CELEBRITY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Monday, July 19th, 2010
How’s this for a clever idea? Gather a bunch of famous performers and have each one read a passage from the autobiography of a famous person, for example Brooke Shields reading from Touch Me: The [Autobiographical] Poems Of Suzanne Somers, emoting poetic gems like “we were making wild and crazy love before the ice had settled in our drinks … though I can barely remember your name …” And that’s only the start of ninety minutes of non-stop fun.
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BECKY’S NEW CAR
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
“When a woman says she wants new shoes, what she really wants is a new job. When she says she wants a new house, what she really wants is a new husband. And when she says she wants a new car, what she really wants is a new life.”
Imparting these words of wisdom is Rebecca (Becky) Foster, middle-aged wife and mother and the title character of Steven Dietz’s Becky’s New Car, now getting a splendid Southern California Premiere production at Venice’s Pacific Resident Theatre.
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SORORITY QUEEN IN A MOBILE HOME
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010RECOMMENDED
Divorced couple Grace and Dennis each tell their own version of what went wrong in their marriage in Sorority Queen In A Mobile Home, a midweek offering at Open Fist Theatre. Though its format (extended monologs interspersed with a handful of multiple character scenes) proves a barrier to audience involvement in Grace and Dennis’s stories, performances go a long way towards making Sorority Queen a rather entertaining two-acter.
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STREEP TEASE
Monday, June 21st, 2010
Meryl. Meryl. Meryl.
Is there any need to add a last name? Can there be a movie fan alive today who doesn’t know straight away that the Meryl in question is the most Oscar-nominated actress (or actor) in Academy Award history? (That’s 16 nominations in case you’ve forgotten.)
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A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
You don’t have to be a Shakespeare lover to love the Hermosa Beach Playhouse production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Gorgeous to look at and sparklingly performed by a talented cast who make Elizabethan English sound refreshingly modern, this Stephanie A. Coltrin-directed Midsummer Night’s Dream enchants and tickles the funny bone in equal measure.
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BOOM
Thursday, May 27th, 2010
From the way Jules and Jo “meet cute” in Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s Boom, now playing at Pasadena’s Furious Theatre Company, you’d think you were in for the kind of romcom that’s made stars of Meg Ryan, Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, and Reece Witherspoon, any one of whom could have played Jo at one point in their careers opposite a young Tom Hanks, Billy Crystal, or Mark Ruffalo.
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SARAH, SARAH
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
“How often do you see a comedy that’s not only consistently hilarious but is also a work of real substance, a play that makes you both laugh and think at the same time? Not often, I’d venture to guess.”
Thus began my review of Daniel Goldfarb’s Modern Orthodox a little under three years ago, and the same can be said of the playwright’s Sarah, Sarah, now delighting audiences as part of West Coast Jewish Theatre’s 2009-10 season.
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CRIMES OF THE HEART
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
Southern Quirky is a hard act to get right. There’s a tendency to overdo the Southern and overplay the Quirky that can turn characters into caricatures.
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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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