(Sian Roper / For The Times)
The 16 most intriguing SoCal theater offerings this fall season
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Audiences desperately need a laugh right now, and the fall theater season is riding to the rescue with farces, rom-coms, political satires and musicals with a sharp sense of humor.
One farce should come with a surgeon general’s warning. Richard Bean’s “One Man, Two Guvnors” had me in physical distress when I saw it first at London’s National Theatre and then again on Broadway. I nearly asphyxiated from laughing.
Whether A Noise Within will be able to capture the slapstick panache of James Corden’s Tony-winning performance in “One Man, Two Guvnors,” is an open question. But the mere memory of this reworking of a commedia-style classic leaves me in stitches.
“Eureka Day” is no less amusing for being politically pointed. Jonathan Spector’s play, set at a super-woke private school in Berkeley, wades into the ever-more contentious vaccine debate. How can concerned parents reach consensus when even medical knowledge has become tribalized? Spector satirizes with just the right combination of empathy and mercilessness.
Hard to think of a finer recent workplace comedy than “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding.” Playwright Jocelyn Bioh tracks the relationships between the employees of a Harlem hair salon and their customers who depend on their specialized services in an America that can be oblivious to the vulnerabilities of immigrant outsiders.
In a season that seems to be prioritizing diversion over protest, the plight of immigrants continues to be a pressing concern of dramatists, such as Lloyd Suh, whose play “The Heart Sellers” finds genuine humor in the friendship of two Asian immigrant women searching for a sense of belonging in their strange new consumerist world.
“Stereophonic,” David Adjmi’s intensely intimate yet epic drama about a Fleetwood Mac-style rock band recording a breakthrough album while riding the waves of romantic and artistic discord, is one of the most celebrated plays of the last 10 years. Adjmi and Will Butler, who wrote the score for this hybrid drama, take us behind the music into the crucible of creative genius, where nothing matters but getting the sound right.
As for new and recent musicals, La Jolla Playhouse unveils “Working Girl,” the world premiere musical adaptation of Mike Nichols’ 1988 film about a Staten Island secretary who out-schemes her ruthless bosses to grab the brass ring. (File this under “What took so long!”) And “Suffs,” a musical about the fight to win American women the right to vote, delivers something even more urgent right now than laughter: a tale of empowerment.
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'One Man, Two Guvnors'
Performing Arts Theater
From left, Trisha Miller, Kasey Mahaffy, Ty Aldridge and Cassandra Marie Murphy, the cast of “One Man, Two Guvnors” at A Noise Within.
(Daniel Reichert)
Richard Bean’s ingenious adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s “The Servant of Two Masters” relocates the 18th century commedia dell’arte-style romp to Brighton, England, in the 1960s. James Corden won a Tony Award for his performance of Francis Henshall, an out-of-work musician employed by two bosses he’s desperate to keep apart. These are tough clown shoes to fill. But the slapstick takes on a life of its own, and even if physical comedy isn’t your thing, you’re bound to succumb to the hilarity of this scrambling farce, complete with ludicrous aliases, outfoxed mobsters and one of the funniest restaurant waiter scenes ever scripted.
Where: A Noise Within
When: Now to Sept. 28
Price: Starts at $51.50
Where: A Noise Within
When: Now to Sept. 28
Price: Starts at $51.50
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'Am I Roxie?'
Westwood Performing Arts Theater
Playwright and actor Roxana Ortega in “Am I Roxie?” at the Geffen Playhouse.
(Erik Carter)
Written and performed by Roxana Ortega, an alumna of the Groundlings Sunday Company, this one-woman-show grapples with the caretaking conundrums of a mother’s mental decline. Shot through with flamboyant comedy, the show provides a showcase for Ortega’s comic skills, as she portrays everything from an aunt obsessed with mermaids to a Sherpa with a prickly attitude. Bernardo Cubría directs this world premiere solo work that finds resilience in extravagant humor.
Where: Geffen Playhouse’s Gil Cates Theater
When: Sept. 3 to Oct. 5
Price: Starts at $36
Where: Geffen Playhouse’s Gil Cates Theater
When: Sept. 3 to Oct. 5
Price: Starts at $36
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'Oedipus the King, Mama!'
