I wanted "Zombie Clown Trump" (Surprise! It's a musical), so badly, to be great.  But if wishes were horses….

I can’t tell if Donald Trump is brilliant or an idiot—and maybe he’s both. On Monday, August 8th, he trotted

Political Survivor: USA. This show plays almost continuously, with an ever-changing cast, on many shows and many networks. I discovered the

In “The King’s Language,” writer/director Chris Yejin, has presented the Fringe with an entertaining and intelligent little history lesson of

Sometimes, someone posts something on Facebook that is of intrinsic value. The following thought-piece—published here with the author’s permission—is such

Not much delivers more joy than the reup of a favorite TV show. Case in point: The third season of

By Ernest Kearney  —  "Henry V" has long been considered one of Shakespeare’s problem plays; called a “stirring piece of

By Ernest Kearney —  There is nothing as intoxicating as watching a Performance – capital “P.”  It matters little if

Check the trailer for Sense8 from the creative minds of the Wachowskis, Grant Hill and J. Michael Straczynski. Streaming everywhere

I love Shakespeare. Straight up. If I could cook him down I'd probably be mainlining the Bard. Any Shakespeare junkie has a

by Ernest Kearney —  My Own Private River Phoenix is a smart and funny piece that is just not ready to

Two more clips released from HBO with hints at what we can expect this coming season: Cersei Lannister all but threw

There's a lot of hot to the touch TV to watch these days. Only a few shows on the buzzed

Long-awaited "Game of Thrones'" Season Seven—winner of 12 Emmy's just last September, remember— is no longer coming. It's Here: July

by Ernest Kearney — Playwright Henry David Hwang has joined the ranks of an exclusive group. James Thurber the humorist best

Netflix is shooting out product faster than the bullet train. The Jason Bateman starrer, "Ozark," streaming now, is sprinting toward

If not for a twist of fate and a bit of luck we might never have been witness to David

 By Ernest Kearney  —  "Gloria," the Pulitzer Prize-finalist, by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is best described as an E-Ticket ride to the

"Bono and the Edge Waiting for Godomino's" by writer/director Richard Lucas approaches being the ultimate Hollywood Fringe Festival offering.

What "Help! I Might be Fabulous" presents is a modern fable by way of Stonewall and "La Cage aux Folles,"

By Ernest Kearney  —  "Uncivil Correctness: Joan Rivers, Abbie Hoffman, Bin Laden," apparently, began as a class project and, unfortunately,

This is actually a treatment, the longer form that follows a successful pitch …because a treatment is longer and lots

The incident that actually coined the phrase "October Surprise" came when Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s National Security Advisor, lied just

Arya now: "She could feel the hole inside her every morning when she woke. It wasn't hunger, though sometimes, there was

In "Ashlee Olivia Presents E.A.R.T.H.A.," Ms. Jones delivers an exceptional performance of an exceptional performer

The Leftovers jumps deep into a mass of angst gurgling inside nearly everyone 'left' untouched after what may have been

This long runnng Brit series, which has been refreshed, all to the good, several times over is available for viewing

Please believe me when I tell you that Julia Migenes is an amazingly talented performer. She originated the role of Hodel

The Clone's world has expanded

This is a lovely little documentary about the history of American ventriloquism over the last 70 years. While not comprehensive

Queen Latifah stars as the legendary Bessie Smith whose talent and perseverance resulted in her becoming an iconic "Empress of

"The Tomb" by Ed Sharrow (at the Complex Theatre during Fringe 2017) is an encapsulated tale of Anthony the Great,

Conceived, written and produced by Linden Waddell — who also performs, with Miller directing — Hello Again! The Songs of

By Ernest Kearney  —  Writer/director Giovanni Zuniga has succeeded in doing what few playwrights seldom do: knock one out of

by Ernest Kearney — Klaus Kinski (1926-1991) was celebrated for his talent and disparaged for the madness that served as

The Chromolume Theatre at The Attic has been the site of some stunning successes, and while their current production of

