(Kissi Ussuki / For The Times)
The 15 most intriguing theater offerings hitting SoCal stages this fall
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The theater awakens from its summer respite with a frenzy of openings that starts before Labor Day and continues deep into the fall. Amid all the high-octane productions celebrated in New York (“The Outsiders,” “Oh, Mary!” and “Purpose,” chief among them), don’t pass up the opportunity to see plays by Samuel D. Hunter (“A Case for the Existence of God”), Luis Alfaro (“Speaking in Tongues”) and Karen Zacarías (“Destiny of Desire”). And Pasadena Playhouse is clearly the place to be this fall, with the new revival of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s “The Visit” starring the mesmeric Jefferson Mays and the thrilling-sounding production of “Passing Strange,” the indie-rock musical by Stew and Heidi Rodewald that is finally having its Los Angeles premiere.
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'Antigone: In the Language of Kings,' Getty Villa Outdoor Theater
Pacific Palisades Play
Latino Theater Company founder-directors Evelina Fernandez and Jose Luis Valenzuela will adapt and direct, resepectively, “Antigone: In the Language of Kings” for the Getty Villa’s 20th annual Outdoor Classical Theater presentation.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Evelina Fernández relocates Sophocles’ drama to the capital of the Aztec Empire in this new take on the classic tragedy pitting divine law against state power. The setting — pre-conquest Tenochtitlan, Mexico — draws in pre-Hispanic music and poetry in this cross-cultural reimagining produced with Latino Theater Co. and directed by LTC Artistic Director José Luis Valenzuela. The 20th annual outdoor classical theater production, set amid the natural and architectural splendor of the Getty Villa, continues the tradition of reexamining the ancient canon in a contemporary context transcending borders and time periods.
Where: Getty Villa Outdoor Theater
When: Sept. 3-5 (previews); Sept. 10-Oct. 3
Price: $30-60
Where: Getty Villa Outdoor Theater
When: Sept. 3-5 (previews); Sept. 10-Oct. 3
Price: $30-60
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'A Case for the Existence of God,' Rogue Machine Theatre at the Matrix
Fairfax Play
Carlo Mancasola and Nicholas Anthony Reid in Rogue Machine’s production of “A Case for the Existence of God” at the Matrix Theatre,
(Jeff Lorch)
Get your tickets early for the Los Angeles premiere of Samuel D. Hunter’s two-hander, which won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award in 2022 for best play. Opening a window onto this age of financial insecurity through the situation of two single fathers, it has that signature Hunter quality of being intensely intimate and sweepingly expansive, psychologically acute and sociologically trenchant. The Henry Murray Stage’s cozy upstairs space, providing the theatrical equivalent of a sustained close-up, blurs the line not only between actor and audience but also between art and life. There’s simply no place for the truth to hide. If you haven’t experienced live acting under the microscope, this Hunter play (under the expert direction of John Perrin Flynn) seems like the ideal occasion.
Where: Rogue Machine’s Henry Murray Stage at the Matrix Theatre
When: Aug. 30-Oct. 11
Price: Starts at $25
Where: Rogue Machine’s Henry Murray Stage at the Matrix Theatre
When: Aug. 30-Oct. 11
Price: Starts at $25
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'The Visit,' Pasadena Playhouse
Pasadena Performing Arts Theater
(Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)
The dynamic duo behind Pasadena Playhouse’s thrilling revival of “Amadeus,” director Darko Tresnjak and acting virtuoso Jefferson Mays, are back at the Playhouse for another reboot of a contemporary classic. Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s 1956 European tragicomedy with absurdist touches adapted by Maurice Valency doesn’t come around all that often. A musical version by Terrence McNally and John Kander & Fred Ebb that starred Chita Rivera had a short run on Broadway in 2015. But Dürrenmatt’s drama deserves to be better known to American audiences. In the New Yorker, Kenneth Tynan, reviewing the celebrated 1958 production that starred Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, urged theatergoers not to pass up the opportunity to catch their return engagement, “for there is nothing on Broadway of comparable power or penetration.” The Lunts are a hard act to match. But under Tresnjak’s direction, Mays is sure to deliver his own master class.
