SHERLOCK THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
Monday, September 2nd, 2013
The world’s greatest detective meets the author of Alice of Wonderland in Gus Krieger’s Sherlock Through The Looking Glass, the latest from The Porters Of Hellsgate, and if Krieger’s play could stand some trimming, tightening, and clarifying, topnotch performances and exciting staging combine to further solidify the Porters’ reputation as one of L.A.’s most exciting young acting troupes.
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RED
Sunday, August 25th, 2013
Following its six 2010 Tony wins (including Best Play), John Logan’s Red now gets its very first from-the-ground-up Los Angeles-area staging at Long Beach’s International City Theatre, and what a splendid production ICT has mounted under the astute, nuanced direction of its Artistic Director caryn desai.
A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY
Monday, August 19th, 2013
Director Jeremy Lelliott works wonders with Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day, turning a play that in other hands might seem stuffy or talky or dated into an exciting, utterly relevant evening of theater.
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eve2
Friday, August 16th, 2013NOT RECOMMENDED
Playwright Susan Rubin experiments with the surreal in eve2, an avant-garde one-act that left me scratching my head in bewilderment.
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OPEN HOUSE
Monday, August 5th, 2013
You’d think that a real estate agent’s attempts to close a deal with a house-for-sale’s sole prospective buyer would be slight stuff for a ninety-minute two-character play. Not so, if the play in question is Shem Bitterman’s Open House and the dueling protagonists brought to life by L.A. stage stars Robert Cicchini and Eve Gordon.
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PACK UP THE MOON
Tuesday, July 16th, 2013NOT RECOMMENDED
A gay couple still dealing with the sudden crib death of their adopted child decide a year later to become parents again—this time through surrogacy. Could there be a more current, hot-button topic for a world premiere play?
If only Christina Cigala’s Pack Up The Moon lived up to that promise.
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FATHERS AT A GAME
Friday, July 12th, 2013
A pair of night-and-day different dads cheering on their teenage sons at a high school football game would seem more likely to inspire an odd-couple comedy à la Richard Dresser’s hilarious Rounding Third than an electrifyingly edge-of-your-seat thriller, but this is precisely what Trey Nichols has concocted in his one-act Fathers At A Game, now completing a brief Best Of Fringe extension following its original Hollywood Fringe run.
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SWEET KARMA
Saturday, July 6th, 2013
He was a 35-year-old physician when the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia, and barely escaped the holocaust that took the lives of more than a quarter of his countrymen. He was a refugee-turned-movie actor, winning an Oscar for his film—and acting—debut as real-life Cambodian journalist Dith Pran. He was a humanitarian who worked to rebuild his shattered country. And after surviving the killing fields, he met his death in the streets of Los Angeles, murdered by members of a predominantly Cambodian street gang.
This was the life—and death—of Dr. Haing S. Ngor, explored by playwright Henry Ong in the powerful Sweet Karma, now getting an exquisitely designed, imaginatively directed, and beautifully acted West Coast Premiere at the Grove Theatre Center.
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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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