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The Fix: Citizen Chandler

April 28, 2012 By Ed Rampell Leave a Comment

the fix

Ed Rampell: While this new rock musical may not exactly be a documentary, The Fix is fixated on and very on target regarding the sorry state of what passes for electoral politics during the current presidential sweepstakes.

Filed Under: Stage Tagged With: Acid Queen, Alix Korey, Bobby Fischer, Carlos Delgado, Chess Games, ed rampell, Electoral Politics, Hayslip, Inexorable March, John Dempsey, Lady Macbeth, Manchurian Candidate, Media Manipulation, Minor Inconveniences, Mistretta, Nelson Rockefeller, Photo Carlos, Presidential Sweepstakes, Professor Xavier, Sex Scandals, Showstoppers, Sorry State, T Lewis, Target

Naked Before God: Putting the Screw into Screwball Comedy

April 25, 2012 By Ed Rampell Leave a Comment

naked before god

Ed Rampell: A porn star’s life is ripe with comedy and melodrama, and playwright Leo Geter mines this funky fecund material to humorous effect in Naked Before God

Filed Under: Stage Tagged With: Case Caption, Circle X Theatre Company, Earthly Riches, Ethnic Identities, Evangelical Christianity, Foley, Full Frontal Nudity, Grist For The Mill, Humorous Effect, Larry Clarke, Leo Geter, Mice And Men, Mile A Minute, Naked Before God, Radio Talk Show, Radio Talk Show Host, Rollicking Romp, Salyers, Screwball Comedies, Screwball Comedy, Switch Hitters, Talk Show Host

From Morse Code to Martin Buber to Net Neutrality and Beyond

April 7, 2012 By Dick Price Leave a Comment

eternal thou

In Eternal Thou, playwright and director Matthew McCray builds a science fiction world that traces the development of the telecommunication industry’s evolution from Morse code through rudimentary Defense Department computer networks to a futurist all-encompassing, sentient, almost living Internet that ultimately brings us closer to God.

Filed Under: Stage Tagged With: Appelbaum, Atwater Village, Department Computer, Development Of Arpanet, Evolving Technology, Google, Jeffrey Johnson, Liam Springthorpe, Martin Buber, Matthew Mccray, Morse Code, Net Neutrality, Philosophical Insights, Preferential Rates, S Vision, Science Fiction World, Sose, Steven Speilberg, Telecom Giants, Telecommunication Industry

LAWTF Takes Audiences Up, Up and Away to a Theatrical Dimension

March 24, 2012 By Ed Rampell Leave a Comment

venus jones

Ed Rampell: The 19th annual Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival is celebrating females and the footlights through March 25 at the Electric Lodge in Venice.

Filed Under: Stage Tagged With: Aguiluz, Aliah, Chrystee Pharris, Delicious Buffet, Donohoo, Drug Habits, Dynamic Duo, Footlights, History Month, Huey Newton, Innuendoes, Ivy Substation, Love Boat, Morrone, Non Profit Organization, Revolutionary Politics, Second Act, Solo Performers, Strutting Their Stuff, Ted Lange

New Jerusalem: Inherit the Whine

March 19, 2012 By Ed Rampell Leave a Comment

Ed Rampell: This is the stuff that makes for heady drama: The clash of ideas plus a trial, which is inherently confrontational, generating the conflict tragedies thrive on.

Filed Under: Stage Tagged With: Christian Culture, David Ives, Dutch Republic, Excommunication, Free Thinker, Jerusalem Theatre, New Jerusalem, Non Conformist, Old And New Testaments, Palmer Raids, Peter Zenger, Rational Thought, Salem Witch Trials, Scopes Monkey Trial, Second Class Citizenship, Social Milieu, Spanish Inquisition, spinoza, Status Quo, Wandering Jews, World War I

Homage to Harold: Praising Playwright and Poet Pinter

March 14, 2012 By Ed Rampell Leave a Comment

sands malkovich

Ed Rampell: According to press notes, what is now a homage to Harold grew out of an invitation to Pinter to read his poems at a benefit for a women’s shelter at a London church.

