[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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THE WOMEN
Sunday, May 12th, 2013
Godfather Vito Corleone’s advice to “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” could easily have been inspired by a night at the theater—had the play in question been Clare Boothe Luce’s comedy classic The Women, now getting a mostly top-notch revival at L.A.’s venerable Theatre West.
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PETER PAN: THE BOY WHO HATED MOTHERS
Monday, May 6th, 2013
He’s been the hero of a play, a novel based on that play, a prequel, a sequel, a silent film, several stage adaptations of the original play, an oft-revived and televised Broadway musical, a Disney animated feature (and its sequel), a live-action feature film, a Japanese anime, an animated TV series, a theme-park ride, and most recently a mammoth “360-degree” staging and a Broadway prequel, the winner of five 2012 Tony awards.
With all of the above behind him, you’d think that at the ripe old age of 109, Peter Pan, aka The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, would be ready to call it quits, but you’d be wrong, since just when most centenarians would be poised to take their final bows, along comes Michael Lluberes’ Peter Pan: The Boy Who Hated Mothers, proving that a) there’s still life in the young/old boy and b) that you don’t need a gazillion dollars (or however much the budget of Peter Pan threesixty° was) to make theatrical magic.
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THE NORTH PLAN
Saturday, May 4th, 2013
Imagine that the fate of the entire free world, or of these United States at the very least, depended upon a single individual … who just happened to be the foulest-mouthed, reddest-necked single mom in all of small-town southern Missouri.
Playwright Jason Wells does just this in his uproarious, outrageous, yet frighteningly plausible political comedy thriller The North Plan, the funniest/ edgiest show in town and a terrific welcome back to Elephant Theatre Company.
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