To celebrate an underappreciated aspect of preserving theater, we also celebrate each show's photography with 12
desktop calendars that - due to space limitations - will be made available during the course of the year. To download
the March 2007 Desktop Calendar, recalling the March 2006 production of 'Body of Water,' click here. The April 2007
desktop, commemorating A Noise Within's 'Ubu Roil, is here. We thank the photographers whose work is presented:
Craig Schwartz, Ken Howard, Michael Lamont, Henry DiRocco, and, to start things off in January, the last press shot
taken by Yours Truly.
What Becomes a Landmark?
These 12 citations are for actors, writers, directors, designers and overall productions that were both artistic and
probing. This dozen led these categories in our opinion and at this time.
Here are a dozen 2006 theater landmarks that will always rise up in our rearview. They are listed in the order that their
desktop calendars are available. The photo thumbnails (at left) are included in the composites along with a quote from
the Appraisal and production credits. We hope you enjoy them.
Favorite Premiere
T H E F U R T H E R A D V E N T U R E S O F H E D D A G A B L E R
by Jeff Whitty
South Coast Repertory
South Coast Repertory assembled a great team for this world premiere from the man who wrote the book on Avenue Q.
Once Whitty has established his world and its natural laws, he mines them for hilarious results. Naturally, each
character is trapped in the story-cycle that his or her creator -- be it Henrik Ibsen or George Lucas - designed for
them. But, in holding mirrors up to nature, things get reversed. Here the most forlorn characters have the longest
shelf life; the suicidal are virtually immortal.
Favorite Featured Male
L E N L E S S E R
The Price
A Noise Within
A February trip to A Noise Within for a first look at The Price, the company’s oft-revived Arthur Miller classic.
(In fact, it again will be running during February 2007.)
The acting is uniformly fine and engaging. (Hence the repeated retrieval from storage of Michael C Smith’s set
and Angela Calin’s costumes.) But the revelation is Lesser, playing the 90-something Soloman with the kind of
weary valiance that comes with being a seasoned pro of 85. In the same way the play and the theater bring each
other to life, Soloman and Lesser clearly combine to make their moments of oneness some of the best either has
had. Miller is surely smiling whenever Lesser is onstage.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
Favorite Set
A B O D Y O F W A T E R
Michael Vaughn Sims
Old Globe Theatre
In March, with the world premiere of Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’’ making such cacophony on the main
stage, it was easy to miss this floating wonder in the Cassius Carter.
[Ethan] McSweeny has elicited exciting portrayals of calm at the edge of reason as well as crack creative work
from his designers. Sims' wonderfully clean platform set floats in the Cassius Carter, surrounded by pools of
water. Sims, McSweeny and Roth team to create one unforgettable sequence when, between two Act II scenes, the
windows lower into the pools instead of rising. When the panes are pulled up to haunting piano accompaniment,
the perforated troughs along the bottoms create sheets of rain. It's a powerful and ominous image that the entire
stage is being lifted out of the lake.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
Favorite Revival
U B U R O I
Directed and choreographed by Julia Rodriguez Elliott
A Noise Within
In April, A Noise Within revives Alfred Jarry’s ‘Ubu Roi’ with right risque burlesque to make it feel daring again. Special
nods here to Alan Blumenfeld, Deborah Strang, musical director David O and director Julia Rodriguez Elliott.
An energetic and impassioned production of 'Ubu Roi,' Alfred Jarry's landmark lampoon of bourgeois foolishness,
has transformed A Noise Within's Masonic Hall into an asylum auditorium and ticket-holders into visitors on 90-
minute passes. Director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott whips up a successful foam of theatrical madness that, like a
carnival tumbling over a cliff, begins in descent and gets more riveting and dangerous as it picks up speed.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
Favorite Musical
T H E B L A C K R I D E R : T H E C A S T I N G O F T H E M A G I C B U L L E T S
By Robert Wilson, Tom Waits and William S. Burroughs
Ahmanson Theatre
In May, first-year Artistic Director Michael Ritchie offered an alternative to the dullness of his 'Dead End' and the
commercial slickness of 'Curtains.' It was a revival of this exotic work from three American iconoclasts, a rare bit of
theater artistry that was ambitious enough to offer breath-taking flights of imagination. Critics still weren't happy.
