THE WESTERN UNSCRIPTED
Saturday, September 6th, 2014
They’ve improvised Shakespeare. They’ve improvised Film Noir and The Twilight Zone. They’ve improvised Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Chekhov. They’ve even had the chutzpah to improvise Stephen Sondheim, music, lyrics, and all. And now the improv geniuses who call themselves Impro Theatre are back for business at the Falcon Theatre with their latest (and one of their very best) confections to date—improvising a full-length “feature film” live onstage in that most quintessential of American movie genres: The Western UnScripted.
(read more)
IT’S JUST SEX
Monday, September 1st, 2014
A dinner party that morphs into a spouse-swapping swingers’ bash may well be the hook that has attracted audiences to Jeff Gould’s It’s Just Sex – A Comedy About Lust & Trust since its World Premiere at the Whitefire back in 2002, but it’s the playwright’s perceptiveness about male-female relationships, the depth he gives his characters, and the unexpected life changes each couple ends up undergoing that has turned It’s Just Sex into L.A.’s longest-running comedy (factoring in its later runs at the Zephyr and the Two Roads), sent it off-Broadway in 2013, and have now brought it back to NoHo’s Secret Rose Theatre with an upcoming Las Vegas run likely in the cards.
(read more)
REGRETS ONLY
Sunday, August 31st, 2014
It’s a measure of how much times have changed over the less than eight years since Paul Rudnick’s Regrets Only debuted off-Broadway that Rudnick’s contemporary comedy has already become what some critics might call “dated” … and it’s a measure of Rudnick’s comedic mastery that this matters not a whit, not with characters as wedding-cake delectable as those now onstage at San Diego’s Diversionary Theatre, and certainly not in a production as pitch-perfect as the one Jessica John has directed for America’s third-oldest continuously-producing LGBT theater.
(read more)
MEET & GREET
Monday, August 25th, 2014
“A+ CAST PLUS BOFFO SCRIPT EQUALS FRINGE FEST SMASH” is how I concluded my review of Meet & Greet, Stan Zimmerman and Christian McLaughlin’s outrageously funny tale of a quartet of fictional Broadway/Hollywood divas vying for a sitcom pilot lead, when it played this past June at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Now, Meet & Greet is back for a second run at Theatre Asylum, and as evidenced by the nonstop laughter at yesterday’s SRO matinee, Meet & Greet 2.0 is even more outrageously funny the second time around than it was the first.
(read more)
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
Saturday, August 16th, 2014
No set, no frills, the original script cut by more than half, and abundant imagination and flair add up to quite possibly the shortest and without a doubt one of the most entertaining Midsummer Night’s Dreams in the four-hundred-twenty or so years since those foolish mortals first ventured into the woods, sixty-five minutes of madcap Midsummer 2014 magic courtesy of Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre Group.
(read more)
6 RMS RIV VU
Monday, August 11th, 2014
One of theatergoing’s greatest pleasures is the discovery of “forgotten gems,” plays that may have hit it big when they debuted but for one reason or another have faded into obscurity in the intervening years. Such is the case with Bob Randall’s 1972 romantic comedy 6 Rms Riv Vu, now getting a sparkling Sierra Madre Playhouse revival under Sherrie Lofton’s pitch-perfect direction.
(read more)
LEADING LADIES
Friday, July 25th, 2014RECOMMENDED
Boys will be girls when a pair of traveling Shakespearean thespians impersonate a pair of long-lost sisters in hopes of inheriting a fortune in Ken Ludwig’s Leading Ladies, now entertainingly revived at Glendale Centre Theatre.
(read more)
FAMILY PLANNING
Friday, July 18th, 2014RECOMMENDED
Burbank’s Colony Theatre opens its 40th Season with Michelle Kholos Brooks’ entertaining if overly familiar Family Planning, and while the World Premiere comedy’s couple of battling 70something ex-spouses will likely appeal to the Colony’s post-retirement-age regulars, particularly as brought to life by TV’s venerable Bruce Weitz and Christina Pickles, the coming year’s bolder later selections appear more apt to revitalize the Colony’s aging subscriber base than its Season 40 opener.
(read more)
Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
COPYRIGHT 2026 STEVEN STANLEY :: DESIGN BY