PIPPIN
Wednesday, November 12th, 2014
The spectacular and the personal mesh to perfection in the most extraordinary Pippin you will ever see, and if you don’t believe me, check out the 2013 Best Revival Tony winner during its two-week stop at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center For The Arts.
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john & jen
Saturday, November 8th, 2014
A pair of outstanding lead performances highlight the first local production in as far back as I can remember of Andrew Lippa and Tom Greenwald’s john & jen, costars Ann Villella and Taylor Minckley alone providing more than enough reason to celebrate the 1995 off-Broadway gem’s all-too-brief arrival at North Hollywood’s Secret Rose Theatre.
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MAN OF LA MANCHA
Friday, November 7th, 2014
Several outstanding performances including a best-yet star turn by Marc Ginsburg in the title role make Glendale Centre Theatre’s Man Of La Mancha revival a fine introduction (or return visit) to the Tony-winning Best Musical of 1966, though the in-the-round setting does somewhat impede the atmospheric look that has made past La Manchas such production design dazzlers.
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BIG FISH
Sunday, November 2nd, 2014
A deeply conflicted father-son relationship, a husband and wife’s lifelong love, a spellbinding lead performance, a bunch of captivating supporting turns, some terrific dance sequences, an often quite gorgeous production design, and above all one of the most beautiful scores of recent years add up to an entertaining and often quite moving West Coast Premiere of Andrew Lippa and John August’s Big Fish at Long Beach’s Musical Theatre West.
Still, when a Broadway musical closes less than three months after its opening and fails to score a single Tony nomination or even a non-Equity tour, it is worth asking why.
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JEKYLL & HYDE
Monday, October 27th, 2014
Some of the finest voices I’ve heard at Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre along with Jason James’ assured direction make for a first-rate Jekyll & Hyde out Claremont way, with Janet Renslow’s exciting recreation of the show’s original choreography adding to the pizzazz.
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FLOYD COLLINS
Saturday, October 18th, 2014RECOMMENDED
USC’s Musical Theatre Repertory undertakes one of its most daunting projects to date in Adam Guettel and Tina Landau’s Floyd Collins, and if MTR’s latest entirely student performed, directed (by Victoria Pearlman), and designed production isn’t as thoroughly successful as many previous undertakings, some outstanding lead performances and a superb student orchestra are just two reasons to check it out.
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RAGTIME
Tuesday, October 14th, 2014
Well-to-do early 20th-Century White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, their less fortunate African-American fellow New Yorkers, and a gaggle of fresh-off-the-boat Eastern European immigrants collide to life-altering (and occasionally life-shattering) effect in the 1998 Tony-winning musical Ragtime, now being revived by 3-D Theatricals in a production that would do any Broadway theater proud.
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YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN
Sunday, October 5th, 2014
Lucy and Linus and Schroeder and Sally and Snoopy and the Good Man himself are alive and well and singing and dancing and reawakening memory after memory after memory as Sustaining Sound Theatre Company and Chromolume Theatre present their family-pleasing intimate revival of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.
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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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