FLOWER DRUM SONG
Friday, April 24th, 2026
A hundred million miracles may be happening every day, but none are more miraculous where musical theater is concerned than the one that has transformed Flower Drum Song, splendiferously revived at Little Tokyo’s Aratani Theatre, from a show filled with antiquated stereotypes to one that can now take its place among Rodgers and Hammerstein’s finest.
FOR WANT OF A HORSE
Tuesday, April 21st, 2026
“Horsing around” takes on new meaning in Olivia Dufault’s For Want Of A Horse, Echo Theater Company’s provocative World Premiere look at a man with two loves, his wife Bonnie and a filly named Q-Tip.
(read more)
CLARA VS. INFINITY
Tuesday, April 14th, 2026
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Peter and the Starcatcher. And now Zack Rocklin-Waltch’s Clara vs. Infinity. Plays don’t get any more extraordinary than these.
(read more)
AMERIKA OR, THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED
Tuesday, March 31st, 2026
Writer-director Dietrich Smith takes a young German immigrant on the journey of a lifetime in his stage adaptation of Franz Kafka’s Amerika or, The Man Who Disappeared, the year’s most exhilarating theatrical adventure ride.
KIM’S CONVENIENCE
Wednesday, March 25th, 2026
As hard as I fell for Kim’s Convenience when I streamed the Canadian sitcom on Netflix a couple of years back, I was unprepared for how head over heels I would be for its inspiration, Ins Choi’s 2011 feel-amazing stage gem now paying a visit to the Ahmanson.
(read more)
FAIRVIEW
Monday, March 16th, 2026It’s taken eight years for Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview to make it from New York to L.A., and though I have mixed feelings about her Pulitzer Prize-winning play, the production Rogue Machine Theatre has mounted of it could not be more sensationally acted, directed, or designed.
(read more)
RED HARLEM
Tuesday, February 24th, 2026An intriguing truth-is-stranger-than-fiction premise (Stalin-era Soviets’ recruitment of African-American performers for a movie expose on racism in the U.S. to be shot in the USSR) and some inventively stylized staging by director Bernadette Speakes are two major pluses in Kimba Henderson’s Red Harlem. What it needs to achieve full impact is a trim.
(read more)
HERE LIES LOVE
Thursday, February 19th, 2026Center Theatre Group’s sensationally designed and performed West Coast Premiere of Here Lies Love, aka the Imelda Marcos Disco Musical, has everything an entirely sung-through show ought to have except one vital element–songs you’d want to listen to a second time.
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