PEN
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
If 17-year-old Matt Bayer had to choose a Stephen Sondheim song to describe his mother Helen, it would doubtless be “You Could Drive A Person Crazy.” Helen may once have been a happy and healthy wife and mother, but in recent years multiple sclerosis has bound her to a wheelchair, sent her ex-husband into the arms of a younger woman, and made living with her the proverbial “living hell,” at least for Matt. The poor kid can’t even make it out of their apartment to see a movie. Mom will do anything to keep Matt by her side tonight, and if she has her way, forever.
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BODY POLITIC
Friday, August 1st, 2008
Every so often I see a play that hasn’t been on my “must see” list, a play that I just happen to pick because it fits into my schedule, a play that sounds like it might be interesting but then again maybe not … and then it turns out to be something extraordinary, and I think to myself, I almost missed that!
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PLASTIC CRYSTAL
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008RECOMMENDED
Michael Miller has lived with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder since the age of seven. He always arranges his shoes “just so” before going to bed, moving them from this position to that one and back again, and then to another, until he is satisfied. He locks his apartment from the outside even when his girlfriend is still inside, even when she has just told him not to. Even worse are his obsessions, most particularly his obsession with blood. Michael once found a small stain on a shirt and soon became convinced that it was AIDS infected blood. The discovery of a band-aid inside a load of laundry washed at a public laundromat sends him into a frenzy, disinfecting everything the clothes may have touched.
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MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION
Saturday, July 26th, 2008
With eight fully staged productions in a scant ten months, The Production Company (aka TheProdCo) has quickly established itself as Los Angeles’ most prolific new theater company. It is also one of the most consistently reliable, opening one excellent production only days after the preceding has closed, with yet another in rehearsal. Amazing!
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AMERICAN DEAD
Friday, July 25th, 2008
Five years ago, Grace Tisdale, a young Midwestern deputy sheriff and Mark Shawver, a teenage bagger, were gunned down in a grocery store robbery, precisely the kind of crime big city dwellers read about on a daily basis. To the residents of this small American town, however, it was not merely the deputy and the teenager who were victimized. Grace Tisdale left behind a husband and a brother, both of whose lives were forever changed.
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FACING EAST
Sunday, July 13th, 2008RECOMMENDED
Who is to blame when a gay man kills himself? Is it the “sin of homosexuality” that is at fault, or is it the judgment of those around him who chose to shun and shame, rather than to embrace? Sadly, even in the year 2008, there are far too many who believe the former. Religious faith, instead of being based on love and acceptance, is too often used to judge and condemn, something which author/playwright Carol Lynn Pearson knows all too well.
METAMORPHOSES
Thursday, July 10th, 2008RECOMMENDED
Athena Theatre has undertaken its biggest challenge yet in staging an Equity waiver production of Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses.
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MY ANTONIA
Sunday, July 6th, 2008
Willa Cather’s epic 1918 novel has been transformed into an absolutely exquisite memory play by writer/director Scott Schwartz. For those like myself who missed the production’s debut at the Ventura’s Rubicon this past May, Antonia is back, in the more intimate setting of Venice’s Pacific Resident Theatre, and certain to enchant audiences of all ages for weeks to come.
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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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