MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG
Sunday, February 14th, 2010
Some productions belong to the actors, some to the writer, some even to the designers. Then there are Sondheim shows directed by Oanh Nguyen. These productions belong to the director, and the latest Sondheim/Nguyen collaboration, the composer’s 1981 Merrily We Roll Along, is no exception. That’s not to say that Nguyen’s cast aren’t delivering fine performances. They are. That’s not to say that his design team haven’t produced some brilliant work here. They have. But what sets this Merrily apart from others is Nguyen’s vision. You may have seen Merrily We Roll Along before, but you haven’t seen this Merrily We Roll Along.
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BARK! THE MUSICAL
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
You’re my man, I’m your pet. We’re as close as two can get. You love me to the end. That’s why you are dog’s best friend,” sings Rocks, the Jack Russell pup in Bark! The Musical, the smash hit returning to the L.A. area for the first time in nearly four years in a supersized staging by Civic Light Opera Of South Bay Cities that merits five barks out of five.
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DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS
Friday, February 12th, 2010
Take a 1964 Marlon Brando-David Niven-Shirley Jones comedy (Bedtime Story), remake it in 1988 with a new title (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) and an even funnier trio of leads (Steve Martin, Michael Caine, Glenne Headley), turn it into a 2005 Broadway musical starring John Lithgow, Norman Leo Butz, and Sheri Rene Scott which scored eleven Tony nominations and one big win for Best Actor Butz, then assign director extraordinaire Richard Israel to downscale it to 99-seat dimensions and you’ve got Interact Theatre Company’s sensational L.A. Intimate Theater Premiere of the hit musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, just opened at the NoHo Arts Center.
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THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE
Saturday, February 6th, 2010
The competitive urge to come in first starts at an early age in William Finn’s Broadway smash, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Winning is everything for Finn’s band of adolescent regional spelling bee finalists, as well as for many of their parents, and if you have any doubt that kids can be every bit as competitive as adults, this quirky, highly original musical will soon cure you of this misconception.
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ALL SHOOK UP
Friday, February 5th, 2010
Ask me to name my favorite musicals of the past decade and All Shook Up (the “Elvis Musical”) is sure to make the Top Ten. With its hit-filled score made up of over two dozen Elvis hits, a clever, funny book by Joe DiPietro, a cast of delicious characters that make this one of the best triple-threat ensemble shows around, and opportunities aplenty for a choreographer to strut his or her stuff, All Shook Up is a non-stop crowd-pleasing delight. Having seen it on Broadway, in its National Tour, and at Musical Theatre West (twice), I can state without reservations that 3-D Theatricals’ production is as exciting as it gets.
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SWEENEY TODD
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street is back, supersized, in Musical Theatre West’s excellent revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. A cast of twenty-seven and a twenty-two piece orchestra make this the biggest Sweeney in recent memory, welcome news indeed for theatergoers grown tired of downsized shows.
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WHISPER HOUSE
Sunday, January 31st, 2010
I present to you a story set upon a Northern shore. Denizens of lighthouse during times of war. The foolish things they did. The foolish things they said. I’m sure you would agree they would be better off dead.”
Singing these lyrics are a 1910s-garbed 2010-alternative-rock-performing pair of ghosts haunting a 1941 Maine lighthouse. The spectral vocalists, one male, one female, and their equally deceased backup band are the victims of a 1912 Halloween night shipwreck, unable even 29 years later to depart from the lighthouse whose keeper brought about their deaths through negligence. If only he had remembered to turn on the light that fateful night.
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tick, tick … BOOM!
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
Musical theater lovers under the age of forty may find it hard to imagine a time when Jonathan Larson’s Rent wasn’t part of our national musical theater lexicon. 12 years and 5,124 performances on Broadway, a still ongoing National Tour, a major motion picture, and since its Broadway closing, regional theater productions galore—Rent has truly conquered the musical theater world.
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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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