Showing results by publisher "L.A. Theatre Works" in All Categories

Jon Robin Baitz's commanding drama is about a New York publisher and Holocaust survivor whose decision to publish obscure political tracts threatens the future of both his company and his family.

Featuring some of the entertainment industry's most prolific writers and talents, this hilarious production is sure to soothe anyone with wit who has suffered the trauma and humiliation of being fired. Is getting fired the best or worst thing that has happened to you? In this new collection, some of the more talented individuals in the entertainment industry take a stab at that question by sharing their hilarious stories.

Macon and Bess are two mail-order brides, lured to the West of the 1860s by the promise of new beginnings through marriage to men they've never met. While waiting for their respective husbands-to-be, one bubbling with optimism, the other mousy and plain, the two women become instant best friends. As Abundance follows the two women through their friendship and adventures for the next 25 years, this Western epic unearths the dark underside of American mythology.

In a white fur coat, "The Queen of the Blues" sits on her luggage outside a Las Vegas hotel. It is 1959; the legendary star cannot enter the hotel without a white escort. So Dinah Washington, in her inimitable style, takes a long pull from her flask and starts kicking up a fuss. Yvette Freeman reprises her Obie award-winning performance in this passionate play that reminds us "What a Difference a Day Makes". Features songs made famous by Dinah Washington and performed in the play by Yvette Freeman.

Award-winning playwright, screenwriter and director Jane Anderson presents four one-act plays: A Seminar For Responsible Living; The Last Time I Saw Her; Earthquake Preparedness; Lynette Has PMS. With unforgettable characters and scathing humor, the stories explore the challenges of life in Los Angeles, from gun violence to earthquakes. These short pieces ask us to consider what we need to take with us into the next hundred years, and what is best left behind.

It’s 1929 as The Jazz Singer hits the silver screen and the talkies promise to change movies forever. Enter three down-and-out vaudevillians who hatch a hare-brained scheme to “make it big” in Tinsel Town. Their plan? To open a voice academy for the witless stars of silent movies. The only things standing in their way are ditzy starlets and power-hungry movie moguls.

Walter Matthau stars in the story of a climate scientist trying to balance romance and research. The piece is both serious and surreal as Matthau removes the “fourth wall” while addressing the show’s recording engineer. An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Barbara Bain, Zeljko Ivanek and Valerie Landsburg. Directed by Shaun McLoughlin. Recorded before a live audience in Santa Monica, California, in June 1992.

Barbara is a major in the Salvation Army - but she's also the daughter of Andrew Undershaft, a man who's made millions from the sale of weapons of war. The real battle, however, rages between between the devilish father and his idealistic daughter as they answer the question: does salvation come through faith or finance? This sparkling comedy traverses family relations, religion, ethics and politics - as only Shaw, the master dramatist, can!

A comedy-drama about the good-hearted workers at North Shore Fish, a seafood processing plant in Gloucester, Massachusetts. When a government inspector lays down the law, their jobs and lives face irrevocable changes. An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Kristin Ace, Karen Caplan, Laura Sigrid Crook, Heidi J. Dallin, John Fiore, Melissa Fitzgerald, Mary Klug, Marina Re and M.H. Rogers. Directed by Grey Johnson. Recorded before a live audience in March 1993.

Jonathan Waxman is a hugely successful artist. He's been profiled in Vanity Fair and receives exorbitant prices for his works, sight unseen. But a visit with his original muse and lover causes him to reevaluate the success that now controls him.

In 17th-century Sicily, a clever valet named Mascarille tries to help his boss, Lélie, win the girl of his dreams – only to find that Lélie is a monumental dunce who ruins every one of his intricate schemes. Undaunted, Mascarille invents progressively wilder plots, only to see his best-laid plans go very awry in Molière’s The Bungler, translated by Richard Wilbur.

Sidney Blumenthal, White House presidential adviser, renowned journalist and author of numerous books on American politics, takes us inside the well-groomed Washington Press Corps, who yawn when they hear about peace treaties - but snap to attention at the chance to uncover a little dirt on the First Dog.

The third “battle” of Ayckbourn’s celebrated trilogy The Norman Conquests, returns us to the same weekend in the country, but this time to the setting of Mother’s overgrown English country garden. Something more troublesome than brambles is lurking among the roses. Havoc ensues among the flora and fauna, as this cynical masterpiece makes its way to a hilarious conclusion.

Light Up the Sky is a fast-paced, hilarious and ultimately loving look inside show business, set just before and immediately after a Broadway bound play meets its first audience. A full-cast performance featuring: Ian Barford, Patrick Clear, Shannon Cochran, Kyle Colerider-Krugh, Matt DeCaro, Kevin Gudahl, Deirdre Lovejoy, Mariann Mayberry, Phyllis Newman and Steve Pickering.

Literary figures from a book thief’s library come alive, offering romantic and other advice. The Incunabula is a prize book that the thief has purloined. Will he get away with his greatest theft, or will hard reality intervene to strip him of his prized possession? An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Alan Corduner, Ken Danzinger, Joanna Frank, Marabina Jaimes, Alan Raichins, Elizabeth Ruscio, Jeanne Sakata, Carolyn Seymour, and James Warwick. Directed by Robert Robinson.

The Scopes trial, over the right to teach evolution in public schools, reaffirmed the importance of intellectual freedom as codified in the Bill of Rights. The trial, in a small-town Tennessee courtroom in 1925, set the stage for ongoing national debates over the separation of church and state in a democratic society - debates that continue to this day.

In 1950s Houston, an affluent couple is transformed by tragedy when their son dies under mysterious circumstances and the husband loses his job of 40 years. Shirley Knight recreates her Tony-nominated performance in this 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama.

A brand new lawyer and his young bride have returned from their honeymoon and are moving into their new high-rent apartment. In order to reach this "charming" dwelling, they must first climb six creaking flights of stairs. Once there, they find the place is absolutely bare of furniture, the paint job is all wrong, the skylight leaks, there is room for only one twin bed, and the wacky neighbors pop up at the worst times.

How well do you know your family? Your social class? Your race? Sensitive "Spoon" LeVay and his brother "Flip" see their weekend at the family home on Martha's Vineyard as a perfect opportunity to introduce their girlfriends to their upper class African American parents. Instead they stumble into a domestic powder keg that exposes secrets of prejudice, hypocrisy, and adultery. This fantastic new play comes from the pen of one of the country's most provocative new playwrights!

What if...Romeo and Juliet had a happy ending? Or Blanche Dubois didn’t go crazy? Or the three sisters actually made it to Moscow? When he discovers he’s only a fictitious, never-seen character in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Bunbury joins forces with Rosaline, Romeo’s never-seen obsession from Romeo and Juliet. Together they infiltrate and alter classic literature.