An increasingly agitated audience greeted the world premiere of J.M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World at Dublin’s Abbey Theater in 1907.  Good Irish lads sang patriotic songs and shouted, “Kill the author!” Howls of outrage escalated to fistfights, culminating in an actual riot. At subsequent performances, young hotheads sat in the front rows [...]

Clifford Odets’ first play, “Awake and Sing,” is considered his masterpiece. A fortuitous product of zeitgeist, psychosocial climate and synchronicity, the work has become a holy relic of Depression-era American culture.
Glendale’s estimable classical theater rep company, A Noise Within, presents “Awake and Sing” now through May 23. The plot concerns three generations of a Jewish [...]

Written and performed by Canadian playwright/actor Darrell Dennis, the West Coast premiere of “Tales of an Urban Indian” closes the 10th-anniversary season at Native Voices at the Autry. First workshopped nearly 10 years ago, the piece made its world premiere at the New York Public Theatre last March.
The semi-autobiographical play is also the basis of [...]

Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” remains an oft-performed play more than 400 years after its premiere. In spite of its rampant, politically incorrect male chauvinism, the Bard’s witty romantic comedy is still pulling laughs from appreciative theater-goers.
Director Michael Murray’s production at A Noise Within in Glendale doesn’t gloss over the play’s misogynist elements, nor apologize [...]

With “See the Music, Hear the Dance,” an evening of three challenging choreographies by George Balanchine at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse, Los Angeles Ballet has reaffirmed its ascendance as the ballet company for which Los Angeles has waited decades.
Chosen from the vast catalogue of works from Balanchine’s prodigiously long career, the LAB premieres of “Kammermusik No. [...]

Los Angeles Ballet presents an all-Balanchine program, “See the Music, Hear the Dance,” in venues in and around LA between Feb. 20 and March 6. The program includes the LAB premieres of Kammermusik No. 2 and Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2, as well as the return of “Serenade.”
Balanchine choreographed Kammermusik No. 2 to Hindemith’s Op. [...]

Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” was an instant success when it debuted at the Théatre de Babylone in Paris in January 1953. It ran for 400 performances and received critical praise from such writers as Tennessee Williams, Jean Anouilh, Thornton Wilder and William Saroyan.  Greeted with jeers and boos from some audience members at its [...]

The cast of the world premiere sex comedy, “Nothing On,” is drenched in sweat only hours before the opening night performance.  The stage manager and single crew member haven’t slept in days, and the director is hanging on to his sanity by his fingernails, as he attempts a final dress rehearsal.  His leading lady can’t [...]

Ho-hummmm… yet another production of Shakespeare’s “Richard III.” What the heck, ANY Shakespeare is better than what’s on TV. And Glendale isn’t really such a shlep. With this enthusiasm to fuel my trek, I journey to A Noise Within.
The clashing of swords, the rumblings of horses’ hooves over rocky terrain, a chorus of shouts explode [...]

I admit to more than a little skepticism about the idea that three actors could pull off anything resembling a credible reading of Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment.” The press release swore they would pull it off in 80 minutes. Yeah, right.
Still, it was offered by A Noise Within – one of the nation’s leading repertory [...]