DAVID DEAN BOTTRELL IS WORKING
Thursday, March 7th, 2013
You’ve undoubtedly heard it said that “Everyone has at least one good book in them.” Substitute “solo performance” for book and you’re in Hollywood, and if you should happen to doubt my words, you’ve only to check out how many One-Man or One-Woman Shows there are every summer at the Fringe Festival.
Still, despite this solo performance glut, there aren’t that many you’d actually pay good money to see, all the more reason to celebrate the return of story-telling master David Dean Bottrell, who not only has a Scenie-winning Solo Performance in him, he’s got a wingdinger of a follow-up to it, entitled simply David Dean Bottrell Is Working.
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THE TROUBLE WITH WORDS
Monday, March 4th, 2013
What do you do when you’ve won your second Ovation Award (for music directing The Color Purple) a mere twelve months after winning Ovation Number One for the music and lyrics of your original song cycle The Trouble With Words … and you’ve only just turned thirty?
The answer, if you’re Gregory Nabours, is to revisit The Trouble With Words in a smartly tweaked 2013 production for Coeurage Theatre Company, one which features the talents of its original director and band and most of its original cast, along with four new songs and a brand new choreographer and design team, all of this adding up to a TTWW 2.0 even more splendiferous than it was the first time round.
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STAY ON THE LINE: A Rock Musical
Saturday, March 2nd, 2013RECOMMENDED
A crisis hotline center serves as the setting for Stay On The Line: A Rock Musical, a revised remounting of a 2001 Cal State Fullerton project and one that works best as a showcase for its phenomenally talented cast of mostly 20something triple threats under the direction of Crystal K. Craft and Scott Mlodzinski.
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A FAMILY THING
Tuesday, February 19th, 2013
Alcoholism, drug addiction, childhood abuse, homophobia, racism, and murder would hardly seem a recipe for laughter, yet despite its dramatic underpinnings, Gary Lennon’s World Premiere A Family Thing turns out to be one of the funniest shows in town. It’s also one of the best acted, and one L.A. playgoers in search of a dark, gritty, yet thoroughly entertaining hour-and-a-half of theater won’t want to miss.
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CHRISTMAS IN HANOI
Friday, February 15th, 2013
East West Players takes a chance on something new—a ghost story set in contemporary Vietnam—and comes up with a winner in Eddie Borey’s Christmas In Hanoi. As brought to life by a topnotch creative team, Borey’s EWP’s playwriting competition-winning script makes for a strong 2013 opener for the country’s premier Asian-American theater.
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SWEENEY TODD
Friday, January 25th, 2013
Like the Little Engine That Could, USC’s Musical Theatre Repertory’s self-proclaimed “innovative musical theater, for students, by students,” undertakes its most daunting challenge to date, Stephen Sondheim’s epic Sweeney Todd, and comes out with yet another winner.
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THEIR EYES SAW RAIN
Monday, January 7th, 2013NOT RECOMMENDED
“Bang! Thunder kicks. Rain falls. Incessant. In the small town of Castle. There is indolence and apathy. Three brothers make it their mission to keep from being washed away.”
If the above publicity blurb seems frustratingly abstruse, West Liang’s World Premiere drama Their Eyes Saw Rain does little to clarify the confusion despite the best efforts of all concerned.
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KING LEAR
Saturday, January 5th, 2013
The talented young Shakespeareans who call themselves The Porters Of Hellsgate have scored a major casting coup in bringing onboard stage-and-screen vets Larry Cedar and Leon Russom for their most ambitious production to date, the epic tragedy King Lear.
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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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