Filed Under: Stage Tagged With: Act Two, Antonia Fraser, British Poet, Contemporaries, Director John, Dragon Tattoo, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, English Playwright, Fellow Brit, Great Writers, Harold Pinter, Homage, John Malkovich, Julian Sands, Man Show, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Playwright Samuel Beckett, samuel beckett, Ticket Buyers, Tv Series 24

Putting the Hell into Helter Skelter and the California Dream

March 7, 2012 By Ed Rampell Leave a Comment

california dreaming

Ed Rampell: I went to see playwright Jill Charlotte Thomas’ dramatization of the Manson Tribe’s trials and tribulations with much trepidation, but left glad that I had screwed up the courage to confront such genuinely creepy subject matter.

Filed Under: Stage Tagged With: Abigail Folger, Actress Sharon Tate, Beautiful People, California Dream, California Dreamin, Charlie Manson, Charlotte Thomas, Class Consciousness, Dramatization, Dregs, Gibbie, helter skelter, Killing Spree, Radcliff, Roman Polanski, San Francisco Coffee, Sex And Rock, Sharon Tate, Trials And Tribulations, Weird Sort, Wojciech Frykowski

The Battle of Britten: Chaste Makes Waste

February 29, 2012 By Ed Rampell Leave a Comment

albert herring

Ed Rampell: This good fun opera about sexual repression unfortunately remains all too contemporary, what with Republican presidential candidates debating contraception and Rick Satan-orum running for witch-burner-in-chief and all.

Filed Under: Stage Tagged With: Albert Herring, Alek Shrader, Benjamin Britten, British Countryside, Christine Brewer, Domestic Servant, Edwardian England, Florence Pike, Green Grocer, Jane Bunnell, Janis Kelly, Jonathan Michie, Margaret Thatcher, Mezzo Soprano, Republican Presidential Candidates, Richard Bernstein, Robert Mcpherson, Sexual Repression, Vestal Virgins, Witch Burner

The Past Is a Grotesque Animal Review

February 24, 2012 By Ed Rampell Leave a Comment

grotesque animal

Ed Rampell: A series of witty and poignant vignettes, Grotesque is sort of La Ronde meets The 39 Steps meets Samuel Beckett.

Filed Under: Stage Tagged With: 39 Steps, Alfred Hitchcock, Argentines, Chara, Cinema Classic, Don T Cry, Existential Angst, experimental theatre, Gamboa, Javier Lorenzo, La Ronde, Maria Ines, One Woman, Redcat, Romance Sex, samuel beckett, Spanish English, Stagehand, Theatrical Adaptation, Vignette One

Simon Boccanegra: Who Let the Doge Out?

February 20, 2012 By Ed Rampell 2 Comments

simon boccanegra

Ed Rampell: Widely perceived as a hoity-toity elite art form for the 1%, opera often gets a bum rap as stuffed shirts’ sonic sphere, but Giuseppe Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra gives the lie to this cliché.

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Filed Under: Stage Tagged With: Ana MaríA, Benito Mussolini, Bum Rap, Communist Manifesto, Conductor James, Fiesco, Giuseppe Verdi, Il Duce, James Conlon, Jump Cuts, Language Equivalent, Marx And Engels, Mistaken Identities, Patrician Class, placido domingo, Plebians, Robert Millard, Simon Boccanegra, Stuffed Shirts, Tenor Placido Domingo, Venetian Dialect, Vitalij

Popular This Month

Brenth Budowsky: What is
astounding and incomprehensible is the degree that Obama and too many Democrats have surrendered on first principle policies where the majority of voters agree with the
progressives.

mike price marsha williams

Wayne Williams: Mike was cantankerous, brilliant, stubborn, and, of course, funny. He never knew his parents, was adopted and raised by a casino boss, served with the U.S. Marines in Korea, wrote for many comedy shows and comics, and wrote perfect prose to his hearts content, performed stand up himself, and taught others how to do so as well.

no strings attached

Steve Hochstadt: Is Hollywood trying to push a gay agenda on right-thinking Americans, as some people claim? I think it’s the other way around: Hollywood is trying to sell products.