"Ah, those Gang members. If anyone
understands the ritualized uses of theater, they do. What emerges from
their think tank... is consistently raw and fresh, in all senses of the
word."
- Los Angeles Times
"...The Gang is an enormously talented and versatile ensemble with a
genius for refreshingly engaged political humor."
- San Francisco Examiner
"Thank God for the Actors' Gang. More than any other company [it]
can be counted on to deliver the kind of audacious work that takes risks as it
entertains."
- Orange County Register
"There might just be a delicious strain of insanity running through the
Actors' Gang. Its result always sparkles and is always winning,
insightful, top-notch theatre entertainment."
- Drama-Logue
2008
The Los Angeles Downtown News Review of 1984
at the Red Cat
Sunday JUNE 21, 2008
The Los Angeles Times Review of 1984
at the Red Cat
THURSDAY JUNE 19, 2008
The Hollywood Reporter Review of 1984
at the Red Cat
Tuesday June 2, 2008
The truthdigger
The upcoming production of 1984
Wednesday May 28, 2008
The NetworkerRun, do not walk.
Speed if you must, slide through the yellow
lights. Cancel plans with friends, or better
yet, take them with you (and everyone else, you
almost run over) to see the revival of KLUB
(pronounced Kloob, impress your friends with the
correct pronunciation, previously on stage in
1992), now playing at The Actor's Gang. You
don't have much time. It runs though May 10, and
must close then…so get on it!
Wednesday APRIL 23, 2008
LA Weekly
THEATER PICK KLÜB
Wednesday APRIL 14, 2008
Variety Review
Klüb
MONDAY APRIL 7, 2008
Tim Robbins' reimagining of
Orwell's '1984' resonates in 2008
by: JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
4/6/2008
True story: A Los Angeles gang and a bunch of
mimes in San Francisco try to work together, and
end up torturing one unfortunate individual.
THURSDAY APRIL 3, 2008
LAist Interview: Mitch Watson
The Actors' Gang 25th Anniversary Season will
feature a revival of the Gang's 1992 hit "Klub".
The production opens April 12 and reunites the
company with director Michael Schlitt,
songwriter David Arnott, and writer Mitch
Watson. LAist asked Mitch Watson about his years
in 'The Gang", his work in animation, and the
existential world of Klub.
MONDAY MARCH 3, 2008
The force behind 'Carnage, A Comedy'
You can feel the fire and brimstone of V.J.
Foster's preacher man.
By Charlotte Stoudt
Special to The LA Times
2007
It takes a lot of guts,
creativity, and plenty of big foam noses to turn
Shakespeare's most violent play into a family-friendly
comedy. But Angela Berliner and the Actors' Gang have done
so with this 50-minute adaptation of Titus Andronicus.
Berliner's script is easy for children to follow while
including many jokes meant for adults. The cast and
director-percussionist Justin Zsebe expertly mix
clown-style physical comedy with solid storytelling
theatre to create a funny and thoughtful performance.
MONDAY AUGUST 20, 2007
The Trial of the Catonsville Nine
VARIETY REVIEW
August 21, 2007
By bob Verini
Thirty-nine years after the Catonsville, Md.,
burning of 378 Selective Service files that led to the titular
proceeding, and 36 years after helming the Taper premiere, Gordon
Davidson assembled a dream cast for a one-night staged reading of Father
Daniel Berrigan's transcript-based free-verse drama to benefit the
progressive Office of the Americas and Tim Robbins' Actors' Gang.
CLICK HERE TO SEE A VIDEO PRESENTATION OF THE
EVENT!
The long voyage home is a theme as old as
Homer's "Odyssey" and as contemporary as the
post-traumatic stress experienced by soldiers
returning from Iraq.
The idea, however, to use one man's fantastical
journey as a way to satirize the shortcomings of
race in general belongs to Jonathan Swift, whose
acerbic memoir, Gulliver's Travels, was first
published in 1726. Intended for adults, it was
only in our time that the book was hijacked and
transformed into a cartoon tale for children.
July 13, 2007
A Swift job on Gulliver's trip
Adapting Jonathan
Swift's 1726 epic satire "Gulliver's
Travels" for the stage is a bit of a
blivet: shoving 10 pounds of manure
into a 5-pound bag. But the Actors'
Gang has staged a smart, irreverent —
and yes, scatologically emphatic —
version of the shipwrecked doctor's
classic journey through a series of
fantastical civilizations. This is
"Masterpiece Theatre" for an adult's
inner 10-year-old and probably great
fun for certain preteens who have been
told the facts of life.
