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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
INCITATION TO THE DANCE
Monday, February 16th, 2026An intriguing premise—sultry queer Millennial insinuates himself into the lives of a couple of gay married Boomers—falls flat in Theatre West’s overlong, overwrought, credibility-defying World Premiere melodrama Incitation to the Dance.
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THE CIRCLE
Monday, February 2nd, 2026Issues of familia, cultura, and política come to a head over the course of one tumultuous weekend in Stacey Martino Romero’s powerful if overlong World Premiere dramedy The Circle, now playing at the Greenway Court Theatre.
BROWNSTONE
Monday, January 26th, 2026
The walls of a century-old Upper West Side apartment have much to talk about in Catherine Butterfield’s Brownstone, a trio of fascinating tales all taking place in a single residence but at three distinct periods of time.
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KID GLOVES
Tuesday, January 20th, 2026
Reality TV competitions don’t get any more entertainingly cutthroat than the one theatergoers get to witness in Matthew Leavitt and Nathan Wang’s delightful new musical comedy Kids Gloves, now getting its World Premiere at the Skylight Theatre.
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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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