Flamenco is exceptional. Nowhere is grace found infused with such power, nor the sorrow and the joy of the human condition expressed

I hate writing bad reviews. Honest. I’d rather write glowing reviews, pouring forth accolades and singing praises to high heaven. I truly would. Now

We love Angela Lansbury. And PBS announced today, "She's ba-a-a-ck." Dame Lansbury with Michael Gambon will head the cast in

With hardly an exception the American Experience historical programs are gems. That the dumb heads in congress have succeeded in

Cyanne McClairian’s one woman show, I Died

Just two years ago, documentary filmmaker Asif Kapadia began interviewing Amy Winehouse's family, friends and collaborators in a darkened London

The year 2015 is slipping away into history, and more importantly into memory. We are oblivious to the value of memory

In the words of an FTWD character: “When civilization ends, it ends fast.” That’s Right. I love The Walking Dead. The discovery that I

“Clip Show” A clip show is primarily a creature inhabiting the realm of television. Basically it denotes a particular episode, sometimes called

In "The Sacred Beasts" for Hollywood Fringe 2017, writer/director Chris Wollman has mined a particularly rich vein of historical gold

This production has it all. 'Kurios – Cabinet of Curiosities' is running now through March 26 at Lone Star

By Earnest Kearney  —  I Can Hear You Now, performed and written by Mitchell Bisschop and directed by Daniel De

by Ernest Kearney — Forough Farrokhzad was the subject of Sussan Deyhim’s The House is Black which I recently reviewed

by Ernest Kearney  — The origins of Taiko drumming in Japan is lost in that vast attic called history, but

Periodically in the theatre certain works crop up at the most crucial of times arising in answer to some distinct

Walking Dead, Season Five

By Ernest Kearney  —  It’s that time once again L.A.! — June! The six month of the year, one of

Irish playwright Martin McDonagh speaks fluent Grand Guinol, but speaks it with the lilt of Galway. The importance of this has

CNN debate anchor Anderson Cooper was intent on confrontation and stirring up rivalries

It amazes me what a higgledy-piggledy of sources have served as inspiration for musicals. Little Shops of Horror, Cats, Sunset Boulevard

Well, the ninth of June, the official kick off for Hollywood Fringe 2016, is quickly approaching. Like some huge lumbering

I can always appreciate Long Beach's International City Theatre even when I don't necessarily enjoy a particular production. Case in point

Is the secret of succeeding in this messy business called life acceptance? Is the only hope of defeating life's chaotic conflux

By Ernest Kearney — The Silence of the Lambs, the 1991 thriller directed by Jonathan Demme—based on the Thomas Harris

Four Chords and a Gun at the Bootleg Theater, which relates the stories of when The Ramones worked with Phil

It's nearly here

by Ernest Kearney As he espoused passion for both the city and its theatre, it is fitting that

May 25, 2018  —  "Theatre 40, the award-winning professional theatre company in Beverly Hills, announces its fifty-third season. The schedule is

The Antaeus Theatre Company always amazes me. The work they do is of the highest quality, and the actors that make

By Ernest Kearney  —  Ain’t That America offers a truly unique viewpoint on a segment of our country that has

By Ernest Kearney  —  When the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky was found on April 14, 1930—a suicide at the age

The intended purpose of this monthly column is to bring to the attention of cinema junkies those odd and typically

For Daniel Holden, danger lurks not just behind shadows, but in the harsh light of day; often prancing down the

Well, what with the solid production at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble of the seldom seen Kingdom of Earth, and now

By Ernest Kearney —  A small town unemployed knuckle-dragging ne'er-do-well (Adam Ferguson) is approached by a producer of reality TV

"Monsters, John! Monsters from the Id!" That's the warning delivered by a dying Warren Stevens to Captain Leslie Nielson just before

It is surprising how a vocal style dating back before the 1500s can still strike one as so immediate. Such

By David Nairne  —  Damn! "The Joe and Joshua Show!" is clever and funny. Writer performers Joe Hernandez-Kolski and

The Hollywood Fringe is in full-on fourth gear mode. Festival Director / Fringe Founder Ben Hill with his “crack team

At one point in the production of Lauren Gunderson's I and You at the Fountain Theatre, the main character's bedroom

Ivo Van Hove’s production now at the Ahmanson has worked through both London and New York with great triumph.

