A Lesson in Dramaturgy

The Echo Theater Company is presenting the world premiere of Handjob written by Erik Patterson. In the #MeToo, Times Up, Harvey Weinstein era, this play seems to be positioning itself as a statement piece. It wants to join the conversation, but is it able to? If we break the play down to its most basic dramatic parts, we’ll find the answer.

Photo by Darrett Sanders

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Confounding Witch Leaves Much to Be Desired

At some point recently, the theater, at least in Los Angeles, has changed from a medium of thematic exploration and development to one of undisguised political posturing and heavy-handed morality.  The latest victim of this sophomoric writing style is Witch, written by Jen Silverman and playing now at the Geffen Playhouse. 

Photo by Jeff Lorch

Deconstructing Female Empowerment in 1930s New England

By Patrick Hurley

Considered a feminist classic, an avant-garde trailblazer, and a groundbreaking theatrical experience Fefu and her Friends by Maria Irene Fornes, playing now at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, is at once confounding, inquisitive, and thought-provoking.

Photo by Enci Box

Wrong Proves Sometimes To Be Sort of Right.

By Patrick Hurley

Somewhere between a Vegas show and a Theme park experience sits The Play That Goes Wrong, a Mischief Theatre Production- playing now at the Ahmanson theatre.

Photo by Jeremy Daniel

Dear John

Dear John,

🌈 Happy Pride! 🌈

Indecent: an Incandescent Tribute to the Power of Art

By Patrick Hurley

Photo by Craig Schwartz

Clocking in at one hour and forty-five minutes, Paula Vogel’s Indecent, playing now at the Ahmanson theatre, packs as many themes and covers as much ground as probably theatrically possible in that time.

Let Me Make This Perfectly Queer

Theatre is a queer art.

This might be a bold, generalization, for surely there can be no cultural attachment to an artform, only works of art that are submerged within it.

Smoke & Mirrors Is A Fabulous Allusion.

By Patrick Hurley

Sash Velour, winner of Season 9 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, brings a performance art aesthetic to Drag in her one-queen show Smoke & Mirrors, and the result is a technically impressive blend of camp, memoir, and fabulousness.

Photo by Jeff Eason

A Letter to John Kelly

By Patrick Hurley

Dear Mr. Kelly,

This is in response to your solo performance art piece titled, Time No Line that I just saw at Redcat in Los Angeles.

Singin’ in the Rain is a Delightful Revisit to A Glorious Feeling.

By Patrick Hurley

There are very few movie musicals that are so well-written, solidly structured and infused with such joy that a mere re-creation on stage almost seventy years later actually works. Singin’ In the Rain, playing now at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, is such a show.