DADDY
Sunday, January 9th, 2011
Actor-playwright Dan Via puts an intriguing new spin on the romantic triangle—and the often blurred line between friendship and romance—in the highly provocative Daddy, now getting an impressive West Coast Premiere under the skilled, nuanced direction of Rick Sparks.
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CAUGHT
Friday, December 3rd, 2010
David L. Ray puts a very real face on this country’s gay marriage debate in Caught, the Georgia-born playwright’s absorbing dramedy now getting its World Premiere at the Zephyr Theatre. Incisively directed by Nick DeGruccio and featuring a couldn’t-be-better cast and one of the best design teams in town, Caught is a terrific holiday gift for theatergoers in search of something other than yet another Christmas Carol.
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LULU’S LAST STAND
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010RECOMMENDED
A patriarch’s death brings his three adult daughters back to the family homestead in northern Georgia. Compounding their grief is the upsetting discovery that their mother waited eight full days to inform them of their father’s demise. What on earth could have provoked her to sit on this vital piece of family news for so long? Has Mom gone and lost her mind?
These are the questions that Charlene, Bailey, and Lena attempt to unravel in Lulu’s Last Stand, currently in its World Premiere engagement at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40. Though it’s not until its second act that Veronica DiPippo’s dramedy really kicks into gear, prompting this reviewer to recommend some first act cuts, it ends up being an enjoyable and even inspiring look at an odd-ball mother and her three very distinctive daughters.
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ANITA BRYANT DIED FOR YOUR SINS
Saturday, October 30th, 2010
“One of the funniest and most exquisitely written comedy-dramas to come along in a long, long while” is how I described Anita Bryant Died For Your Sins when it had its West Coast Premiere in Los Angeles last year. San Diegans (and Angelinos who want a first or second look at Brian Christopher Williams’ exquisite memory play) would do well to check out its terrific San Diego premiere at Diversionary Theatre under the expert direction of Shana Wride.
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A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED
Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
Miss Jane Marple, the elderly spinster/amateur sleuth created by Agatha Christie in 1930, starred in a dozen novels up through the early 1970s (never aging a day), but only twice did she appear live on stage, thereby making it a special treat for whodunit fans that Glendale Centre Theatre has revived Leslie Darbon’s stage adaptation of A Murder Is Announced with all-around terrific results.
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THE ACCIDENTAL BLONDE
Sunday, October 17th, 2010
She’s done Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, and Wrath. Now playwright Leslye Headland turns her deliciously acerbic pen to Envy in The Accidental Blonde, the sixth and latest of her Seven Deadly Plays, a dark comedy that’s one of her best and easily the most unique.
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I LOVED LUCY
Saturday, October 16th, 2010
There’s hardly an American of TV viewing age who hasn’t seen at least one episode of I Love Lucy, but only a comparative few can claim to have known its iconic star Lucille Ball, and of those, even fewer knew her as well as Lee Tannen, author of the affectionate memoir I Loved Lucy. Tannen’s popular book now makes a smooth and satisfying transition from the printed page to the legitimate stage in his play of the same name, currently in its World Premiere production at the Laguna Playhouse.
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MEASURE FOR MEASURE
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010
A powerful government official offers to suspend a sex offender’s death sentence in exchange for a night of love-making with the convicted man’s virginal sister. Sound like a scene from a day or nighttime soap? It certainly could be, but is in fact the central conflict of William Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure, about as contemporary a play as the Bard ever wrote, even four-plus centuries after its first performance. No wonder A Noise Within’s “present time” setting in a “modern capital city” works so well in this first production of its 2010-2011 repertory season.
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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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