SYLVIA
Tuesday, November 6th, 2007
Olympic gymnast. Broadway musical theater star. Dog. A strange trajectory to
be sure, but that’s the path which has brought Cathy Rigby to her starring role
in Sylvia, A.R. Gurney’s comic tribute to “Man’s Best Friend.” Rigby plays the title
role, that of an adorable mutt who finds herself a new master in a Manhattan
park and a new home in a New York city brownstone. Given Rigby’s marvelously
winning performance, it comes as somewhat of a surprise that this is her first
straight play. Hopefully it will lead to many more.
(read more)
EXPLOIT THIS
Friday, November 2nd, 2007RECOMMENDED
Fans of sketch comedy will find much to enjoy in Exploit This!, presented by the
Easily Distracted Sketch Comedy troupe, and now playing at the Space Theater
late night Fridays. Written and performed by a young, attractive, and funny
quintet of comic actors and directed at a fast pace by Rick Ferguson, Exploit
This! is 60 minutes of frenetic fun.
(read more)
SCREWBALLS
Thursday, November 1st, 2007RECOMMENDED
Screwballs is a mostly very entertaining and often hilarious blend of wacky
characters and situations and the body swapping premise of such films as Freaky
Friday and Like Father, Like Son.
(read more)
COME BACK TO THE FIVE & DIME JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007
In the tradition of Steel Magnolias and Crimes of the Heart comes the current
offering at the Hermosa Beach Playhouse, Ed Graczyk’s down-home comedy
Come Back to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. Like SM and COTH,
CBTTF&DJDJD features a cast of feisty and fabulous Southern (in this case Texas)
women, loads of laughs, and a surprise or two.
(read more)
TOM, DICK, AND HARRY
Friday, October 19th, 2007
Nobody writes farce better than the UK’s Ray Cooney, whose plays are a staple
of regional and community theaters across the U.S. His most recent comedy,
Tom, Dick and Harry (written with son Ray Cooney) is getting its West Coast
Premiere at International City Theatre in Long Beach, and thanks to Cooney’s
brand of nonstop mayhem, crackerjack direction by Todd Neilsen and a
sensational cast, this is a chance to see Cooney farce at its best.
(read more)
THE FASTEST CLOCK IN THE UNIVERSE
Thursday, October 18th, 2007NOT RECOMMENDED
The Fastest Clock in the Universe, by Philip Ridley, is the blackest of black
comedies. Captain Tock, a 50ish bespectacled gent in a black vaguely Chinese
smock and dark trousers, shares an East End of London flat with a much younger
and entirely self-centered hunk named Cougar Glass. Their relationship is
perversely symbiotic. Symbiotic= a close association of animals or plants of different
species that is often, but not always, of mutual benefit. (Emphasis in this case on
the “not of mutual benefit.”) Glass gets adoration from (and gray hairs plucked
by) Tock. Just what Tock gets from Cougar, other than constant humiliation, is
open to debate. Today is the 11th time Cougar is celebrating his 30th birthday,
and he has invited a 15 year old schoolboy as his annual present to himself. When
the schoolboy arrives with his pregnant girlfriend in hand, things get ugly.
LOST ANGELES
Saturday, October 13th, 2007
Lost Angeles is the best written, best acted new comedy I’ve seen this year.
Caroline Treadwell has created ten alternately irritating/lovable (i.e.
human) Generation Xers, put them in real life situations, and let the
audience be flies on the wall, watching these very real people experience
the joys and pains of falling in and out of love.
(read more)
HEAT & HOSTILITY
Sunday, October 7th, 2007RECOMMENDED
Kevin Delin’s Heat & Hostility is an amusing look at men and women and sex, in a series of 14 sketches, featuring an attractive and talented young cast of performers. Here’s a preview of some of the “heat and hostility” that’s in store for you:
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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