BILLY ELLIOT
Wednesday, April 17th, 2013
Musicals don’t get much bigger or more spectacular than the international smash Billy Elliot, a nearly three-hour song-and-dance extravaganza that never forgets that it is, at heart, the intimate story of a boy who, in the words of Gene Kelly, has simply “Gotta Dance.”
L.A./Orange County audiences now have the next two weeks to experience the laughter, the tears, the thrills, and the sheer joy that is Billy, winner of ten 2009 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Direction of a Musical, and in a Broadway first, a Best Leading Actor Tony awarded to all three Broadway Billys.
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A CHORUS LINE
Monday, April 15th, 2013
Musical Theatre West follows its superb 70th Anniversary revival of Oklahoma! with a first-rate production of the considerably more recent yet equally groundbreaking A Chorus Line.
Now the fifth-longest-running musical in Broadway history, A Chorus Line (book by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, and concept and original direction/choreography by Bennett) remains as fresh, as entertaining, and as powerful as ever with Roger Castellano directing and recreating Bennett’s iconic choreography.
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SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS
Sunday, April 14th, 2013
Glenn Casale and Patti Colombo dust the cobwebs off Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, the stage adaptation of the 1954 MGM musical movie classic, offering audiences at the La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts far more than simply two hours of old-fashioned G-rated family entertainment. With Casale and Colombo in the driver’s seat, this ‘50s chestnut seems fresh and new, honest and real, and thrillingly grown-up.
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GREASE
Saturday, April 13th, 2013
Danny Zuko and Sandy Dumbrowski fall in summer love all over again—with the movie’s Doody and Putzie in charge of the whole nostalgic shebang—as Cabrillo Music Theatre revives the 3,388-performance Broadway megahit Grease to the delight of teen and adult audiences alike.
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SWEET CHARITY
Tuesday, April 9th, 2013
Director Neil Dale and choreographer Janet Renslow make a triumphant return to Candlelight Dinner Theatre for the Neil Simon-Cy Coleman-Dorothy Field musical comedy classic Sweet Charity, giving San Gabriel Valley-Inland Empire audiences the best Candlelight show I’ve seen since the duo’s innovative, multiple-Scenie-winning Miss Saigon.
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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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CHICAGO
Sunday, March 24th, 2013
It’s taken a good long while—over sixteen years to be precise—for the longest-running American musical in Broadway history to make it to our Southern California regional theaters. Then again, considering that Chicago is currently closing in on 7000 performances on The Great White Way, it’s a wonder theaters like Escondido’s Lawrence Welk don’t find themselves on a mile-long waiting list to get their hands on the Kander & Ebb mega-revival, all the more reason to head down south a ways and catch Chicago, smashingly up-close-and-personal at the Welk.
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A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER
Sunday, March 24th, 2013
Imagine how it might have played out had Downton Abbey’s distant cousin Mattthew Crawley actually wanted to inherit the Grantham estate, not just wanted it but wanted it so badly that to get it, he needed to dispose of more than half a dozen Granthams standing in the path of his succession.
I realize this is a lot to imagine, but if I ask you to do so, it’s simply to give you an idea of the world inhabited by the characters of the delicious new period musical A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder, a world of manners and money and Edwardian morality, a world in which a poor relation might have no other recourse than to bump off the competition one by one if he wanted to go from rags to riches.
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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