Where: Pasadena Playhouse
When: Sept. 9-Oct. 4
Price: Starts at $40
Where: Pasadena Playhouse
When: Sept. 9-Oct. 4
Price: Starts at $40
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'Marisol,' Open Fist Theatre Company
Atwater Village Live Theater Group
(Amanda Weier)
In a strong fall season of Latino work, it’s a perfect moment to reencounter this Obie-winning play by José Rivera, a surreal adventure through the colorful war zone of New York City. The influence of Gabriel García Márquez is unmistakable, but Rivera’s Puerto Rican-style magical realism is entirely his own. Open Fist Theatre Company has the agility and fearlessness needed to bring this shape-shifting apocalyptic drama to a new generation.
Where: Open Fist Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre
When: Sept. 12-Oct. 24
Price: Starts at $26
Where: Open Fist Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre
When: Sept. 12-Oct. 24
Price: Starts at $26
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'The Peterson Show,' Echo Theater Company
Atwater Village Performing Arts Theater
(Michelle Bossy)
Five former child stars of a beloved TV show about a Black family reunite after the reputation of their famous TV father is swamped in scandal. The world premiere of Janine Nabers’ play, directed by Michelle Bossy, has all the makings of a memorably offbeat Echo Theater Company offering. The house style, under founding Artistic Director Chris Fields, combines eccentric playwriting and intrepid acting in the crucible of intimate quarters. The production is all but guaranteed to be more enlivening than an evening spent surfing Netflix.
Where: Echo Theater Company at Atwater Village Theatre
When: Sept. 16-Oct. 26
Price: Starts at $15
Where: Echo Theater Company at Atwater Village Theatre
When: Sept. 16-Oct. 26
Price: Starts at $15
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'The Outsiders,' Hollywood Pantages Theatre
Hollywood Performing Arts Theater
Jason Schmidt, left, and Brody Grant in the Broadway production of “The Outsiders.”
(Matthew Murphy/Matthew Murphy)
The 2024 Tony Award winner for best musical finds the groove of S.E. Hinton’s classic young adult novel. The score by Jamestown Revival (Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance) and Justin Levine ushers us right back into the turbulent teenage drama of Ponyboy Curtis and his bitterly divided Tulsa community. The book by playwright Adam Rapp and Levine compresses the action to combustible effect. But it was the indie folk rock spell and the hallucinatory staging by Danya Taymor, who won a Tony for her direction, that left a lasting impression when I reviewed the musical’s launch at La Jolla Playhouse in 2023.
Where: Hollywood Pantages Theatre
When: Sept. 30-Oct. 18
Price: Starts at $57
Where: Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
When: Oct. 20-Nov. 1
Price: Start at $49
Where: Hollywood Pantages Theatre
When: Sept. 30-Oct. 18
Price: Starts at $57
Where: Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
When: Oct. 20-Nov. 1
Price: Start at $49
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'Wives,' East West Players
Downtown L.A. Performing Arts Theater
(East West Players)
East West Players presents the Southern California premiere of Jaclyn Backhaus’ feminist comedy examining a selection of “great men” in 16th century France, 1920s India and 1960s Idaho. (Caryl Churchill, the groundbreaking, politically fearless author of such time-bending dramatic classics as “Cloud Nine” and “Top Girls,” would no doubt approve.) A primarily South Asian and South Asian American cast, under the direction of Hypokrit Live Arts NYC co-founder and artistic director Arpita Mukherjee, brings this redress of women’s erasure in history to astringent comic life.