Pacific Palisades Performing Arts Theater
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The Getty Villa and the Troubadour Theater present “Oedipus the King, Mama!”
(Getty and Troubadour Theater)
Troubadour Theater Company returns to the Villa’s annual outdoor classical theater production with a musical comedy mash-up of Sophocles’ “Oedipus the King” and Elvis, the King of Rock and Roll. Such outlandish fusions are a house specialty of the Troubies. In “Lizastrata,” the troupe’s 2021 production at the Villa, Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata” was given a Liza Minnelli makeover. It’s a formula that few could pull off, but the troupe’s patented campy delirium is known to achieve the impossible.
Where: Getty Villa, Outdoor Theater
When: Sept. 4 to 27
Price: $45-$55
Where: Getty Villa, Outdoor Theater
When: Sept. 4 to 27
Price: $45-$55
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'Eureka Day'
Pasadena Performing Arts Theater
Mia Barron, clockwise from left, Cherise Boothe, Camille Chen, Rick Holmes and Nate Corddry, the cast of “Eureka Day” at the Pasadena Playhouse.
(Pasadena Playhouse)
Set at a progressive private school in Berkeley, where parents pride themselves on their enlightened ways, Jonathan Spector’s Tony-winning comedy enters the vaccine fray after a mumps breakout divides the school community. Consensus, the community’s touted value, proves unreachable when science itself comes under attack. A virtual town hall gives rise to a no-holds-barred live-stream comments section that is one of the funniest bits of satire of our technological era. Mia Barron plays a mom whose gushing empathy conceals strident anti-vax views in this Pasadena Playhouse production of a play that lampoons with humanity to sharpen the conversation.
Where: Pasadena Playhouse
When: Sept. 10 to Oct. 5
Price: Starts at $40
Where: Pasadena Playhouse
When: Sept. 10 to Oct. 5
Price: Starts at $40
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'The Night of the Iguana'
Pasadena Performing Arts Theater
Boston Court Pasadena presents Tennessee Williams’ “The Night of the Iguana.”
(Tova Katz)
Jessica Kubzansky directs a revival of this 1961 Tennessee Williams drama about a defrocked priest beset by temptation and thrust into a spiritual crisis as he leads a tour group through Mexico. A 1964 film by John Huston starring Richard Burton, Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr raised the play’s profile. But revivals aren’t as common as those of Williams’ undeniable classics, such as “The Glass Menagerie,” “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” One of the lesser major works, “The Night of the Iguana” is tricky to pull off but all the more thrilling for being such a challenge.
Where: Boston Court Pasadena
When: Sept. 11 to Oct. 19
Price: Starts at $32
Where: Boston Court Pasadena
When: Sept. 11 to Oct. 19
Price: Starts at $32
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'Fiddler on the Roof'
Northridge Performing Arts Theater
Steven Skybell stars in the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s production of “Fiddler on the Roof” at the Soraya.
(Jeremy Daniel I)
This concert version of the much-heralded National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s production translates the beloved musical into Yiddish. Under the direction of Joel Grey, Steven Skybell reprises his much-acclaimed performance as Tevye. According to Kenneth Turan, who wrote about the original New York production, “[T]he main benefit the new Tevye conveys is that by using the language the original characters spoke, it makes everything in the play more authentic and more affecting, cutting the schmaltz of Broadway with the specificity of a vibrant culture that is no more.” English supertitles for those who don’t understand Yiddish or already know the show by heart.
Where: The Soraya
When: Sept. 13 to 14
Price: $59-$137
Where: The Soraya
When: Sept. 13 to 14
Price: $59-$137
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'Jaja’s African Hair Braiding'
Downtown L.A. Performing Arts Theater
Bisserat Tseggai, left, and Mia Ellis in “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” at the Mark Taper Forum, a co-production with Arena Stage, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, La Jolla Playhouse and Center Theatre Group.
(T. Charles Erickson)
Playwright Jocelyn Bioh (“School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play”) captures the camaraderie and competitiveness, solidarity and rivalry of workplace relations in this entertaining comedy about the African immigrant employees of a Harlem hair salon earning their daily bread as they work their fingers — and mouths! — to exhaustion. The play is wildly amusing, but Bioh isn’t just kidding around. By familiarizing us with the workday rhythms of these flamboyant women, she makes us feel all the more acutely the threats that accompany their marginal status in a not-always-welcoming America. Whitney White, who directed the impeccably acted Broadway premiere, helms this much-praised co-production.
