There is a feminist saying that "the personal is political," and playwright Jennifer Rowland does a skillful job interweaving private lives with public service in The Indians Are Coming To Dinner. Rowland's tragicomedy is set during the Reagan era, wherein stage and big and little screen veteran Michael Rothhaar plays Harold Blackburn, an archetypal WASPy upper class Republican. Harold laments having been pushed as a young man by his domineering late Read More

The Pacific Resident Theatre is proudly presenting the world premiere of a play, The Indians Are Coming to Dinner by Jennifer W. Rowland, the third show of their 25th season. The time is November, 1984, the place, the Blackburn home in San Francisco. Ronald Reagan has just won a landslide election; Indira Ghandi has just been assassinated by her bodyguards, and this comedy is about family relationships and politics. Read More

by DEBORAH BEHRENS |  April 18, 2012 Dan Cole, Kevin Quinn and Terrence Elton in "Concealing Judy Holliday"   Wendy Johnson may not be an exact double of the late stage and screen star Judy Holliday, but she channels the same quixotic mix of deft comedic timing and deeply earnest artistry. Over lunch in a booth at Los Feliz’s retro-eclectic House of Pies, Johnson offers up a spot-on Billie Dawn, the Born Yesterday role Holliday originated Read More

Pacific Resident Theatre Reviewed by Les Spindle for Backstage January 29, 2012

Photo by Vitor Martins

By: Carol Kaufman Segal for StageHappenings.com Once again, Pacific Resident Theatre and Artistic Director Marilyn Fox brings unique and rarely produced plays to the theater. The second show of their 25th season features an evening of two plays written by J.M. Barrie, principally known for his play, Peter Pan, or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, written in 1904. The two plays, written within four years of each other, and definitely Read More

Reviewed by David C. Nichols JULY 20, 2011 The enduring popularity of "Peter Pan" overshadows J.M. Barrie's considerable theatrical canon, which contains a significant number of entirely viable works, however dated their dramaturgy may seem to modern sensibilities. In keeping with this, Pacific Resident Theatre's enchanting double bill of rarely seen one-acts by the diminutive Scotsman makes a persuasive case for revisiting Barrie territory beyond Neverland. Both plays—"Rosalind" and "The Old Lady Shows Read More

A Pair of Plays by J.M. Barrie By Steven Leigh Morris, June 30th 2011 "Thoughtless follies made her low and stained her name," says Mrs. Page (Lesley Fera), referring to her actress daughter Beatrice, in J.M. Barrie's Rosalind, at Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice. The line is telling because it's such a perfect description not only of Beatrice but of the 14-year-old title character in Oscar Wilde's Salome, being performed at Zombie Read More

  Growing up—or not—and the power of imagination to transcend life’s hardships were the touchstone themes of playwright J.M. Barrie. Though chiefly remembered as the author of "Peter Pan," his plays often spoke to more sophisticated adult sensibilities with flights of whimsy grounded in sober realism. The soulful empathy and compassion of Barrie the man were recently portrayed in the film "Finding Neverland," and Pacific Resident Theatre beautifully evokes those Read More