THE MIRACLE WORKER
Sunday, April 21st, 2013RECOMMENDED
A pair of powerhouse performances would make Actors Co-op’s revival of William Gibson’s Tony-winning The Miracle Worker must-see theater if only attention been paid to sightlines, or had the Co-op staged it at the David Schall Theatre next door.
Note: See update at end of review.
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SLIPPING
Monday, April 15th, 2013
A young man’s traumatic journey from adolescence to adulthood comes to vivid, heartbreaking, yet ultimately hopeful life in Daniel Talbott’s 2009 drama Slipping, whose Los Angeles premiere reunites its pair of New York stars under the incisive direction of its multitalented writer.
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WHAT MAY FALL
Friday, March 15th, 2013
A senseless random tragedy causes nine Minneapolitans to reevaluate their lives in Peter Gil-Sheridan’s What May Fall, now getting a compelling, beautifully acted, incisively directed West Coast Premiere at Hollywood’s Theatre Of NOTE.
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DREAMGIRLS
Sunday, March 10th, 2013
Deena Jones, Effie White, Lorrell Robinson, and Michelle Morris are singing up a storm and DOMA has got’em.
A news flash like this can only mean one thing. Dreamgirls is in town, with DOMA Theatre Company once again proving that you don’t need a gazillion dollars and a 1500-seat house to make musical theater magic in L.A.
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WOLVES
Saturday, March 9th, 2013
There Will Be Blood. What a title this would have made for playwright Steve Yockey’s latest creation had the name not already been taken. Or There Will Be Chills, or There Will Be Turmoil, or There Will Be Sex (or at the very least Foreplay), or There Will Be Laughs. Wisely, Yockey has simply called his newest devilish confection Wolves (as in Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad …) and as its real and alternate titles suggest, the prolific stage scribe has confectioned one sexy, funny, dark, bloody fairy tale for adults.
HAPPY FACE SAD FACE
Tuesday, January 29th, 2013
The term “high concept” is one more often applied to a Hollywood blockbuster than to a play getting its World Premiere in one of L.A.’s many 99-seat theaters. Studios seem far more resistant to films that can’t be pitched in a few succinct words than are our local stages—not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with “high concept,” a fact made abundantly clear by R.J. Colleary’s Happy Face Sad Face, now playing at Hollywood’s Lillian Theatre.
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THE SANTALAND DIARIES (UNDERSTUDY PERFORMANCE)
Wednesday, December 5th, 2012
That practice makes perfect was proven on Wednesday by the multitalented Matt Crabtree in the last of his Guaranteed Understudy Performances in David Sedaris’s The SantaLand Diaries, the true story of the writer’s humiliating (but hilarious-in-retrospect) stint as a Christmas elf at New York City Macy’s “SantaLand.” With two performances under his belt last year, and another two this holiday season (including a last-minute step-in for Paulo Andino the previous Thursday), this fifth and (possibly) final understudy performance turned out just about as fabulous as fabulous can be.
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86’d
Monday, November 26th, 2012RECOMMENDED
What happens when you take an obscure direct-to-video movie from the ‘90s, adapt it as a stage comedy, edit it down from 86 minutes to a little over an hour, give it a new title and World Premiere it at Hollywood’s Theatre 68? The answer is 86’d, an enjoyable albeit slight (and very short) comedy that has quite a bit going for it … and against it as well.
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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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