Happy Women's History Month, this month in LA theatre, we have a ton of incredible shows about women!
*shows with asterisks are produced by companies that have signed the LA Anti-Racist Theatre Standards, encourage your favorite company to sign the standards today!
Three by Nick Salamone Produced by Playwrights’ Arena* and Los Angeles LGBT Center*
February 15 - March 18
THREE is a meditation on Chekhov’s THREE SISTERS which explores Chekhov’s themes of longing, love and the meaning of life. Through an American and Queer prism, THREE offers a snapshot of the Prozorov family and their loved ones on four different days in four different eras in a fictional army base town in the far north of the upper Midwest. We see our characters on the day the town’s soldiers begin to return from World War II, and again on a Halloween night in 1982 with Reagan in the White House and the AIDS epidemic finally beginning to permeate the national consciousness, then on the day after the Oklahoma City bombing and finally in the not too distance future of a country recovering from the Covid crisis and perhaps mobilizing for conflict in Eurasia with another autocrat on the march. Each act's historical events provide a new setting and a new context for Chekhov’s eternal concerns.
Why I am seeing it: Checkhov is pure delicious existentialism and this update seems very interesting. Additionally, I really love the LGBT Center's artistic direction and will continue to see every show I can this season.
March 7 - April 7
Four beautiful, badass women lose their heads in this irreverent, girl-powered
comedy set during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. Playwright Olympe
de Gouges, assassin Charlotte Corday, former queen (and fan of ribbons) Marie
Antoinette, and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle hang out, murder Marat, and try
to beat back the extremist insanity in 1793 Paris. This grand and dream-tweaked
comedy is about violence and legacy, art and activism, feminism and terrorism,
compatriots and chosen sisters, and how we actually go about changing the
world. It’s a true story. Or total fiction. Or a play about a play. Or a raucous
resurrection…that ends in a song and a scaffold.
Power to the Queendom produced by Loft Ensemble
March 8 - 24
4 women of the Black Panther Party find themselves in hot water after a protest goes left and they hold a Houston police officer hostage in chapter headquarters. The cops assaulted an unarmed black man, and the ladies won’t release the cop until he answers their questions.
Why I am seeing it: Sounds badass, I love powerful women and am interested to see how this story plays out.
One of the Good Ones produced by Pasadena Playhouse*
March 13 - April 7
The ultimate family showdown is on in the world premiere of this new comedy commissioned by Pasadena Playhouse. When the “perfect” Latina daughter brings her boyfriend home to meet the parents, her family’s biases and preconceptions are put on full display. As tensions run high and hilarity ensues, everyone must navigate the ins and outs of family dynamics and the boundaries of acceptance — all while tackling the age-old question: what does it truly mean to be an American? Meet your new favorite family in this laugh-out-loud, heartfelt story from Gloria Calderón Kellett, the co-creator and showrunner of Netflix’s One Day at a Time.
March 15 - March 16
Drawing from her training in theater and the psychology of group dynamics, New York–based artist Autumn Knight makes performances that reshape perceptions of race, gender, and authority. Drawing from her NOTHING#31 series—an investigation into the Italian concept of “dolce far niente,” the sweetness of doing nothing—Knight performs two works at REDCAT.
Presented on Thursday, March 15 and Friday, March 16, part one, a bar, is a social experiment transforming the theater space into a host club in which, guided by Knight, the audiences undertake the task of creating the optimal conditions for temporary but meaningful companionship, desire, and connection with their fellow audience members.
Presented on Sunday, March 17, part two, A BLUFF, is just that. Using her training as an improviser and the inexhaustible possibilities each audience member brings, Knight alone on stage responds improvisationally to the space, its architecture, its audience, pointedly launching from the potentiality—both the sweetness and desolation—of nothingness.
March 15 - 16
Join us at BroadStage Santa Monica as writer, performer, and founding member of Culture Clash
Herbert Sigüenza takes on the role of Picasso for L.A. Theatre Works’ A Weekend with Pablo Picasso, a sensational one-man show based on writings from Picasso himself. The show invites the audience to experience a weekend in Picasso’s private studio as he prepares to deliver six new works to a buyer on Monday morning. A Weekend with Pablo Picasso includes large scale video projections of the art being created, as well as historic images and text, making it an immersive and artistic experience you don’t want to miss.
Why I am seeing it: This looks like what all the artist "immersive" experiences wanted to be, and looks incredible! I don't always love Picasso as a painter, but the show looks too interesting to pass up.
March 15 - 23
Co-created by Gabriel GARZA and CHAVEZ, Adobe Punk is set in the early 1980s in working-class Bell Gardens where punk music finds life in one of L.A.’s oldest adobe homes. Inspired by the bands X, the Minutemen, and the Bags, a punk trio builds its songbook as they define their artistic identity and find their place in the musical, and early California, landscape of L.A.
Why I am seeing it: This sounds absolutely badass, and I love the history of punk music and Los Angeles art.
iambic lab 2024: HAMLET, UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY produced by Independent Shakespeare Co.*
March 21 - April 9
Now in its seventh year, iambic lab is Independent Shakespeare Co.'s series of eclectic events exploring and celebrating theater. With this year's offerings, ISC explores different facets of what is arguably the most famous play in the world: William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. A mix of free and ticketed events, all offerings are at the ISC Studio at Atwater Crossing.
Why I am seeing it: I love Hamlet, I have two Hamlet tattoos, I love talking about Hamlet, experiencing other adaptations of Hamlet. So yeah I will take a week of Hamlet.
Fat Ham at the Geffen Playhouse
March 27 - April 28
Meet Juicy, a young, queer Black man with a Shakespearean-sized dilemma. When the ghost of his dead father shows up at his family’s BBQ wedding reception demanding his murder be avenged, does the poetic and sensitive Juicy have it in him to do the deed, or will he “to thine own self be true?” See what the New York Times calls “a hilarious yet profound tragedy smothered in comedy,” in this Pulitzer Prize–winning take on Hamlet, direct from Broadway to L.A.
Why I am seeing it: See above (I really love Hamlet). Also this show is the only reason I bought a subscription to the Geffen, because they prioritized tickets to subscribers and I didn't want to chance it.
What To learn more about LA Theatre Guides, click here! To submit a show to be added, click here.
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