Dear Evan Hansen Flashes its Way into History
By Patrick Hurley
Stories of teenage turmoil have been being told for centuries. The misunderstood youth trope nearly always serves a narrative wherein a moral dilemma serves as edification to an ignorant, older audience. Shakespeare killed his young star-crossed lovers. The adults in their lives had driven them to suicide because of their inability to reconcile differences with each other, thus preaching the dictum of embracing each other’s differences. Dear Evan Hansen, the Broadway phenomenon, which is currently on its first national tour, playing at the Ahmanson Theatre, is the most recent iteration of the misunderstood youth narrative, and this time, as is the custom with today’s YA fiction, it wants to feel like an inside job. Read more 
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is Dead on!
By Patrick Hurley
Free will and the sheer randomness of the universe as two men wander a theatrical wilderness in desperate search for understanding makes Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, playing now at A Noise Within, a thought-provoking modern masterpiece that is as deeply profound as it is hilarious. Read more
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