Where Mark Taper Forum
When: Oct. 1 to Nov. 9
Price: Starts at $40.25
Where Mark Taper Forum
When: Oct. 1 to Nov. 9
Price: Starts at $40.25
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'Anthropology'
Fairfax Performing Arts Theater
Rogue Machine Theatre presents playwright Lauren Gunderson’s “Anthropology” at the Matrix.
(Tatiana M.)
Prolific and popular playwright Lauren Gunderson gravitates toward brainy subjects. Here, she delves into a fraught philosophical question: Can AI substitute for the human comfort we need, or are we only hastening the demise of our species by depending on digital simulations of people who actually care about us? John Perrin Flynn directs the North American premiere of a play by a dramatist whose work (“I and You,” “The Book of Will”) is as thought-provoking as it is emotionally resonant.
Where: Rogue Machine Theatre at the Matrix
When: Sept. 27 to Nov. 9
Price: Starts at $45
Where: Rogue Machine Theatre at the Matrix
When: Sept. 27 to Nov. 9
Price: Starts at $45
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'Paranormal Inside'
Downtown L.A. Performing Arts Theater
East West Players presents playwright Prince Gomolvilas’ “Paranormal Inside” at the David Henry Hwang Theater.
(Brooke Burton)
Playwright Prince Gomolvilas’ latest is a sequel to “The Brothers Paranormal,” which had its Los Angeles premiere at East West Players in 2022. In returning to the ghost-hunting business launched by two Thai American brothers, the author continues his examination of intergenerational trauma through the lens of the occult. Jeff Liu directs what sounds like a wild ride into the Freudian uncanny, where the repressed makes a startling return.
Where: East West Players, David Henry Hwang Theater
When: Oct. 9 to Nov. 2
Price: Starts at $15
Where: East West Players, David Henry Hwang Theater
When: Oct. 9 to Nov. 2
Price: Starts at $15
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'Joe Turner’s Come and Gone'
Performing Arts Theater
Kai A. Ealy stars in “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at A Noise Within.
(Daniel Reichert)
Gregg T. Daniel continues his re-investigation of August Wilson’s American Century Cycle with a production of what is arguably the finest work in the playwright’s 10-play series. Set in a Pittsburgh boarding house in 1911 during the Great Migration, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” focuses on the spiritual crossroads of Black Americans who are being reminded at every turn that their freedom comes with a prohibitive cost. The sixth Wilson production at A Noise Within in this seasons-long retrospective should be a standout: It’s one of the great American plays of the 20th century.
Where: A Noise Within
When: Oct. 12 to Nov. 9
Price: Starts at $51.50
Where: A Noise Within
When: Oct. 12 to Nov. 9
Price: Starts at $51.50
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'The Heart Sellers'
Costa Mesa Performing Arts Theater
South Coast presents playwright Lloyd Suh’s “The Heart Seller” on the Julianne Argyros Stage.
(Jackie Abbott)
Lloyd Suh, author of “The Far Country,” a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for drama, examines the deracinating effects of immigration in his work. In “The Heart Sellers,” two immigrants, one Filipino, the other Korean, strike up a friendship after a chance meeting at that quintessential American crossroads: the supermarket. Set in 1973, after the 1965 Hart-Celler Act abolished the national quota system that restricted immigration from non-European countries, they bond over what they left behind, the strange universe they’ve entered and the challenge of cooking a frozen turkey. Jennifer Chang directs this comedy about the power of friendship to redefine the idea of home.
Where: South Coast Repertory, Julianne Argyros Stage
When: Oct. 26 to Nov. 16
Price: $36 to $122
Where: South Coast Repertory, Julianne Argyros Stage
When: Oct. 26 to Nov. 16
Price: $36 to $122
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'Working Girl'
San Diego Performing Arts Theater
La Jolla Playouse presents the musical stage adaptation of the 1988 movie “Working Girl” with music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper.
