KCRW's Theatre Talk

Curtain Up on 2009

podmaster@kcrw.org (James C. Taylor) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:44:00 EST

Well it's starting to happen. It was recently reported that Vanities, a musical staged by the Pasadena Playhouse last fall, is no longer moving to Broadway. The reason the producers gave for what was optimistically called a postponement, not a cancellation: "the volatile economic climate..."

Journey's End

podmaster@kcrw.org (James C. Taylor) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 13:44:00 EST

On Sunday night I saw my last play of 2008 â and it also happened to be the last night of that showâone that's been touring for over two years...

Piven 'Plows' Out, 'Dog' Still Has Bite

podmaster@kcrw.org (James C. Taylor) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:44:00 EST

David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow has always been a play that makes headlines. When it first appeared on Broadway, the buzz was about Madonna making her stage debut in the part of Karen, a Hollywood D-Girl on the make. This year, in its first Broadway revival since that Tony Award-winning production, Speed-the-Plow is again making headlines thanks to who's dropping out of it. This week it was announced that Jeremy Piven of Entourage fame is leaving the part of Bobby Gould after only 50 performances of what was his Broadway debut...

Old Black Magic (Emphasis on the Old)

podmaster@kcrw.org (James C. Taylor) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:59:00 EST

Louis Prima was one of the most famous American Pop Musicians of the mid-20th century. His nickname was the "King of the Swingers" and from the 1940's up until his death in 1978, he was a fixture at nightclubs, on television specials and most of all, in Vegas....

Schenkkan, Not Stirred

podmaster@kcrw.org (James C. Taylor) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:51:00 EST

Robert Schenkkan is a playwright that Los Angeles has not forgotten. Schenkkan won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1992 for his sprawling work The Kentucky Cycle. It was a big hit on the west coast, first in Seattle and then here at the Mark Taper Forum. But it played on Broadway for only a few weeks and since then no Schenkkan play has been seen in America's theater capital...

High-Tech, Low-Key Dramas

podmaster@kcrw.org (James C. Taylor) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:44:00 EST

An old theater quip states, "nothing is as old-fashioned as the avant-garde." This may often be the case, but this week Los Angeles saw two productions that were "old-fashioned" and "avant-garde" in the best senses of both expressions...

Hit-the-Road Shows: Theatre for a New Economy

podmaster@kcrw.org (James C. Taylor) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:44:00 EST

One of the powers that theater possesses, more so than literature, painting or even cinema, is the ability to speak directly to a particular time period long after a work was first created. Novels, poems, portraits or films can all gain new relevance (or more often, irrelevance) with time; but theater, because it is live and must be recreated in the present (and not merely preserved and observed anew) holds the special potential to connect the wisdom or folly of the past with the immediate present...

Four More Days!

podmaster@kcrw.org (James C. Taylor) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:44:00 EST

This week, theater followers and, well, followers of just about everything have been focused on the next four years; but this week, Theatre Talk is focused on four days that took place last month...

Speech and Debate

podmaster@kcrw.org (James C. Taylor) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:44:00 EST

There is nothing more exciting for theatergoers than watching new, theatrical talent blossom on stage in front of your eyes. Earlier this year, I experienced this thrill during the run of Stephen Karam's then-brand new play: Speech & Debateâand I experienced it in quadruple fashion as all of the play's young actors were so alive, so perfectly cast that I couldn't wait to see each of them in their next performance...

Unstable and Unsubtle

podmaster@kcrw.org (James C. Taylor) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:44:00 EST

Two well-worn, theatrical chestnuts are currently drawing big crowds on Broadway: the 61-year old Arthur Miller drama, All My Sons and the 35-year old Peter Schaffer drama, Equus. Both of these plays are revived with regularity all over the country in community theaters as well as schools...