THE NEW CENTURY
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
Paul Rudnick fans will be in gay theater heaven for the month of December as the playwright’s latest comedy, The New Century, gets its West Coast Premiere at San Diego’s Diversionary Theatre in a terrific production under the able direction of Igor Goldin.
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THE SANTALAND DIARIES
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
For any December theatergoer who’s ever said, “Not another Christmas Carol!”, The Blank Theatre offers the perfect holiday solution—Nicholas Brendon in David Sedaris’s The SantaLand Diaries, the true story of Sedaris’s humiliating but hilarious-in-retrospect stint as a Christmas elf at New York City Macy’s “SantaLand.”
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SOUTHERN COMFORTS
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009RECOMMENDED
When was the last time you saw a romantic comedy about a couple of 70somethings who fall head-over-heels in love? Maybe never? If so, playwright Kathleen Clark remedies this omission in Southern Comforts, now getting its West Coast premiere in an entertaining, well-acted production at Theatre 40.
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KIDNAPPED BY CRAIGSLIST
Sunday, November 29th, 2009
A gorgeous barker/ringmaster/dominatrix rises out of wooden box and asks the assembled audience: Do you want to find a date? Sell your couch? Engage in sexual fantasies? Expose unspeakable secrets? She is soon surrounded by a band of loonies, including a woman wearing a saucepan as a hat—“It keeps the aliens out.” “Where are we?” you ask yourself, before realizing the obvious truth. We’re in the wacky world of Craigslist, as seen by Katie Goan and Nitra Gutierrez in their outrageously funny one-act, Kidnapped By Craigslist, now getting its West Coast Premiere in a snazzy production by the illustrious TheSpyAnts.
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OKLAHOMO!
Friday, November 27th, 2009RECOMMENDED
No one in Los Angeles makes theater quite like Justin Tanner. His one-act comedies are the theatrical equivalent of a midnight cult movie, blending the zany, the edgy, the gay, and occasionally the downright bizarre with a charm very much their own. The best of Justin Tanner’s plays, like last year’s marvelously manic Voice Lessons (which won Laurie Metcalf StageSceneLA’s award for Comedic Performance Of The Year) or Teen Girl, Tanner’s salute to the John Hughes oeuvre, are a sure bet to garner critical raves and audience cheers. Even minor Tanner, like the current revival of 2004’s Oklahomo! (not a spelling error), is guaranteed fun.
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NOISES OFF
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
As noted last week, A Noise Within’s current production of Shakespeare’s Richard III proves once again that nobody does the Bard better than “California’s Home For The Classics.” A Noise Within now proves itself equally adept at contemporary British farce in their concurrently running revival of Michael Frayn’s 1982’s Noises Off, the latest (and most recent) of the modern classics ANW intersperses amongst its productions of Shakespeare, Shaw, and The Greeks.
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HAMLET, SHUT UP
Friday, November 20th, 2009
For everyone who’s ever said, “Wouldn’t it be great if Shakespeare didn’t have all that Elizabethan English and iambic pentameter?”, Sacred Fools has concocted the perfect solution. Hamlet Shut Up is the world famous action/ghost/lust/revenge/murder-packed tale of the Prince Of Denmark unsullied by the spoken word—and what a brilliantly conceived and executed concoction it is!
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GRACE KIM & THE SPIDERS FROM MARS
Saturday, November 14th, 2009
Lodestone Theatre Ensemble, L.A.’s decade-old Asian-American 99-seat theater company, is ending its tenth (and sadly final) season with Philip W. Chung’s romantic comedy Grace Kim & The Spiders From Mars. With charismatic lead performances by Elizabeth Ho as its Korean-American title character and Hanson Tse as the man who might just be able to rescue Grace from ten years of sadness, this World Premiere production is likely to please romcom fans regardless of ethnicity or country of origin. Though its more run-of-the-mill sitcom moments could benefit from a tweaking or two, as could a few over-the-top scenes, Chung’s play is filled with characters to care about, some inspired musical numbers, and a love story that grips from the moment Grace and Wayne first meet. If only the man of Grace’s dreams weren’t her sister’s fiancé.
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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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