iGHOST
Saturday, May 28th, 2011
The halls of Canterville Chase are alive with the sounds of spirits in Doug Haverty and Adryan Russ’s tunefully entertaining new musical iGhost, now getting its World Premiere at the Lyric Theatre.
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KRUNK FU BATTLE BATTLE
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
East West Players closes its best season in years with Krunk Fu Battle Battle, quite possibly the first full-fledged hip-hop musical ever, and a sensational one at that.
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RENT
Saturday, May 7th, 2011
When Jonathan Larson’s megahit Rent ended its twelve-year-long Broadway run in 2008, regional theaters finally got their crack at staging the now iconic tale of impoverished young artists and musicians living in New York’s Lower East Side during the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic. Sadly though, despite an (over)abundance of Southern California productions since then, few appear to have achieved the greatness that Rent deserves. This is a show that requires bona fide triple threats in all its roles, including its many ensemble tracks, and despite our SoCal talent pool, this may have proved more easily said than done.
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HOUSE OF THE RISING SON
Thursday, April 28th, 2011
“There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I’m one”
The New Orleans mansion Trent Varro shares with his father Garrett and grandfather Bowen may indeed prove the ruin of Felix Martin, or so it would seem when the young Angelino catches sight of the shocking tableau which ends Act One of Tom Jacobson’s World Premiere drama House Of The Rising Son. (No, the last word isn’t misspelled.)
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THE CHINESE MASSACRE: ANNOTATED
Friday, April 22nd, 2011
Late 19th century Los Angeles history comes to vivid, complex, highly theatrical life in The Chinese Massacre (Annotated), award-winning playwright Tom Jacobson’s latest World Premiere, and once again (as with Jacobson’s Ouroboros, Bunbury, and The Twentieth Century Way), audiences are in for something special indeed.
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CHERRY SMOKE
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
The going-nowhere existences of a quartet of 20somethings living in an unemployment-plagued Donora, Pennsylvania are brought to painfully vivid life by playwright James McManus in his award-winning Cherry Smoke, now getting a first-rate West Coast Premiere by the brand new Lucky Mellon Collective, an exciting addition to the Los Angeles theater scene.
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STANDING ON CEREMONY: THE GAY MARRIAGE PLAYS
Monday, March 28th, 2011
A rotating cast of Hollywood celebrities. Eight or nine short plays by some of the country’s finest playwrights. Tons of laughs and more than a few tears. And all this to promote the cause of marriage equality. What progressive theatergoer could pass up a chance like this?
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