PUTTING IT TOGETHER

Putting It Together, aka The Greatest Hits Of Stephen Sondheim Volume Two, has made a splendid arrival at Chromolume Theatre, the 1999 Broadway revival version of the original 1992 UK production updating 1976’s Side by Side by Sondheim with songs from S.S. shows as recent as 1990’s Assassins—news which should come as the best end-of-year gift to Sondheim lovers near and far.
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CANNIBAL! THE MUSICAL

The summertime Fringe Festival spirit lives on as the leaves turn their fall colors (or would if we lived in Utah or Colorado) in Coeurage Theatre Company’s hysterically funny, terrifically performed, absolutely shpadoinkle* live staging of Trey Parker’s tongue-in-cheek (and flesh-in-mouth) cult movie “classic” Cannibal! The Musical.
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COMPLETENESS

Finding one’s soulmate proves every bit as complicated as the algorithms computer science nerd Elliot uses to charm molecular biology grad student Molly in Itamar Moses’s Completeness, now being given a pitch-perfect first Los Angeles production by Vs. Theatre Company and Firefly Theater & Films.
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TAKARAZUKA!!!

The women are gorgeous and the men … Well, the men are women—and every bit as stunning to look at—in Takarazuka, the all-female Japanese musical revue that is the setting for Susan Soon He Stanton’s fascinating new behind-the-scenes play-with-music Takarazuka!!!, now getting its West Coast Premiere at East West Players.
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BROOMSTICK

Arriving just in time for Halloween and providing ample reason for Thanksgiving through the month of November, Jenny O’Hara’s star turn in Broomstick turns the West Coast Premiere of John Biguenet’s acclaimed solo play into a veritable theatrical event. Factor in scenic designer Andrew Hammer’s extraordinary witch’s lair of a set and you’ve got a performance and production design sure to set the L.A. playgoing public abuzz.
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PREMEDITATION

Style may not be everything in Evelina Fernández’s Premeditation, but it plays a big part in making the playwright-actor’s comédie noire (or comedia negra) the exhilaratingly theatrical experience it is, and with Premeditation currently Ovation Award-nominated for Best Production, Direction, and Lighting Design, theatergoers can rejoice at the Latino Theater Company’s decision to bring it back as part of the month-long Encuentro 2014 festival at downtown’s Los Angeles Theatre Center. Premeditation is as stylishly directed, performed, and designed a production as you’re likely to see this or any month—and that is saying something indeed.
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FLOYD COLLINS

RECOMMENDED

USC’s Musical Theatre Repertory undertakes one of its most daunting projects to date in Adam Guettel and Tina Landau’s Floyd Collins, and if MTR’s latest entirely student performed, directed (by Victoria Pearlman), and designed production isn’t as thoroughly successful as many previous undertakings, some outstanding lead performances and a superb student orchestra are just two reasons to check it out.
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BETTER

When humorist Erma Bombeck wrote about “loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that [binds] us all together,” the family she was referring to could easily have been the one to whose nest successful New York restaurateur Annie returns to face her father’s imminent death in Jessica Goldberg’s funny, perceptive, beautifully acted and directed new drama Better, the latest World Premiere from The Echo Theater Company.
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