ATTACK OF THE SECOND BANANAS

Dueling divas get double-murdered in Gina Torrecilla’s Attack Of The Second Bananas, a World Premiere backstage comedy whodunnit that despite occasional bright moments mostly falls flat.
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BORN TO WIN

Little Miss Sunshine hopefuls could learn a thing or two from the Texas-based partners (business and otherwise) who coach preschool pixies to beauty pageant stardom in Matthew Wilkas and Mark Setlock’s Born To Win, the outrageously funny latest from Celebration Theatre.
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THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN

A stageful of stereotype-defying Irish islanders, an abundance of well-earned laughs and maybe even a tear or two thrown in for good measure are just a few of the reasons Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple Of Inishmaan at Antaeus Theatre Company adds up to one supremely satisfying (and pardon my Irish) fecking entertaining evening of L.A. theater.
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THE EIGHT: REINDEER MONOLOGUES

A salacious Santa’s unspeakable indiscretions aren’t nearly so laughable in a #metoo era as they were when Jeff Goode premiered The Eight: Reindeer Monologues twenty-five Christmases ago, just one reason his quarter-century old collection of R-rated solo confessions proves even more powerful and relevant than when it debuted in 1994, a dark comedy gone darker than ever as its ingeniously staged, splendidly performed Crown City Theatre Company debut makes abundantly clear.
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A CHRISTMAS STORY

Ralphie Parker’s back for a second December at the Sierra Madre Playhouse, still wishing and hoping to find a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle BB gun under the tree, still providing audiences of all with A Christmas Story sure to both touch the heart and tickle the funny bone.
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IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE: THE RADIO PLAY

There’s more than one Christmas miracle in store for the cast and characters of Theatre Unleashed’s It’s A Wonderful Life: The Radio Play, Jim Martyka’s double-your-pleasure adaptation of the holiday perennial.
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STEAMBATH

Six towel-clad men and one similarly draped young woman kvetch about the insignificant lives they have left behind as they await who knows what lies ahead in Bruce Jay Friedman’s Steambath, an only fitfully diverting Odyssey Theatre Ensemble revival of a 1970 off-Broadway play that, even with Anthony Perkins as its star, couldn’t manage to make it past 128 performances.
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BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!)

Clementine, Maddy, and Antonia are women on the verge of a nervous breakdown in North Orange, New Jersey circa 1960 in Jami Brandli’s BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!). That they’re also Clytemnestra, Medea, and Antigone reincarnated is one reason Brandli’s take on mid-20th-century suburbia works considerably less well than it would if she had stuck to satire. The other is the play’s two-and-a-half-hour running time.
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