It's easy to
imagine that Jonathan Swift would enjoy the
Actors' Gang adaptation of his four-part
satirical 1726 novel, because it retains the
novel's playful spirit as well as its political
and religious underlying themes. This
Gulliver's Travels is firing on all
cylinders. Josh Zeller's sharp adaptation, the
creative multimedia effects, and the fun
costumes; P. Adam Walsh's snappy direction; and
a remarkably versatile cast, headed by Keythe
Farley, are ideal. This is a two-hour journey
that departs quickly, rides wild waves, and
docks before anyone loses interest.
Monday, June 4, 2007 - Gulliver's travels press
release
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2007
LA Times theatre
Review
Actors bring heart to 'Women of
Lockerbie'
By Philip
Brandes, Special to the Times
The 1988 bombing of
Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie,
Scotland, has all but faded into the
bloodless abstraction of a diplomatic
bargaining chip in U.S.-Libyan
relations. With "The Women of
Lockerbie," the Actors' Gang recaptures
the emotional weight of that watershed
terrorist attack through the visceral
immediacy of first-rate live
performance.
By Mitch Chortkoff
Observer Editor
If you want to see The Women Of Lockerbie in a
detached manner, forget it.
But if you care to be absorbed by 80 minutes
of a compelling story and firstrate
acting, head for the Ivy Substation in Culver
City, as I did Sunday.
There you will be brought into the world of
grief caused by the terrorist bombing
of Pan-Am Flight #103 on Dec. 21, 1988 and the
love that eventually emerges from the
principal characters. Obviously, the
bombing which killed 270 aboard caused grief
beyond description to the families. Less
apparent is how the lives of people in the
tiny Scottish town were changed forever.
Women of Lockerbie'
intense and powerful
By
Jim Farber
THEATER CRITIC
At 7:03 on the
night of Dec. 21, 1988, the bodies of 259 men,
women and children, along with the blasted
wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103, rained down on
the sleepy village of Lockerbie, Scotland,
killing an additional 11 on the ground.
But the truth
is, no one in the village, or the relatives of
those on board the flight, survived; their
world changed forever.
The Women of Lockerbie
By Deborah Brevoort
This involving docudrama is essentially about a mother's
grief over the death of her only child. If you've suffered
the untimely death of a loved one, or know someone who
has, you may find it difficult to watch. Inspired by the
tragic plane crash of PanAm Flight 103 in Scotland in
l988, caused by a terrorist bomb that killed two hundred
and seventy people...
Mon., Feb. 26, 2007, 8:00pm PT
The Women of Lockerbie
Variety.com
By TERRY MORGAN
Playwright Deborah Brevoort brings the
pain of bombings from all over the world
into stark clarity by focusing on a single
tragedy -- the terrorist bombing of Pan Am
Flight 101 over Lockerbie, Scotland. In
the detailing of agonizing grief, "The
Women of Lockerbie" becomes a stunning
display of raw emotion, a powerhouse drama
whose evocation of unthinkable loss and a
path to a sort of redemption is a
masterful and cathartic experience.
2006
Bertolt Brecht wasn't
pleased with his "Drums in the Night," in
particular because it was a hit with the same
bourgeois class that he attacked in the play.
Just his second work
(it was first produced in 1922), "Drums in the
Night" today is overshadowed by Brecht's
masterpieces, "The Threepenny Opera" and "Happy
End." But a recent translation by Tasmanian
Finegan Kruckemyer, which has been tweaked by
the Actors' Gang for its American premiere,
might return this early work to prominence.
"DRUMS IN THE NIGHT" STUDY GUIDE
MONDAY , OCTOBER 13, 2006
No doublespeak, Orwell's 1984 is still big today
Thuy On
The Australian News
OPENING last night as one of the
headline acts at Melbourne International Arts
Festival, the adaptation of 1984 by Tim
Robbins's Los Angeles troupe The Actors' Gang
was, in Orwellian terms, doubleplusgood.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2006
L.A.'s 'Actors' Gang' Turns 25
By Les Spindle
BACKSTAGE.COM
The Los Angeles theatre community has
something in common with the late, great
comedian Rodney Dangerfield: It keeps fighting
hard to get some respect. Despite the number of
superb companies and the abundance of quality
productions on the boards here, our film-capital
metropolis is still frequently dismissed as a
poor man's theatre town.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2006
THE AGE.COM - AUSTRALIA
This adaptation of Orwell's
novel by this Los Angeles company plays
down the surveillance aspect in favour of
suggesting analogies to current political
dynamics and identities.
