DRIVING MISS DAISY
Sunday, February 3rd, 2013
Sierra Madre Playhouse follows last year’s superb, Scenie-winning Incident At Vichy with a beautifully acted, directed, and designed production of Driving Miss Daisy, Alfred Uhry’s award-winning one-acter about an elderly Southern Jewish widow and the African-American driver foisted upon her by her adult son in the years just preceding the Civil Rights Movement.
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THE SNAKE CAN
Sunday, February 3rd, 2013
When was the last time you saw a play about three women on the cusp of fifty navigating the rough waters of big city singlehood? Actually, when was the last time you saw anything—play, movie, or TV series—about three fiftyish females period?
Since the answer to both of these questions is likely to be a big fat “Never,” Kathryn Graf’s world premiere dramedy The Snake Can comes as a particularly welcome surprise … and a rewarding New Years 2013 treat.
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HAPPY FACE SAD FACE
Tuesday, January 29th, 2013
The term “high concept” is one more often applied to a Hollywood blockbuster than to a play getting its World Premiere in one of L.A.’s many 99-seat theaters. Studios seem far more resistant to films that can’t be pitched in a few succinct words than are our local stages—not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with “high concept,” a fact made abundantly clear by R.J. Colleary’s Happy Face Sad Face, now playing at Hollywood’s Lillian Theatre.
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CLYBOURNE PARK
Monday, January 21st, 2013
The 19th Century axiom that “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”* could have been thought up to describe race relations in the United States, or at least race relations as Bruce Norris writes about them in his Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning play Clybourne Park, now getting its first San Diego production—and a splendid one at that—at San Diego REPertory Theatre.
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THE RAINMAKER
Saturday, January 12th, 2013
Few plays from the 1950s hold up as well as L. Richard Nash’s folksy 1954 romance The Rainmaker. Those needing proof of the above need simply to head out to Santa Monica’s Edgemar Center For The Arts where Tanna Frederick and Robert Standley head the cast of director Jack Heller’s pitch-perfect revival of this ‘50s gem.
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JACOB MARLEY’S CHRISTMAS CAROL
Saturday, December 15th, 2012
Just when you think there’s no new way to tell Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, along comes an approach so fresh and an execution so spectacular, it makes you ignore the “I’ve seen enough Christmas Carols to last me a lifetime” voice inside your head and be exceedingly glad you did.
The Dickens adaptation in question is Tom Mula’s Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol, whose brilliant L.A Premiere staging by producer-director Casey Kringlen makes it must-see holiday entertainment for anyone who loves great theater, be it grand or intimate, or in this case a bit of both.
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THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT
Wednesday, December 12th, 2012
The deadly-looking knife Colin hides under the queen-size bed he’s about to share with prostitute Salome in The Christmas Present clues us in from the get-go that Guy Picot’s dark holiday comedy isn’t going to be the sort of warm-hearted fare that usually fills our theaters each December.
Following four UK productions and a raved-about American debut last year at one of L.A.’s theater gems, The Christmas Present returns for another holiday-go-round at Sacred Fools, directed by its playwright and with its trio of 2011 stars intact.
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ANGELS FALL
Saturday, November 24th, 2012
Confine a group of strangers in an enclosed space and what do you get? Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential classic No Exit? Michael Leoni’s smash L.A. hit Elevator? TV’s Big Brother, now in its 14th season?
To this list Los Angeles theatergoers can now add Lanford Wilson’s Tony-nominated (for Best Play of 1982) Angels Fall, now getting a marvelous intimate staging by The Production Company, a 30th Anniversary revival which not only does ample justice to Wilson’s themes but does so in the most entertaining of ways.
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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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