WATSON AND THE DARK ART OF HARRY HOUDINI
Tuesday, July 9th, 2013
What do you do when you’re writer-director Jaime Robledo and your play Watson: The Last Great Tale Of The Legendary Sherlock Holmes has won just about every award in the book? Elementary, my dear reader. You do what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did after creating his mystery-solving supersleuth in A Study In Scarlet (and what Universal Pictures kept doing year after year for their own inimitable Sherlock, Basil Rathbone). You write and direct a sequel, in this case Watson And The Dark Art Of Harry Houdini, and if the results don’t match the original in sheer brilliance, Watson 2.0 does for the most part avoid the dreaded sophomore curse.
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LOVE SONGS
Sunday, June 23rd, 2013RECOMMENDED
Six simply marvelous performances and a couple dozen simply gorgeous songs are the best reasons to see Love Songs A Musical, Steven Cagan’s minimal-plot song cycle now getting its World Premiere by Chromolume Theatre at the Attic in a production that comes across more like a low-budget workshop than the fully-staged premiere Cagan’s work deserves and L.A. theatergoing regulars will likely be expecting.
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DYING CITY
Wednesday, June 5th, 2013
A young man’s unannounced arrival at the New York apartment of his deceased twin brother’s widow triggers the gradual revelation of three lifetimes’ worth of secrets and lies in Christopher Shinn’s Dying City, now getting a compelling, beautifully acted and directed Los Angeles premiere at Rogue Machine.
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HEART SONG
Sunday, May 26th, 2013
Flamenco and friendship join forces to help a middle-aged Jewish single New Yorker recover from the death of her 91-year-old mother in Stephen Sachs’ laughter-and-tear-packed new dramedy Heart Song.
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CHESS
Thursday, May 16th, 2013
Though Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus’ Chess may now and forever remain a musical that “needs work,” there are ample reasons to catch Tim Dang’s multiethnic revival of the West End hit at East West Players, not the least of which is the singular opportunity to see Chess Not In Concert—but rather as a fully-staged production, with performances, direction, choreography, costumes and lighting all combining to make for a thrilling evening of theater, despite its source material’s undeniable flaws.
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COPS AND FRIENDS OF COPS
Friday, May 10th, 2013
A man walks into a bar and all hell breaks loose in Ron Klier’s edge-of-your-seat World Premiere suspense thriller Cops And Friends Of Cops, the latest offering from VS. Theatre Company and one that suits their spiffy new Mid-City space to a T.
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tick, tick… BOOM!
Wednesday, May 1st, 2013
USC’s Musical Theatre Repertory concludes its eight annual season with Jonathan Larson’s tick, tick… BOOM!, providing Larson lovers with a terrifically entertaining, imaginatively re-envisioned staging of Larson’s posthumous, autobiographical, pre-Rent musical gem, one which, like all MTR productions, is directed, choreographed, designed, and performed entirely by students.
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THE MOST HAPPY FELLA
Friday, April 5th, 2013
Advisory to all musical theater lovers in Los Angeles and beyond: Run, don’t walk, to USC’s Bing Theatre this week and next to catch Frank Loesser’s 1956 Broadway musical drama The Most Happy Fella in a production the likes of which you are unlikely to see any time soon (or even not that soon).
Now before you say, “But I don’t see student productions,” allow me to point out that this is USC’s prestigious School Of Dramatic Arts, many of whose grads have gone on to star on Broadway and beyond. Not only that, but The Most Happy Fella has been impeccably directed by Tony winner John Rubinstein and choreographed with athleticism and panache by two-time Ovation Award nominee Lili Fuller (herself a recent USC grad), and it features a full pit orchestra under the baton of award-winning musical director Alby Potts. Talk about credentials!
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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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