MELISSA ARCTIC
Saturday, October 4th, 2014
Magic is being made at North Hollywood’s Road Theatre, and not just the slight-of-hand illusions in Alby Selznick’s much-extended Smoke And Mirrors at the Road-on-Lankershim. Magic of the purely theatrical sort lights up the stage of The Road’s spiffy new Magnolia space with the West Coast Premiere of Craig Wright’s Melissa Arctic, as enchanted (and enchanting) a production as any theater lover could possibly wish for.
CHOIR BOY
Wednesday, October 1st, 2014
A gay African-American prep school student comes of age in the Geffen Playhouse West Coast Premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play-with-music Choir Boy, exquisitely performed by an all-around superb cast and impeccably helmed by its original New York/Atlanta director.
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MAPLE AND VINE
Saturday, September 27th, 2014
If you could leave your cell phone and sushi and Facebook and lattes and 21st-Century stress behind for a trip back in time to the halcyon Leave It To Beaver mid-1950s, would you? Could you?
This is the question faced by a publishing executive and her plastic surgeon husband in Jordan Harrison’s provocative if somewhat problematic Maple And Vine, now getting a first-rate Greater Los Angeles Premiere at Orange County’s Chance Theater.
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EQUIVOCATION
Saturday, September 13th, 2014
Imagine that you, as the foremost writer of your time, have been ordered by your country’s leader upon pain of imprisonment, torture, and death to come up with a play that would dramatize a supposed plot against your government, solidify its legitimacy, and demonize many of your fellow citizens simply because of your words. What would you do?
This is the conundrum faced by Shag (aka William Shakespeare) in Bill Cain’s extraordinary Equivocation, back in L.A. for the first time since its 2009 pre-off-Broadway engagement at the Geffen in an absolutely superb production at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum, one that tops its predecessor if only for the clarity that director Mike Peebler (doing outstanding work) and his all-around sensational cast bring to Cain’s labyrinthine tale.
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THE TEMPEST
Wednesday, September 10th, 2014
Illusions so mystifying that you’ll give up even trying to figure out “how they did that.” Original songs by a Rock-&-Roll Hall of Famer performed by a live R&B/Alternative Pop band. Direction that makes adjectives like “imaginative” or “ingenious” or “inspired” seem tame. Performances and production design to match. All of these combine to make Aaron Posner and Teller’s touring adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest a must-see even for those might never wish to sit through another The Tempest again.
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BEIRUT
Monday, September 8th, 2014NOT RECOMMENDED
If a two-character opposite-sex love story with no specific gay content seems a curious choice for an LGBT theater, then Theatre Out’s revival of Alan Bowne’s Beirut proves even more problematic for its dull, dated look at the AIDS crisis as seen through a heterosexual lens.
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CONVICTION
Sunday, September 7th, 2014
A long-married suburban couple and their seventeen-year-old son attempt to survive the aftermath of a terrible, life-destroying accusation in Carey Crim’s powerful, provocative new play Conviction, which though still in need of work, receives an outstanding World Premiere co-production at Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre.
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BULRUSHER
Monday, September 1st, 2014
The power of live theater to transport an audience to another time, another place, while exploring and revealing the mysteries of the human heart, is made gorgeously, magically clear in Skylight Theatre Company and Lower Depth Theatre Ensemble’s co-production of the Los Angeles premiere of Eisa Davis’s Pulitzer Prize finalist Bulrusher.
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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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