WEST SIDE STORY
Tuesday, March 4th, 2025A number of brilliant directorial choices make the first act of Nocturne Theatre’s West Side Story so thrillingly innovative that it comes as a disappointment that some less inspired ones in Act Two end up diminishing the overall impact of this otherwise impressive in-the-round revival of the 1957 Broadway classic.
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I LOVE YOU BECAUSE
Sunday, March 2nd, 2025I’m too much of a fan of Ryan Cunningham and Joshua Salzman’s “modern day musical love story” I Love You Because not to feel let down and put out by the overacted, misdirected Chromolume Theatre production now playing at the Zephyr Theatre.
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DESPERATE MEASURES
Saturday, February 22nd, 2025
Take a classic Shakespeare plot, chop out all the boring and confusing parts, and transform it into a song-packed Wild West musical romcom and what you’ve got is the off-Broadway hit Desperate Measures, now cheering audiences at International City Theatre.
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JERSEY BOYS
Monday, February 17th, 2025
It’s taken over twenty years for Jersey Boys to make it from Broadway to National Tour to its Long Beach Regional Premiere, but the sensational production Musical Theatre West is now treating its audiences to makes it well worth the two-decade wait.
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AVENUE Q
Sunday, February 9th, 2025
All-around fabulous performances and an excitingly innovative production design combine to make Wisteria Theater Company’s Avenue Q a musical-comedy must-see.
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tick, tick… BOOM!
Monday, February 3rd, 2025
Chance Theater does Jonathan Larson proud with the absolute best of the nine productions I’ve seen of tick, tick… BOOM!, the Rent legend’s early-1990s autobiographical one-man show turned musical three-hander.
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MADAME SCROOGE: A CHRISTMAS CAROL MUSICAL
Thursday, December 19th, 2024
The holiday season’s penny-pinchingest gender-swapped skinflint is back, and once again belting her stone of a heart out, in The Nocturne Theatre’s all-around fabulous reprise of last year’s Scenie-winning Best World Premiere Musical, Madame Scrooge: A Christmas Carol Musical.
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OY! TO THE WORLD ~ CHRISTMAS WITH A TWIST!
Monday, December 16th, 2024
A couple dozen of your all-time holiday favorites get performed to perfection in OY! To The World ~ Christmas With A Twist!, back for its second December at the El Portal Theatre and once again celebrating a great big bunch of Christmas classics with one very special thing in common. Jewish songwriters wrote them all.
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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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