STRANGER
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
The rock-based notes of an Ennio Morricone-like melody inform us that, once again, it’s once upon a time in the West. The year is 1847 and the tiny Nevada town of San Lorenzo has been enslaved by a ruthless villain known only as Lagarto. Showdown time has arrived, and the town sheriff orders his teenage daughter Lucinda to get inside. “You do it for Mama,” Lucy cries out. “You kill him for her!” The sheriff looks the evil Lagarto in the eye and informs him, “This is your last chance. Take your men and be on your way.” “You look like a simple man,” responds Lagarto, “so I’ll keep it simple. No.” And with that, he shoots the sheriff, then his deputy. Pulling out an enormous knife, he grabs Lucy and tells her, “I like you. I think I’m going to keep you.” Lagarto then proceeds to slit the sheriff’s throat with the knife until his blood is splattered everywhere.
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SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK LIVE TOO
Sunday, June 14th, 2009
For the many who saw and loved Schoolhouse Rock Live! when it played the Greenway Court Theatre a year and a half ago, there’s some great news. Schoolhouse Rock Live! Too has arrived, with 20 more classic Schoolhouse Rock songs/lessons performed live by a stellar cast of triple threat talents and a rocking live band.
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APARTMENT 6 & 9
Sunday, June 14th, 2009RECOMMENDED
Apartment 6 & 9 is a pair of one-act comedies (All Aboard The Marriage Hearse and Stay Over) which showcase Matt Morillo’s talents as a writer/director, his gift for intelligent dialog, and his insights into the many ways that “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.”
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COME BACK LITTLE HORNY
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009
Meet the Maloneys, your average upper-middle class Palo Alto family:
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ONCE UPON A MATTRESS
Sunday, May 17th, 2009
Once Upon A Mattress is a popular choice for high school musicals and community theaters, but I can’t recall a professional production here in L.A., so the Lyric’s totally entertaining revival of this 1959 Broadway gem comes as particularly welcome news, especially in these gloomy economic times.
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MARRY ME A LITTLE/THE LAST FIVE YEARS
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009
My favorite East West Players shows are their productions of well-known plays and musicals which offer Asian-American actors the opportunity to tackle roles for which they might not normally be considered. Whether dramatic fare, like Proof or Equus, or musicals like Little Shop Of Horrors or pretty much all of the Sondheim oeuvre, or a play with music like Master Class, these are the productions which have left the strongest, best impressions on me.
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PHOTOGRAPH 51
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
In an ironic twist of fate, Dr. Rosalind Franklin, the woman who should have shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA’s double helix structure received no recognition whatsoever from the Nobel Foundation. True, the Foundation does not award the prize posthumously, and Dr. Franklin had died four years earlier. No, the real irony is that Rosalind Franklin died without even knowing her part in this world-changing discovery.
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LITTLE WOMEN
Sunday, April 12th, 2009
There’s scarcely a girl or woman alive who hasn’t at one time read Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Add to that the millions who’ve seen at least one of its filmings, whether 1933’s with Katharine Hepburn as Jo, or 1949’s with June Allyson, or 1994’s with Winona Ryder, and you have a built-in audience for Little Women The Musical. L.A.’s Lyric Theatre scales down the Broadway production to 99-seat theater dimensions (a full orchestra becomes a single piano here), the more intimate setting providing a particularly appropriate fit for Alcott’s family tale. A quartet of talented recent musical theater grads bring the four March sisters to vibrant life, surrounded by an all-around excellent supporting cast to make for an evening of theater sure to enchant not only Little Women’s legion of fans but just about any musical theater aficionado.
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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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