Where: East West Players at David Henry Hwang Theater in the Union Center for the Arts
When: Oct. 8-Nov. 1
Price: Pay-what-you-will starts at $15
Where: East West Players at David Henry Hwang Theater in the Union Center for the Arts
When: Oct. 8-Nov. 1
Price: Pay-what-you-will starts at $15
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'Speaking in Tongues,' Latino Theater Company
Downtown L.A. Performing Arts Theater
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
The world premiere of a Luis Alfaro play is always a welcome event. And his latest work, commissioned by Latino Theater Co. and developed at the theater’s Circle of Imaginistas playwriting group, resonates thematically with Alfaro’s “The Travelers,” which LTC produced in 2023 and made my list of that year’s best theater productions. The new play, infused with Alfaro’s trademark Chicano humor, returns us to the world of California’s Central Valley and the stories of migrant farmworkers and their spiritual quests in a societal landscape transforming faster than anyone can keep up.
Where: Latino Theater Co. at the Los Angeles Theatre Center
When: Oct. 8- Nov. 15
Price: Starts at $10
Where: Latino Theater Co. at the Los Angeles Theatre Center
When: Oct. 8- Nov. 15
Price: Starts at $10
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'at the very bottom of a body of water,' Boston Court Pasadena
Pasadena Performing Arts Theater
The world premiere of playwright Benjamin Benne’s “at the very bottom of a body of water” opens )ct. 22 at Boston Court Pasadena.
(Sung Kyun Park)
Benjamin Benne is a dramatist many have been keeping close tabs on. Raised in Hacienda Heights and trained at the Yale School of Drama, he received a lot of notice for his play “Alma” when it had its 2022 premiere at the Kirk Douglas Theatre (in cooperation with American Blues Theater). A mother-daughter drama about immigrants and the American dream from a distinctly L.A. vantage, the play infused kitchen-sink realism with a wild lyrical freedom. Benne’s latest work continues his collaboration with veteran director (and fellow L.A. native) Juliette Carrillo, and dives even further into magical realism in an unconventional work exploring the oceanic depths that grief can reveal.
Where: Boston Court Pasadena
When: Oct. 22-Nov. 29
Price: Starts at $37; $10 community access tickets
Where: Boston Court Pasadena
When: Oct. 22-Nov. 29
Price: Starts at $37; $10 community access tickets
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‘The Music Man,’ Ahmanson Theatre
Downtown L.A. Dance
(Big League Productions)
Harold Hill, the fast-talking con man of Meredith Willson’s old-fashioned but never out of fashion musical, is back in River City trying to pull a fast one on the town’s trusting denizens. His scam involves musical instruments and costumes for a boys’ band, but his plans are foiled when he falls in love with Marian, a librarian whose goodness pulls off the impossible and rehabilitates a fake. Matt Lenz directs this new touring production, choreographed by Joshua Bergasse, of a musical that never fails to put audiences euphorically on the march with a score that includes such classic Broadway numbers as “Seventy-Six Trombones,” “(Ya Got) Trouble” and “Till There Was You.”
Where: The Ahmanson Theatre
When: Oct 27-Nov. 8
Price: Starts at $38
Where: The Ahmanson Theatre
When: Oct 27-Nov. 8
Price: Starts at $38
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'Confederates,' The Fountain Theatre
East Hollywood Performing Arts Theater
(Areon Mobasher)
Institutional racism, as experienced in two different eras by Black women, is the subject of Dominique Morisseau’s 2022 dramatic comedy. Best known for her three-play cycle “The Detroit Project” as well as the book for the musical about the Temptations “Ain’t Too Proud,” Morisseau juxtaposes the plight of an enslaved rebel and Union spy during the Civil War with that of a contemporary political science professor facing a threatening work environment. Fountain Artistic Director Raymond O. Caldwell directs this sharp-eyed satire examining an unbroken thread of racial and gender bias in American history.
Where: Fountain Theatre
When: Oct. 28-Dec. 13
Price: Starts at $45; limited Name-Your-Own-Price tickets starting at $5 for previews and Monday night performances
Where: Fountain Theatre
When: Oct. 28-Dec. 13
Price: Starts at $45; limited Name-Your-Own-Price tickets starting at $5 for previews and Monday night performances
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'Passing Strange,' Pasadena Playhouse
Pasadena Performing Arts Theater
Twenty years after its premiere in Berkeley, the musical “Passing Strange” by Heidi Rodewald and Stew, finally has it’s L.A.-area premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse.
