A CLASS ACT
Monday, February 22nd, 2016
Tony winner Edward Kleban had been gone for thirteen years when Broadway finally gave the songwriter his due (albeit for a scant 135 performances, previews included) in the biomusical A Class Act, the latest one-night-only concert staged reading from Musical Theatre Guild, and one that could scarcely have been improved upon.
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YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU
Friday, January 8th, 2016
Glendale Centre Theatre welcomes in 2016 with a terrifically directed and performed 80th-anniversary revival of You Can’t Take It With You, George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s comedic look at the charmingly eccentric Vanderhoff/Sycamore clan, a multigenerational family residing together in perfect, if oddball, harmony in a large New York City home circa 1936.
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SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO MOTOWN
Sunday, December 13th, 2015
The Troubadour Theater Company is back at the Falcon Theatre for their once-a-year Christmas fun fest, a reprise of the smash 2004 hit Santa Claus Is Coming To Motown, and though I only counted two actual Motown songs (plus a brief medley) amongst Santa’s dozen or more R&B/soul hits, the Troubies’ latest annual year-end offering remains a hilarious holiday treat.
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DO I HEAR A WALTZ?
Monday, November 16th, 2015
If ever there were an ideal show for Musical Theatre Guild to revive, it is Richard Rodgers, Stephen Sondheim, and Arthur Laurents’ Do I Hear A Waltz? Terrific songs. A book based on a successful play and movie. A couldn’t-be-more-romantic setting. Mixed reviews. Only 200 performances on Broadway. In short, a show you’re unlikely to see revived in any major sort of way any time soon.
Fortunately, thanks to MTG, L.A. audiences got treated to its many delights last night at Glendale’s historic Alex Theatre.
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EL GRANDE CIRCUS DE COCA-COLA
Sunday, November 8th, 2015
Gracias a Doña Barbara Beckley, Don Pepe Hernandez and his El Grand Circus De Coca-Cola have moved arriba from their 99-seat-plan origins and brought their multiple Scenie-winning* 90 minutos of nonstop hilardad to Burbank’s Colony Theatre for what remains the funniest show you’re likely to see in todo el año de 2015.
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SCOTT AND HEM
Saturday, October 24th, 2015
F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway spend an evening together in a place called The Garden Of Allah in Mark St. Germain’s Scott And Hem, an enjoyable bit of Hollywood nostalgia now getting a terrifically acted Falcon Theatre production under the snappy direction of Falcon favorite Dimitri Toscas.
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THE BEST OF ENEMIES
Friday, September 25th, 2015
A Ku Klux Klan leader and a black Southern civil rights activist go from sworn enemies to best friends in Mark St. Germain’s truth-is-indeed-stranger—a whole lot stranger—than-fiction The Best Of Enemies, a West Coast Premiere that is also one of the finest Colony Theatre productions in years.
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BONNIE & CLYDE
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015
Bonnie & Clyde may have featured as fine a score as any of its 2011-12 Broadway competitors (including Once and Newsies), but that didn’t stop critics from making sure that Frank Wildhorn’s latest musical bit the dust after a mere two months, previews included, just one reason SoCal audiences haven’t been granted the fully-staged professional production Bonnie & Clyde so richly deserves, just one reason Angelinos can rejoice that at the very least, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow returned to life last Sunday for one night only thanks to Musical Theatre Guild.
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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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