Showing results by publisher "L.A. Theatre Works" in Arts & Entertainment

After World War II, an African American war vet brings home his Japanese bride. The family must learn to be tolerant of their new family member, while dealing with prejudice in the outside world. An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Mary Bond Davis, Yvonne Farrow, Bonnie Oda Homsey, Peter A. Jacobs, Carl Lumbly, Vonetta McGee, Don Reed, Charlie Robinson, and Patricia Thompson. Directed by Peggy Shannon. Recorded before a live audience in Santa Monica, CA, in January, 1991.

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.

When death row prisoner Darius McReele transforms into a charismatic front-runner in the Delaware senate race, the spin starts spinning out of control. Is he doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, or the wrong thing for the right reasons? Does it ultimately matter?

A searing drama in which a white South African journalist agrees to assist a young African-Canadian woman on a dangerous journey to locate her missing friend in South Africa.An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Akuyoe, Lisa Bonet, Michael Broomberg, Jack Coleman, Maxine James, Lamakhosi Kunene, Thenjiwe Kunene, Zosukuma Kunene, Carl Lumbly, Abner Mariri, Donald Monat.Directed by Robert Robinson. Recorded before a live audience in March 1992.

> Dreams of Home is a surreal urban fantasy about two lost souls on a subway platform, attempting to salvage their dignity as their eccentric host taunts them. A full-cast performance featuring Lisa Marie Ackel, Noe Cuellar, Frankie Davila, Laurie Martinez, Rita Moreno, and Juan A. Ramirez.

After 18 years of marriage, Della Doucet decides she’s had enough of life on a South Carolina military base and reinvents herself in the New York art world while reveling in a series of shallow romantic affairs. Her new life seems to be going well until she finds herself in the arms of a charming younger man.

In an emotional ecosystem as complex as that of our planet, is life nothing more than survival of the fittest? Michael Hollinger based his probing work on the real-life giant tortoise named “Lonesome George”, and the efforts to preserve his species that threatened the livelihood of the native fishermen on the Galàpagos Islands. This play is part of L.A. Theatre Works’ Relativity Series featuring science-themed plays. Major funding for the Relativity Series is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, to enhance public understanding of science and technology in the modern world.

Three young women share an apartment in New York during the summers of 1967 and 1968. But as the Vietnam War begins to exact its toll on their generation, they must decide whether to stand for their country or their loved ones. An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Barbara Bain, David Birney, Beth Broderick, Anthony Edwards, Megan Gallagher, Peter Gregory, Patricia Sill, and Wendell Sweda. Directed by Valerie Landsburg. Recorded before a live audience in November 1992.

From hot marital sex to Julia Child’s own recipe for the perfect French kiss, Wild Amerika takes us on a hilarious romp through mating, marriage, and monogamy. Using the tropes of documentary and her own life story, Schickel stitches together a crazy quilt of dreams and experience, taking us from the dawn of humanity to the birth of her own daughter.

Taking Flight is a deeply compelling, humorous, and truly moving work that brings to the stage a mystical and poignant tale of a friendship tested by tragedy, and of the resilience of the human heart.

Commerce and heroism clash when a titan of American business orchestrates a U.S. invasion of Mexico. This long-lost 1927 Broadway melodrama combines the crackling dialogue and riveting storytelling of The Front Page with Wag the Dog cynicism.

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.

Playwright Gil Landau is finally experiencing a Broadway smash after many years of draught and disaster. Gil has finally produced an overnight sensation, but his reverie quickly turns to panic when rumors begin circulating about the questionable authorship of his play. Adding to the mix is an unscrupulous agent, a boozy leading lady, and Gil's estranged son, who is recovering from a nervous breakdown after attempting to leap from the top of a building.

Michael and Anna, best friends and next door neighbors during childhood, accidentally meet again as adults. In an all-white room, two people reenact their childhood fears, fantasies and mutual love as a chilling secret is revealed. Featuring Mary Stuart Masterson and Steven Weber.

The dreary aspects of Soviet housing and one family’s attempt to “exchange” its tiny Moscow apartment for a larger one. Adapted from a novella by the respected Russian writer Yuri Trifanov, as translated by playwright Michael Frayn. Translated and adapted by Michael Frayn. Directed by Robert Robinson. Recorded before a live audience in Santa Monica, CA in April, 1992.

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.

Harry Shearer’s parody of a presidential election. In this fantasy, Bob Dole Jr. faces off against a wrestler named Greenberg, as they fight for one family’s votes by camping out in their living room. An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Fran Adams, Ed Begley Jr., Judyann Elder, Arye Gross, Daniel Passer, Richard Masur, Harry Shearer, Fred Willard, and Kenny Williams. Directed by Harry Shearer. Recorded before a live audience.