DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS
Monday, July 11th, 2016Few 21st-century musicals have put the Comedy back into Musical Comedy like Best Musical Tony nominee Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, at long last getting the big-stage professional production SoCal musical theater lovers have been waiting for since its National Tour stopped at the Pantages a full decade ago, and what a production it is thanks to the Musical Comedy Pros at Musical Theatre West.
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VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE
Saturday, June 11th, 2016Christopher Durang’s Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike has arrived at International City Theatre, the delectable 2013 Best Play Tony winner proving one of early summer’s yummiest treats.
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ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Monday, May 16th, 2016The dynamite performances delivered by Chris Warren Gilbert and Jill Van Velzer in Musical Theatre West’s Reiner Reading Series concert staged reading of the 1978 Tony winner On The Twentieth Century are just two of the many reasons for someone, anyone, to give the Cy Coleman, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green gem the fully-staged SoCal revival it so richly deserves.
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A WALK IN THE WOODS
Saturday, May 7th, 2016The Cold War arms race provides a provocative backdrop for the Pulitzer Prize finalist A Walk In The Woods, Lee Blessing’s dramedic look at the odd-couple friendship that develops in the late 1980s between a veteran Soviet arms negotiator and his younger American counterpart, now getting a crowd-pleasing revival at Long Beach’s International City Theatre.
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SISTER ACT
Monday, April 11th, 2016The convent is alive with the sound of disco as on-the-lam nightclub chantoozie Deloris Van Cartier teaches the nuns of The Holy Order of the Little Sisters of Our Mother of Perpetual Faith a lesson in Booty-Shaking For The Lord in Sister Act, the most all-around entertaining Musical Theatre West premiere in years.
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SLEUTH
Friday, March 25th, 2016RECOMMENDED
Anthony Shaffer’s cat-and-mouse comedy mystery thriller Sleuth ran nearly three years on Broadway in the early 1970s, chalking up over 1200 performances, much of the play’s success stemming from its multiple unexpected plot twists. The terrifically acted revival now playing at Little Fish Theatre delivers on most of the surprises, but unfortunately not on the big post-intermission humdinger.
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WEST SIDE STORY
Sunday, February 14th, 2016The musical many consider the greatest in Broadway history gets a magnificent big-stage production, the kind most West Side Story lovers can only dream of, as Musical Theatre West debuts their 59th-anniversary revival of the Arthur Laurents-Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim-Jerome Robbins classic.
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CLOSER THAN EVER
Saturday, February 13th, 2016Over two dozen simply gorgeous songs by Maltby and Shire, four sensational triple-threat performances, and inspired direction by Todd Nielsen add up to yet another triumph for Long Beach’s International City Theatre in their fabulous season-opening revival of the off-Broadway classic Closer Than Ever.
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