AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
Saturday, May 9th, 2015
It took legendary Hollywood producer Mike Todd around $50,000,000 in today’s currency to bring science fiction writer Jules Verne’s Around The World In Eighty Days to the Todd-AO 70mm big screen back in 1958.
Actors Co-op does the same in 2015 with maybe about one-half-percent the budget, and I defy anyone to find the Co-op’s supremely imaginative, endlessly inventive small-stage revival any less entertaining than its Hollywood blockbuster predecessor.
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BUYER & CELLAR
Monday, April 20th, 2015
“Mem’ries” light the corners of struggling actor Alex More’s mind, but they are neither “misty” nor “water-colored” given that the divinely heavenly boss-from-hell whom Alex is “rememb’ring” in Jonathan Tolins’ hilarious Buyer & Cellar, now getting an absolutely fabulous San Diego Premiere at The Old Globe, is none other Barbra herself, no family name required.
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FIGARO
Friday, April 10th, 2015
The very first West Coast staging of a 2012 World Premiere may not be what folks expect from A Noise Within given the company’s usual slate of Shakespeare, Shaw, Racine, Moliere, and other long-deceased playwrights, but that is precisely what California’s Home For The Classics now offers its audiences in Charles Moray’s Figaro, the frothiest, funniest, most farcical romp I’ve yet seen at ANW.
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AMERICAN WEE-PIE
Tuesday, March 31st, 2015
Cupcakes offer a down-on-his-luck textbook editor a new lease on life in Lisa Dillman’s magical, whimsical American Wee-Pie, now getting its Los Angeles Premiere in one of my favorite Theatre 40 productions ever.
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TREVOR
Friday, March 27th, 2015
Laurie Metcalf and Jimmi Simpson are a mother and son unlike any you’ve ever seen on stage, on screen, or in real life for that matter, in the West Coast Premiere of Nick Jones’ Trevor, the stellar duo delivering extraordinary performances in a play you’ll be telling friends, acquaintances, and maybe even complete strangers to put at the top of their must-see list.
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PYGMALION
Tuesday, March 24th, 2015
Witty comedy, incisive social commentary, unconventional love story, and the inspiration for what many consider the greatest Broadway musical ever—George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion is all this and (as revived for a 21st-century audience at the Pasadena Playhouse) much, much more.
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BACHELORETTE
Sunday, March 22nd, 2015
Mean girls reign supreme in Bachelorette, Leslye Headland’s acidly funny glimpse into the ugliness that can hide behind pretty faces, back for a return L.A. engagement just a mile from where its 2008 World Premiere put playwright Headland and IAMA Theatre Company on the map.
This time round it’s the year-old Mine Is Yours Theatre Company who bring Becky, Gena, Katie, and Regan (and a couple of not-so-nice young men) to hilariously vicious life, and though these are not folks you’d normally want to spend even an hour with, Bachelorette’s ninety minutes add up to outrageously biting entertainment, albeit quite the opposite of “sugar and spice and everything nice.”
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BABY WITH THE BATHWATER
Sunday, March 8th, 2015
Wacky is the word for Baby With The Bathwater. Winningly wild and wonderful apply too to Christopher Durang’s 1983 comedy classic, as does gut-bustingly hilarious, a bathtub full of adjectives and adverbs that make the latest from Diversionary Theatre well worth a San Diego road trip this month.
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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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