PROOF
Wednesday, March 16th, 2011
In the decade since David Auburn’s Proof premiered on Broadway, the four-character drama has become one of the most produced plays in the United States. For a time there, it seemed that just about every regional, intimate, or community theater in Los Angeles was doing, had done, or was going to do their own version of the Broadway hit—and no wonder. How many plays can you name that have won the Drama Desk Award for Best New Play, the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle and Tony Awards for Best Play, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama? Add to that the fact that it’s a one-set play which offers several of the best acting roles of this or any decade, and you’ve got a play that any theater in its right mind would want to have as part of its season.
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THE MERCY SEAT
Sunday, March 13th, 2011
What if a national tragedy offered you the chance to start a new life, in a new city, without the complications of a marriage you no longer wanted to be part of and children you didn’t want to put through the hell of a divorce? What if there was someone else in your life, someone you’d been seeing secretly for several years, someone who could start that new life with you somewhere far, far away if you simply pretended to be one of the missing-presumed-dead? Would you make the break for freedom? Would she be willing to join you?
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THE NEXT FAIRY TALE
Friday, March 11th, 2011
If there were a book titled Everything I’ve Learned In Life, I’ve Learned From Fairy Tales, then what lessons could a pintsized LGBT-in-training gain from it? That Cinderella found her Prince? That a Prince awoke Sleeping Beauty with a kiss? That a kiss turned a Princess’s frog into a handsome Prince? Where’s a little boy or girl to look for fairytale inspiration when what they’re secretly dreaming of is a Prince for him, and a Princess for her?
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SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE
Friday, March 4th, 2011
If it’s true that money can’t buy happiness or love, then it’s also true that money can’t guarantee a successful theatrical endeavor, the best example being the money pit that Spider Man: Turn Off The Dark has turned into. $65 million as of last count, which was back in November, so goodness (or in this case badness) only knows how much its cost has risen to as of March 2011. By the same token, terrific theater can be made for a pittance, as proven by Still Hungry Theater’s on-a-shoestring intimate revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Sunday At The Park With George.
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MATT BECOMES A MAN
Monday, February 28th, 2011
Many an actor has a tale to tell, and a goodly number of them have turned their stories into solo performances, most of which end up acts of shameless self-promotion. Well, perhaps that’s a bit of an overstatement, and one unbecoming a website which prides itself on “accentuating the positive in Los Angeles theater.” Still, there is some truth to this exaggeration, which is why when I tell you that I loved every minute of Matt McConkey’s Matt Becomes A Man, it is a statement to be taken seriously. The Scenie-Winning star of last year’s The Boys In The Band not only has a story worth telling, it’s also a story worth taking center stage with, as the handsome, talented, ingratiating, and very funny young actor does in his absolutely captivating hour of self-discovery.
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THE CRADLE WILL ROCK
Thursday, February 17th, 2011NOT RECOMMENDED
Corruption and corporate greed are nothing new to the 21st Century. Composer-playwright Marc Blitzstein wrote about both in The Cradle Will Rock, his 1937 “play in music,” now being revived by the company that won the LA Weekly Award for Musical Of The Year for its first production of it back in 1994.
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PLAY DATES
Saturday, January 29th, 2011
The war between the sexes has never been funnier than it is in Play Dates, Sam Wolfson’s hilarious new comedy now playing at Theatre Asylum under the sparkling direction of Jennifer Chambers.
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ROOM SERVICE
Friday, January 21st, 2011
When a baseball pitcher launches the ball with a reverse spin, sending it curving toward the side of the plate from which it was thrown, it’s called a screwball. (Trust me. I looked it up.) Not surprisingly, the comedy genre that bears its name follows its namesake’s example by taking surprising turns and behaving in entirely unexpected ways. As a result, a screwball comedy guarantees more laughs per minute than just about any other theater or film genre, precisely what 1930s audiences needed in the Depression years which followed the Stock Market Crash.
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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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