Author Archive
THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
Sunday, March 1st, 2009
Long before Bruce Wayne concocted a secret identity for himself in order to fight evil and wrongdoers as Batman, an 18th Century English baronet named Sir Percy Blakeney disguised himself as The Scarlet Pimpernel. His goal—to rescue French aristocrats from the blade of the dreaded guillotine.
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DOUBLE INDEMNITY
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
Adapting Double Indemnity for a 99-seat theater could easily prove disastrous. Make the wrong directorial, acting, or design choices and the enterprise could easily turn into an unintentional sequel to Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, Steve Martin’s brilliant parody of film noir.
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MAKIN’ HAY
Friday, February 27th, 2009RECOMMENDED
There’s no 99-seat theater company with a better track record for musicals than Actor’s Co-op. Past productions of She Loves Me, Damn Yankees, Into The Woods, The Most Happy Fella, and last season’s brilliant 1776 are textbook examples of how to shrink a big stage, big cast Broadway show down to intimate theater dimensions without losing any of the original’s magic and allure. This season, the Co-op has taken on the challenge of presenting a world premiere musical.
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THE THREEPENNY OPERA
Thursday, February 26th, 2009
Fans of The Threepenny Opera will be hard-pressed to find a better production of the Kurt Weill-Bertolt Brecht classic than International City Theatre’s current revival. Directed with consummate vision and artistry by Jules Aaron, beautifully choreographed by Broadway’s Kay Cole, performed by a sensational cast accompanied by a masterful quintet of musicians, and designed by a SoCal “dream team,” this Threepenny Opera may well be ICT’s all-around best musical production in years.
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FINIAN’S RAINBOW
Monday, February 23rd, 2009RECOMMENDED
Brigadoon and Finian’s Rainbow both opened on Broadway in 1947. Both had successful runs, Brigadoon playing 581 performances, Finian’s Rainbow beating it with 725. Both were jam packed with hit songs. From Brigadoon, you’ve probably heard the title song, Almost Like Being In Love, Come To Me, Bend to Me, and The Heather on the Hill. Finian’s Rainbow hits include How Are Things in Glocca Morra?, Look to the Rainbow, Old Devil Moon, and If This Isn’t Love. Both shows featured Irish lead characters, and each became a major movie musical, Brigadoon starring Gene Kelly and Finian’s Rainbow starring Fred Astaire. Broadway musicals don’t have better credits than these.
OUR LEADING LADY
Sunday, February 22nd, 2009
Comedienne extraordinaire Carol Burnett once said, “Comedy is tragedy plus time,” an adage which playwright Charles Busch proves spot-on in his hilarious backstage farce Our Leading Lady, now playing at The Neighborhood Playhouse in Palos Verdes Estates. The tragedy is the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln at Washington D.C.’s Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, only days after Lee surrendered at Appomattox. In imagining the backstage shenanigans taking place in the hours leading up to that fateful performance of Our American Cousin, starring real-life actress-manager Laura Keene, Busch has written an outrageously funny play which finds comedy out of national tragedy—and serves as an affectionate love letter to the theater as well.
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BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA
Saturday, February 21st, 2009
Though he never appears on stage during the play’s 90-minute running time, the real star of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, currently wowing North Hollywood audiences, is the man who conceived and directed the supernaturally screamalicious production—Ken Sawyer. In lesser hands, and without the state-of-the-art sound and lighting equipment at the NoHo Arts Center, Hamilton Dean and John L. Balderston’s stage play might be a campy, creaky mess. Instead, it is an entirely thrilling evening of theater which provides the pleasures of the greatest horror films—shocks and screams galore—in three dimensions and surround sound.
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DAMES AT SEA
Friday, February 20th, 2009
It’s the 1930s and the height of the Great Depression. A pretty young would-be hoofer (that’s hoofer, not hooker!) arrives in New York City with dreams of starring on the Great White Way. When a temperamental Broadway diva becomes indisposed, our sweet young thing is the only chorus girl able to take on the star’s leading role at a moment’s notice. Recognize the plot? It’s 42nd Street, right?
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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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