MAN OF LA MANCHA
Friday, November 7th, 2014
Several outstanding performances including a best-yet star turn by Marc Ginsburg in the title role make Glendale Centre Theatre’s Man Of La Mancha revival a fine introduction (or return visit) to the Tony-winning Best Musical of 1966, though the in-the-round setting does somewhat impede the atmospheric look that has made past La Manchas such production design dazzlers.
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A Or B?
Saturday, October 25th, 2014
Sometimes the course a life takes can depend on something as inconsequential as a cell phone service provider, or so Abby and Ben discover in Ken Levine’s fascinating and funny romantic comedy A Or B?, now getting its World Premiere at the Falcon Theatre.
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THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE
Saturday, October 4th, 2014
A bunch of up-and-coming musical theater performers have joined forces as Yutopian Entertainment to do what up-and-coming musical theater performers do best—put on a show (in this case William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), and the show they have put on ends up easily rivaling the best of the now dozen Spelling Bees I’ve attended so far.
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WHAT I LEARNED IN PARIS
Friday, September 12th, 2014
The 1973 election of Maynard Jackson as Atlanta’s first African-American mayor is merely the backdrop for Pearl Cleage’s What I Learned In Paris, a romantic roundelay Noël Coward could have confectioned, its made-for-each-other exes J.P. and Evie giving Private Lives’ Elliot and Amanda a run for their money, albeit with a good deal more soul.
Following its 2012 World Premiere at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, Cleage’s entertaining if overlong comedy now arrives at Burbank’s Colony Theatre with some sparkling performances and an often fascinating look back at the heady changes wrought by the previous two decades’ Civil Rights crusade and the then burgeoning Feminist Movement.
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THE WESTERN UNSCRIPTED
Saturday, September 6th, 2014
They’ve improvised Shakespeare. They’ve improvised Film Noir and The Twilight Zone. They’ve improvised Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Chekhov. They’ve even had the chutzpah to improvise Stephen Sondheim, music, lyrics, and all. And now the improv geniuses who call themselves Impro Theatre are back for business at the Falcon Theatre with their latest (and one of their very best) confections to date—improvising a full-length “feature film” live onstage in that most quintessential of American movie genres: The Western UnScripted.
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THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE
Friday, August 29th, 2014
For a Broadway hit that won six Tony awards (including Best Musical of 2002), Thoroughly Modern Millie has made relatively few Southland appearances in the intervening twelve years, just one of many reasons to celebrate the Thoroughly Modern (circa 1922) Miss’s arrival at Glendale Centre Theatre under the thoroughly marvelous co-direction of Danny Michaels and Orlando Alexander.
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LEADING LADIES
Friday, July 25th, 2014RECOMMENDED
Boys will be girls when a pair of traveling Shakespearean thespians impersonate a pair of long-lost sisters in hopes of inheriting a fortune in Ken Ludwig’s Leading Ladies, now entertainingly revived at Glendale Centre Theatre.
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LAY ME DOWN SOFTLY
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2014
Nobody does Irish better in L.A. than Theatre Banshee, proof positive which is now onstage as the award-winning troupe presents the West Coast Premiere of Billy Roche’s charming if minor Lay Me Down Softly.
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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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