought I was just being nice, and it’s like, ‘No, bro. I’ve seen you on Frasier, Why Women Kill, Council of Dads,’” he says. “We’re social media buds now and we he sends me pictures of the rehearsals. We share music ideas. We actually teamed up together to do a mix tape to kind of accompany the show.”

“Logan Leonardo, our Pup, is a phenomenal young actor. He absolutely killed it in his call backs,” he says.

St. Croix says he wants people who see his play to take away the message that they have to confront the monsters in their lives and themselves.

“They surround us. We can’t escape them. But there are Pockets where  you have to connect with the other, you know be the co-workers or, in the case of Monsters, family.”

Monsters of the American Cinema produced by Rogue Machine Theatre, plays at the Matrix, 7657 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, from Apr 6 to May 19, Fri-Mon only.

Tickets at https://www.roguemachinetheatre.org/

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Rob Salerno is a writer and journalist based in Los Angeles, California, and Toronto, Canada.

By Rob Salerno | LOS ANGELES – On a hot summer afternoon, a young queer Black man, Juicy, is planning a barbecue party to celebrate his recently widowed mother’s wedding to his uncle, when he’s visited by his father’s ghost, who demands that he avenge his death.

That’s the set-up for Fat Ham, James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play that took Broadway by storm last year and is set to make its West Coast debut at the Geffen Playhouse April 5.

And if that sounds a little bit familiar, you’re not wrong. Fat Ham is a conscious adaptation of the classic Shakespeare tragedy Hamlet, framed through a queer Black lens, and given a patina of comedy and joy. 

For Sideeq Heard, who’s directing the LA production after assistant directing the Broadway production, locating the story in the Black community in the present is a way of uncovering new truths.

“There’s something so beautifully complex about the story that Shakespeare wrote where the brother ends up becoming his father, which is so absurd but also so compelling,” he says. “The genius of Shakespeare is you take the beautiful plot structure and context that he developed and set it anywhere and suddenly it becomes fresh and new over and over again.”

And why not a barbecue party? Disney put Hamlet in the Pride Lands and made The Lion King one of the highest-grossing animated franchises of all time – and one of Broadway’s longest-running musicals. 

But Fat Ham doesn’t just update the play for laughs. Ijames’ script uncovers the queer subtext that was always lurking underneath the tale of familial disappointment and resentment.

“[Hamlet]’s definitely queer because look how look how his family is treating him. Look how his friends are treating him. Look how his friends are being treated by their family,” Heard says. “It takes having queer focus in power and leading these stories for us to highlight elements in stories that have traditionally been told through heteronormative eyes.”

Heard says that way the Danish prince’s family constantly tells him to suppress his true feelings resonates with the Black queer experience.

“There’s something about our families in the Black community never wanting to speak about being queer ever. Don’t utter a word, and even if you are queer, it’s like, okay well, just do that on your own time in your own private home, but don’t bring it up at family dinners. If you bring your partner to the cookout just say they’re your best friend. We’ll believe that because you don’t want to believe that this is your like romantic lover.”

It’s still basically Hamlet, with all that entails – murder, betrayal, family strife, suicidal ideation – but Fat Ham leans into the comedy of the situation by playing up its absurdity. 

“We make those circumstances real. It’s a bit more actionable than Shakespeare’s take on it because the whole play for us is about Juicy trying to figure out, so how do you kill people?” Heard says.

Fat Ham also leans into the Shakespearean tropes of soliloquies and asides, which the hero Juicy uses to build a rapport with the audience through a slippery fourth wall. Heard says elements of the show will be slightly different every night depending on how the characters interact with the audience. 

Nearly the entire Broadway cast is reprising their roles in the Geffen Production, which Heard describes as a rare opportunity to bring new depths and facets of the show.

“We have been together for three years now and so every April for the past three years we have done this play,” he says. “We are all family because we’ve just been so fortunate to be connected together for so long. As I watched the company get to know each other over the years, they’re even more playful and spontaneous with each other partially because now they know each other.”

Fat Ham runs April 5-28 at the Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles. Previews begin March 27. Tickets available at geffenplayhouse.org.

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Rob Salerno is a writer and journalist based in Los Angeles, California, and Toronto, Canada.

