PRIVATE EYES
Sunday, January 17th, 2016
Reality and fiction. Truth and lies. Has any playwright had more fun fooling (and delighting and engaging) an audience than Steven Dietz does in Private Eyes, the best straight-play production I’ve seen at Santa Monica’s venerable community theater, the Morgan-Wixson, and one that easily holds its own against the top professional houses in town.
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DEN OF THIEVES
Saturday, January 16th, 2016
Organized crime meets a quartet of disorganized would-be criminals to wild and wacky effect in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Den Of Thieves, now getting a hilarious 20th-anniversary revival by 2Cents Theatre Group.
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THE MADWOMAN IN THE VOLVO
Wednesday, January 13th, 2016RECOMMENDED
Solo queen Sandra Tsing Loh has arrived at South Coast Rep with a couple of guest actresses in tow for The Madwoman In The Volvo, an autobiographical look at menopause and infidelity more likely to appeal to female theatergoers forty-five and older than to those who don’t fit this specific demographic.
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TIMESHARE
Monday, January 11th, 2016RECOMMENDED
A ragtag sales staff’s attempts to convince would-be buyers to take a chance on the proverbial “deal of a lifetime” add up to a series of wild-and-wacky Act One vignettes till a pre-intermission plot twist sends Steve B. Green’s World Premiere comedy Timeshare into darker, somewhat less successful territory.
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YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU
Friday, January 8th, 2016
Glendale Centre Theatre welcomes in 2016 with a terrifically directed and performed 80th-anniversary revival of You Can’t Take It With You, George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s comedic look at the charmingly eccentric Vanderhoff/Sycamore clan, a multigenerational family residing together in perfect, if oddball, harmony in a large New York City home circa 1936.
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ANOTHER ANTIGONE
Monday, January 4th, 2016RECOMMENDED
A.R. Gurney’s smartly comic look at university life (and the Greek classics) circa the late 1980s gets a welcome if imperfect revival at The Group Rep, one that could benefit from a more assured directorial vision and a more credible female lead performance.
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WHO KILLED SANTA?
Friday, December 25th, 2015
The white-bearded Fat Man In Red has been candy-caned to death and it’s up to the audience to decide who amongst five iconic Christmas characters “dunit” in Neil Haven’s Avenue Q-inspired, R-rated Who Killed Santa?, a Milwaukee perennial since 2008 now making its West Coast debut at Theatre 68, and while those who insist upon sophistication, refinement, and wit may want to look elsewhere for their holiday entertainment, Haven’s cult smash does what it sets out to do. It makes you laugh.
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THE JEW WHO SAVED CHRISTMAS
Tuesday, December 15th, 2015RECOMMENDED
The jokes may be broad, the characters stereotypical, and performances far from nuanced, but Andy Shultz’s The Jew Who Saved Christmas!, the latest from Zombie Joes Underground Theatre Group, does precisely what a comedy is supposed to do—it makes you laugh.
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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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