Some of the most jaw dropping, chill raising, and yes tear inducing, imagery ever shot makes up BBC America’s prequel

Jack Lukeman has a voice that feels like a friend’s hand on a troubled shoulder.  From his 1995 debut album

The Fall: Season 2, on NETFLIX, got more personal and crossed more lines than could be handled by the Paris Metro

Whatever had you Sherlocked from Hello, one thing is not up for debate… we all want the duo back for

By Ernest Kearney  —  Blind Spots by Colette Freedman is political, witty and confounding.  Gretchen Baxter (Veronica Wylie) is a

Surprise. You don't have to be a zombie movie lover to enjoy the three part mini-series premiering tonight on BBC

"An Evening With John Wilkes Booth" by Clinton Case and Lloyd J. Schwartz (who also directs), presents a solid and

Schadenfreude [shahd-n-froi-duh] noun. Satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else’s misfortune. Serve it up ice cold! Tribal Council finally arrived. Two of ’em.

By Ernest Kearney  —  In his latest Hollywood Fringe Festival offering, "New Kid on the Block," playwright John Patrick Daly's heart is

In the hands of the right actors "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare," by playwrights Adam Long, Daniel Singer and

Forgive the projection, but are producer/writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss attempting to 1) let us down easy by forecasting

What strikes one—when inspecting television’s hugest failures—is the large percentage of those which are remakes and retooling’s. Now with the right

Office Beat: A Tap Dance Comedy playing now at 2016's Hollywood Fringe: A review

If that be the fashion of your dreams then I say hold on to those dreams

By Ernest Kearney  —  There is a great deal of love and passion that has gone into Shannon Penrod’s one

First a bit of Irish history. The Black and Tans were a force of mostly former soldiers enrolled in the

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language has five definitions for "entropy" [ěn′ trә-pē]. Four of the five could

By Ernest Kearney — "Earhart: More Than A F**king Mystery" is your basic fun-time show.  It doesn’t go into the

As I write this, it’s just a few days until the crucial Wisconsin primary, and the impossible is seemingly in

Modern technlogy has given Barry Manilow the opportunity to record "dream" duets with his own musical heroes on MY DREAM

by Ernest Kearney  —  I do have a soft spot for weird sci-fi flicks - The History of Future Folk

And when chemotherapy fails, what’s left—Kryptonite? There’s no easy cure for the cancer that is metastasizing in the Republican Party right

by Ernest Kearney — The Australian Theatre Company's "Grey Nomad" by Dan Lee is the tale of Helen (Ros Gentle)

“God bless Donald Trump. This campaign has been a masterwork of performance art. He couldn't be doing a better job

Here’s a quickie to help you prepare for the Republican debate on Thursday August 9. In 2012, my wife and

For the first decade of this century I didn't pay much attention to the music business. After close to 30

By Ernest Kearney  —  It is regrettable that more audiences didn’t have the opportunity of seeing "Butoh Medea," an adaptation of

The last time the Tap Overload Company came to the Hollywood Fringe, my review of their show "Office Beat" was

The Lula Washington Dance Theatre (LWDT) the Los Angeles-based repertoire dance ensemble will perform in a joyous evening of dance,

Meg Miroshnik’s The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls is a frequently poetic, consistently absorbing mishmash of Paglia’s pronouncements, Bettelheim’s theories

…and tracks it all over our political kitchen floor! Not that the place was spotless to begin… This edition was supposed

By Ernest Kearney  —  Melanie Holmes’s "Negative Spaces" takes us into a strange and unsettling place.  Lily (Holmes) and her

The old elephants in the room for Republicans—racism, sexism, disdain for the poor (to name a few)—are no longer invisible

The surest way to appreciate Steven Berkoff’s Hairy Ape now playing at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble is to have acquaintance

When Stephen Colbert coined the word "truthiness" in 2005, he meant "

There is a great deal about Swarm Cell which is commendable

...

