NOISES OFF
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
As noted last week, A Noise Within’s current production of Shakespeare’s Richard III proves once again that nobody does the Bard better than “California’s Home For The Classics.” A Noise Within now proves itself equally adept at contemporary British farce in their concurrently running revival of Michael Frayn’s 1982’s Noises Off, the latest (and most recent) of the modern classics ANW intersperses amongst its productions of Shakespeare, Shaw, and The Greeks.
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THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD III
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
No L.A.-area theater company does Shakespeare better than Glendale’s A Noise Within. Fans of the Bard need only check out their latest production, The Tragedy Of King Richard III, for proof positive that ANW is indeed “California’s Home For The Classics.” From its stellar cast of classically trained pros to its masterful direction by Geoff Elliott to its absolutely stunning design, this is a Richard III that’s beautifully acted, brilliantly conceived, and as exciting as any classic Hollywood adventure epic.
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GRACE KIM & THE SPIDERS FROM MARS
Saturday, November 14th, 2009
Lodestone Theatre Ensemble, L.A.’s decade-old Asian-American 99-seat theater company, is ending its tenth (and sadly final) season with Philip W. Chung’s romantic comedy Grace Kim & The Spiders From Mars. With charismatic lead performances by Elizabeth Ho as its Korean-American title character and Hanson Tse as the man who might just be able to rescue Grace from ten years of sadness, this World Premiere production is likely to please romcom fans regardless of ethnicity or country of origin. Though its more run-of-the-mill sitcom moments could benefit from a tweaking or two, as could a few over-the-top scenes, Chung’s play is filled with characters to care about, some inspired musical numbers, and a love story that grips from the moment Grace and Wayne first meet. If only the man of Grace’s dreams weren’t her sister’s fiancé.
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FADE OUT – FADE IN
Monday, November 9th, 2009
When was the last time you saw a production of the 1964 Jule Styne-Betty Comden & Adolph Green musical Fade Out – Fade In? Have you ever even heard of Fade – Out Fade In?
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EXIT STRATEGY
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
Life begins at seventy in Bill Semans and Roy Close’s Exit Strategy, now entertaining audiences eighteen to eighty at Garry Marshall’s Falcon Theatre.
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CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
How do you adapt a 550+ page novel like Dostoevsky’s Crime And Punishment for the stage? If you’re playwriting team Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus, you pare it down to ninety minutes with a cast of three actors to play all the characters. Well, not actually all of them. Of the two-dozen or so major roles in the Russian classic, Campbell and Columbus have chosen the nine they consider most important, given one actor the pivotal role of Raskolnikov the student/thief/murderer, and divvied up the remaining eight roles between the other two cast members.
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BETTER ANGELS
Saturday, October 24th, 2009
An elderly man enters from the back of the theater, climbs slowly onto the stage, and apologizes for his late arrival. Pointing to a star-spangled banner framed upstage center, he declares, “A beautiful flag, is it not?,” adding, “Forty-five stars.” (Program notes give the year as 1909.) This elderly man, John Hay, informs us that he is going to tell us a story … about “a man, a lady, and a man whose secretary I was. The lady will be new to you, but the man will be as familiar to you as the penny in your pocket.”
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STOP THE WORLD I WANT TO GET OFF
Monday, September 14th, 2009NOT RECOMMENDED
Musical Theatre Guild takes rarely performed Broadway gems, casts them with L.A.’s finest musical theater triple-threats, rehearses them in a mere twenty-five hours, and performs them once or twice—almost fully staged though book-in-hand. The resulting “concert staged readings” have ended up being some of the most exciting shows I’ve reviewed over the past two years, most notably last year’s Kiss Of A Spider Woman and Violet, the latter of which featured Shannon Warne’s (one-night-only) Musical Theater Performance Of The Year. Even “problematic” shows like Seesaw have been worth a look-see, thanks to MTG’s superb casts, directors, choreographers, and musicians.
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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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