the ICT raises excellent fences, breaks down barriers

A review of August Wilson’s Fences, on stage at the International City Theatre in Long Beach.

Although the timing is coincidental, it seems entirely appropriate that the ICT should stage August Wilson’s Fences while the Black Lives Matter movement coalesces and generates momentum. Where the political system, supported by a domesticated media, has failed to build a politics of inclusion, it falls to the arts to wage a campaign for hearts and minds, however arguably quixotic.

Set in 1950s Pittsburgh, the sixth piece in Wilson’s ten-play cycle exploring black experiences in the 20th century gives voice to ... read the rest of my review at The Front Page Online

abigail/1702: not a crucible, but still fine theatre (at TFPO)

Review of Abigail/1702 at the Long Beach International City Theatre

What ever happened to teenaged Abigail Williams? Last we heard, she escaped Arthur Miller’s The Crucible – and the ruin she catalyzed in Salem – with money stolen from her Uncle Parris. Her fate was left to us to imagine for ourselves, based on our appraisal of her character. Was she a  sociopath or merely a troubled opportunist? Malicious or … READ THE REVIEW AT THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

the hot and cold of long beach ICT’s other desert cities (at TFPO)

A review of Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz, on stage at the Long Beach International City Theatre.

While the political tangles with the personal in the family dysfunction of the Long Beach ICT’s production of Other Desert Cities, the blurring of abstract ideology with human drama is ultimately tangential. The point is not that the Wyeth family parents Lyman Nicholas Horman) and Polly (Suzanne Ford), modeled after Ronald and Nancy Reagan, clash with liberal daughter Brooke (Ann Noble) about politics to the exasperation of the apolitical Hollywood son, Trip (Blake Anthony Edwards). Rather, the point is ... READ THE REST AT THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

Other Desert Cities. Written by Jon Robin Baitz. Directed by caryn desai. On stage at the Long Beach International City Theatre from June 4 to June 29, 2014. For tickets and information, call 562.436.4610 or visit www.internationalcitytheatre.org.

flyin' west, soarin' low (at TFPO)

A review of Flyin' West, on stage at the International City Theatre in Long Beach until April 6, 2014.


On the heels of the toe-tapping Cole Porter musical Let’s Misbehave, the International City Theatre’s season of “uniquely American stories” continues with the way-back machine set to the unsteady period after the Civil War in Pearl Cleage’s Flyin’ West. As the Author’s Notes helpfully inform us, tens of thousands of African-Americans left the South to escape racist violence and establish all-black settlements where they could live and work towards achieving their own dreams. It’s not a well-known chapter of American history, which makes it all the more important a story to tell ... READ THE REST AT THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE


Flyin' West. Written by Pearl Cleage. Directed by Saundra McClain. On stage at the International City Theatre in Long Beach until April 6. For ticket information and showtimes, visit www.internationalcitytheatre.org or call 562.536.4610.

The ICT Ain’t Got No Behavior – And That’s How We Like It (at TFPO)

Review of Let's Misbehave at Long Beach's International City Theatre:

The ICT launches its 2014 season with a treat: A Cole Porter soufflé. You can hardly go wrong with a production founded on music by a hall of famer in the Great American Songbook. Just put a CD player (or MP3 player, if that’s your thing) on an empty stage, press play, and Porter’s music is enough by itself to keep an audience entertained. In Let’s Misbehave, the ICT thankfully goes beyond a recording with a spirited production that ... Read the rest at The Front Page Online


Let’s Misbehave. Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter. Book by Karin Bowersock. Musical Arrangements by Patrick Young. Directed and Choreographed by Todd Nielsen. On stage at the International City Theatre in Long Beach until Feb 16. For ticket information and showtimes, visit www.internationalcitytheatre.org or call 562.536.4610.

dressed for laughter - a review of don't dress for dinner (at TFPO)

The ICT in Long Beach previously served us a dish of deep thought with Red, a study of artist Mark Rothko and his work. With Don’t Dress for Dinner, the company caps off its 2013 season with the sort of play that deliciously frustrates the critical writer, a production whose lack of substance is absolutely irrelevant to its quality and capacity to delight.

