THE DROWSY CHAPERONE
Sunday, June 29th, 2014
The Drowsy Chaperone, Broadway’s Valentine to Musical Theater, has been given an intimate Orange County staging at Santa Ana’s Theatre Out, one that makes it abundantly clear why the 2006 multiple-Tony winner is one of this past decade’s best—and most original—new musicals.
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DOG AND PONY
Sunday, June 15th, 2014RECOMMENDED
A trio of utterly fabulous Broadway leading ladies led by the magical Nicole Parker are reason enough to catch The Old Globe’s latest World Premiere musical, Dog And Pony, though the show itself, despite Roger Rees’ effervescent direction, still needs a good deal of work.
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BYE BYE BIRDIE
Sunday, June 8th, 2014
Audiences out Claremont way have ample reason to “Put On A Happy Face” this month and next as Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre revives the rock-n-rollin’ 1960 Broadway favorite Bye Bye Birdie, Michael Stewart’s delightful Elvis-inspired book and Charles Strouse and Lee Adams’ oh-so-memorable songs making for a crowd-pleasing evening of Golden Era musical theater.
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NICKEL MINES
Wednesday, June 4th, 2014
On October 2, 2006, a 32-year-old husband and father entered an Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, took hostage ten girls ages 6 to 13 , shot five of them to death, critically injured the remaining five, then took his own life. Hardly the stuff of your average, everyday musical, and in fact Andrew Palermo’s Nickel Mines (co-written with Shannon Stoeke and Dan Dyer) proves neither average nor everyday but something quite extraordinary indeed, tragedy turned into art, and the power of grace as it may never have been shown before.
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LES MISÉRABLES
Sunday, June 1st, 2014
Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert are duking it out on the stage of the La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts in what may well be the L.A. musical theater production of the year as the international phenomenon that is Boublil And Schönberg’s Les Misérables gets its long-awaited Los Angeles Regional Premiere from the theater that has brought audiences spectacular big-stage productions of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Miss Saigon, and Peter Pan in the last two or so years alone.
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DORIAN’S DESCENT
Saturday, May 31st, 2014NOT RECOMMENDED
A quartet of stellar performers, a gifted composer/musical director, and L.A.’s costume designer du jour at his most over-the-top fabulous can’t, unfortunately, save the Oscar Wilde-based World Premiere musical Dorian’s Descent from descending into three hours’ worth of clichéd dialog and lyrics, jarring tonal shifts, and good intentions gone disastrously bad.
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THE GONDOLIERS
Saturday, May 24th, 2014NOT RECOMMENDED
Gorgeous voices fill the stage at the Sierra Madre Playhouse but that’s about all there is to recommend in Alison Eliel-Kalmus’s adaptation of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers. Though G&S fans may find the production more interest-piquing than this reviewer did, SMP’s follow-up to 2012’s Ruddigore could benefit from a tighter directorial hand, less “director’s concept,” and a stricter adherence to the operetta’s original book.
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THE MUSIC MAN
Saturday, May 24th, 2014
Director-choreographer Valerie Rachelle and a couldn’t-be-better cast get everything right in Glendale Centre Theatre’s crowd-delighting revival of Meredith Willson’s 1957 classic The Music Man, an in-the-round production well worth a 76-trombone salute.
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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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