Author Archive
BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON
Thursday, July 11th, 2013
Rowdy, outrageous, exhilarating, brash, and entertaining as all get-out—Chance Theater’s Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is all this and more, a slice of American history as told by a wild and crazy bunch of punk rockers that will have you cheering … and send you straight to Wikipedia to separate fact from fiction re our 7th President, “Old Hickory” himself.
Created by Alex Timbers and Michael Friedman, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson had its 2008 premiere at L.A.’s Kirk Douglas Theater before heading first to off-Broadway, then to Broadway, and now back to Southern California where director Kari Hayter, choreographer Kelly Todd, musical director Robyn Wallace, and a cast of some of SoCal’s most exciting triple-threats have joined forces to create the Orange County Musical Theater Event of the Summer ‘13.
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WATSON AND THE DARK ART OF HARRY HOUDINI
Tuesday, July 9th, 2013
What do you do when you’re writer-director Jaime Robledo and your play Watson: The Last Great Tale Of The Legendary Sherlock Holmes has won just about every award in the book? Elementary, my dear reader. You do what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did after creating his mystery-solving supersleuth in A Study In Scarlet (and what Universal Pictures kept doing year after year for their own inimitable Sherlock, Basil Rathbone). You write and direct a sequel, in this case Watson And The Dark Art Of Harry Houdini, and if the results don’t match the original in sheer brilliance, Watson 2.0 does for the most part avoid the dreaded sophomore curse.
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SOUTH PACIFIC
Monday, July 8th, 2013
Inspired by the thrilling 2008 Broadway revival, and making splendid use of its gorgeous National Tour sets and costumes, Moonlight Stage Productions now brings Southern California audiences an unforgettable outdoor staging of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific under the inspired direction of its new artistic director Steven Glaudini.
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SWEET KARMA
Saturday, July 6th, 2013
He was a 35-year-old physician when the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia, and barely escaped the holocaust that took the lives of more than a quarter of his countrymen. He was a refugee-turned-movie actor, winning an Oscar for his film—and acting—debut as real-life Cambodian journalist Dith Pran. He was a humanitarian who worked to rebuild his shattered country. And after surviving the killing fields, he met his death in the streets of Los Angeles, murdered by members of a predominantly Cambodian street gang.
This was the life—and death—of Dr. Haing S. Ngor, explored by playwright Henry Ong in the powerful Sweet Karma, now getting an exquisitely designed, imaginatively directed, and beautifully acted West Coast Premiere at the Grove Theatre Center.
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KISMET
Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013
A dozen supremely talented musical theater triple-threats and an inspired director-choreographer joined forces this past weekend to bring back the Golden Age Broadway hit Kismet, demonstrating once again that the “concert staged reading” may well be the very best way to revive forgotten musical theater gems.
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ABSOLUTELY FILTHY
Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013
For anyone who has ever wondered how the Peanuts gang might have turned out later in life, Brendan Hunt’s Absolutely Filthy now joins Bert V. Royal’s Dog Sees God in answering just that question; and though Royal’s Peanuts-As-Teens satire ends up more to my liking than Hunt’s Peanut-At-Thirty parody, it’s easy to understand why Absolutely Filthy became such a hit for Sacred Fools that they brought it back for five performances at the Hollywood Fringe Festival.
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THE KING AND I
Monday, July 1st, 2013
Following its adults-only production of The Full Monty, Candlelight Dinner Theatre now greets the summer with an entertaining revival of the family-friendly The King And I, trimmed of a few of its songs to get the kiddies (both those in the audience and those onstage) back home at a decent bedtime.
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STEEL MAGNOLIAS
Saturday, June 29th, 2013
A trio of L.A. busiest community and 99-seat theater veterans, a pair of musical theater triple-threats, and one relative newcomer to our Los Angeles stage scene join forces to bring Little Fish Theatre’s revival of Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias to effervescent life.
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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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