The show begins by reversing time. A casket-sized black box up-ends itself to create the doorway through which
our cast will appear. To introduce them, an imposing figure (John Vickery) appears in the house in cowled black
cape, shouting through a scratchy megaphone. Wings of vivid eye shadow wrapped nearly to his short blond hair,
he makes his way to the stage, introducing an extraordinary gallery of circus freaks, created by a more
extraordinary company of players. The actors have somehow found the humanity in these arch, over-stylized
characters.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
Favorite Director
B I L L R A U C H
As You Like It
Pasadena Playhouse / Cornerstone Theater Company (co-production)
Only one choice for Favorite Director in 2007 and it had to be Bill Rauch, who leaves the Southland for Ashland after 20
years co-running the Cornerstone Theater Company he co-founded. He left us with many memories, including this
signature As You Like It, re-imagined by Alison Carey, and the show that earned 'Favorite Premiere' (above). He is the
June 2007 Calendar Boy, which is the month he begins working full time as Artistic Director of the mighty Oregon
Shakespeare Festival.
As You Like It: Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’ has been taken up by the good folks at the Cornerstone Theater
Company in time to celebrate the talents of departing co-founder Bill Rauch, who directs, to remind of the talents
of remaining co-founder Alison Carey, who adapts, and to characterize the state of marriage law to be not as they
like it.
The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler: The contribution of director Bill Rauch is enormous. He manages to keep
acting and design feeling wildly anarchic as he delivers all the script’s nuance and depth.
Composite includes photographs by Ken Howard, Cristofer Gross, Craig Schwartz
Favorite Music / Sound
G I N A L E I S H M A N
Mother Courage
La Jolla Playhouse
While a marque version of Brecht's famous anti-war play was turning critics into protesters in New York, the La Jolla
Playhouse quietly mounted a beauty. What this play still has to say was given voice by Lisa Peterson and company.
By bringing together David Hare’s adaptation with new music by Gina Leishman under the guidance of Lisa
Peterson and her team, . . . [ this ] feels like the production Brecht would want for a Southern California
audience. Director Peterson and set designer Rachel Hauck have turned the Forum stage area into one vast
blackboard-paneled squash court, which beautifully offsets the faded color of David Zinn’s distressed costumes.
It also brings the Brecht/Hare language to the forefront as the actors chalk key words and descriptions onto the
floor and the walls. With a couple of striped, full-width drapes to close off playing areas, the versatile cast lead
by Yvonne Coll as Courage, scuff the accumulating words to powdery memory. Peterson's concept capably delivers
a war story of people destroyed by their own adherence to the war's myths. Leishman’s score is a rich fabric of
drinking songs, burlesque numbers and sad ballads.
Photograph by Ken Howard
Favorite Female Lead
K I R S T E N P O T T E R
As You Like It
A Noise Within
The other 'As You Like It' in the Los Angeles area benefited from Michael Michetti's enchanting vision of an guiding,
guileless anthropomorphic spirit world and an extremely promising actress as Rosalind.
Michetti has a real ringer in Kirsten Potter, also making her ANW debut, as fair Rosalind. Potter is a gifted stage
actress. Her every utterance is articulated like a linguist yet sounds spontaneous. She has the internal chemistry
from which stars are formed. Complementing this superior sense of language is great physical control and comic
instincts. That said, she employs a piercing laugh intended to show Rosalind’s immaturity in love, or perhaps
sourced in the line: “I will laugh like a Hyen(a),” that seems more likely to paint Rosalind as bi-polar. This can’t
take away from her top-notch performance, but it seems a choice worth revisiting. She also seems more than
capable, while posing as a male advising Orlando (Mark Deakins) on love, of hinting at the battle raging between
her mind and her heart, that her overwhelming attraction towards him makes this a bit of a challenge.
