WHEN JAZZ HAD THE BLUES
Sunday, November 27th, 2016
He was the love of Lena Horne’s life. He ghostwrote and/or arranged many of Duke Ellington’s Greatest Hits. He lived an openly gay life three full decades before Stonewall. He was Billy Strayhorn, and if the name doesn’t ring a bell, playwright Carole Eglash-Kosoff aims to rectify that with her elucidating, engrossing, enormously entertaining World Premiere musical drama When Jazz Had The Blues.
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HAIRSPRAY
Saturday, November 26th, 2016
Hairspray is back in town, and just in time to provide an honest-to-goodness live alternative to NBC’s upcoming Hairspray Live. More importantly, thanks to some sparkling lead and featured performances, Cupcake Theater’s mid-sized revival proves a surefire crowd pleaser for audiences from nine to ninety.
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MAMMA MIA!
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2016
Mamma Mia!, the jukebox musical that started it all, has come back to Costa Mesa in its Final Farewell Tour, its return to the Segerstrom Center For The Arts offering the Broadway mega-smash’s mega-multitude of fans not only two dozen of ABBA’s Greatest Hits but one of Thanksgiving week’s Greatest Reasons to give thanks.
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THE DROWSY CHAPERONE
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2016
A fresh new crop of Cal State Fullerton musical theater majors breathe fresh new life into Broadway’s 2006 Valentine to musical theater, The Drowsy Chaperone, winner of 5 Tony Awards and a CSUF crowd-pleaser if there ever was one.
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PARADE
Saturday, November 19th, 2016
The UCI Claire Trevor School Of The Arts’ Department Of Drama opens its 2016-2017 season with a powerful, superbly performed big-stage revival of Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry’s Parade.
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URINETOWN
Sunday, November 6th, 2016
Annie, Cabaret, Dreamgirls, Grease, Hair, Mame, Pippin, Rent. One-word-titled Broadway smashes go all the way back to the birth of the modern American musical. (Showboat or Oklahoma!, you take your pick.) Still, there’s never quite been a modern American musical like Urinetown, proof positive of which can be marveled at in director Kari Hayter’s exhilarating intimate-stage revival, the latest from L.A.’s “Pay What You Want” Coeurage Theatre Company.
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SISTER ACT
Monday, October 24th, 2016
Mark my words. Daebreon Poiema’s superstar turn as bodacious nightclub chantooze Deloris Van Cartier turned bogus Catholic nun Mary Clarence will have Southland audiences standing up and cheering Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre’s latest crowd-pleaser, the screen-to-stage Broadway hit musical Sister Act.
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MEMPHIS THE MUSICAL
Sunday, October 23rd, 2016
Musical Theatre West looks to have yet another sold-out smash on its hands with Memphis The Musical, one of the most powerful, tuneful, exuberant shows New York and the rest of the world have seen in years.
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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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