Author Archive
SIDE SHOW
Monday, April 27th, 2015
Freaks reign supreme in 3-D Theatrical’s big-stage revival of Bill Russell and Henry Krieger’s Side Show (The Original), easily one of the finest 3-D productions ever, and for those of us who have marveled at their Ragtime, Funny Girl, and Parade (among others), that is saying something indeed.
(read more)
MY BARKING DOG
Sunday, April 26th, 2015RECOMMENDED
Performances are outstanding and the production design sensational, the director is Michael Michetti (need I say more?), and the ideas put forth are provocative, but an overreliance on monologs proves off-putting in the West Coast Premiere of Eric Cable’s two-hander My Barking Dog, the latest from The Theatre @ Boston Court.
(read more)
THE ANARCHIST
Saturday, April 25th, 2015
Felicity Huffman and Rebecca Pidgeon square off in the cat-and-mouse game that is David Mamet’s provocative yet abstruse The Anarchist, the duo’s superb performances and bona fide star power, the intimacy of Theatre Row’s Theatre Asylum, and ticket prices about a quarter of what they were when Mamet’s latest premiered on Broadway combining to make this 99-seat-plan production a likely candidate for hottest ticket in town.
(read more)
WORDS BY IRA GERSHWIN
Friday, April 24th, 2015RECOMMENDED
The play may indeed be the thing, at least most of the time, but it’s the songs and the singers (and not the show’s rather uninspired format) that make the Los Angeles Premiere of Joseph Vass’s self-described “musical play” Words By Ira Gershwin worth a drive to Burbank’s Colony Theatre.
(read more)
AFTER THE REVOLUTION
Thursday, April 23rd, 2015
The sins of the grandfather are visited on recent law school graduate Emma Joseph in Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Herzog’s multigenerational family drama After The Revolution, now getting a compelling Oanh Nguyen-directed Chance Theater Southern California Premiere five years after putting its writer’s name on the national theatrical map.
(read more)
MR. WOLF
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015RECOMMENDED
Rajiv Joseph takes a provocative look at the human consequences of a despicable crime twelve years after its perpetration in his hit-and-miss World Premiere drama Mr. Wolf, a play I found powerful and affecting in its more realistic moments but frustrating and perplexing in its attempts at the poetic and profound. In either case, performances alone make it worth a look-see.
(read more)
BUYER & CELLAR
Monday, April 20th, 2015
“Mem’ries” light the corners of struggling actor Alex More’s mind, but they are neither “misty” nor “water-colored” given that the divinely heavenly boss-from-hell whom Alex is “rememb’ring” in Jonathan Tolins’ hilarious Buyer & Cellar, now getting an absolutely fabulous San Diego Premiere at The Old Globe, is none other Barbra herself, no family name required.
(read more)
JANE AUSTEN’S PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, A MUSICAL
Monday, April 20th, 2015
If a World Premiere musicalization of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in which the 19th-century novelist figures not only as part of its title but as one of the its leading players seems fraught with peril, then Austen fans can rest assured. To quote from La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts’ next-up Mary Poppins, Jane Austen’s Pride And Prejudice, A Musical is practically perfect in every way.
(read more)
Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
COPYRIGHT 2026 STEVEN STANLEY :: DESIGN BY