-
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2006
Love — and lust — in the air for Bard's
'Labor's Lost'
By Evan Henerson, Theater Critic
U-Entertainment
Pity the high minded King of
Navarre, his devoted lords and all their lofty
ideals of purity. Matched against those sexy and
saucy maids of France, these poor men never had
a chance. It's a pastoral, occasionally
religious and decidedly eroticized energy that
sweeps through the version of Shakespeare's
"Love's Labor's Lost." playing at the Actors'
Gang.
-
FRIDAY, aUGUST 11, 2006
Brooding 'Pericles' as family romp
LA Times Review
August 11, 2006
How do you turn a Shakespearean
drama rife with incest, violence and
prostitution into a G-rated family diversion?
With much tongue-in-cheek misdirection, as it
turns out.
-
FRIDAY July 28, 2006
'Love's Labor's Lost': It's pretty to watch,
fun to see
Simon Abkarian gracefully handles one of
Shakespeare's trickiest comedies.
By Charles McNulty
Times Staff Writer
"Love's Labor's Lost" doesn't come
around very often. It's one of Shakespeare's
trickiest comedies, a feast of language
(much of it antique) served up with little
plot and lots of rapidly choreographed high
jinks. A curse for a director with a
pedestrian sensibility, it's a treasure
chest of felicities, verbal and musical, for
one with a bold imagination.
-
FRIDAY July 28, 2006
CURTAIN UP
By Ariana Mufson
Love's Labor's Lost is not your
typical Shakespeare comedy. The tone is often
somber and the ending reveals a death instead of
marriage. Hidden identities appear briefly, but
no one is fooled. Thus, director Simon Abkarian
and the Actors' Gang create a production that
may not have as many laughs as we are used to
from the Bard's comedies. Instead, Abkarian
encourages his actors to create visually
stunning images and tableaus that breathe life
into the often slow paced play. Clocking in at
almost three hours, the production does leave us
drowsy at times, but the overall effect of
Akbarian's direction captures our emotions,
creating a successful theater piece as a whole.
-
FRIDAY July 28, 2006
Zesty entertainment found in 'Love's
Labor's Lost'
By Jim Farber
DAILY BREEZE
Four upstanding young men, led by
Ferdinand, the King of Navarre, have
decided to take an oath: For a term of
three years they will have no contact,
physical or verbal, with members of the
opposite sex. They will, they swear,
cloister themselves in pious study. And if
any woman should approach their sanctuary,
she will be punished.
-
FRIDAY July 21, 2006
On stage: Actors' Gang finds challenge in
'Love's Labor's Lost'
BY JEFF FAVRE
DAILY BREEZE
Though it's considered a political theater, The
Actors' Gang is just as focused on classics as
it is the outspoken or subversive.
Last season, the Culver City company made
audiences laugh with Molière's 17th-century
farce "Tartuffe." This summer, the Gang is
offering a double dose of Shakespeare, with a
fully staged "Love's Labor's Lost," which opens
tonight, and an outdoor, weekends-only liberal
adaptation of "Pericles," which opens Aug. 4.
FRIDAY July 14, 2006Just
call it a 'Labor' of love
Director Simon Abkarian brings his special brand
of spatial grace to the Actors' Gang production
of one of his favorite Shakespeare plays.
By Irene Lacher
Special to The Times
The one thing people always say about Simon
Abkarian is that there's something in the way he
moves. When the noted French Armenian actor
starred in Sally Potter's 2005 film in verse,
"Yes," movie critic Karen Durbin exulted in his
physical presence, calling it "a visual feast."
FRIDAY APRIL 7, 2006 Tim
Robbins and his Actors' Gang say Orwell's '1984'
speaks to America in 2006.
BY JIM FARBER
RAVE!
Academy Award-winning writer-director-actor Tim
Robbins is a force to be reckoned with.
His credits, as laid out on the International
Movie Data Base (www.imdb.com) fill 10 pages and
represent a remarkable succession of writing,
directing and acting performances.
He's played the knuckle-headed fireballer "Nuke"
LaLoosh in "Bull Durham"; mentally deranged
Vietnam War vet Jacob Singer in "Jacob's
Ladder"; film-mogul-turned-murderer Griffen
Willin in "The Player"; devious convict Andy
Dufresne in "The Shawshank Redemption"; the
haunted victim of child abuse Dave Boyle in
"Mystic River" (for which he won an Oscar); and
the paranoid survivalist Harlan Ogilvy in "War
of the Worlds."
FRIDAY MARCH 24, 2006los angeles
daily news
This is not your father's George Orwell.
