BABE
Monday, September 26th, 2022Cliffhangers are perfectly fine if you’re writing a series pilot or season finale. Not so much if you’ve written what purports to be a full-length play, which is why, engaged as I was throughout Echo Theater Company’s Babe, I left feeling frustrated, angry, and confused as to why playwright Jessica Goldberg didn’t finish what she’d started so provocatively sixty-five minutes earlier in a more satisfyingly conclusive way.
(read more)
OKLAHOMA!
Friday, September 16th, 2022
Forget every Oklahoma! you’ve ever seen. Forget everything you’ve ever heard or said or thought about the 79-year-old classic. Director Daniel Fish’s radically revisionist revival of the Broadway musical that reinvented the genre back in 1943 now feels every bit as revolutionary in 2022 as Rent did in 1994, Spring Awakening in 2006, and Hamilton just a handful of years back.
(read more)
LAVENDER MEN
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2022
Queer playwright Roger Q. Mason explores the love that dared not speak its name between Abraham Lincoln and his “close friend” Elmer Ellsworth in Lavender Men, at once a gay American history fantasia, a very public therapy session for its self-described “black, fat, femme” author, and one of the most stunning productions in town.
(read more)
THE PROM
Thursday, August 11th, 2022
A gaggle of liberal-minded Broadway narcissists descend on conservative Middle America to aid an Indiana teen who just wants to dance in public with the girl she loves in The Prom, the multiple-Tony-nominated musical that now ranks sky-high on my list of 21st-century favorites.
(read more)
IF I FORGET
Saturday, July 30th, 2022
A long-simmering family feud fuels Steven Levinson’s hilarious and harrowing off-Broadway tragicomedy If I Forget, dazzlingly reconceived for the Fountain Theatre by director Jason Alexander.
(read more)
CLOWNFISH
Saturday, July 16th, 2022Playwright Amy Dellagiarino’s script shows considerable promise, but her Theatre of NOTE World Premiere comedy Clownfish would work a whole lot better had the director reined in one particularly over-the-top performance (and those around it in the play’s frenetic midsection).
(read more)
THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
Saturday, July 9th, 2022
Tim Venable’s hot-button-issue World Premiere two-hander The Beautiful People will have you thinking and talking about the gut-punching latest from Rogue Machine long after the stage has gone dark at Melrose’s Matrix Theatre.
(read more)
MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL
Saturday, July 9th, 2022
Sumptuous and spectacular and filled with as many instantly recognizable pop hits as in four or five jukebox musicals put together, Moulin Rouge! The Musical is all this and more.
(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 2025 STEVEN STANLEY :: DESIGN BY