Written by Marc Camoletti and adapted by Robin Hawdon, Don’t Dress for Dinner offers no psychological depth, no culture critique, no dramatic insight. Nor does it constitute a political protest, act of provocation, morality play, or topical analysis. In short, this is not the sort of play to...

Read the rest of my review at THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE



Don't Dress for Dinner, by Marc Camoletti. Adapted by Robin Hawdon. On stage at the International City Theatre in Long Beach from October 9th to November 3rd, 2014. Thursday - Saturday at 8p. Sunday at 2pm. Call 562-436-4610 (M-F 9am – 5pm) or visit www.ictlongbeach.org for tickets and information. 

don't miss seeing "Red" at the ICT (at TFPO)

Red is my kind of play; cerebral yet laced with a passion whose dosage straddles the line between poison and remedy. Where much theatre dwells in the granularity of raw human drama, begging the question as to whether it’s possible to achieve any greater insight now than in the past, Red chooses instead to confront the trials of civilization. Think of it as climbing Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and focusing attention on its apex, the need for self-realization. The vehicle for expressing the pinnacle of self-realization?

Read the rest of my review at The Front Page Online.


Red runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays @ 8 p.m. and Sundays @ 2 p.m., through Sept. 15. Tickets are $38 on Thursdays and $45 on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Preview tickets are $29. International City Theatre is in the Long Beach Performing Arts Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd. For reservations and information, call the ICT box office at 562.436.4610 or visit www.InternationalCityTheatre.com.

Dead Men, Cell Phone Tales (at TFPO)

Dead men may not tell tales, but they do leave cell phones behind. Shenanigans invariably ensue, especially when a bold, foolish soul picks up the ringing nuisance and answers the call. Such is the premise for Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone, a play auspiciously heralded by the Ghost of Stephen Foster, one of many songs by the great, spicy band Squirrel Nut Zippers that electrify the score. 

Read my review of Dead Man's Cell Phone, on stage at the International City Theatre in Long until June 30th, at The Front Page Online.

‘The Robber Bridegroom’: Amusing, but a Barn Short of a Hootennany: THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

The Long Beach International City Theatre's current production, The Robber Bridegroom.

Based on the 1942 novella by Eudora Welty, which itself is a relatively cheery adaptation of a gruesome tale from the Brothers Grimm, The Robber Bridegroom took on life as a musical in the 1970s with producer Stuart Ostrow’s Musical Theatre Lab. As an early product of a pioneering workshop development model, the first production starred Raul Julia in the role of Jaimie Lockhart and ran for 14 performances at New York’s Harness Theatre before travelling around the county and returning home for a second run of 145 performances at the Biltmore Theatre. A favourite among regional theatres, The Robber Bridegroom has been revived yet again from the archives of musical theatre to close out Long Beach’s International City Theatre 2011 season.

Read the full review at The Front Page Online.

The Robber Bridegroom. Book and lyrics by Alfred Uhry. Music by Robert Waldman. Directed and choreographed by Todd Nielsen. Musical direction by Gerald Sternbach. Starring Chad Doreck, Jamison Michael Stone Forrest, Sue Goodman, Tyler Ledon, Tatiana Mac, Teya Patt, Michael Uribes, and Adam Wylie. On stage at Long Beach’s International City Theatre, Thursday through Sunday, through Sunday, Nov. 6. See www.internationalcitytheatre.org for tickets and information.

