SPOTLIGHT CABARET: BROADWAY NU SKOOL
Tuesday, October 12th, 2010
There’s been an explosion of New York style cabaret in Los Angeles over the past few years, with Aaron Jacobs’ second-Sunday-of-the-month Spotlight Cabaret providing audiences the chance to enjoy the vocal talents of some of our finest musical theater talents while savoring some of Café Metropol’s tasty dinner treats or a cocktail, beer, or glass of wine.
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KURT VONNEGUT’S SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE
Thursday, October 7th, 2010RECOMMENDED
“You’ll either love it, or push it back in the science-fiction corner,” opined the New York Times in its 1969 review of Kurt Vonnegut’s anti-war sci-fi novel Slaughterhouse Five. The same can probably be said about its theatrical adaptation by Eric Simonson, now getting its first West Coast production fourteen years after its World Premiere at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Theatergoers unfamiliar with Vonnegut’s dense, epic tale, or those whose tastes run towards realistic, linear storytelling rather than the avant-garde or experimental may choose to pass on Action Theatre’s intimate staging, despite its generally fine acting and imaginative direction by Tiger Reel. On the other hand, Vonnegut fans will want to check out how adapter Simonson manages to compact Slaughterhouse Five down to an intermission-free ninety minutes of live theater.
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THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE
Saturday, October 2nd, 2010
Since discovering USC’s Musical Theatre Repertory nearly three years ago with their sensational intimate staging of Sunday In The Park With George, I’ve tried never to miss an MTR production. Unlike USC mainstage productions, MTR shows are entirely student produced, directed, designed, and performed, thereby providing sneak previews of future Broadway/regional theater on-and-offstage talents. With veteran MTR members graduating each June and moving on to professional careers, every new school year introduces a fresh batch of Trojan theater majors every bit as talented as their predecessors, something MTR’s current production of William Finn’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee makes perfectly clear.
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JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS
Sunday, September 19th, 2010
Anyone under a certain age who hears the title Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well And Living In Paris may well wonder, “Who the hell is this Jacques Brel?”—a question likely to provoke a cry of “Sacrilege!” from more seasoned theater aficionados.
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MYSTERIOUS SKIN
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010
Mysterious Skin, Scott Heim’s powerful 1995 novel about two teenagers with a shared secret almost too horrendous to talk about, is the kind of book that would seem unadaptable to screen or stage, if only for its scenes of child sexual abuse. Still, miracle of miracles, Mysterious Skin The Movie and Mysterious Skin The Play did end up written, produced, and presented to audience bravos, the former by film maker Gregg Araki and the latter by playwright Prince Gomolvilas. It’s Gomolvilas’ ingenious stage adaptation that now gets an absolutely stunning Los Angeles Premiere at Little Tokyo’s East West Players in a production easily the Asian-American theater’s finest non-musical since Durango, three years ago.
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LIVE NUDE GIRL
Monday, September 13th, 2010RECOMMENDED
Monica Himmel is Deanna, an actress in search of professional and personal fulfillment in Monica Himmelheber’s Live Nude Girl, now playing Mondays at Hollywood’s Lounge Theatre.
If Live Nude Girl has an autobiographical ring to it, it’s probably because Himmelheber is a writer in search of professional and personal fulfillment, and Himmel … Well, if you haven’t yet guessed, Himmelheber and Himmel are one and the same.
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NEIGHBORS
Saturday, September 4th, 2010
How would you feel if your worst nightmare—the family from hell—moved into the house next door to yours? This is precisely the dilemma faced by African American adjunct college professor Richard Patterson when the Crows take possession of the suburban tract home across the street from his in Neighbors, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ provocative though imperfect new comedy-drama now playing at the Matrix Theatre.
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UNDER MILK WOOD
Friday, September 3rd, 2010
Most theater majors graduating from college and beginning their professional careers end up relying on the kindness of strangers (i.e. producers, directors, and casting directors) to get themselves cast in a play, TV show, commercial, or movie. Then there are the talented Cal State Fullerton grads who have taken matters into their own hands by forming Coeurage Theatre Company.
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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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