Photograph by Craig Schwartz
Favorite Male Lead
E R I C D . S T E I N B E R G
Nothing Sacred
South Coast Repertory
Embodying this shifting demand for passion and philosophizing is an ensemble of solid actors who generally rise
to the challenge. Most impressive is Eric D. Steinberg in his first lead role at this theater. In one of the finest
male performances in memory, Steinberg appears to be Yevgeny Bazarov, a brilliant medical student who is
equally adept at attracting men to his nihilist theories as he is at attracting women to his side. He seems to have
been born off-book for this role, just speaking his mind as others render the lines of their script.
Photo by Ken Howard
Favorite Costumes
M A G G I E M O R G A N
Bach at Leipzig
South Coast Repertory
Both the SCR Scene Shop and the Costume Shop got high marks for this seat and costumes, but the threads were truly
beyond anything we saw in our theatergoing. So it's hats off to Maggie, Amy Hutto, and those great seamstresses.
Art Manke helps his all male cast generate individuality in characters cut from sections of the same cloth. (Which
makes this a good point to mention that Maggie Morgan’s costumes are exceptional: Were there royalty in Orange
County, and I’m not saying there isn’t, they could hardly be better appointed than by Morgan and the SCR
Costume Shop.) Not only do all the characters have the same goal, they all have the same willingness to break the
rules to achieve it. They all resort at one time or another to the vaudevillian, slapstick energy that one expects to
open into a rondelay of the “Vessel with the Pestle/Chalice in the Palace.”
Photo by Henry DiRocco
Favorite Featured Female
M I S S Y Y A G E R
Rabbit Hole
Geffen Playhouse
The Geffen Production of David Lindsay-Abaire had some measuring up to do after an exceptionally cast reading at
South Coast Repertory introduced the play and its lead role then earned Cynthia Nixon a Tony Award. Carolyn Cantor,
who had directed the reading, retook the reins for the Westwood stand and served up a great version. Images of the
first viewing remained, except in the case of the sister, played by Missy Yager, who built on Sarah Rafferty's first steps for
a greatly balanced side dish to Amy Ryan's troubled lead.
Lindsay-Abaire and Cantor keep Becca unmistakable — as recognizable as any neighbor we might pass in the
market. It's impossible to guess the displacement and alienation she is suffering. That tight clutch of normalcy, as
Ryan and the rest of the cast (which also includes Joyce Van Patten and a stunning Missy Yager) show, is what
makes for such a huge explosion when the fission finally comes.
Photo by Michael Lamont
Favorite Lighting
C O L I N Y O U N G
In the Continuum
by Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter
Kirk Douglas Theatre
That every year could end with a production as thrilling and meaningful as this two-woman show that has been winning
hearts and minds -- with the same cast and design -- on three continents. Every aspect could have been dubbed a
favorite, but that would be pretty dull. Clearly Ms. Gurira and Ms. Salter are the stars. But the way the lighting
complemented the shifting focus between Africa and America was a special part of the equation.
Robert O’Hara’s unobtrusive direction is enhanced by a simple yet evocative design. Two beautifully painted
walls – one with a cut-out doorway – angle towards upstage center at ninety degrees, kept apart by the gap around
a similarly painted pillar. A trunk, two stools, an end table of stacked crates and some miscellaneous items are the
show’s only props. Colin Young’s lights, Lindsay Jones’ sound cues, and Sarah Hillard’s costumes of black slacks
and tops, no shoes, and a bright red African print scarf for Gurira and a blue bandana for Salter are all the
women need to divide themselves into a catalogue of distinct and unforgettable characters.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
desktop calendars that - due to space limitations - will be made available during the course of the year. To download
the March 2007 Desktop Calendar, recalling the March 2006 production of 'Body of Water,' click here. The April 2007
desktop, commemorating A Noise Within's 'Ubu Roil, is here. We thank the photographers whose work is presented:
Craig Schwartz, Ken Howard, Michael Lamont, Henry DiRocco, and, to start things off in January, the last press shot
taken by Yours Truly.
What Becomes a Landmark?
These 12 citations are for actors, writers, directors, designers and overall productions that were both artistic and
probing. This dozen led these categories in our opinion and at this time.
Here are a dozen 2006 theater landmarks that will always rise up in our rearview. They are listed in the order that their
desktop calendars are available. The photo thumbnails (at left) are included in the composites along with a quote from
the Appraisal and production credits. We hope you enjoy them.
