ABSOLUTELY FILTHY
Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013
For anyone who has ever wondered how the Peanuts gang might have turned out later in life, Brendan Hunt’s Absolutely Filthy now joins Bert V. Royal’s Dog Sees God in answering just that question; and though Royal’s Peanuts-As-Teens satire ends up more to my liking than Hunt’s Peanut-At-Thirty parody, it’s easy to understand why Absolutely Filthy became such a hit for Sacred Fools that they brought it back for five performances at the Hollywood Fringe Festival.
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THE BONEYARD AND TALISMAN
Friday, June 28th, 2013NOT RECOMMENDED
There’s no L.A. actress whose work I enjoy seeing more than Elephant Theatre Company’s Kate Huffman. Elephant artistic director David Fofi is one of the consistently finest directors in town. Timothy McNeil’s Supernova was singled out for a Scenie as one of The Twelve Best Plays Of The Year and McNeil’s performance in The Little Flower Of East Orange won him a Best Lead Actor Scenie. That’s why it’s disappointing to report that their latest collaboration as star, director, and writer/star of the pair of one-acts entitled The Boneyard and Talisman ended up not this reviewer’s cup of tea despite three excellent performances and Fofi’s sharp direction.
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THE REAL HOUSEKEEPERS OF STUDIO CITY
Friday, June 21st, 2013
Divorced Studio City homemaker Ashley Tribbiani has a shot at being picked as one of TV’s Real Housewives Of Studio City. There’s only one problem. As any reality TV fan will tell you, a real Housewife needs to have a real Housekeeper, and with ex-hubby Joey seriously in arrears on his alimony and child support payments, Ashley has hardly been able to hire help since their split. Now, with her Real Housewives audition only an hour away, Ashley (Lani Shipman) and gay best friend Scot (Ryan O’Connor) have exactly sixty minutes to hire the best maid possible out of ten of TVland’s most famous housekeepers.
Fortunately, the Hollywood Fringe Festival has allotted precisely one hour for Joe Green, Heidi Powers, Tom Moore to debut their brand new musical The Real Housekeepers Of Studio City, and what a sixty-minute-musical gem it is.
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[title of show]
Wednesday, June 19th, 2013
From Fringe Festival to Fringe Festival with a Broadway stop along the way is hardly the normal trajectory for a Hollywood Fringe Festival entry. Then again, [title of show] is not your average, run-of-the-mill Fringe entry, as Fringe Festivalgoers can now discover at the Hollywood Fringe, where Theatre Unleashed has unleashed a stripped-down-to-basics but highly entertaining [tos].
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NATALIE PORTMAN THE MUSICAL
Tuesday, June 18th, 2013NOT RECOMMENDED
Natalie Portman The Musical has arrived at the Hollywood Fringe Festival following last year’s successful run (and return engagement) at Chromolume Theatre At The Attic in what appears to be a considerably stripped-down-for-The-Fringe production.
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A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE
Tuesday, June 18th, 2013
Sometimes wishes do come true.
Back in September of last year, following a superb concert staged reading of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s A Man Of No Importance, I ended my review with a wish: “Isn’t it time that A Man Of No Importance got a fully-staged L.A. production?”
Now, a mere nine months later, that wish comes true as director-choreographer extraordinaire Janet Miller and her new Good People Theater Company offer Los Angeles audiences that fully-staged A Man Of No Importance, as all-around perfect a production as this or any musical theater lover could possibly have wished for.
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REVOLVER
Sunday, June 16th, 2013RECOMMENDED
A gay man seeking vengeance on the bashers who killed his first love years before. Jesus dancing a tango in heaven with the disciple whose betrayal led to his death on the cross. A closeted mega-rich movie star and the openly gay starving actor who was once his one true love. Antagonistic friends of a recently od’ed crystal meth addict sorting through his things. An angry gay activist being interviewed by a young journalist who idolizes him. A murdered gay man and one of his killers meeting once again in heaven.
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THE MATCHMAKER
Tuesday, May 14th, 2013
Mrs. Dolly Gallagher Levi is once again “arranging things,” this time at Hollywood’s Actors Co-op, but don’t expect any singing waiters to be belting out a Jerry Herman show tune this time round. It’s the comedy that started Dolly on the path to Broadway legendhood, aka Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, that the Co-op is reviving—and a tiptop revival it is.
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