The top 20 of 2025
Plus 'Stereophonic,' holiday shows, and Rob Reiner's "Dirty Plays"
168.
That’s how many theatrical productions I’ve seen so far in 2025 within Greater LA — Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties.
I’ve probably seen more performances than in any previous year. But I keep raising that number because coverage of theater in Greater LA’s major media outlets keeps dropping.
This year Charles McNulty, the staff theater critic at the LA Times, reviewed only 46 shows in Greater LA, by my count (and the Times no longer uses additional free-lance reviewers). McNulty also commented on 18 shows in New York and other locations outside Greater LA and wrote a variety of essays, appreciations of deceased luminaries and a few interviews.
He might have seen some LA shows without writing about them. I sometimes do that, when productions have already closed or don’t seem significant enough for my monthly posts — which might already be too long. The number of professional productions in our area that open throughout the year is much higher than 168.
The Times appears to be the only mainstream print/online outlet that still has a full-time on-staff theater critic, but a few others use free-lancers to review productions in their particular neighborhoods.
Don’t look for theater reviews at LAist or KCRW (where I did on-air stage reviews, years ago) — even though you might guess that these nonprofit institutions would be more inclined to cover the mostly nonprofit local theater scene than any of their commercial colleagues.
Apparently those who run LAist and KCRW believe that their listeners and readers would rather stay home and press “play” than venture to playhouses — where other live human beings are in the audiences and on the stages.
Still, aren’t LAist and KCRW competitors, at least to some extent? So one of them should seize the opportunity to provide the thousands of regular LA theatergoers with the theater criticism that isn’t yet available on the other one. As I wrote nearly two years ago in Angeles Stage, it should be in the form of a discussion involving two or three critics (like “Film Week” on LAist or “Press Play” on KCRW), not one all-knowing voice. Even a website-only forum might be helpful.
Stage Raw admirably fills the gap that exists at the aforementioned general-news establishments. In 2025 this website, with multiple contributors, appears to have run almost 300 reviews of LA stage productions in Greater LA. That includes founder/publisher Steven Leigh Morris’s columns, which often offer opinions about more than one production.
Also, on the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle website, you can usually find links to reviews on a variety of stage-specific websites (including Stage Raw). Click on “reviews” for single-show reviews. Angeles Stage installments, which always cover more than one show per post, also appear on the LADCC site by clicking on “commentary,” although Angeles Stage subscribers receive them faster — via emails at the moment of posting.
The top tier of 2025
These are listed alphabetically, with links to what I wrote about them earlier in the year, except for one (explanation, below). Note that 22, not 20, productions are on the list, because I like to make connections between productions when they’re obvious.
& Juliet, tour with stops at Ahmanson Theatre and Segerstrom Center
Am I Roxie?, Geffen Playhouse
anthropology, Rogue Machine at Matrix Theatre
Bonnie & Clyde, Rubicon Theatre. Sorry, no link. This Ventura production lasted only a little more than two weeks, unfortunately in between two posts of Angeles Stage. It was the US premiere of the most recent stage adaptation of the famous tale of two Depression-era criminals, with music by Frank Wildhorn, lyrics by Don Black, book by Ivan Menchell, directed by J. Scott Lapp. Perhaps someone will produce it in LA County?
Cabaret, different but overlapping productions by Jaxx Theatricals and 5-Star Theatricals
Cambodian Rock Band, East West Players
Come From Away, a revival (not a tour), La Mirada Theatre
Corktown ‘39, Rogue Machine at Matrix Theatre
Desperate Measures, International City Theatre
A Doll’s House, Part Two, Pasadena Playhouse
frou-frou, an offshoot of “The Glass Menagerie”. The former was at Boston Court; the latter was revived at Antaeus Theatre.
Guac, Center Theatre Group at Kirk Douglas Theatre
Hello, My Name Is…, Moving Arts
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, A Noise Within
Lear Redux, Odyssey Theatre, New American Theatre, Not Man Apart
Listing, Theatre 40
Parade, tour at Ahmanson Theatre
Suffs, tour at Pantages Theatre
The Wedding Singer, Colony Theatre
Wine in the Wilderness, Theatricum Botanicum
Tony, Tony, Tony…Really?
On Broadway, David Adjmi’s “Stereophonic” (with music by Will Butler) broke the record for Tony nominations for a play (13) and won five of them including Best Play — after it was performed in an 800-seat theater. In Hollywood, in the 2700-seat Pantages, the same play by a touring company created a notably high number of exits at intermission on opening night and somewhat mixed reviews — especially for a play that’s set in California, with the last scene specifically set in LA.
Could the less receptive LA reaction have anything to do with the fact that the venue here is more than three times larger than the venue was in New York?
Yes, I’ll guess (I didn’t see it in NYC). “Stereophonic” is a théâtre-vérité contraption. Its structure resembles that of a long video-vérité documentary. As we follow the contentious studio recording sessions within a ‘70s group that has a remarkable resemblance to Fleetwood Mac, we learn virtually nothing about how these people got there, or what their futures will be — despite the production’s excessive length. To increase our interest, this narrative should have at least some close-up shots, or perhaps occur in a site-specific live production at one of LA’s many recording studios — with a much smaller audience capacity.
In his LA Times review, Charles McNulty, who probably had one of the best seats at the Pantages, begins by writing that the play “is ready for its Los Angeles close-up.” He dismisses the idea that the Pantages is too cavernous, “at least from the perspective of a decent orchestra seat.” However, he then spends most of the rest of his review discussing how the Broadway production was better. Although there might be other differences, the size of the Pantages might be a decisive factor.