Rather, the staged adaptation of Orwell's novel
"1984" at the Actors' Gang bears the stamp of
its adapter, Michael Gene Sullivan, and
certainly of its director, Actors' Gang leader
Tim Robbins. As is the case with the majority of
productions that come out of the Gang now
thriving in a new venue, Culver City's Ivy
Substation this means difficult, topical and
insightful material that sacrifices none of its
theatricality to make a point.
WEDNESDAY MARCH 15, 2006lA WEEKLY
By STEVEN MIKULAN
Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 1:00 pm
Grainy indirect lighting, flat-black
walls and an industrial stamped-steel floor
pit firmly place the latest Actors’ Gang
play in the world of 1984. Rather than being
a story set in a West Hollywood bar 22 years
ago, though, this is Michael Gene Sullivan’s
adaptation of George Orwell’s novel about a
totalitarian tomorrow ruled by an enigmatic
leader named Big Brother. Sullivan has
boiled down the book’s 300 pages to a scant
100 minutes, culling the story’s political
essentials while retaining the melancholy
whimsy of its hero’s dream life.
THURSDAY MARCH 2, 2006
Tim Robbins' Patriot Act
By Jordan
Elgrably, AlterNet
In his newest production by Los Angeles'
Actors' Gang ensemble, a corrosive play
based on George Orwell's novel "1984" and
adapted by Michael Gene Sullivan, director
of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Big
Brother is here and torture is us.
Tuesday FEBRUARY 28, 2006
Where Big
Brother lurks
The Actors' Gang's "1984," with its
characters' fear and hopelessness, hews to
a timeless theme.
By Charles McNulty
L.A. Times Staff Writer
By Steven Mikulan and Luis Reyes
LA WEEKLY
MONDAY FEBRUARY 27, 2006
Stark
vision of a grave new world
By Jim Farber
DAILY BREEZE
Heading into the Actors' Gang's staging
of George Orwell's Big Brother novel, 1984,
(which opened Saturday at the Ivy Substation
in Venice), and knowing it was directed by
actor/activist Tim Robbins, I worried that
the approach would turn Orwell's horrific
vision of state control into a
current-events diatribe.
Embedded,
the last play the Oscar-winning
actor/writer/director crafted for The Actors
Gang, the Los Angeles-based theater company he
co-founded in 1982, took aim at foreign policy
and media coverage of the war in Iraq.
For his latest effort, as director for a new
stage version of George Orwell's 1984, Robbins
reached further back, exploring the past as
prologue.
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 21, 2006
DAILY BREEZE
Of the theater
companies in Los Angeles that doggedly dare to
dissect current political conflicts, The Actors'
Gang, headed by Oscar-winning actor Tim Robbins,
is the most prominent.
TUESDAY JANUARY 10, 2006
Downtown LA
News
Tim Robbins Helps Bring Death Penalty Play to
Downtown
Most playwrights are lucky if a production of
their work sells tickets. Erik Jensen and
Jessica Blank's 2002 play The Exonerated not
only sold tickets, but may have helped commute
171 death sentences.
2005
DAILY news/news
I guess it's accurate to say the three Japanese
one-acts that make up the Actors' Gang's "Blood!
Lust! Madness!" do indeed touch upon those
particular subjects in roughly that order. They
cover quite a bit of other thematic territory as
well. And say what you will about the Gang's
politics, their work is never boring and often
arresting.
LOS ANGELES
TIMES
How cagey of the Actors' Gang to revisit "Blood!
Love! Madness!" at its new Ivy Substation venue.
Cagier still, director Brent Hinkley, some
superb designers and a brilliant cast attack
this 1992 omnibus of Japanese one-acts as
full-scale reconception, to mesmerizing effect.
DAILY BREEZE
After 20 years of presenting engaging, edgy
work, The Actors' Gang has become one of
Southern California's most respected theater
companies.
"Blood! Love! Madness!" marks a new chapter for
the company, because it's the first production
since moving from its longtime Hollywood home to
the historic Ivy Substation in Culver City -- a
venue used by the Center Theatre Group for the
past few seasons.
"Blood! Love! Madness!," a trio of one-act
plays, was first produced by the Gang in 1992,
though one of the plays has been replaced and
director Brent Hinkley has made several
conceptual changes.
LA Weekly
"Blood!
Love! Madness!"
Superlative stagecraft envelops Actors Gang’s
revival of this trio of Japanese one-acts, first
presented by the company in 1992. Bearing
disparate hints of Kabuki and Brechtian
presentational style.
BACKSTAGE WEST
"Blood!
Love! Madness!"
Those three words so succinctly describe the
human state, don't they? How pleasing, then, to
find universality in these three 20th century
Japanese plays (translator uncredited), directed
by Brent Hinkley to polished perfection.
