THE NISEI WIDOWS CLUB: How Tomi Got Her Groove Back
Thursday, November 14th, 2013
The Japanese-American Golden Girls who call themselves The Nisei Widows are back at East West Players, and if those who caught the first installment Nisei Widows Club in 2003 can ignore the knee-jerk reaction, “Never again!”, this return visit ten years later, while still pure sitcom, proves considerably more entertaining, and ultimately quite touching once (as the play’s title gives away) Tomi’s got her groove back.
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THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS (THE MUSICAL!)
Sunday, November 10th, 2013
How would you like to relive every single musical ever written by Rodgers & Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Kander & Ebb … all in under two hours and performed by a cast, not of thousands or hundreds (or even dozens) but a mere four terrifically talented triple-threats?
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FALLING
Tuesday, November 5th, 2013
The challenges of caring for a fully-grown, severely autistic adult child are dealt with powerfully, insightfully, and with occasional refreshing bursts of humor in Deanna Jent’s Falling, now getting a Grade-A West Coast Premiere at Rogue Machine Theatre.
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THE HOMOSEXUALS
Saturday, October 26th, 2013
The flamboyant theater queen who lives to rag on this year’s Tony winners. The average-looking all-around good gay who’s everybody’s best friend and nobody’s boyfriend. The foreign-born charmer living with HIV—though no longer with his (married-her-for-a-green-card) wife. The small-town boy whose move to the big city has meant making gay friends—and a new life he could never have had back home.
We’ve seen these gay men, or gay men like them, on stage before, most notably in the pre-Stonewall world of Mart Crowley’s The Boys In The Band and in the AIDS-crisis world of Terrence McNally’s Love! Valour! Compassion!
Now, young Chicago playwright Philip Dawkins brings these gay archetypes into the 21st Century in his 2011 Jefferson Award-nominated dramedy The Homosexuals, now being given a couldn’t-be-better West Coast Premiere by Celebration Theatre.
DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS
Saturday, October 12th, 2013
The multi-talented student triple-threats of USC’s Musical Theatre Repertory are back onstage again in their latest student-directed, designed, and performed musical hit, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and though its lead characters are indeed the dirtiest of scoundrels, there’s nothing at all rotten about MTR’s latest Broadway-to-blackbox gem. Quite the contrary, there’s not a more sensationally performed 99-seat musical now playing in all L.A.
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THE NORMAL HEART
Saturday, October 5th, 2013
Larry Kramer’s landmark drama The Normal Heart gets its first L.A. staging in nearly two decades, and tough as it may be to revisit the earliest days of the AIDS epidemic, this absolutely brilliant production is one that no Los Angeles theater lover should miss, and the younger the audience the better.
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THE END OF IT
Friday, September 27th, 2013RECOMMENDED
A 50ish couple (or is it three?) confront the dissolution of a twenty-year relationship in Paul Coates’ The End Of It, a World Premiere production elevated above a too generic script by sensational direction, fine acting, and one humdinger of a gimmick.
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LOST GIRLS
Wednesday, September 18th, 2013
Let’s say your most recent play has won every major Best Production award in L.A. and you’re about to head back east to star in it off-Broadway. That would be one tough act to follow, wouldn’t it?
But follow it John Pollono has with Lost Girls, a night-and-day departure from the aforementioned Small Engine Repair, but a humdinger of a play in its own right, and one whose last five minutes elevate it to a whole new level of amazing.
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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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