Still in the holiday mood? Or wanting to return to it?
The primary news events of last weekend were so disturbing that you might not be interested in seasonal theater — or, on the contrary, you might be yearning for a certain type of seasonal theater.
As in “A Christmas Carol”.
I often avoid productions of it in search of something different in my December theatergoing. But this year I returned (before last weekend) to A Noise Within in Pasadena for its annual “Carol,” and I’m glad I did. If even Scrooge can be redeemed, maybe hope exists?
Two actors alternate as Scrooge, Geoff Elliott and Henri Lubatti. I saw Elliott, who also adapted the Dickens text and co-directed the production with ANW’s co-producing artistic director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott. He delivers a vibrant performance.
But the design team deserves as much attention as the star. They create a Dickensian delight. That the venue has two center aisles has never seemed more beneficial — they’re used so frequently that the audience almost feels immersed in an in-the-round experience (although I sometimes wonder if those on the far sides of the thrust stage might feel differently). Eight performances remain, including a closing matinee on December 24. Elliott is scheduled to appear only at the remaining matinees on Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday.
If you want to laugh…a lot, I recommend “‘Twas the Night Before Groundlings,” which I also saw before last weekend. The Groundlings ensemble performs 11 often-hilarious seasonally-themed sketches, interrupted briefly by two improvs, on their Melrose home stage. “Saturday Night Live” — to which many Groundlings have graduated — usually isn’t as funny as this Groundlings show. Here, no commercials interrupt the comedy (instead, the live three-piece band sustains the mood during scene-changing), and you’re only a few feet away from the performers.
While the Groundlings’ gags wouldn’t be understood by young kids, LA also has a current professional production for the age-3-to-8 cohort. Center Theater Group imported a British adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “The Enormous Crocodile” to the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. Even parents might be impressed by the design elements. Most of the actors are young adults from the British production. Not surprisingly they have English accents. I wondered if young US children might not have had enough exposure to those accents. But many of the kids went wild with whoops and cheers at the performance I saw.
Warning: the title character actually wants to eat human children. I’m giving away the ending here — the croc’s efforts are in vain.
I didn’t see any theater about the actual birth of Christ this year, but I did see something quasi-biblical in Boyle Heights — Casa 0101’s LA premiere of the Stephen Schwartz/Philip LaZebnik 2017 musical “The Prince of Egypt,” adapted from the 1998 Dreamworks animated film of the same name, later revised for a West End production. It more or less tells the Exodus story. We see young Moses and the young soon-to-be pharoah as great buds growing up, before Moses realized his roots were Hebrew.
Schwartz’s score isn’t one of his best, but it has a few good moments. Director Rigo Tejeda capably manages many settings on a rather small stage, but the production is somewhat overextended. Tony Iniguez’s costumes are elaborate but occasionally too spangly. Modern tattoos on some actors’ bare limbs and men’s chests decrease credibility. Anthony Storniolo’s “projections,” including the parting of the Red Sea, are impressive for a small stage, probably with AI assistance.
Finally, I again saw two concurrent productions with very similar titles, both of them parodying the same 1988 action film “Die Hard” — which was set in LA, mostly within a Century City skyscraper during the Christmas season.
I first wrote in Angeles Stage about both of them in 2022, starting with the premiere of Troubadour Theater Company’s “Die Heart,” which includes melodies from the long-lasting Heart pop/rock group (but with somewhat wittier lyrics by director Matt Walker and other Troubies). A slightly edited Troubies version is again at the Colony Theatre in Burbank this year, with a few updated topical references.
In that same 2022 post, I also wrote about Theatre Unleashed’s “A Very Die Hard Christmas,” but it’s now in a different venue — the Hobgoblin Playhouse on North Gardner Street in Hollywood.
My overall opinion of the two productions hasn’t changed. The Troubies are more professional, especially in the music and dance departments but also in the script-editing arena. They have a lot more space in which to amuse us — and they use it well.
The Theatre Unleashed production is on a tiny stage without many trimmings, a script that needs trimming and/or an intermission, songs that sometimes sound out of tune…or is that part of the would-be comedy? However, getting back to the events of last weekend, I’ll add that part of my impatience with the latest “Very Die Hard Christmas” was triggered, so to speak, by the excessive use of gunfire sound effects in this minuscule venue. I saw the show on Sunday evening, after we had learned about the slaughter by gunfire at Bondi Beach.
Remember this Rob Reiner project?
After the murder of Rob Reiner on that same day, I heard that young Rob Reiner had worked in small LA theater.
I did some research and found a review of “An Evening of Dirty Plays,” a double bill by Philip Mishkin, from the November 4, 1969 LA Times. Reiner directed the first and starred in the second, at the Oxford Theater on Oxford Avenue in east Hollywood. Reiner’s performance in “The Howie Rubin Story” drew LA Times theater critic Dan Sullivan’s most encouraging words.
He wrote that “an accomplished young actor…Rob Reiner goes from Howie-the-tub to Howie-the-Las Vegas star with great aplomb, and his bashful attempts at ‘making-out’ ring memory’s bell.”
The production’s sound designer? Harry Shearer, later to become significantly better known for, among many other projects, the Reiner-directed “This Is Spinal Tap.” Shearer now has his own Substack.