This is a Top 10…percent article.

As I’ve written more than once, I see no reason to arbitrarily limit year-end lists to 10. But in my year-end highlights article last year, I went too far in the other direction, mentioning too many productions, which diluted the impact of each particular nod.

So this year I’m returning to the position I took in 2011 — I won’t list more than 10 percent of the 263 productions that I saw in the LA area during the past year.

This year I’m listing most of the shows in alphabetical order ( but three of the entries are about more than one production each). If you want to read more about what I thought, follow the links to earlier columns (except for the cases of a few shows that I didn’t write about earlier).

The three Laramie Projects – Last spring Chance Theater, in Anaheim, staged The Laramie Project and The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later in repertory — a powerful production that used a rather conventional stage configuration, by Chance standards. Later in 2013, the Gay and Lesbian Center staged the LA premiere of Ten Years Later in a more intimate and immersive arena-style configuration.  The cumulative effect of these three doses of the story of Matthew Shepard and the aftermath of his murder reinforced the regard that I hold for the Tectonic Theatre Project’s work(s) — one of the most important pieces of documentary-style theater that America has produced.

Also on the list….

Absolutely Filthy 

Alcestis

El Año en que Nací (The Year I Was Born)

Bronzeville

Chinglish

Falling For Make Believe

Falling and On the Spectrum

The Good Negro

Humor Abuse

In the Next Room, or the vibrator play

Macbeth 

Melancholia

Mommune

The Nether

Our Class

Parade

Pericles and R II

The Scottsboro Boys

Spring Awakening

Sunset Boulevard

Yes, Prime Minister