Japanese style inspires but is not mimicked in
the magnificent work of the actors and the
design team. Scenic designer Sibyl
Wickersheimer, sound designer John Zalewski,
costume designer Ann Closs-Farley, lighting
designer Adam H. Greene, and prop designer
Victoria Robinson create a stunning, appealing
onstage world that beautifully blends Eastern
and Western elements.
VENTURA COUNTY STAR
Before the Los Angeles-based
Actors' Gang theater troupe was formed, Brent
Hinkley was -- like his Gang colleague Tim
Robbins -- a student at UCLA. Hinkley worked at
the school library and enjoyed breaks, not all
of them official, in a secluded corner where old
theater books were shelved.
A dusty volume that caught his eye one day was
called "Modern Japanese Plays," which he found
funny, because the book looked ancient.
"I don't think it had been checked out since
1925," Hinkley said. "I read it, and realized
that nobody really knows these plays."
The plays were written in the early 20th century
during a trend in Japan toward a more Western
style.
"I knew right away I wanted to work on these
plays," he said.
At their meeting on May 9, the
Culver City Redevelopment Agency announced that
one of South California's most successful
theater companies, The Actors' Gang, will be the
resident theater company at Culver City's
historic Ivy Substation Theatre. Their inaugural
production will be their critically acclaimed
hit "Tartuffe," transferring in late summer,
followed by the final production of the 2004-05
season, "Blood! Love! Madness!"
Tim Robbins is
showing his independent streak
"Embedded Live" is a DVD of his stage production
that takes a critical look
at the Iraq war and the media.
Hollywood Reporter Review of
Tartuffe
L.A. Times Review of Tartuffe
Backstage West Review of Tartuffe
LA Weekly Review of Tartuffe
Sundance Channel
Goes "Embedded" for March Television Release
2004
Embedded on Tour
Embedded on Tour
-
Tuesday November 2, 2004
William Russ and Eric
Cadora are best pals and gung-ho soldiers in
"Wanda June."
The Hollywood Reporter Review.
-
Sunday October 24, 2004
Simply entertaining an audience for a little
while is a worthy goal in and of itself.
By Kurt Vonnegut
Special to The Times
-
Friday October 22, 2004
The L.A. Times reviews "Happy Birthday Wanda
June"
-
Wednesday October 20, 2004
Backstage West reviews "Happy Birthday Wanda
June"
-
Wednesday August 4, 2004
THE ACTORS’ GANG
ANNOUNCES ‘04 - ‘05 SEASON -
TIM ROBBINS’ “EMBEDDED” SET FOR
LIMITED RETURN ENGAGEMENT
-
Friday, June 4, 2004
The Daily Breeze Review "Little" - by Jeff Favre
-
Friday, June 4, 2004
Los Angeles Times Review of "Little" - by
Philip Brandes
-
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Ventura County Star -
More than a 'Little' alike - Twin sisters play
characters with parallel lives in new Actors'
Gang drama. - by Jeff Favre
-
Thursday, May 7, 2004
New York Times
review of Embedded
LA Times Review of Self Defense
Embedded goes to NYC!
2003
A CurtainUp Los
Angeles Review of 'Embedded'.
LA Weekly review of
'Embedded'.
LA Times review of
'Embedded'.
LA Times Feature
Story- Feeling that merely protesting the war is
no longer enough, Tim Robbins wrote 'Embedded,'
a play about journalists and troops in place
called Gomorrah.
Ventura County
Star - Robbins explores strange bedfellows
"Does anyone know where this lives," asked
Robbins, holding up a screwdriver.
By Jeff Favre
November 6, 2003
Green Bay Press
Gazette review of touring production of The Guys
Green Bay Press
Gazette background story on the actors and the production of The Guys
Green Bay, Wisconsin, Press
Gazette talks with Tim Robbins about the touring production of The Guys
coming to Green Bay
Tim Robbins' speech to the Western Arts Alliance
Conference in Long Beach
2002
-
SUNDAY APRIL 7, 2002
Life After Death Row
Two actors traveled the country to meet people
wrongly convicted. The result: a drama and a new
perspective.
2001
FIRST
PERSON
A Long-Overdue Risk
Co-founder Tim Robbins returns to the Actors'
Gang to help the theater rediscover its unconventional
mission.
THEATER
REVIEW
Robust
Actors' Gang Makes 'Seagull' Soar
Tim Robbins celebrates the 20th anniversary of
his theatre, The Actors' Gang, with a repertory
duo focusing on the actor's responsibility to
society: Chekhov's The Seagull, directed by Georges
Bigot, and Klaus Mann's Mephisto directed by Robbins.
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