(Amy Sussman)
It’s hard to believe that 20 years have passed since I first saw this extraordinary musical based on the life of the genre-defying musical genius named Stew at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. And it’s even harder to fathom how this show by Stew and his longtime creative partner Heidi Rodewald (created in collaboration with Annie Dorsen) still hasn’t had an L.A. production. Tracing Stew’s journey from his upbringing in South-Central to his unsentimental education in the underground music scenes of Amsterdam and Berlin, it is a thrilling story of an L.A. native’s coming of age as an artist. “Passing Strange,” which won a Tony for its book and was nominated for its brilliantly eclectic score, happens to be one of the best new American musicals of this century. Zhailon Levingston, the Tony-winning co-director of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s radically reconceived “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” will surely bring fresh perspective to this belated L.A. premiere.
Where: Pasadena Playhouse
When: Nov. 4-29
Price: Starts at $40
Where: Pasadena Playhouse
When: Nov. 4-29
Price: Starts at $40
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‘Oh, Mary!,’ Ahmanson Theatre
Downtown L.A. Dance
(Daniel Rampulla)
Mary Todd Lincoln is climbing the walls of the White House in Cole Escola’s fantastical camp comedy that became an unstoppable Broadway hit. Frustrated with the restrictions placed on her as a first lady, in desperate need of a drink, and married to a stiff who not-so-secretly likes other men, she unleashes hilarious havoc in the weeks before the assassination. Sam Pinkleton, who won a Tony for his Broadway staging, brings his production to the Ahmanson, with drag eminence Alaska Thunderf— as Mary and Tony winner J. Harrison Ghee (“Some Like It Hot”) as Mary’s husband reactivating the delirium.
Where: Ahmanson Theatre
When: Nov. 10-Dec. 6
Price: Starts at $60
Where: Ahmanson Theatre
When: Nov. 10-Dec. 6
Price: Starts at $60
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'Destiny of Desire,' Mark Taper Forum
Downtown L.A. Performing Arts Theater
Bianca Marroquín, as Fabiola Castillo in Karen Zacarías’ “Destiny of Desire” at the Old Globe in 2023, reprises her role in a new production at the Mark Taper Forum.
(Jim Cox)
Karen Zacarías’ smart and fearless homage to telenovelas yields an epic, twisting yarn, full of coincidences and cliff-hangers, mistaken identities and gobsmacking revelations. It’s invigorating fun but also radiant with insight into the age-old debate between nature and nurture. When I first saw the play at South Coast Repertory in 2016, I was seduced by the production’s Brechtian energy. And I’m eager to see what fresh light director Marcela Lorca sheds on a play that my students at CalArts one year claimed as their favorite of the semester — and they have excellent taste.
Where: Mark Taper Forum
When: Nov. 11-Dec. 20
Price: Starts at $36
Where: Mark Taper Forum
When: Nov. 11-Dec. 20
Price: Starts at $36
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'Purpose,' Geffen Playhouse
Westwood Performing Arts Theater
LaTanya Richardson Jackson, from left, Kara Young, Glenn Davis and Jon Michael Hill in the Broadway/Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of “Purpose.”
(Marc J. Franklin)
The original Steppenwolf Theatre Company cast of the Broadway production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning drama reassembles at the Geffen Playhouse for the most anticipated dramatic event of the season. The play, about a prominent Black Chicago family headed by a civil rights icon with skeletons in his closet, has the scope, heft and flamboyant idiosyncrasy of the landmark American domestic dramas of the past. Under the assured direction of Phylicia Rashad, the actors brought the characters so richly to life in New York that I can’t wait to experience their ensemble alchemy in L.A.
Where: Geffen Playhouse
When: Nov. 11-Dec. 13
Price: Starts at $53
Where: Geffen Playhouse
When: Nov. 11-Dec. 13
Price: Starts at $53
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