The American election season never ends with the election. Not anymore. Nailing the president-elect for reneging on his second-biggest campaign promise

For those of you who are unschooled in America’s favorite pastime, Van Lingle Mungo was a Major League pitcher who

(Now please, if you can’t make it through this rather long winded harangue of homage, simply scroll to the end

This is a thank you to Colin Johnson my stage manager on My Alamo War. Colin helped set the stage,

Not only will I tip my hat to The Coeurage Theatre Company, but if you don't tip your hat as

The peaceful dawning has come and gone. This day is like a long breath of air that has been held

By Ernest Kearney — And here they are

TheTvolution.com Award Tallies for mid run of the Hollywood Fringe Festival ‘18 (HHF18): We rank all the shows we attend

Summary: Streaming detective show Bosch, based on the long-running (17 and counting) popular series by author, Michael Connelly, doesn’t stray

On second thought, don't flash that cash—I'll get ill. The Koch brothers have reportedly committed $900 million, give-or-take, to Republican

The TVolution Hollywood Fringe Festival Awards Coming Soon!

You enter the REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CaLArts Theater) to find a mass of chairs arranged seemingly haphazard in the

By Ernest Kearney  —  I can’t say I am very conversant with the 17th century Spanish Playwright Tirso de Molina. 

One of the high points for me in Fringe 2015 was the Proboscis Theatre Company’s La La La Strada! An

Forever Flamenco, have I said it once?  Have I said it twice?  I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve

Ana Lily Amirpour's intelligent and superbly crafted film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is definitely a world view

Billed as an exploration of music and magic "Incantesimo" relies heavily on the ability of music to take us into

Sarah Manning is the key. She is brave, brash and ballsy. It’s one or a combination of these traits that

By Ernest Kearney  —  David Lucarelli’s "Doctor Zomba’s Ghost Show of Terror" is straight forward fun.  As directed by Kevin

By Ernest Kearney  —  "Easy Targets: Artists and Heroes" doesn’t quite reach the same heady heights as the Burglars of Hamm’s HHF17

Last year (2014) The Honorable Woman snagged two TVolution Honors: the Bravest and the Best Freshman Drama of the summer. A creative

Noel Coward’s Hay Fever at Theatre Palisades is a wonderfully delivered comedy of manners. Laughs and folly spring from the

Well Hollywood Fringe 2016 has come to a close and with it comes the last of the Round Ups

Last year no one knew what to expect. The burning question was: "Who is Orphan Black?" This recap is for anyone

Let's imagine one could take a heaping jigger of Citizen Kane, another of Blade Runner, pour in a dash of

There have been a number of performances that will travel with me for quite some time during Hollywood Fringe 2017…

Americans should watch this film, especially those who pride themselves, as I, patriotic Americans. Now honestly this is not an

For those who have not cultivated an appreciation for the theatrical craft and are unaware of the merits and delights

When I started on this mission of writing about songwriters and how they weren’t being properly acknowledged, I had absolutely

I've turned so many people on to this show and have never heard any regrets. The best is my brother

Brace yourselves. It's Hollywood Fringe time. The Hollywood Fringe, for the uninitiated, is a glorious explosion celebrating the arts and artists. If

Our little game of Political Survivor abruptly expanded to the House of Representatives last week, with potentially explosive results. Speaker John Boehner

In my previous post, I quoted MSNBC reporter Chuck Todd speculating that the period before the South Carolina primary—now a

There were Poirots before him. There will be Poirots to follow. Right now, for over seven hundred and fifty million

By Ernest Kearney  —   There is nothing so evasive as engendering effective and credible dread in a live theatre environment.

