The Black Box Theatre

Lily Ann’s «Love You!» is coming to The Black Box Theater! Come partake in the family-​friendly fun this coming Saturday, 8÷31÷13 @ 8 p.m., and every Saturday night in September thereafter…
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The Velveteen Rabbit (January 2011) was an unbelievably bad play. It is nothing like the beloved children’s story. Instead of the transformative power of love, this play was all about PAIN, violence and nastiness. It was bewildering. I have seen plays on Vietnam that focused less on pain and loss. Why would anyone write this for children? There was no joy in this rendition, no fun, no laughs (though the mime was quite talented). Instead, it was a lecture on how life is all about pain, how violence makes us more human, and how children’s toys (and their nanny) are mostly cruel bullies who like to tease and lash out at each other.
Plus, the staging was terrible. I have never thought about staging before in a children’s play. But when you put almost half the action on the ground just a few feet from the front row, it is impossible for about ½ of the audience (or at least the ones under 12 years of age) to see anything.
Let you children be exposed to laughter and joy. Stay home and rent Toy Story instead of showing this Samuel Beckett type play of nihilism, sadness and despair.

Came here on a Saturday night to support a friend in her short. the front door is a little tough to find as the place looks like a shut down business from the outside. Once in, there is a narrow hallway and ticket booth that also sells snacks and beers for cheap. Just make sure the drink you are getting is cold, as they have an issue with this.
The theatre itself is very small and intimate. As other reviewers said, the bathroom is behind the stage so you can only use it before the show, and during intermission. A great place to see up and coming stars!

«Kristine Kelly captivatingly plays the exuberant Grasshopper in this whimsical tale of arthropods on the move. Along with Ms. Kelly’s Jeet Kune Do-​expressed athletics in rare esthetic form, Vanessa Born’s comic character twist as ‘The Boy Lady Bug’ showed an endearing street-​tuff side of the pint-​size benevolent beetle. Oh, and yes, there is one very scary arachnid (spider) too, replete with sticky web who relentlessly bounds from out of nowhere… YIKES! Entomology notwithstanding, we are quickly drawn into how our leggy friends serve as perfect metaphors for the human condition, reminding us how we should try to enjoy a full range of ‘work and play’ while evolving through the seasons and stages of life. I highly recommend this enchanting experience designed tof enlighten the child in us all. »
— Blair Silver, Owner/​Manager

I don’t relish the idea of kicking someone while they’re down, but bad theater must be called out for the greater good.
I came here to see a series of Neil Labute one acts a few nights ago, having come across the performance in LA Weekly. The red flag should’ve gone up when I got to the door and said «Hey, I ordered tickets online» and the guy said «Oh! You must be Nick.»
Instead, I found it charming, along with the fact that you had to cross the stage, going to the back of the stage to use the restroom.
However, once the performance got going it was a fiasco. Both actors weren’t very strong to begin with, but had clearly been directed horribly. I had seen the first one act, «A Gaggle of Saints» a few years back at an even smaller theater, but with strong performances and strong direction, which made it a powerful experience.
But here, no one seemed to have the slightest idea what the play was about, so they just literalized everything on the page. The girl says she’s tired? Have her yawn. The guy says he remembers hearing music? Cue the Celine Dion (yes, Celine Dion). The guy is angry about something? Have him stomp around the stage and kick things over.
Add to that, the arbitrary raising and dimming of lights near the front of the stage. It added nothing, and made such a loud and distracting buzzing sound that it called even more attention their utter randomness. The tux the lead wore looked like a thrift store purchase, and he clumsily stumbled through his lines like he’d just learned them that afternoon.
Intermission mercifully came, and we debated leaving. It was a terrible performance, but the four of us made up literally half the audience. Finally we ignored our kinder instincts, and hoped in the car to go grab burgers down the street. I still feel bad about it, but I can’t imagine sitting through the rest of the show.

I recently was an AD and stage manager for a short play in this space. My review is about the space as it is a shared theater that can be used for classes and performances and bears no single production company name.
The theater seats about 40 – 50 people in a stadium seating arrangement. Classic wooden school house flip-​down chairs are what you’ll find, and due to their slight recline they are rather comfortable to sit in. As the name implies, this is a black box theater meaning that everything is black on the instead and a blank canvas for your theatrical mind to design any way you desire.
Technically speaking, there is a CD player that runs out to four speakers in the theater via unbalanced cables. You can get things pretty loud. However, there is no XLR mixing board and access to the amplifier is a little bit kludgy, so make sure to ask before plugging in other sound equipment. The lighting instruments are home grade track lighting, so you don’t really have the leeway for finite focusing or hanging your own professional instruments. However, it does make for some interesting experimentation. You can still use gels for color effects and wrap lights with black foil in place of barn doors.
In the rear, there is a green room with mirrors and lights with access from the rear parking lot for actors. Patrons normally park on the street and after hours it is free on Santa Monica Boulevard.
If you need to get in the space, give Corey Love a call (that is his real name) and see what slots are available.