Tuesday, July 1, 2025
Patrick Hamilton's 1938 play, Gaslight, is the only theatrical title I can think of that later became a verb, and moreover one that's still in use today. The show was a success, running as A…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 01:48PM[SHARE]Monday, June 9, 2025
Â
In my most recent review on this site, I discussed my general wariness about imposing new directorial takes or twists on Shakespeare works. Once in a rare while, these changes can illum…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 09:36PM[SHARE]Thursday, May 29, 2025
I usually am somewhat wary of "new takes" or "twists" on classic plays, with cause. Changing the time period of a story or modernizing the text is no guarantee that the play will be any fres…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 02:24PM[SHARE]Monday, May 12, 2025
Sometimes, although not commonly, sheer visual spectacle without significant content is enough to qualify a play as a success. A lot of critics recently have been opining this about the Harr…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 08:02PM[SHARE]Tuesday, May 6, 2025
There's a line in Tom Jacobson's new play, Tasty Little Rabbit, which reads, "Today's blasphemy is tomorrow's orthodoxy." Five words, but they're imbued with so much historical truth. Almost…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 07:02PM[SHARE]Tuesday, April 22, 2025
Morgan's Rule #1 about theater reads thusly: When a play doesn't work, ninety-five percent of the time it's due to the writing. Sure, sometimes an actor doesn't quite connect with a part, or…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 11:48PM[SHARE]Monday, April 7, 2025
As a Literature major in my distant past, I have a shameful confession to make " I've never read Jane Eyre. I've read Ulysses and Absalom, Absalom, Toni Morrison and Annie Proulx, but never …
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 07:36PM[SHARE]Monday, March 3, 2025
Bat Boy: The Musical premiered in 1997 here in Los Angeles at the Actors' Gang Theatre, then went on to the West End and Off-Broadway, garnering awards and making the world somewhat safer f…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 10:06PM[SHARE]Sunday, February 23, 2025
Well, it took nine years, but the Harry Potter play has finally arrived in Los Angeles. I knew it would possibly be a while before it got here after premiering in London in 2016, but I didn'…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 06:36PM[SHARE]Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Antaeus Theatre Company has an excellent and longstanding reputation for being expert with classical theater work, from Ibsen to Pinter, with a particular affinity for Shakespeare. As best a…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 02:32PM[SHARE]Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Amidst the current blitzkrieg of corruption currently happening from the new presidential administration in this country, it's difficult to gather focus to write a theater review. I mean, it…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 05:48PM[SHARE]Monday, January 27, 2025
I have said before in these pages that I think Steve Yockey is one of the most original playwrights currently working. His combination of dark humor, oddball subject matter (ghosts, demons, …
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 09:06PM[SHARE]Monday, December 23, 2024
It's late December, when the events of the year are summed up and judged by the media, and why should I withhold praise? Every year has amazing theater in Los Angeles " sometimes a bit more,…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 09:42PM[SHARE]Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Photo credit is Ashley Erikson.
Ah, it's that time of year again, when the holiday lights go up, the temperature dips to the perilous lows of seventy-five degrees and children everywhere…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 02:42PM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 26, 2024
One thing that sadly doesn't seem like it's about to change in America anytime soon is the country's love of guns. Whether it's the byproduct of decades of fearmongering politicians and Fox …
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 03:18PM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 13, 2024
One of the things I most admire about the work of Stephen Sondheim is that he actively tried new things within the musical format. He certainly set himself technical challenges, such as tell…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 04:42PM[SHARE]Monday, October 21, 2024
Although new plays can be exciting and are crucial to the continuing vitality of theatre, I'm especially fond of older works, the more obscure the better. It's cheap time travel, immersing o…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 09:18PM[SHARE]Monday, October 14, 2024
Message plays are a pillar of western theater. Our entire theatrical ecosystem is unthinkable without works such as Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House or Larry Krame…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 08:18PM[SHARE]Tuesday, September 17, 2024
In my twenty-five years of theater reviewing, time and again when I find myself less enthusiastic about a show, ninety-nine percent of the time the culprit is the writing. One would think th…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 10:24PM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Thornton Wilder's 1942 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Skin of Our Teeth, is an assuredly odd duck. It's eighty-two years old but still seems postmodern with its frequent fourth-wall breaki…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 02:32PM[SHARE]Tuesday, August 20, 2024
In my fifty-seven years of life, I've never seen this country so divided and tribalized. I think the media bears a lot of blame for this, referring to us as living in red or blue states and …
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 02:03PM[SHARE]Thursday, August 1, 2024
Fans of history can't help but wish they were there for private, unrecorded conversations between famed historical figures, to be the proverbial fly on the wall and gain insight into what th…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 12:00PM[SHARE]Thursday, July 18, 2024
Welcome to Watching the Dark, a regular column featuring essays, articles and reviews about horror films. Written by Terry Morgan.
Longlegs in cinemas
This is the third piece of a thr…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 03:48PM[SHARE]Sunday, July 14, 2024
The first time I read Jon Robin Baitz's 1991 play, The Substance of Fire, and later saw the film made from it, I liked it. I wasn't alone " the success of that play catapulted Baitz into the…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 06:32PM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 3, 2024
It may be less well known now, but back in the 1960s, the character of surfer girl Gidget was popular and influential, the subject of novels, films and TV series starring the likes of Sandra…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 02:18PM[SHARE]Thursday, June 27, 2024
Welcome to Watching the Dark, a regular column featuring essays and articles about horror films. Written by Terry Morgan.
I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House from Netflix
Qu…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 10:06PM[SHARE]Thursday, May 30, 2024
Welcome to Watching the Dark, a new regular column featuring reviews and articles about horror films. Written by Terry Morgan.
The Blackcoat's Daughter from A24
The Angels, They Forg…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 08:12PM[SHARE]Monday, May 20, 2024
Musicals can have many different formats, but the two most prevalent structures these days are the traditional and the jukebox. The traditional (incorporating Sondheim, because his changes a…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 01:36PM[SHARE]Thursday, May 16, 2024
Welcome to Watching the Dark, a new regular column featuring reviews and articles about horror films. Written by Terry Morgan.
You Can't Run Forever from Lionsgate
I've been a critic…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 04:12PM[SHARE]Monday, April 29, 2024
If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, perhaps the road to freedom is paved with righteous anger? Henrik Ibsen may have thought so when he wrote his proto-feminist play, A Doll's…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 02:18PM[SHARE]Tuesday, April 9, 2024
According to the great sages of the internet, Hamlet is the most produced play in world history, and whether or not that claim is true, the indecisive Dane is certainly ubiquitous. And if it…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 04:42PM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
