THE WHY
Tuesday, September 30th, 2014
Comedy might be the last approach you’d expect a playwright to take in response to the Columbine High School massacre of April 20, 1999, but leave it to an audacious teenager to pen The Why, the darkest, funniest, most button-pushing and thought-provoking play you may ever see about gun violence.
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BRONIES: THE MUSICAL
Sunday, September 28th, 2014
The charming musical-in-the-rough that was Bronies: The Musical at this past summer’s Hollywood Fringe Festival has since been polished into the sparklingly rainbow-hued gem now getting its official World Premiere Production at the Third Street Theatre. Simply put, Bronies: The Musical is the feel-best show in town.
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LOST: THE MUSICAL – WE HAVE TO GO BACK
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2014RECOMMENDED*
*For Lostaways
Some snappy SNL-style writing and a cast of sixteen’s often sharp comedic chops could well make Lost: The Musical – We Have To Go Back a cult hit despite a currently way-overlong three-hour running time and quite a few not-ready-for-musical-theater voices.
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THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD
Sunday, September 21st, 2014
Following its pitch-perfect intimate staging of Broadway’s 110 In The Shade, Hollywood’s Actors Co-op returns just four months later with a visit to the 19th Century London Musical Hall in their charmingly cheeky, crowd-pleasing revival of Rupert Holmes’ 1985 Tony-winning The Mystery Of Edwin Drood.
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PSYCHE: A MODERN ROCK OPERA
Saturday, August 30th, 2014NOT RECOMMENDED
A sensational cast, phenomenal choreography, a spectacular production design, and Michael Matthews’s imaginative direction do everything possible to make the most of Cindy Shapiro’s Psyche: A Modern Rock Opera. Unfortunately, the gifted team’s best efforts can’t rescue “Psyche The Musical” from its ponderous libretto, mostly tedious tunes, and lyrics that clunk where they should soar.
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MEET & GREET
Monday, August 25th, 2014
“A+ CAST PLUS BOFFO SCRIPT EQUALS FRINGE FEST SMASH” is how I concluded my review of Meet & Greet, Stan Zimmerman and Christian McLaughlin’s outrageously funny tale of a quartet of fictional Broadway/Hollywood divas vying for a sitcom pilot lead, when it played this past June at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Now, Meet & Greet is back for a second run at Theatre Asylum, and as evidenced by the nonstop laughter at yesterday’s SRO matinee, Meet & Greet 2.0 is even more outrageously funny the second time around than it was the first.
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I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND
Friday, August 22nd, 2014
Seven years ago, Erik Patterson’s best friend’s head “exploded,” or at least that’s how the playwright describes the brain aneurysm that sent him rushing to the Manhattan ICU where best friend Uma and her fellow aneurysm victims waged their life-and-death struggle while loved ones watched and waited, hoped and prayed, and bonded with similarly concerned strangers in the hospital waiting room.
Cut to 2014, and the author of the multiple Scenie-winning He Asked For It has taken these real-life events as the point of departure for his latest, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, now getting its World Premiere at Hollywood’s Theatre Of NOTE, and in words I used to describe its predecessor, Patterson’s newest play is “fresh, entertaining, gripping and entirely unpredictable” … and beautifully acted to boot.
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ONE IN THE CHAMBER
Monday, August 4th, 2014
Playwright Marja-Lewis Ryan focuses an up-close-and-personal lens on the epidemic of gun violence plaguing our country in her World Premiere drama One In The Chamber, one of the most powerful new plays I’ve seen in a good long while, and as superbly acted a production as any writer/director could possibly wish for.
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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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