By Rob Salerno | LONG BEACH, Calif. – The year is 1956. The biggest star in the world has defied the Hollywood studios and critics who dismissed her as a dumb blonde to spend a year studying acting with the greatest teachers of the era and has returned to launch her own production company with a film adaptation of a kooky Broadway play.

Along the way to making a classic film, Bus Stop, Marilyn Monroe begins a fraught and intense relationship with costar Eileen Heckart, one of the era’s most celebrated actresses. 

That rocky friendship forms the basis for Marilyn, Mom, and Me, a buzzy new show written and directed by Heckart’s son Luke Yankee, playing Feb 16 to Mar 3 at the International City Theatre in Long Beach, CA.

Yankee says the play stems from his attempts to come to terms with his own rocky relationship with his mother by understanding the deep connection she had with Marilyn Monroe.

“To the day my mother died, she could never talk about Marilyn without bursting into tears,” Yankee says. “I knew there was something very personal there and something very deep and that Marilyn had touched her in a way that no one else ever had.”

Marilyn, Mom, and Me stars Laura Gardner stars as Heckart, alongside Alisha Soper as Marilyn. Soper has previously played Marilyn on three different TV shows, including Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Bette and Joan and American Horror Story.

“I’m not just saying this, but many people feel [Sopel] is the best Maryland they have ever seen. I mean, she captures the voice, the walk, the intent,” Yankee says. “[Gardner] has probably seen everything my mother has done at this point and she so captures my mother. I mean, it’s uncanny.”

The fact that Soper has played Marilyn in so many different projects points to the incredible staying power Monroe has had in the public imagination. But despite decades worth of books, movies, plays, televisions shows, television shows about plays, and even an upcoming play based on a television show about a play based on Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn, Mom, and Me still finds a relatively unexplored are of the icon’s life to bring to the stage.

“People have said to me, ‘what could you possibly tell us about Marilyn Monroe that we don’t already know?’ But almost everything is about her relationships with men – JFK and Arthur Miller and all of that,” Yankee says. “I don’t know that there’s really anything else about another woman who was a contemporary of hers and who was really on equal footing.” 

“One of the ironic things is that this was at the time that Marilyn was the biggest star in the world and she wanted what my mother had. She wanted to be taken seriously as a legitimate actress.”

At the time, Marilyn had just spent a year studying with Lee Strasberg, and she had become the poster child for his “method” style of acting, which required actors to feel authentic emotions in their performances. As Marilyn and Heckart were playing best friends in Bus Stop, Marilyn was determined to become close friends with her in real life to enhance her performance. 

“At first my mother was like, ‘okay, who’s this starlet who’s glomming on to me and making me feel very uncomfortable?’ But the two of them really bonded through their wounds. For as much as they both achieved, because they were both adopted, neither of them ever truly felt that they deserved a place at the table,” Yankee says.

But the heart of the show is in Yankee’s difficult relationship with his demanding mother. Heckart, an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony-winning actress, prepared Yankee for a life in the theatre from a young age by being highly critical and expecting excellence in everything he did. 

“From the time I was eleven years old doing children’s theater in the basement of the YMCA, she would critique my performances like I was Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic. She’d sort of take a drag on her cigarette and say, ‘What the fuck were you doing on that stage?’” Yankee says. “Over time I realized that the good intention behind that was to make me a better actor and to toughen me up for the business but at age 11, I just wanted to supportive mom to tell me good job kid.” 

Their relationship grew strained when Yankee came out to his mother. Even though Heckart knew many gay men from her work on stage and screen, she found it difficult to accept her own son being gay at first.

“For a woman of that era there were no positive role models. I mean gay people were all either alcoholic or suicidal or promiscuous or all three,” Yankee says.

But despite the hard times, Marilyn, Mom, and Me is a tribute to Yankee’s mother. While the play reveals heretofore unseen sides of Marilyn Monroe, the stories it tells also help contextualize the difficulties in Heckart’s own life, and how they shaped both her incredible career and her relationship with her son.

Marilyn, Mom, and Me plays Feb 16 to Mar 3 at the International City Theatre in Long Beach, CA.

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Rob Salerno is a writer and journalist based in Los Angeles, California, and Toronto, Canada.