(Sophy Holland / La Jolla Playhouse)
This musical adaption of the 1988 film — directed by Mike Nichols, written by Kevin Wade and starring Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver and Melanie Griffith — has assembled an all-star team of its own. The music and lyrics are by Cyndi Lauper, Theresa Rebeck has written the book and Christopher Ashley directs. The Wall Street Cinderella story centers on a Staten Island secretary who, tired of being misused, underestimated and passed over, cunningly takes her corporate future into her own hands in a revenge tale that has everyone rooting for the underdog. Yet another La Jolla Playhouse world premiere that has “Broadway hit” written all over it.
Where: La Jolla Playhouse, Mandell Weiss Theatre
When: Oct. 28 to Nov. 30
Price: Starts at $79
Where: La Jolla Playhouse, Mandell Weiss Theatre
When: Oct. 28 to Nov. 30
Price: Starts at $79
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'Table 17'
Westwood Performing Arts Theater
(Corey Olsen)
The West Coast premiere of this rom-com by Douglas Lyons (author of the Broadway comedy “Chicken & Biscuits”) concerns a formerly engaged man and woman who reunite at a restaurant to sift through the past with calm, friendly, objective detachment. What could possibly go wrong? This MCC Theater production, directed by Zhailon Levingston (“Cats: The Jellicle Ball”) features Gail Bean, Biko Eisen-Martin and Michael Rishawn in a play the New York Times described as “comfort food” that “satisfies a genuine craving.”
Where: Geffen Playhouse’s Gil Cates Theater
When: Nov. 5 to Dec. 7
Price: Starts at $36
Where: Geffen Playhouse’s Gil Cates Theater
When: Nov. 5 to Dec. 7
Price: Starts at $36
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'Paranormal Activity'
Downtown L.A. Performing Arts Theater
The stage adaptation of the horror movie franchise “Paranormal Activity” comes to the Ahmanson Theatre.
(Pamela Raith)
Your guess is as good as mine about what “Paranormal Activity” is about. The exact content is under wraps. But the show, based on the “Paranormal Activity” films, seems determined to scare you silly. The theater has caught the horror bug — and why not? Fear knows no bounds. Written by Levi Holloway, whose “Grey House” had a brief Broadway run in 2023, and directed by Felix Barrett, whose immersive “Sleep No More” captivated New York audiences for years, the production sets out to give new meaning to the term stage fright.
Where: Ahmanson Theatre
When: Nov. 13 to Dec. 7
Price: Starts at $40.25
Where: Ahmanson Theatre
When: Nov. 13 to Dec. 7
Price: Starts at $40.25
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'Suffs'
Hollywood Performing Arts Theater
The national tour of Broadway musical “Suffs” visits the Hollywood Pantages.
(Joan Marcus)
This musical by Shaina Taub, which won Tony Awards for book and original score, turns the history of the 20th century American women’s suffrage movement into a show that rallies the spirit of democracy. The plot follows Alice Paul and a new generation of radical activists who are testing new tactics in the fight to secure women the right to vote. During the Broadway run, Hillary Clinton, one of the show’s high-profile producers, went on the stump for “Suffs,” endorsing its much-needed lesson that progress is possible, if never guaranteed.
Where: Hollywood Pantages Theatre
When: Nov. 18 to Dec. 7
Price: Starts at $57
Where: Hollywood Pantages Theatre
When: Nov. 18 to Dec. 7
Price: Starts at $57
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'Stereophonic'
Hollywood Performing Arts Theater
The Tony-winning play “Stereophonic” will be at the Hollywood Pantages.
(Julieta Cervantes)
David Adjmi’s Tony-winning blockbuster drama, ablaze with original music by Will Butler, formerly of Arcade Fire, invites us to eavesdrop on the roller-coaster recording sessions of a 1970s British and American rock group on the cusp of super-stardom. Art isn’t easy, as Sondheim told us. But romantic conflicts, inflamed by drugs and alcohol, only add to the creative combustion of a band chasing immortality. Daniel Aukin’s production, with its unerring ear for realism, immerses audiences in the glory and madness of rock ’n’ roll. The play’s L.A. premiere will be one of the unmissable events of the fall season.
Where: Hollywood Pantages Theatre
When: Dec. 9 to Jan. 2, 2026
Price: Starts at $57
Where: Hollywood Pantages Theatre
When: Dec. 9 to Jan. 2, 2026
Price: Starts at $57
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