NEED TO KNOW
Tuesday, October 27th, 2015
Among the many advantages to New York City living, moving in next door to a man like Mark Manners is not one of them, or so a couple of L.A.-to-NYC transplants discover in Jonathan Caren’s seductively suspenseful comedy Need To Know, now getting a world-class World Premiere at Rogue Machine.
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VIETGONE
Thursday, October 15th, 2015
A couple of Vietnamese evacuees fall in love in an Arkansas refugee camp circa 1975 in Qui Nguyen’s rap-fueled, manga-spiced, profanity-packed Vietgone, now getting an electrifyingly innovative and ultimately quite powerful World Premiere at South Coast Repertory.
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LOBBY HERO
Thursday, October 8th, 2015
Jeremy Luke’s tour-de-force performance as lovable lug Jeff anchors Theatre 68’s thoroughly winning revival of Lobby Hero, Kenneth Longeran’s coming-of-age-in-four-nights comedy that held me spellbound for over two-and-a-half hours.
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IN LOVE AND WARCRAFT
Tuesday, October 6th, 2015
Playwright Madhuri Shekar updates a genre at least as old as Shakespeare, sets it in today’s world of online gaming, and populates it with an appealing college-age cast to give live theater audiences a delightful, mostly successful romcom for the 21st century in In Love And Warcraft, the latest from the Asian-American troupe Artists At Play (in association with The Latino Theater Company).
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PSYCHO BEACH PARTY
Saturday, October 3rd, 2015
Alfred Hitchcock meets Beach Blanket Bingo as only Tony-nominated playwright Charles Busch can mash the two of them together in Theatre Out’s deliciously over-the-top Psycho Beach Party, directed with flamboyant flair by Tito Ortiz.
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ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2015
The year’s most brilliant physical-comedy performance is but one of many reasons not to miss the West Coast Premiere of the West End/Broadway smash One Man, Two Guvnors, now inspiring more laughs per second than any play I can recall seeing at South Coast Repertory.
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THESE PAPER BULLETS!
Friday, September 18th, 2015
The Bard meets The Fab Four in Rolin Jones’ exuberantly entertaining These Paper Bullets!, now getting its West Coast Premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, and while audience members lacking either a soft spot for iambic pentameter or a familiarity with Beatles legend might just end up tuning out, at least during the show’s overlong first act, by the time Act Two rolls around with its Monty-Python-meets-Benny-Hill delights (and with Billie Joe Armstrong’s songs the absolute next best thing to Lennon-&-McCartney circa 1964), it’s hard to imagine anyone not ultimately falling under These Paper Bullets!’ magic spell.
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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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