LEGALLY BLONDE
Saturday, June 17th, 2017Elle Woods wins cases and hearts once again as Cupcake Theater entertains SoCal audiences with a dynamically performed Legally Blonde, marred on opening night by some serious technical glitches but worth a standing ovation for Arri Leigh’s star-making performance as the most bodaciously brainy blonde beauty Harvard University has ever seen.
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THE LYONS
Saturday, May 13th, 2017Ben, Rita, Lisa, and Curtis Lyons give the Lomans, the Tyrones, and the Giddenses a run for their dysfunctional family money, albeit with considerably more laughter-provoking results in Nicky Silver’s The Lyons, the latest darkly comedic bit of brilliance from The Road Theatre Company, a Los Angeles Premiere incisively directed by Scott Alan Smith.
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OF MICE AND MEN
Friday, May 5th, 2017Spencer Cantrell and Gregory Crafts give riveting performances as migrant farm workers George and Lenny in Theatre Unleashed’s intimate revival of John Steinbeck’s classic tale of human loneliness and impossible dreams, the 20th-century classic Of Mice And Men.
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THIS IS OUR YOUTH
Tuesday, April 4th, 2017Two decades before Manchester By The Sea won him a Best Original Screenplay Oscar, Kenneth Lonergan burst upon the theatrical scene with This Is Our Youth, the then 30something playwright’s funny, biting, perceptive look at three privileged but disaffected 20ish New Yorkers in the early Reagan ‘80s, a coming-of-age tale that now provides three 20ish L.A. acting up-and-comers with a terrific vehicle to strut their comedic-dramatic stuff.
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LITTLE CHILDREN DREAM OF GOD
Tuesday, March 28th, 2017Miami reality meets Haitian black magic in Jeff Augustin’s Little Children Dream Of God, a stunningly directed, designed, and performed Road Theatre Company West Coast Premiere.
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LOVE ALLWAYS
Monday, March 20th, 2017Gloria Gifford directs half-a-hundred of her attractive young acting students in assorted scenes from five 1970s Renée Taylor-Joseph Bologna TV specials, compiled as Love Allways, a Los Angeles Premiere that proves a mixed bag of Love Boat-style winners, losers, and in-betweeners. The good news is that you’re never far from the next winner, including the show-opening “Herb, Erica, Stuart, & Joanne” and the evening’s grand finale “Tony & Madelaine” (assuming you attended the performance reviewed here).
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AMERICAN IDIOT
Saturday, March 18th, 2017Cupcake Theater follows its family-friendly welcome-back-to-the-sixties Hairspray revival with the sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll of Green Day’s American Idiot, every bit the crowd-pleaser of its predecessor (but with parental discretion advised).
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DANNY AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA
Friday, March 10th, 2017Renée Marino and J. Bailey Burcham are absolutely riveting as two of the most damaged souls you’ll ever see sharing a stage in Panic! Productions and Theatre 68’s powerful revival of John Patrick Shanley’s gut-wrenching yet unexpectedly magical Danny And The Deep Blue Sea.
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