NETWORK

Bert Emmett is on fire in the role that won Peter Finch a posthumous Oscar, but the snail-paced production the Group Rep has staged of Lee Hall’s West End-to-Broadway adaptation of Paddy Chayefsky’s Oscar-winning screenplay for 1976’s Network fails to ignite similar sparks.
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RODGERS + HAMMERSTEIN’S CINDERELLA


Delightful performances, clever direction, and Douglas Carter Beane’s fresh new book are three big reasons why Wisteria Theater’s scaled-down take on the 2013 Broadway revival of the 1950s live TV classic known as Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella makes it four winners in a row for the new North Hollywood company.
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THE TOTALITY OF ALL THINGS


All hell breaks loose in an Indiana town when a swastika is found spray-painted on a classroom bulletin board celebrating the recent legalization of same-sex marriage in Erik Gernand’s The Totality Of All Things, a discussion-provoking, expectations-defying Road Theatre Company West Coast Premiere.

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THE WEDDING SINGER


There may be less than half the number of performers lighting up the stage as was the case on Broadway back in 2006, but Wisteria Theater’s stripped-down take on The Wedding Singer loses not one iota of entertainment value where the movie romcom turned Broadway musical is concerned.
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1984

Leif Gantvoort’s powerful lead performance and Danny Cistone’s ingenious production design are the chief selling points of Robo & Bash’s production of George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984. Its tonally off first act and less accomplished supporting cast not so much.

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THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE


Wisteria Theatre makes it two hits in a row with their completely captivating take on the 2005 Broadway hit The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, impressively directed by Brayden Hade.
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DRAT! THE CAT!


Sixty years after it flopped big time on Broadway, the largely forgotten Drat! The Cat! has been given fresh new life by director Bruce Kimmel in a delightful, six-decades-postponed West Coast Premiere at the Group Rep Theatre.
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ONE FOR MY BABY

A musical can have hit potential where songs, dances, performances, and production design are concerned, however without a compelling, coherent book to grab an audience, it can still end up a miss, case in point the 3-plus-hour-long retro jukebox musical One For My Baby, now getting its World Premiere at North Hollywood’s El Portal Theatre.
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