AMERICAN FALLS
Saturday, September 12th, 2015
George Gibbs and Emily Webb may have come of age over a hundred years ago in the New England equivalent of American Falls … but they had their lives a hell of a lot easier than the citizens of playwright Miki Johnson’s 21st-century Our Town, now getting an impressive Los Angeles Premiere by The Echo Theater Company.
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WHEN STARS ALIGN
Monday, September 7th, 2015
A mixed-race slave comes of age on a Mississippi River cotton plantation during the Civil War years in Carole Eglash-Kosoff and John Henry Davis’s epic interracial love story When Stars Align, a mini-series worth of plot compacted into two hours (plus intermission) of gorgeously-staged historical melodrama that proves involving and ultimately quite moving despite some occasionally clunky dialog along the way.
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SOMEONE WHO’LL WATCH OVER ME
Thursday, August 27th, 2015RECOMMENDED
Frank MacGuinness may have written Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me back in the early 1990s, but the Irish playwright’s seriocomedic look at three Westerners held hostage somewhere in the Middle East remains, nearly a quarter century later, as timely as today’s headlines, as San Pedro’s Little Fish Theatre imaginatively directed revival makes clear.
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FENCES
Sunday, August 23rd, 2015
International City Theatre revives August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize/Tony Award-winning Fences to stunning effect in a production sure to win universal acclaim for its director, its two extraordinary stars, its equally stellar supporting cast, and indeed everyone involved in this most powerful of stagings.
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PATTERNS
Friday, August 14th, 2015RECOMMENDED
Topnotch lead performances and a “plus ça change” fascination make James Reach’s Patterns, the stage adaptation of a Rod Serling screenplay set in the dog-eat-dog world of 1950s American big business, worth a look-see at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40 despite an overlong running time and a so-so supporting cast.
LOMBARDI
Monday, August 10th, 2015
Vince Lombardi—coach, husband, father, man—comes to emotionally resonant life in Lombardi, Eric Simonson’s powerful 2010 Broadway biodrama whose terrific West Coast Premiere at North Hollywood’s The Group Rep might turn even sports-hating theatergoers into football buffs. It certainly made a Lombardi fan out of me.
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THE DRAGON PLAY
Friday, August 7th, 2015RECOMMENDED
Interspecies love fuels Jenny Connell Davis’ The Dragon Play, a gorgeously designed Chance Theater production most likely to enchant those willing and able to buy into its boy-meets-dragon, boy-loses-dragon conceit.
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DOWN THE ROAD
Monday, July 27th, 2015RECOMMENDED
Chaz Bono’s bravura performance as a serial killer incarcerated for life is the best reason to catch Lee Blessing’s gripping if frustrating Down The Road, now playing at Hollywood’s Lounge Theatre.
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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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