BROADSWORD: A HEAVY METAL PLAY
Thursday, June 30th, 2011
Sixteen years ago, four young New Jerseyans dreamed of a heavy metal stardom that would transport them far away from the Podunk town of Rahway. Then, as these things happen, their lead singer got a too-good-to-resist offer of a solo career and the remaining three were left to pick up the pieces. Now, a decade and a half later one of the the foursome is dead (or at the very least presumed dead), and his surviving bandmates have reunited for his memorial.
(read more)
BAKERSFIELD MIST
Friday, June 24th, 2011
If there’s anyone with whom most Los Angeles theatergoers would surely not want to change places, it would probably be Maude Gutman of Bakersfield, the heroine of Stephen Sachs’ impressive World Premiere comedy Bakersfield Mist, now playing at the Fountain Theatre. Not only would the mere idea of living without a hundred or more plays to choose from each week be eminently resistible, a mere glance at the rundown knickknack-filled trailer Maude calls (mobile) home would provoke a spontaneous urge to hightail it back to L.A. asap.
(read more)
WORKING
Sunday, June 5th, 2011
What A Chorus Line is to Broadway dancers, Working is to the American work force, a musical salute to the cleaning women, iron workers, masons, mill workers, supermarket checkers, teachers, waitresses and countless others who have built America and kept it strong.
(read more)
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.
(read more)
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.
(read more)
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.
(read more)
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.)
(read more)
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.
(read more)
Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
COPYRIGHT 2026 STEVEN STANLEY :: DESIGN BY