Favorite Premiere
T H E F U R T H E R A D V E N T U R E S O F H E D D A G A B L E R
by Jeff Whitty
South Coast Repertory
South Coast Repertory assembled a great team for this world premiere from the man who wrote the book on Avenue Q.
Once Whitty has established his world and its natural laws, he mines them for hilarious results. Naturally, each
character is trapped in the story-cycle that his or her creator -- be it Henrik Ibsen or George Lucas - designed for
them. But, in holding mirrors up to nature, things get reversed. Here the most forlorn characters have the longest
shelf life; the suicidal are virtually immortal.
Favorite Featured Male
L E N L E S S E R
The Price
A Noise Within
A February trip to A Noise Within for a first look at The Price, the company’s oft-revived Arthur Miller classic.
(In fact, it again will be running during February 2007.)
The acting is uniformly fine and engaging. (Hence the repeated retrieval from storage of Michael C Smith’s set
and Angela Calin’s costumes.) But the revelation is Lesser, playing the 90-something Soloman with the kind of
weary valiance that comes with being a seasoned pro of 85. In the same way the play and the theater bring each
other to life, Soloman and Lesser clearly combine to make their moments of oneness some of the best either has
had. Miller is surely smiling whenever Lesser is onstage.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
Favorite Set
A B O D Y O F W A T E R
Michael Vaughn Sims
Old Globe Theatre
In March, with the world premiere of Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’’ making such cacophony on the main
stage, it was easy to miss this floating wonder in the Cassius Carter.
[Ethan] McSweeny has elicited exciting portrayals of calm at the edge of reason as well as crack creative work
from his designers. Sims' wonderfully clean platform set floats in the Cassius Carter, surrounded by pools of
water. Sims, McSweeny and Roth team to create one unforgettable sequence when, between two Act II scenes, the
windows lower into the pools instead of rising. When the panes are pulled up to haunting piano accompaniment,
the perforated troughs along the bottoms create sheets of rain. It's a powerful and ominous image that the entire
stage is being lifted out of the lake.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
Favorite Revival
U B U R O I
Directed and choreographed by Julia Rodriguez Elliott
A Noise Within
In April, A Noise Within revives Alfred Jarry’s ‘Ubu Roi’ with right risque burlesque to make it feel daring again. Special
nods here to Alan Blumenfeld, Deborah Strang, musical director David O and director Julia Rodriguez Elliott.
An energetic and impassioned production of 'Ubu Roi,' Alfred Jarry's landmark lampoon of bourgeois foolishness,
has transformed A Noise Within's Masonic Hall into an asylum auditorium and ticket-holders into visitors on 90-
minute passes. Director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott whips up a successful foam of theatrical madness that, like a
carnival tumbling over a cliff, begins in descent and gets more riveting and dangerous as it picks up speed.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
Favorite Musical
T H E B L A C K R I D E R : T H E C A S T I N G O F T H E M A G I C B U L L E T S
By Robert Wilson, Tom Waits and William S. Burroughs
Ahmanson Theatre
In May, first-year Artistic Director Michael Ritchie offered an alternative to the dullness of his 'Dead End' and the
commercial slickness of 'Curtains.' It was a revival of this exotic work from three American iconoclasts, a rare bit of
theater artistry that was ambitious enough to offer breath-taking flights of imagination. Critics still weren't happy.
The show begins by reversing time. A casket-sized black box up-ends itself to create the doorway through which
our cast will appear. To introduce them, an imposing figure (John Vickery) appears in the house in cowled black
cape, shouting through a scratchy megaphone. Wings of vivid eye shadow wrapped nearly to his short blond hair,
he makes his way to the stage, introducing an extraordinary gallery of circus freaks, created by a more
extraordinary company of players. The actors have somehow found the humanity in these arch, over-stylized
characters.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
Favorite Director
B I L L R A U C H
As You Like It
Pasadena Playhouse / Cornerstone Theater Company (co-production)
Only one choice for Favorite Director in 2007 and it had to be Bill Rauch, who leaves the Southland for Ashland after 20
years co-running the Cornerstone Theater Company he co-founded. He left us with many memories, including this
signature As You Like It, re-imagined by Alison Carey, and the show that earned 'Favorite Premiere' (above). He is the
June 2007 Calendar Boy, which is the month he begins working full time as Artistic Director of the mighty Oregon
Shakespeare Festival.
