LOS ANGELES -- Local playwrights and audiences will have a chance to criticize the critic when Constance Monaghan's Talk Talk has its world premiere at the Los Angeles Theatre Center Sept 4.

Monaghan, a freelance journalist and theatre critic for the Los Angeles Weekly, believes in turnabout is fair play. Anyone she has ever reviewed -- in fact, all audience members -- will be invited to fill out critique forms in the lobby, which will then be kept in a notebook for all to read.

Talk Talk is set in Toledo, where a group of 42-year-olds, friends since high school, "indulge in their usual activities: introspection, jealous bitching, outright lying, nursing grudges, gossiping and bed hopping as they sift for meaning -- and love -- in the barely warm firepits of their lives," said a company spokesperson.

Brian Gary directs a cast of seven.

Runs Fri. & Sat. at 8 PM thru Sept. 26. Tickets are $10, money-back guarantee. The LATC is at 514 S. Spring St in downtown L.A. Call (213) 620-9229. -- By Willard Manus
Southern California Correspondent