The Old Settler: Beautiful Theatre at the ICT Long Beach : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

The Old Settler

by John Henry Redwood

Directed by caryn desai [sic]. Starring Veralyn Jones, Ryan Vincent Anderson, Tarina Pouncy and Karen Malina White. On stage June 3 through June 26 at International City Theatre in the Long Beach Performing Arts Center. For tickets and more information, call (562) 436-4610 or visit www.InternationalCityTheatre.org

"Offering a masterclass in how to stage the big issues of being human in a world that is often unfair — without resorting to mallets or rhetoric — The Old Settler is a richly written, character-driven piece from which audiences can infer a number of emotional insights. The glib might conclude that, as the old joke goes, youth is wasted on the young. "

Read the rest of my review here: The Old Settler: Beautiful Theatre at the ICT Long Beach : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

Southern Comforts: The Sun Never Sets on Love at the ICT : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

"How refreshing, then, to see playwright Kathleen Clarke upend conventional commercial wisdom with a piece of theatre that consists of nothing more than a set and two older people who unexpectedly find romance."

Read the rest of...Southern Comforts: The Sun Never Sets on Love at the ICT : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

Southern Comforts. Written by Kathleen Clarke. Directed by Jules Aaron. Starring Michael Learned and Granville Van Dusen. On stage at the International City Theatre in Long Beach, Thursday through Sunday, through April 10. Visit www.internationalcitytheatre.org for tickets and information.

ICT’s ‘The Clean House’ Is a Funny Place to Live : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

Matilde, a Brazilian live-in maid with an inconvenient disdain for housecleaning, would have been right at home in World War II efforts to weaponize humour. That is, if she occupied a vintage Monty Python sketch instead of Sarah Ruhl’s new play “The Clean House.” Although the humour of using humour for military purposes wouldn’t gel with her, the kinship between the two scenarios isn’t so much of a stretch. Early in the play, she tells how her own ill mother died laughing at one of her father’s jokes. T, which is as good a way to go as a mid-coital shedding of mortal coils. Her own search for the perfect joke is laced with this particular memory, the death of her mother followed by her father a short time later, and manifested in the fear that discovering the perfect joke will kill her. Naturally, she spends her time trying to discover that holy grail of guffaws, although it would be wrong to make a case for suicidal tendencies. Rather, Matilde lives as if comedy is the highest form of human aspiration, a sublime art.

Read the rest of...ICT’s ‘The Clean House’ Is a Funny Place to Live : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

How the Other Half Loves: A Game of Wit, Space, and Time : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

Apologies for the delay in linking to this; the review of How the Other Half Loves, on stage at Long Beach's International City Theatre, actually posted at the beginning of May.

How the Other Half Loves: A Game of Wit, Space, and Time : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

Backwards in High Heels: A Bronze Start to a Silver Jubilee Year : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

On stage at the ICT in Long Beach:

Backwards in High Heels: A Bronze Start to a Silver Jubilee Year : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

Backwards in High Heels. Conceived & Developed By Lynnette Barkley & Christopher McGovern

Book/Original Songs/Arrangements by Christopher McGovern. Starring: Matt Bauer, Christopher Carothers, Robin De Lano, Heather Lee, Jeff Payton, Anna Aimee White. On stage at the International City Theatre in Long Beach until Sunday, March 21. Visit http://www.ictlongbeach.org/ for more information.

"Sure he [Fred Astaire] was great, but don't forget Ginger Rogers did everything he did backwards . . . and in high heels!"

-- Bob Thaves 1982 © NEA Inc.

theatre review: is he dead?

The International City Theatre at the Long Beach Performing Arts Centers is a lot like the Mark Taper Forum; an intimate setting with seating in an approximate "u" around the stage. But better than the stage is the ICT itself, which has so far put on a very good production of the Threepenny Opera, but really delivered with a rediscovered play by Mark Twain. If you live in Long Beach, or can make your way there, this is a production not to be missed.

Mark Twain Returns in ICT's Not-to-be-Missed 'Is He Dead?'

new theatre review: the threepenny opera

Now on stage at the International City Theatre at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center, a flawed but overall enjoyable performance of the classic musical:

The Threepenny Opera Draws Blood