< 1984

Directed by Tim Robbins and based on Orwell’s epic novel, this adaptation by Michael Gene Sullivan is touring the world with engagements at major festivals in Athens, Hong Kong and Melbourne.

“Watching the manacled and electric-shocked victim slide from confession to grovelling submission is harrowing, a visceral kick. The climax, where the re-educated Smith is literally confronted with his worst nightmare, drew gasps from the audience.”

–The Australian News 2006

< Titus, The Clownicus
and
Pericles on the High Seas

With these freely adapted versions of Shakespeare’s plays, The Gang presents your choice of two-hour length family-friendly entertainment.

< Gulliver’s Travels

Jonathan Swift’s biting political/ social satire makes for a bawdy, comedic, and irreverent romp. It’s an adult tale that has long been hijacked for kids. This is the grown-up version – an acidic attack on pride, hypocrisy, ingratitude, cruelty, war, lawyers, money, imperialism, and politics.

< The Women of Lockerbie

In this intensely powerful drama, the mother of a Pan Am 103 victim confronts the women of the village as they fight for permission to wash the clothes recovered from the wreckage and return them to the surviving loved ones.

“a stunning display of raw emotion, a powerhouse drama whose evocation of unthinkable loss and a path to redemption is a masterful and cathartic experience.”

–Variety

< The Exonerated

“To speak of life-or-death stakes in The Exonerated is, for once, no exaggeration. Created and directed by New York-based Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen from interviews they conducted with former death row inmates whose wrongful convictions were eventually overturned, a riveting Actors’ Gang staging examines capital punishment and the justice system in chilling terms.”

–Los Angeles Times 2003

< The Mysteries

“Few things are more exciting in the theater than pure creativity, and so it proves in The Mysteries at the Actors’ Gang. Director-adapter Brian Kulick’s exploration of medieval mystery plays (and their antecedents) is wildly inventive, with one bemusing drawback.”

–Los Angeles Times 2003

< The Guys

“At Actors’ Gang, where The Guys began an open-ended, rotating celebrity run Thursday, it falls to Helen Hunt and Tim Robbins to hold an audience captive for 90 wrenching – yet strangely soothing – minutes.”

–Los Angeles Daily News 2001

< Embedded

“As a piece of theater, Embedded is as snarlingly eloquent as a garage-rock guitar solo. as a rowdy and engaging polemic… Uncompromising… fueled by the author’s outraged intelligence and a boisterous cast of 13, it stays in motion for a briskly amusing, intermittently disturbing 1 1⁄2 hours… Savagely witty and incisive… it cannily blends in actual reportage by the likes of BBC reporter John Simpson and Alan Feuer of the New York Times to convey the agonized business of trying to ascertain truth in the most trying circumstances. War is hell, we tell ourselves, yet time and again humanity finds new ways to strut down that fiery path. With Embedded, Robbins gives practically everyone hell for joining in the parade.”

–Los Angeles Times 2004

< Mephisto

“Commedia del arte, masks and Asian theatre fit superbly into the revolutionary cabaret theatre depicted here. The sincere and passionate performances from the ensemble are complemented by astute stagecraft. Mephisto is an unforgettable piece of work, both in content and presentation, and a dazzling anniversary present to us of the relevance of great classical art.”

–Curtain-Up 2001

< Self Defense

“‘Honey, I killed a man today.’ That blank statement hardly indicates the sardonic force of ‘Self Defense or, death of some salesmen’ at the Actors' Gang. The West Coast premiere of Carson Kreitzer's 2001 fantasia about executed murderer Aileen Wuornos is stunning, true political theater with a visceral punch.”

–Los Angeles Times 2004