SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE PALACE
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
A brief news clipping reporting the aftermath of a crime in 1980s Apartheid-ruled South Africa inspired renowned playwright Paul Slabolepszy to imagine the 90 minutes which might have led up to it. The harrowing result, Saturday Night At The Palace, had its Cape Town premiere at a time when it was illegal for black and white actors even to appear on stage together.
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NO EXIT
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008NOT RECOMMENDED
Matthew Hannon and two other grads of LACC’s prestigious Theatre Academy have mounted Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit as a tribute to their late teacher/director Brett Gandy. It is Gandy’s concept which director/star Hannon has remounted in a production of the French existentialist classic playing Tuesdays at the Lounge Theatre.
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LADY
Saturday, April 26th, 2008
Craig Wright may be most familiar as the writer/(executive) producer of TV’s Dirty Sexy Money and Six Feet under, but theatergoers know him as a prodigious playwright, the author of such radically different fare as Orange Flower Water, Grace, and Recent Tragic events, all three of which have had superb L.A. productions over the past two years. Orange Flower Water is a harrowing drama of adultery, Grace mixes that theme with evangelical Christianity, and Recent Tragic Events dares to imagine a screwball comedy taking place the day after 9-11. Now comes the West Coast Premiere of 2007’s Lady, and the trio of outstanding local productions of Wright’s work is now a quartet.
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DINNER WITH FRIENDS
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
“You never know what couples are like when they’re alone.”
Thus speaks one of the characters in Donald Margulies’ Dinner With Friends, a play which allows us, the audience, to see what its two couples are like behind closed doors. Like flies on the fourth wall, we observe Gabe and Karen’s (and Tom and Beth’s) most private moments. We also see each couple as they see the other, and what they see is often quite different from the other couple’s intimate reality.
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MAYFLOWER
Monday, April 14th, 2008The year is 1984 and the city of Baltimore is devastated. Its hometown football team, the Colts, has snuck away in the middle of the night, their entire belongings loaded into a fleet of Mayflower Transit trucks bound for Indianapolis. Reviled team owner Robert Isray’s name is less than mud in Baltimore on this snowy March morning, when its residents awaken to the news that the Baltimore Colts are no more.
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WHAT THEY HAVE
Sunday, April 13th, 2008
Thousands upon thousands of actors choose Los Angeles as their career base for the obvious reason; no other city offers them as many opportunities to do film and television work as L.A. does. Nevertheless, even many of the most successful choose to make regular stage appearances for the challenge and joy of performing before a live audience. The same holds true for movie and TV writers who, despite big and small screen success, continue to write for the theater, to the benefit of L.A. audiences.
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SNAKE IN THE GRASS
Thursday, April 10th, 2008
Alan Ayckbourn’s Snake In The Grass is a real change of pace for the “British Neil Simon.” Famed for his clever comedies (Absurd Person Singular, The Norman Conquests, Bedroom Farce), the prolific (at nearly 70 he still averages 2 to 3 plays a year) writer tries his hand at a dark comedy/thriller here and succeeds admirably at darkness, comedy, and thrills.
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THE DYING GAUL
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008
In the 1990 film Longtime Companion, Craig Lucas wrote what remains
arguably the best dramatic depiction of the epidemic which wiped out much
of an entire generation of gay men. His sensitive screenplay revealed the
goodness and generosity of those 20/30/40something couples whose devotion
was proof that there was much more to gay love than just sex, and that the
gay community was capable of greatness in the face of callous government
disregard.
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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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