As You Like It: Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’ has been taken up by the good folks at the Cornerstone Theater
Company in time to celebrate the talents of departing co-founder Bill Rauch, who directs, to remind of the talents
of remaining co-founder Alison Carey, who adapts, and to characterize the state of marriage law to be not as they
like it.
The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler: The contribution of director Bill Rauch is enormous. He manages to keep
acting and design feeling wildly anarchic as he delivers all the script’s nuance and depth.
Composite includes photographs by Ken Howard, Cristofer Gross, Craig Schwartz
Favorite Music / Sound
G I N A L E I S H M A N
Mother Courage
La Jolla Playhouse
While a marque version of Brecht's famous anti-war play was turning critics into protesters in New York, the La Jolla
Playhouse quietly mounted a beauty. What this play still has to say was given voice by Lisa Peterson and company.
By bringing together David Hare’s adaptation with new music by Gina Leishman under the guidance of Lisa
Peterson and her team, . . . [ this ] feels like the production Brecht would want for a Southern California
audience. Director Peterson and set designer Rachel Hauck have turned the Forum stage area into one vast
blackboard-paneled squash court, which beautifully offsets the faded color of David Zinn’s distressed costumes.
It also brings the Brecht/Hare language to the forefront as the actors chalk key words and descriptions onto the
floor and the walls. With a couple of striped, full-width drapes to close off playing areas, the versatile cast lead
by Yvonne Coll as Courage, scuff the accumulating words to powdery memory. Peterson's concept capably delivers
a war story of people destroyed by their own adherence to the war's myths. Leishman’s score is a rich fabric of
drinking songs, burlesque numbers and sad ballads.
Photograph by Ken Howard
Favorite Female Lead
K I R S T E N P O T T E R
As You Like It
A Noise Within
The other 'As You Like It' in the Los Angeles area benefited from Michael Michetti's enchanting vision of an guiding,
guileless anthropomorphic spirit world and an extremely promising actress as Rosalind.
Michetti has a real ringer in Kirsten Potter, also making her ANW debut, as fair Rosalind. Potter is a gifted stage
actress. Her every utterance is articulated like a linguist yet sounds spontaneous. She has the internal chemistry
from which stars are formed. Complementing this superior sense of language is great physical control and comic
instincts. That said, she employs a piercing laugh intended to show Rosalind’s immaturity in love, or perhaps
sourced in the line: “I will laugh like a Hyen(a),” that seems more likely to paint Rosalind as bi-polar. This can’t
take away from her top-notch performance, but it seems a choice worth revisiting. She also seems more than
capable, while posing as a male advising Orlando (Mark Deakins) on love, of hinting at the battle raging between
her mind and her heart, that her overwhelming attraction towards him makes this a bit of a challenge.
Photograph by Craig Schwartz
Favorite Male Lead
E R I C D . S T E I N B E R G
Nothing Sacred
South Coast Repertory
Embodying this shifting demand for passion and philosophizing is an ensemble of solid actors who generally rise
to the challenge. Most impressive is Eric D. Steinberg in his first lead role at this theater. In one of the finest
male performances in memory, Steinberg appears to be Yevgeny Bazarov, a brilliant medical student who is
equally adept at attracting men to his nihilist theories as he is at attracting women to his side. He seems to have
been born off-book for this role, just speaking his mind as others render the lines of their script.
Photo by Ken Howard
Favorite Costumes
M A G G I E M O R G A N
Bach at Leipzig
South Coast Repertory
Both the SCR Scene Shop and the Costume Shop got high marks for this seat and costumes, but the threads were truly
beyond anything we saw in our theatergoing. So it's hats off to Maggie, Amy Hutto, and those great seamstresses.
