Author Archive
ALL THE WAY
Wednesday, September 14th, 2016
Robert Schenkkan’s Best Play Tony-winner All The Way arrives at South Coast Repertory in what is sure to be one of the coming year’s finest productions, a locally-cast, locally-directed, locally-designed gem that sets the record straight on LBJ, our nation’s 36th President, brought to explosive, warts-and-all life by Hugo Armstrong in one of the year’s great star turns.
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THE FANTASTICKS
Tuesday, September 13th, 2016
The world’s longest-running musical (aka The Fantasticks) makes for a crowd-pleasing Pasadena Playhouse season opener thanks not only to its time-tested appeal but also to an excitingly contemporary director’s concept and cast choices that celebrate diversity in the most refreshing of ways.
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ARCADIA
Monday, September 12th, 2016
Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia can prove quite a head-scratcher when not done right. Fortunately, despite brain-teasing elements that can challenge even the sharpest intellect, all-around superb acting and incisive direction make A Noise Within’s 25th-season opener as entertaining and accessible as Arcadias get.
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ANDREW LIPPA’S WILD PARTY
Sunday, September 11th, 2016Kristina Miller ignites the stage as Queenie in Quentin Garzón’s passion-project intimate staging of the 2000 off-Broadway musical adaptation of Joseph Moncure March’s 1928 epic poem The Wild Party, one which Garzón and company have redubbed “Andrew Lippa’s Wild Party,” the better to distinguish it from the Michael John LaChiusa Wild Party that played on Broadway the same year.
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CHARM
Saturday, September 10th, 2016
Edward J. Olmos’s Jaime Escalante did it in Stand And Deliver. Michelle Pfeiffer’s Louanne Johnson did it in Dangerous Minds. Sidney Poitier’s Mark Thackery did it in To Sir With Love. And now Lana Houston’s Mama Darleena Andrews does it in Charm, transforming the lives of a classroomful of rebellious teens, only this time round the teacher in question is a transgender sexagenerian and her students an unruly bunch of homeless LGBT teens. Talk about a setup for an edgy, funny, and (you guessed it) heartstrings-tugging crowd-pleaser, the latest all-around winner from Celebration Theatre.
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NOSFERATU, A SYMPHONY IN TERROR
Friday, September 9th, 2016
A silent horror movie classic inspires Crown City Theatre’s excitingly original Nosferatu, A Symphony In Terror, arriving just in time to greet the Halloween season with its stunning blend of movement and dance performed to a gloriously symphonic soundtrack.
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LIKE BLOOD FROM A CHEAP CIGAR
Wednesday, September 7th, 2016An effective use of reverse chronology and a luminous Genevieve Joy are the two best reasons to catch Like Blood From A Cheap Cigar, Joy’s short, bittersweet look at love gone bad, now concluding a limited run at Hollywood’s Hudson Guild Theatre following its Hollywood Fringe Festival debut this past June.
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DUTCH MASTERS
Tuesday, September 6th, 2016
A classic setup—Hitchcock called it Strangers On A Train—is given an excitingly edgy contemporary spin in Greg Keller’s edge-of-your-seat two-hander Dutch Masters, a Rogue Machine Theatre West Coast Premiere that will keep you guessing throughout its riveting seventy-five minutes, then have you talking about what you’ve seen long after its powerful final fadeout.
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Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
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