A SHAYNA MAIDEL
Thursday, June 17th, 2010
On the surface, Rose White would appear to be the quintessential All American New Yorker circa 1946. She has her own West Side apartment, a good job, a fashionable wardrobe, and an independent lifestyle. Scratch a little deeper, however, and you’ll discover that Rose White is European-born Rayzel Weiss, the daughter of Polish Jews born just a decade before Hitler’s rise to power. Papa Mordechai and four-year-old Rose emigrated to America in the mid-1920s, but older sister Lusia came down with scarlet fever shortly before the family’s planned departure, so Mama and Lusia stayed behind. Then came the Nazis, and mother and daughter were shipped off to Auschwitz along with everyone else in their extended family. Only Lusia survived. Now, a year after the declaration of peace in Europe, older sister has come to America at last.
(read more)
HOW THE OTHER HALF LOVES
Friday, April 30th, 2010
In the musical theater classic Gypsy, strippers Mazeppa, Electra, and Tessie Tura sing, “You gotta have a gimmick if you wanna get ahead.” No playwright would seem to have taken this advice more seriously than prolific British comedy scribe Alan Ayckbourn, whose hit plays almost always have a gimmick.
(read more)
FULLY COMMITTED
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
If you haven’t heard that one before, Sam Peliczowski probably has. Sam is, you see, a struggling New York-based actor with the worst restaurant job in the Big Apple. Stuck deep down in a tiny basement cell, Sam is the reservations clerk for one of the city’s most shi-shi établissements. No chance for Sam to be seen by directors, producers, casting people. No chance for him to meet women (or men, if he happens to swing that way). No chance to get even the measliest of tips.
(read more)
THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010
Quite possibly the biggest L.A. theater success story of past decade has been that of The Marvelous Wonderettes, Roger Bean’s wonderfully marvelous look back at the pop music of the 1950s and ‘60s as sung by a quartet of high school girls at their 1958 prom and their 1968 class reunion. From its original incarnation (a 45-minute workshop in Milwaukee) to its two-year run at North Hollywood’s El Portal Theatre to its successful off-Broadway engagement, The Marvelous Wonderettes has truly conquered the American musical theater world.
(read more)
ESCANABA IN DA MOONLIGHT
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
Movie star/playwright Jeff Daniels affectionately skewers the natives of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (aka the Yoopers) in his hit comedy Escanaba In Da Moonlight, now making a return engagement at San Pedro’s Little Fish Theatre. As an authentic Yooper might put it, “Dis is some funny show, and dat’s da trute.”
(read more)
BACKWARDS IN HIGH HEELS
Friday, February 26th, 2010
It’s been said that Ginger Rogers became a star doing everything her dance partner Fred Astaire could do … but backwards in high heels. The Oscar-winning actress-dancer now gets her very own tribute musical, Lynette Barkley and Charles McGovern’s Backwards In High Heels, and it’s hard to imagine a better production of “The Ginger Musical” than the one just opened at Long Beach’s International City Theatre.
(read more)
SWEENEY TODD
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street is back, supersized, in Musical Theatre West’s excellent revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. A cast of twenty-seven and a twenty-two piece orchestra make this the biggest Sweeney in recent memory, welcome news indeed for theatergoers grown tired of downsized shows.
(read more)
RENT
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
Is there anyone out there who doesn’t know the story of Jonathan Larson and Rent? About how aspiring musical theater writer/composer Jon spent years trying to make a name for himself only to encounter setback upon setback until finally, on the eve of Rent’s first off-Broadway preview performance, he passed away suddenly, only days before his thirty-sixth birthday… About how Rent got rave after rave in the New York press and won Jon posthumously the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Original Score, and Best Book of a Musical—and countless others too numerous to mention… About how Rent went on to become the seventh longest-running show in Broadway history…
(read more)
Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
COPYRIGHT 2026 STEVEN STANLEY :: DESIGN BY