THE QUESTION
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009
Productions like Susan Stroman’s Tony-winning Contact and Matthew Bourne’s The Car Man have shown how powerfully and effectively contemporary dance can tell dramatic stories without a single spoken word being uttered. To that list can now be added JT Horenstein’s The Question, an Alfred Hitchcock-esque romantic thriller told through dance.
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TENNESSEE IN THE SUMMER
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
Tennessee Williams was a complicated man, to say the least. Not the nicest person to be around. Putting it mildly, he was a screwed-up mess, or at least that’s how he comes across in Joe Besecker’s Tennessee In The Summer. Still, there are far less interesting people to spend an hour and a half with than the multi-award-winning playwright, especially as brought to vivid and complex life by Dan Alemshah in the ”member-initiated production” currently playing Tuesdays through Thursdays at West Coast Ensemble under Justin French’s assured direction.
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MAKIN’ HAY
Friday, February 27th, 2009RECOMMENDED
There’s no 99-seat theater company with a better track record for musicals than Actor’s Co-op. Past productions of She Loves Me, Damn Yankees, Into The Woods, The Most Happy Fella, and last season’s brilliant 1776 are textbook examples of how to shrink a big stage, big cast Broadway show down to intimate theater dimensions without losing any of the original’s magic and allure. This season, the Co-op has taken on the challenge of presenting a world premiere musical.
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THE JAZZ AGE
Sunday, February 15th, 2009
Anyone needing ammunition against those who claim that there is no theater (i.e. great theater) in Los Angeles have only to invite the naysayers to The Blank’s production of The Jazz Age and lo and behold—crow will be eaten. Everything about this West Coast premiere of Allan Knee’s biodrama is first-class grade-A brilliant, from its direction (by Michael Matthews) to its superb trio of actors (Jeremy Gabriel, Luke Macfarlane, and Heather Prete) to its exquisite design to the above-stage band led by Ian Whitcomb.
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DIVORCE! THE MUSICAL
Saturday, February 14th, 2009
Imagine you’re a multitalented young writer-musician-performer with two failed marriages under your belt—and you’re not yet thirty. Would you consult a lawyer? Too late for that now. See a therapist? Been there, done that. Write an original musical about your experiences on the divorce battlefield? Now THAT’s an idea!
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THE GRADUATE
Friday, February 13th, 2009
Say the words The Graduate and the first thing likely popping into your head will be the voices of Simon and Garfunkel singing “Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson” or perhaps “The Sounds Of Silence.” Then there’s the famous movie poster of a very young Dustin Hoffman gazing at Anne Bancroft’s stockinged leg filling the foreground. And who can forget Hoffman’s semi-incredulous, “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me,” one of the American Film Institute’s 100 most famous movie lines … ever.
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POPE JOAN
Thursday, January 29th, 2009NOT RECOMMENDED
Following their award-winning revival of Hair, producer Michael Butler and director/choreographer Bo Crowell return with the world premiere musical Pope Joan, the saga of history’s only female pope, who (supposedly) reigned for less than three years in the 850s.
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LIGHT UP THE SKY
Monday, January 26th, 2009
Moss Hart affectionately skewers the world of the theater in his 1948 comedy Light Up The Sky, now being given a pitch-perfect revival by Open Fist Theatre under the crackerjack direction of Bjørn Johnson.
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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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