Our Press
The Engine of Our Ruin
“Those decades of dedication come to full fruition.”
Kathleen Foley | Los Angeles Times, 2016
Play: The Engine of Our Ruin
Short Pull: “Director Maria Gobetti has assembled a top-notch cast, and given the piece a beautiful and assured production.”
Neal Weaver | Stage Raw, 2016
The End of Sex
“The record of finding and presenting intriguing new plays is among the city’s best.”
Author: Daryl H. Miller | Los Angeles Times, 2019
“The Victory is fearless in its support of fine and fascinating plays about subjects one might not immediately consider to be a source for communal fascination. ‘The End of Sex’ is another in a long line of world premieres, always wonderful and chosen with the expertise of a museum curator and always given the room they need to breathe and grow and become excellent. I highly recommend it. Bring your spouse… and your sense of humor.”
Author: Samantha Simmonds-Ronceros | NoHo Arts District
Elijah
“Director Maria Gobetti gets strong work from her ensemble and stages the show with brisk expertise. Evan Bartoletti’s set is impressive in its level of detail, as if the production had actually taken a whole room from an existing TGI Fridays and placed it on the Victory stage.”
Terry Morgan | Stage Raw, 2019
Home Front
“She extracts uniformly splendid performances… we almost feel we are looking through someone’s window.”
Iris Mann | Stage Raw, 2023
“The fine direction of Maria Gobetti is palpable in the powerful scenes where the palette of emotions create a gripping and relatable theatre experience.”
Author: Glamgical Staff | Glamgical, January 2023
“Gobetti’s production resonates with equal parts intelligence, anger, hope and sadness.”
Author: Evan Henerson | BroadwayWorld, January 2023
Faithless
“Gobetti, long established as one of the best directors working in our town.”
Travis Michael Holder | TicketHolders LA, 2024
“Not only is Faithless meticulously produced and smartly designed… it’s an impressive milestone in both her much-honored career and that of the theatre complex she and Tom so lovingly created and nurtured.”
Travis Michael Holder | TicketHolders LA, 2024
CREVASSE
“One of the major highlights of 2024.”
Travis Michael Holder | TicketHolders LA, 2024
LUCA & URI (2026) — Full Review Inventory
“The performances are utterly riveting. Each character beautifully realized, perfectly formed, wonderfully played. Believable, lovable, unmissable.”
“The Victory Theatre Center has always been a warmly creative space, full of the very best kind of encouragement and support. It is here that so many brilliant plays have been born.”
Showpony
“The veteran producing team of Gobetti and Ormeny has done it! Judith Leora’s Show Pony is a snappy, smart, and deceptively subtle examination of hierarchical gender and racial relationships in the work place.”
Author: Leigh Kennicott | Showmag
“Staged by long-time Victory Theatre partners Maria Gobetti and Tom Ormeny, Show Pony is an immensely pleasing, thought-provoking work of art, from Leora’s multi-layered story to the uniformly superbly-acted roles to Ormeny’s fast-moving staging.”
Author: Dick Price and Sharon Kyle | Hollywood
A TERMINAL EVENT
“Profoundly moving.”
Samantha Simmonds-Ronceros | NoHo Arts District
“Laid out in an engaging way so that we can come to our own conclusions.”
Resolving Hedda
“Critics’ Choice! Hedda is winning audience after audience to her side in Jon Klein’s boisterous new comedy, Resolving Hedda, at the Victory Theatre… Klein, the author of such previous Victory hits as T Bone ‘n Weasel and Wishing Well, delivers laughs at a steady pace.”
Daryl Miller | Los Angeles Times
“The writing is terrific… Maria Gobetti gives us a couple of hours in a universe full of laughter, dark Norwegian secrets… No one — and I mean this — no one is anything less than perfect in their roles. This is a brilliant show: first-class production with a dazzling cast.”
Author: Samantha Simmonds-Ronceros | NoHo Arts District
Awards & Recognition
Leadership & Lifetime Achievement
James A. Doolittle Ovation Award for Outstanding Leadership in Theatre
Tom Ormeny — 2001 Presented by LA Stage Alliance at the Ovation Awards ceremony at the Kodak Theatre, Hollywood. One of only two special achievement honors given by the Ovation Awards, recognizing extraordinary leadership in the Los Angeles theatre community.
Stage Raw Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre
Maria Gobetti & Tom Ormeny — 2017 Presented at the Third Annual Stage Raw Theatre Awards at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Tom and Maria accepted jointly, calling theater “the greatest of the art forms — its raw material is the human spirit.”
Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Lifetime Achievement & Direction
Maria Gobetti — 2017 Presented by the LADCC, Southern California’s preeminent organization of professional theatre critics, founded in 1969.
Women in Theatre Red Carpet Award for Excellence in Theatre
Maria Gobetti & Tom Ormeny Presented by the Women in Theatre organization for excellence as Producer/Artistic Director in Theatre.
Women in Theatre Red Carpet Award for Excellence in Theatre
Maria Gobetti — 1992
Production Honors
Ovation Award for Original Playwriting
Catch a Falling Star by Lee Murphy — winner, Ovation Award for Best New Play
3 Ovation Award Nominations
1 Pulitzer Prize Play Developed at the Theatre
Beth Henley wrote Crimes of the Heart while studying at the Gobetti-Ormeny Acting Studio. The play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980. VTC produced Henley’s The Miss Firecracker Contest — the theatre’s very first production.
2 Otis Guernsey Awards
Named for Otis L. Guernsey Jr., longtime editor of the annual Best Plays volumes and champion of new American playwriting. Awarded to VTC productions of On the Money and The History of Fear, both by playwright Kos Kostmayer.
2 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards
On the Money by Kos Kostmayer was named Best Play of the Year by the LADCC. The theatre has received 4 additional LADCC nominations across its history.
4 NAACP Theatre Awards / 11 NAACP Theatre Award Nominations
Including recognition for Monkey Grass by Lee Murphy.
4 NAACP Theatre Awards / 11 NAACP Theatre Award Nominations
Including recognition for Monkey Grass by Lee Murphy.
The XXIII Olympic Arts Festival Olympiad Award — 1984
Awarded to VTC’s production of Back to Back, directed by Tom Ormeny, presented as part of the 10-week Olympic Arts Festival preceding the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics — the largest cultural event ever staged in Los Angeles, featuring 400+ performances by 146 companies from 18 nations.
Industry & Community Recognition
30 Backstage West / Drama-Logue Awards
Among the highest totals in Los Angeles intimate theatre history. Drama-Logue / Backstage West was the leading LA theatre trade publication for decades, and its awards were the most closely followed in Southern California intimate theatre.
10 Maddy Awards
Several LA Weekly Awards
Including recognition for Monkey Grass by Lee Murphy.
Several Robby Awards
Presented by the San Fernando Valley community for excellence in local theatre.