Author Archive
CINDERELLA
Sunday, November 28th, 2010
Now here’s something you don’t see every day in North Hollywood—the Cinderella story as a “modern musical extravaganza” starring Harry Potter heartthrob Freddie Stroma of the UK, TVLand’s very own (Leave It To) Beaver (the now 62-year-old Jerry Mathers), a teenage discovery named Veronica Dunne (who snagged the title role in a talent competition at a local Westfield Shopping Mall), Broadway belter Jennifer Leigh Warren, British comedian Benny Harris as Buttons (Buttons?), the very male duo of Eddie Driscoll and Mark Edgar Stephens as Cinderella’s ugly sisters Cowel and Seecrest (Cowel and Seecrest?), and “guest starring” a miniature horse named Little Man in the role of Blitzen—all of this choreographed by Mark Ballas of TV’s Dancing With The Stars.
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UPTOWN DOWNTOWN
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010
Not quite two years ago, the legendary Leslie Uggams electrified audiences at the Pasadena Playhouse as the legendary Lena Horne in the award-winning bio-musical Stormy Weather. Sadly, less than a year later, the Pasadena Playhouse announced that it was closing its doors. Fast forward to November of 2010 and both Leslie and the Playhouse are back—reunited (and it feels so good) in Uptown Downtown, a two-hour nightclub act-like musical bio of Miss Uggams herself—and a fabulous evening of song it is!
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GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Sunday, November 21st, 2010
Over the past two decades, Glendale’s A Noise Within has tended to offer three kinds of plays, one each per Fall or Spring season. There’s something by Shakespeare, something by Ibsen, Moliere, Shaw, or an ancient Greek or Roman, and something more contemporary, say a play by Odets, Anouilh, Williams, Miller, or O’Neil. Now, with Neil Bartlett’s 2007 adaptation of Charles Dickens’ 1861 novel Great Expectations, California’s Home For The Classics gets the chance to merge the classical and the modern for an evening of classical contemporary (or contemporary classical) theater at its finest.
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EQUUS
Saturday, November 20th, 2010
Peter Shaffer’s Equus presents a greater than usual challenge to a university drama department choosing to undertake a production of the Tony Award-winning Best Play of 1973. Roles like those originated on Broadway by Anthony Hopkins and Peter Firth require a depth of talent and life experience that not all drama majors possess. Shaffer’s ideas about God, sex, and morality might easily whoosh over the heads of actors in their late teens and early twenties. Finally, there is the play’s much publicized nudity, doubtless an important factor in the show’s more than 1200 performances in its original Broadway run, but an element that might prove problematic in a student production.
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THE SECRET GARDEN (THE MUSICAL)
Saturday, November 20th, 2010
The Chance Theater puts its quality stamp on Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman’s The Secret Garden, a musical adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s novel.
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A CHICAGO CHRISTMAS CAROL
Friday, November 19th, 2010
What do you get when you combine Charles Dickens’ classic tale of Christmastime redemption (you know the one) with The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s exposé of meat packing conditions in early 20th Century Chicago, then add a musical score with much of the stark dissonance of Kurt Weill’s collaborations with Bertolt Brecht?
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PATRICK ALAN CASEY CD
Friday, November 19th, 2010
Singer-songwriter Patrick Alan Casey makes a memorable recording debut with Leaving California, a terrific alternative adult rock CD filled with some of the most gorgeous, powerful rock ballads you’re likely to hear this or any year.
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INTO THE WOODS
Thursday, November 18th, 2010
Over the past quarter century or so, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into The Woods has become one of the most performed musicals in the U.S.—in regional CLOs, on college and high school campuses, and in intimate theaters. Its first act, which magically combines some of the best loved of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and its second, which explores with considerable depth what happens after “happily ever after,” make for a show which retains its freshness and originality two decades after it first captivated Broadway audiences.
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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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