YES, PRIME MINISTER
Friday, June 14th, 2013
The country is England, the time is now, and the PM’s country house retreat Chequers is in crisis mode. The coalition government finds itself representing a divided electorate, the British Pound Sterling is waning in value, and an ongoing European Council conference seems headed for disaster. With all these problems and more on his table, what’s a Prime Minister to do?
In Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn’s hilariously farcical Yes, Prime Minister (now getting its US Premiere at the Geffen Playhouse), the answer comes in the form of a potential ten-trillion dollar bailout from a former Soviet republic the authors have dubbed Kumranistan. All the PM has to do is provide the Kumranistani foreign secretary with a trio of call girls for a totally illegal (and immoral and unethical) sex orgy.
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DEAD MAN’S CELL PHONE
Monday, June 10th, 2013
If there’s nothing more annoying than the sudden sound of a cell phone going off in a public place, how about when the owner of said phone just lets it ring … and ring … and ring? No wonder Jean, the heroine of Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone, finally loses her patience and goes over to give the negligent phone owner a piece of her mind. It’s only then that she discovers that the man with the annoying cell phone has, as they say, met his maker.
Thus begins Ruhl’s whimsical Helen Hays Award-nominated comedy, a sure bet to entertain audiences at Long Beach’s International City Theatre, particularly with director Richard Israel imaginatively in charge.
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OPENING NIGHT
Friday, May 31st, 2013
Opening Night mayhem at a second-rate Canadian theater makes for first-rate crowd-pleasing fun as Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40 presents the West Coast premiere of Norm Foster’s hilarious—and surprisingly touching—Opening Night.
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THE MATCHMAKER
Tuesday, May 14th, 2013
Mrs. Dolly Gallagher Levi is once again “arranging things,” this time at Hollywood’s Actors Co-op, but don’t expect any singing waiters to be belting out a Jerry Herman show tune this time round. It’s the comedy that started Dolly on the path to Broadway legendhood, aka Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, that the Co-op is reviving—and a tiptop revival it is.
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THE WOMEN
Sunday, May 12th, 2013
Godfather Vito Corleone’s advice to “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” could easily have been inspired by a night at the theater—had the play in question been Clare Boothe Luce’s comedy classic The Women, now getting a mostly top-notch revival at L.A.’s venerable Theatre West.
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WHAT THE BUTLER SAW
Saturday, May 4th, 2013NOT RECOMMENDED
The late great Joe Orton wrote three of 20th Century England’s most outrageously funny, audacious, and sexually provocative screwball farces, though you’d hardly know it from the misguided revival of 1969’s What The Butler Saw now playing at the Morgan-Wixson Theatre under Ben Lupejkis’ direction.
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THE NORTH PLAN
Saturday, May 4th, 2013
Imagine that the fate of the entire free world, or of these United States at the very least, depended upon a single individual … who just happened to be the foulest-mouthed, reddest-necked single mom in all of small-town southern Missouri.
Playwright Jason Wells does just this in his uproarious, outrageous, yet frighteningly plausible political comedy thriller The North Plan, the funniest/ edgiest show in town and a terrific welcome back to Elephant Theatre Company.
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THE BEAUX’ STRATAGEM
Friday, April 26th, 2013
Frank Galati’s 1990 stage adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes Of Wrath, Sarah Ruhl’s 2003 take on Eurydice, and now Ken Ludwig and Thornton Wilder’s 2006 adaptation of The Beaux Stratagem… Has A Noise Within ever had as contemporary (and 2013 audience-friendly) a season as the three plays now in rep at their Pasadena digs?
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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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