Author Archive
COLLECTED STORIES
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
The mentor-pupil relationship of an acclaimed author of short stories and her most promising student is charted over a period of six years in Donald Margulies’ compelling drama Collected Stories. Now returning with its original star to South Coast Repertory (where it had its world premiere in 1996), this much awaited revival proves a sterling example of big-stage professional theater at its best.
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COME BACK LITTLE HORNY
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009
Meet the Maloneys, your average upper-middle class Palo Alto family:
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THE MIRACLE WORKER
Friday, May 22nd, 2009
Helen Keller. Annie Sullivan.
Few Americans can hear these names without recalling William Gibson’s Tony-winning The Miracle Worker. It’s been fifty years since the now classic biodrama debuted on Broadway, so long ago that to today’s theatergoers, it seems scarcely possible that there was a time before this extraordinary true story became part of our consciousness. Few are those who have not seen either the Oscar-winning 1962 film or its two TV remakes (Patty Duke won the Oscar (and Tony) for playing Helen and the Emmy for playing Annie) or one of its countless school or community theater productions. Major professional revivals are less common, though, all the more reason to greet Joel Daavid’s powerful new production with excitement.
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SETUP & PUNCH
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
Nine years following her acrimonious split from Brian, Vanya (nee Yvonne Patricia) takes pen to paper to write (yes, write, not email) her onetime creative partner with a request. “Dear Brian,” she writes. “I know I can’t make up with you but I hope we can be friends.”
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ONCE UPON A MATTRESS
Sunday, May 17th, 2009
Once Upon A Mattress is a popular choice for high school musicals and community theaters, but I can’t recall a professional production here in L.A., so the Lyric’s totally entertaining revival of this 1959 Broadway gem comes as particularly welcome news, especially in these gloomy economic times.
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TRAFFICKING IN BROKEN HEARTS
Saturday, May 16th, 2009
Papo is a Puerto Rican hustler who’s been selling his body on the mean streets of early 1990s New York City since the age of fifteen. Brian is a 26-year-old gay virgin who frequents phone sex lines and adult bookstores, alternately craving and fearing his first sexual experience. Bobby is a 16-year-old runaway whose older brothers have been raping him daily since he was twelve.
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BREAKING THE CODE
Friday, May 15th, 2009
Superbly directed by Robert Mammana and featuring a tour de force lead performance by M Butterfly’s Sam R. Ross, Breaking The Code is, simply put, must-see theater. Despite its 1930s to 1950s English setting, Hugh Whitemore’s biodrama remains vital and relevant to 21st Century America, both as a reminder of a time not so long ago when a confession of homosexual acts could send a man to prison, and as proof that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
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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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