Under the direction of Giovanna Sardelli, solid performances command the stage, in a new work by Rajiv Joseph; author of

Sunset Baby is an intelligently written play with a superb cast that positively gleams from those benefits which blesses any

"It was like the eve of a battle; the hearts beat, the eyes laughed, and they felt that the life

By Ernest Kearney  —  Like little boys with their toy soldiers, so, too, are little girls with their dolls: They

With a solid reputation for superior dramas, PBS's Masterpiece Theatre has undoubtedly been a hard act to follow. Now its

By Ernest Kearney  —  "American Conspiracy," playing during the Hollywood Fringe 2018 at The Lounge Theatre, recounts the trials and

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends We're so glad you could attend Come inside! Come inside! There behind the

What does this all mean? A flashy, vulgar celebrity/businessman runs for public office with no prior experience except having run a

What do the New Players Bring to the Game?

…and the biggest problem with democracy is that every damn fool gets one vote. You heard me right. The metric

In the 1998 film Bulworth, Warren Beatty played a disillusioned politician who puts out a contract on himself, and then feels

...Not even close. Primaries are the tribal councils of this metaphorical Survivor season. That’s because opinion polls and voting are not the same

By Ernest Kearney  — "Dracula's Taste Test" is no great shakes, but neither does it hold itself up as anything else.

Well once again you have the opportunity of experiencing one of the true treats of L.A. Sunday, May 22 – Forever

The Bravest Show of the Summer goes to: The Honorable Woman. Series creator Hugo Blick's masterful eye created a world of

by Ernest Kearney — Forgiveness seems to be the theme of “Redline,” now playing in rep with “Sinner’s Laundry”

One of my favorite game announcers for the San Francisco Giants is a former Giant himself, pitcher Mike Krukow. He

By Ernest Kearney - "House of Tales" is bursting with concepts and ideas to the point of avalanching the audience

by Ernest Kearney — "Bright Star," currently on stage at the Ahmanson Theatre, is the epitome of what the Broadway

Wow! What a remarkably haphazard and poorly structured thesis to use as the foundation for a documentary! A more insipid,

By Ernest Kearney — Well I can’t say that I was able to discern the “three short plays, written by

In the U.S. recently: Pope Francis. Chinese President Xi Jinping. Russian President Vladimir Putin. And a political zombie—yet another threat

For me, the internet can be like standing in line at the supermarket. Oh, those tabloids! My eye is also

It was rather fitting that on the night of the first presidential debate I found myself sitting in the audience,

by Ernest Kearney  —  That Sussan Deyhim’s The House is Black Media Project had such a limited engagement at the

In Part I, we celebrated two dazzling effects of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s landmark musical Hamilton: with his theatrical retelling of our

The film opens with a laconic, heart rendering simple and sincere shriving, "I'm sorry. I know that means little at

The Democratic field has lost half since we last spoke. Not the Republicans, the Democrats! Joe Biden: gone, even if

Indeed, four men like them, four men devoted to each other from their money to their lives, four men always

By Ernest Kearney  —  "Jack Benny (A Ménage En Train)" is the first perfect Fringe show of 2018.  What does

By Ernest Kearney  —  We are told by author Alan L. Brooks, he is "a doctor, not a playwright –

Monday night, January 30, is Acorn TV night with the premiere of another Agatha Christie reinvention. Based on one of

By Ernest Kearney   — If most non-artists know the name Chris Burden (1946-2015), it is for the art installation “Urban

The TVolution declares 'The Knick'  The Best Summer Freshman Drama (2014) Here the cast speaks on creating those intense and almost too

Seven years prior to American Idol breaking out on Fox to become one of the most successful and talked about

Photo above is from Creative Commons: “hacker army 2.0” by Rodrigo Paoletti is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The main stage for How to Get Away With Murder is a university lecture hall full of bright, eager, first-year,

When I first heard news of a weekly series set in hip hop and R&B music industry with a predominately

Well, here we are at about the mid way point in the Fringe. So far 31 shows seen and 23