Welcome to BORN READY’s Los Angeles episode! In this show the guys interview Colin Mitchell, editor-in-chief and founder of Bitter-Lemons.com, the website that is bringing the LA theater community together whether it likes it or not. And we check in with our LA Theater Correspondent Ellen La Scola (Ray’s Mom) and get her review of Vagrancy Theater’s most recent offering, Maria Irene Fornes’ What of the Night.

First up is Ellen’s scathing review of What of the Night. Ellen, who’s seen a ton of theater over the years, was impressed with the production value of the show but couldn’t quite put her finger on why the show was produced. Ellen’s husband Jay asks, “Couldn’t they have just painted a house?”

With Colin, we get into how and why Bitter Lemons started, and the function it serves in the LA community. One of the most necessary (and interesting) is the long-form journalism it produces about the community. Colin recounts his first major investigative piece which dug into a dispute between a theater company and a playwright and exposed Crown City Theater as a bunch of rotten crooks. From there we get Colin’s 13-point response to Re-Imagine LA Theater, a movement to revise Equity’s 99-Seat Plan, including why Equity sucks, and why Goldstar isn’t to blame for the devaluing of theater tickets.

Also, our newly renamed social media segment, Twit Show, calls out Tweets about the show and answers listener questions on life and football. And we give some shout outs to the Hollywood Fringe Festival, and immersive theater like Punchdrunk, Zombie Joe’s Underground, and Speakeasy. And Rob takes a big dump on Pippen at the Pantages.

Feel free to share the show with everyone you’ve ever met, leave comments below or hit us up on Twitter @BornReadyShow, and as always, thanks for listening!

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