geffen playhouse

“Is L.A. a theater town?”

The question, typically posed with New York condescension, fails to recognize the obvious reality that L.A. is a city of actors. True, most of them are here to make their names on-screen, but the talent pool rivals those of more established theater capitals. Don’t bother, however, trying to convince those denizens of New York and London who cling to old stereotypes of L.A., perhaps to compensate for their own inferior weather.

Southern California, of course, boasts some of the most prestigious playhouses in the country. The Mark Taper Forum, Pasadena Playhouse, South Coast Repertory, La Jolla Playhouse and the Old Globe are all recipients of the Regional Theatre Tony Award. The Geffen Playhouse, once considered the entertainment industry’s local theater, has entered a new era of bold vision and integrity under the leadership of playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney. It would surprise no one if the Geffen Playhouse is similarly honored in the next few years.

East West Players, the Latino Theater Company, Ebony Repertory Theatre and Native Voices at the Autry reflect the cultural, ethnic and racial diversity of a majority-minority city. The avant-garde is admittedly not L.A.’s strong suit, but REDCAT and CAP UCLA have filled the breach hosting interdisciplinary performance work from all over the world.

The Getty Villa’s annual outdoor classical theater production treats the canonical treasures of ancient Greece and Rome not with kid gloves but with an exploratory 21st century spirit. And A Noise Within has cultivated in its loyal audience an understanding that the classical repertory exists in the present tense and can speak directly to us today.

The stage is still the basis for acting training, and there comes a time when even the most successful film and TV actors want to return to their roots. Those with civic consciences are happy to tread the boards close to home. When Tom Hanks chose to play Falstaff in Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles’ production “Henry IV,” he did so at an outdoor venue, the Japanese Garden on the West Los Angeles VA campus, that was only a short commute from his own backyard. Annette Bening, a stalwart champion of L.A. theater, has notably performed at the Mark Taper Forum, the Geffen Playhouse and UCLA’s Freud Playhouse.

Beyond the A-listers, there’s a vast population of working actors hungry for opportunities to hone their craft. It’s to satisfy this need that L.A. has built up an extensive array of small, shoestring companies. This scene is decentralized, dispersed within an uncoordinated sprawl of regional fiefdoms, but the independent spirit has endowed many of these companies with astonishing capacities for survival.

Indeed, it’s this network of 99-seat theaters — those houses with 99 seats or fewer — that are the lifeblood of the local theater scene. The cultural landscape would be unimaginable without Rogue Machine Theatre, the Fountain Theatre, Echo Theater Company and Boston Court Pasadena. The resilience, imagination and integrity of these small companies have demonstrated that heart matters more than size.

L.A. is indisputably a theater town, but a theater town that operates by its own rules and urban logic, neither of which is easy for an outsider to crack. What follows is a curated list of some of the most essential venues in the city and surrounding region. Not meant to be comprehensive, this compilation tilts toward companies that have been active in recent seasons and have a dedicated home. Nomadic ensembles and those that have been dormant or less prominent in the post-pandemic recovery phase have been excluded from this selection. But the ecology of L.A. theater is ever-changing and ever-adapting, calling for updates and new classifications. Stay tuned for future lists and supplemental guides.

— Charles McNulty

In “Am I Roxie?,” a world premiere one-woman-show at the Geffen Playhouse, Roxana Ortega, a working actress and alum of the Groundlings Theatre’s Sunday Company, revisits the period in her life when she was the caregiver for her mother, whose memory was unraveling.

When Ortega’s father died of a sudden heart attack outside the post office, she was unprepared for the consequences. He had been protecting the family from her mother’s decline.

An immigrant from Peru who had relinquished her dreams of acting to raise a family, Carmen had a special bond with Ortega. When little Roxana was growing up in Fullerton, her mother would improvise operas while fixing breakfast. Together, they dreamed theatrical dreams.

Carmen has many sisters — “Picture the Housewives of Beverly Hills, but in Canoga Park” — but none were able to take her in. Ortega’s siblings, married with children, were similarly unable.

Not having kids of her own deprived Ortega of the one excuse her family would have recognized. Yet she still wanted to have kids, though not before she found the right husband and made some headway in a career marked by small triumphs, such as booking commercials and webisodes. Was she really going to put her life on hold for a few years?

Finding a painful compromise, she decides to move her mother to an assisted-living facility near her in L.A. Taking this step requires her to go to war with her “inner Latina critic,” who reminds her of the code of her blood: “We take care of our own.” She adds an expletive to the end of this pronouncement, but no emphasis is needed for a daughter who has already indicted herself for selfishness, the one unpardonable sin for a Latina.

“Am I Roxie?,” performed by Ortega with unflagging ebullience in an athletic-wear jumpsuit designed for comfort rather than style, brings to the exhausting, guilt-inducing grind of eldercare her own cultural spin. The subject is relatable, as lifespans have extended while health insurance only seems to contract. Ortega is an agreeable guide through the thicket of problems, such as choosing between senior facilities that resemble “sad Marriotts” or “sad La Quinta Inns.”

The show is more of a personal essay composed for the stage than a deeply imagined performance work. Ortega’s approach is friendly and wryly conversational. She’s bearing witness to a human dilemma our culture would prefer to keep under wraps, but Ortega might just as easily be doing an audio essay or podcast. The one character who comes vividly to life is her own.

There’s a rich tradition of performance artists bringing difficult personal stories to public light. “Am I Roxie?” seems disconnected from the work of Lisa Kron, Deb Margolin and Marga Gomez. Soloists who can populate the stage with uncurtailed ambition.

Thematically, “Am I Roxie?” is structured around the “Circle of Life” song from “The Lion King.” Ortega knows this reference is corny, but it’s also inescapably apt. The person who gave her life now needs her help as she nears the end.

Roxana Ortega in “Am I Roxie?” at Geffen Playhouse.

(Jeff Lorch)

Birth and death weigh heavy on Ortega’s mind, as she ponders her own lifespan, the diminishing window for motherhood and the confused and sometimes angry helplessness of Carmen, who comes to believe that her daughter is her sister. Eventually, Carmen will wonder if she herself is Roxie, an existential dilemma that Ortega refuses to understand as a mere symptom of Alzheimer’s disease.

She’s reluctant at the start to name her mother’s condition. How can she reduce a loved one to a medical diagnosis? Even at Carmen’s most exasperating, she could still surprise Ortega with a simple, poignant question: “How are you doing in your life, Roxie?”

Ortega begins to understand that, though her mother has been transformed, she can still connect with her if she accepts her as she is. By speaking to her mother in the nonsense language she falls into and by playing games of pretend as if they were back in her childhood home, Ortega reaches her mother, if only for fleeting moments.

The production, directed by Bernardo Cubría, seems to have adopted a medical oath of first doing no harm. A set piece is every now and again mechanically (and somewhat quizzically) moved in or out, and there are projections offering illustrations of Fullerton and Ortega’s mental health adventure scaling the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

But “Am I Roxie?” doesn’t depend on scenic frills. Ortega is the show — not just her story but her rapport with the theatergoers, with whom she confides as if to old friends. She shares her fears that she might have occasionally failed her mother, but this confession is just another example of her generous humanity.

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