A QUEER CAROL
Friday, December 10th, 2010
Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol gets a contemporary gay spin—and quite a good one at that—in Joe Godfrey’s A Queer Carol, now getting its Southern California Premiere at Santa Ana’s Theatre Out.
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RENT
Thursday, December 2nd, 2010
Cal State Fullerton’s exceptional production of Jonathan Larson’s Rent makes it amply clear why the university’s Musical Theater program is one of the country’s most highly recommended. Performed by a uniformly outstanding cast of future stars and directed with supreme imagination and style by Kari Hayter, this is a Rent that deserves to be seen by Rent aficionados and newbies alike. For the latter, it will prove a terrific introduction to the groundbreaking rock opera which became an honest-to-goodness contemporary classic during its twelve-year New York run. For the former, it will provide proof positive that a director with a vision and a cast of Broadway-bound triple-threats can take a fourteen-year-old show and make it a fresh new theatrical experience worthy of audience cheers from start to finish.
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CINDERELLA
Sunday, November 28th, 2010
Now here’s something you don’t see every day in North Hollywood—the Cinderella story as a “modern musical extravaganza” starring Harry Potter heartthrob Freddie Stroma of the UK, TVLand’s very own (Leave It To) Beaver (the now 62-year-old Jerry Mathers), a teenage discovery named Veronica Dunne (who snagged the title role in a talent competition at a local Westfield Shopping Mall), Broadway belter Jennifer Leigh Warren, British comedian Benny Harris as Buttons (Buttons?), the very male duo of Eddie Driscoll and Mark Edgar Stephens as Cinderella’s ugly sisters Cowel and Seecrest (Cowel and Seecrest?), and “guest starring” a miniature horse named Little Man in the role of Blitzen—all of this choreographed by Mark Ballas of TV’s Dancing With The Stars.
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THE SECRET GARDEN (THE MUSICAL)
Saturday, November 20th, 2010
The Chance Theater puts its quality stamp on Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman’s The Secret Garden, a musical adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s novel.
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A CHICAGO CHRISTMAS CAROL
Friday, November 19th, 2010
What do you get when you combine Charles Dickens’ classic tale of Christmastime redemption (you know the one) with The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s exposé of meat packing conditions in early 20th Century Chicago, then add a musical score with much of the stark dissonance of Kurt Weill’s collaborations with Bertolt Brecht?
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PATRICK ALAN CASEY CD
Friday, November 19th, 2010
Singer-songwriter Patrick Alan Casey makes a memorable recording debut with Leaving California, a terrific alternative adult rock CD filled with some of the most gorgeous, powerful rock ballads you’re likely to hear this or any year.
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INTO THE WOODS
Thursday, November 18th, 2010
Over the past quarter century or so, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into The Woods has become one of the most performed musicals in the U.S.—in regional CLOs, on college and high school campuses, and in intimate theaters. Its first act, which magically combines some of the best loved of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and its second, which explores with considerable depth what happens after “happily ever after,” make for a show which retains its freshness and originality two decades after it first captivated Broadway audiences.
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WALT DISNEY’S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Tuesday, November 16th, 2010
Walt Disney’s Beauty And The Beast made movie history in 1992 when it became the first full-length animated feature to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Major musical sequences like “Belle,” “Gaston,” and “Be Our Guest” felt so much like Broadway production numbers that its 1994 transfer to The Great White Way made perfect sense, leading to nine Tony nominations, three National Tours, English and foreign language productions the world round, and regional productions like the one staged by Cabrillo Music Theater in 2007. February of this year marked the start of Beauty And The Beast’s Fourth National Tour, a sensational production now making a one-week stop at Costa Mesa’s Orange County Performing Arts Center.
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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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