JERSEY BOYS
Friday, May 19th, 2017
Mark Ballas shows off Frankie Valli vocals to match his Dancing With The Stars footwork as Jersey Boys, the 12th-longest-running show in Broadway history, arrives at the Ahmanson Theatre to dazzle audiences with its true-life story of pop legends The Four Seasons (plus a few dozen Top Forty smashes thrown in for zing).
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NEXT TO NORMAL
Friday, May 19th, 2017Deedee Magno Hall gives a beautifully nuanced performance as bipolar wife-and-mother Diana Goodman opposite her real-life spouse Cliffton Hall’s powerful Dan Goodman in Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt’s Next To Normal, and though the East West Players season closer doesn’t deliver on all fronts, it provides the Halls with a pair of dream roles and audiences with a moving musical look at the effects of mental illness on an all-American family.
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SPECIES NATIVE TO CALIFORNIA
Sunday, May 14th, 2017
Imagine if Chekhov had set The Cherry Orchard in 21st-century Mendocino County and you’ve got Dorothy Fortenberry’s Species Native To California, am IAMA Theatre Company World Premiere dramedy that proves that every good story is worth a good retelling.
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FEFU AND HER FRIENDS
Wednesday, May 10th, 2017If, as Shakespeare put it, the play’s the thing, then I must confess that Maria Irene Fornés’s avant-garde Fefu And Her Friends is not my thing, that is unless it happens to performed inside (and in the gardens of) the architectural masterpiece that is Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House. For its one-of-a-kind setting alone, Hollyhock Fefu merits attention (if not absolute affection).
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ARCHDUKE
Wednesday, May 10th, 2017
Leave it to playwright Rajiv Joseph to turn the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo, the event that led directly to the outbreak of the First World War, into Archduke, not only the year’s screwballsiest comedy but one with contemporary relevance in a world of suicide bombers and suicide voters.
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HELLO AGAIN
Saturday, May 6th, 2017
Sex × 10 + book, music, & lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa’s = Hello Again, LaChiusa’s edgy, seductive, unapologetically unhummable chamber musical adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1897 classic La Ronde, the stellarly cast, terrifically performed, audience-challenging latest from Chromolume Theatre.
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LORD OF THE UNDERWORLD’S HOME FOR UNWED MOTHERS
Saturday, April 15th, 2017Unplanned pregnancy yields ghastly consequences in Louisa Hill’s Lord Of The Underworld’s Home For Unwed Mothers, a Skylight Theatre Company World Premiere whose cast, director, and production design succeed as often as not in overcoming the memory play’s abrupt second-act tonal shift, some cardboard supporting characters, and too much narration throughout.
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EVITA
Friday, April 7th, 2017
Just when you thought the life and loves of Eva Peron had been done to death, along comes director Tim Dang and choreographer Cindera Che’s thrillingly reimagined Evita, this year’s USC School Of Dramatic Arts spring musical, a big-stage production that differs from regional theater’s finest only in the youth of its sensationally talented cast.
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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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