Art Manke helps his all male cast generate individuality in characters cut from sections of the same cloth. (Which
makes this a good point to mention that Maggie Morgan’s costumes are exceptional: Were there royalty in Orange
County, and I’m not saying there isn’t, they could hardly be better appointed than by Morgan and the SCR
Costume Shop.) Not only do all the characters have the same goal, they all have the same willingness to break the
rules to achieve it. They all resort at one time or another to the vaudevillian, slapstick energy that one expects to
open into a rondelay of the “Vessel with the Pestle/Chalice in the Palace.”
Photo by Henry DiRocco
Favorite Featured Female
M I S S Y Y A G E R
Rabbit Hole
Geffen Playhouse
The Geffen Production of David Lindsay-Abaire had some measuring up to do after an exceptionally cast reading at
South Coast Repertory introduced the play and its lead role then earned Cynthia Nixon a Tony Award. Carolyn Cantor,
who had directed the reading, retook the reins for the Westwood stand and served up a great version. Images of the
first viewing remained, except in the case of the sister, played by Missy Yager, who built on Sarah Rafferty's first steps for
a greatly balanced side dish to Amy Ryan's troubled lead.
Lindsay-Abaire and Cantor keep Becca unmistakable — as recognizable as any neighbor we might pass in the
market. It's impossible to guess the displacement and alienation she is suffering. That tight clutch of normalcy, as
Ryan and the rest of the cast (which also includes Joyce Van Patten and a stunning Missy Yager) show, is what
makes for such a huge explosion when the fission finally comes.
Photo by Michael Lamont
Favorite Lighting
C O L I N Y O U N G
In the Continuum
by Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter
Kirk Douglas Theatre
That every year could end with a production as thrilling and meaningful as this two-woman show that has been winning
hearts and minds -- with the same cast and design -- on three continents. Every aspect could have been dubbed a
favorite, but that would be pretty dull. Clearly Ms. Gurira and Ms. Salter are the stars. But the way the lighting
complemented the shifting focus between Africa and America was a special part of the equation.
Robert O’Hara’s unobtrusive direction is enhanced by a simple yet evocative design. Two beautifully painted
walls – one with a cut-out doorway – angle towards upstage center at ninety degrees, kept apart by the gap around
a similarly painted pillar. A trunk, two stools, an end table of stacked crates and some miscellaneous items are the
show’s only props. Colin Young’s lights, Lindsay Jones’ sound cues, and Sarah Hillard’s costumes of black slacks
and tops, no shoes, and a bright red African print scarf for Gurira and a blue bandana for Salter are all the
women need to divide themselves into a catalogue of distinct and unforgettable characters.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
| REAR VIEW THEATER IN 2006 |
| JANUARY 2007 |
| MARCH 2007 available February 1 |
| APRIL 2007 Desktop available March 1 |
| MAY 2007 available April 1 |
| FEBRUARY 2007 |
| JUNE 2007 available May 1 |
| JULY 2007 available June 1 |
| SEPTEMBER 2007 available August 1 |
| DECEMBER 2007 available November 1 |
| NOVEMBER 2007 available October 1 |
| OCTOBER 2007 available September 1 |
| AUGUST 2007 available July 1 |
In 2006, as Theaterealtor.com, we sought to bring a different
perspective to theater criticism in Southern California. Crossing into the
new year, we peered into the rearview for a final assessment of what we
had seen -- the landmarks, the accidents and the road kill. There were
more than 50 appraisals this first year, at theaters from San Fernando
to San Diego. As a member of the LA Stage Ovation voting team, we
also attended productions that were not reviewed.
perspective to theater criticism in Southern California. Crossing into the
new year, we peered into the rearview for a final assessment of what we
had seen -- the landmarks, the accidents and the road kill. There were
more than 50 appraisals this first year, at theaters from San Fernando
to San Diego. As a member of the LA Stage Ovation voting team, we
also attended productions that were not reviewed.
The following is a list of 'Favorites' we remember fondly. Not to be confused
with the 'Bests' that put performance in competition, these are merely a
dozen artistic achievements that caught us by surprise, seeming to touch on
some special realm of creative inspiration.
with the 'Bests' that put performance in competition, these are merely a
dozen artistic achievements that caught us by surprise, seeming to touch on
some special realm of creative inspiration.
| CHECKING THE REAR VIEW FOR |
