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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WHEN LAST WE FLEW
Monday, November 19th, 2012
Playwright Harrison David Rivers and Diversionary Theatre score a pair of coups, the former in having his award-winning* when last we flew get its West Coast Premiere at San Diego’s esteemed LGBT theater, the latter in giving Rivers’ mystical, magical dramedy its first major, fully-staged production since its limited-run debut at the 2010 New York International Fringe Festival. The result is one of the best (and most unique) coming of age stories I’ve seen onstage.
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EDITH CAN SHOOT THINGS AND HIT THEM
Monday, October 29th, 2012
How times have changed for gay American teens over the past two decades. Kenny Tolentino could scarcely have conceived of Gay Straight Alliances or “It Gets Better” videos or out celebrities like Ricky Martin and Zachary Quinto (Mr. Spock, no less!) when he was sixteen just twenty years ago, a coming of age now chronicled by A. Rey Pamatmat in his absolutely wonderful Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them.
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EURYDICE
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012
Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl’s magical, mystical, poetic retelling of the Orpheus myth from the point of view of his bride has arrived at South Coast Repertory in a production that, in addition to being exquisitely acted and directed, is likely to be remembered as one of the most stunningly designed SCR productions ever.
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BY THE WAY, MEET VERA STARK
Saturday, September 29th, 2012
The Motion Picture Production Code changed more than the sexual content of films made between 1934 and 1968. Not only did the Hays Code, as it was better known, ban “every profane and vulgar expression, any licentious or suggestive nudity, the illegal traffic in drugs, any inference of sex perversion,” and other cinematic sins which pre-1933 movies might have felt free to feature, it also restricted the ways blacks and whites could interrelate.
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage looks back at the last pre-Code year and the effects the Code had on the life of Hollywood’s first (albeit fictional) African-American film star in her fascinating, funny, thought-provoking—though not entirely satisfying—By The Way, Meet Vera Stark, now getting its West Coast Premiere at the Geffen Playhouse.
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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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