ONE NOVEMBER YANKEE

RECOMMENDED
A single-engine Piper J-3 Cub airplane crashes in the New Hampshire woods, its two passengers soon arriving at the inexorable conclusion that neither is likely to survive the freezing winter night. Playwright-director Joshua Ravetch takes this incident and expands upon it in unexpected ways in One November Yankee, now getting its World Premiere production at North Hollywood’s NoHo Arts Center.
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CHRISTMAS MY WAY – A SINATRA HOLIDAY BASH!


Memories of holidays spent listening to the song stylings of Ol’ Blue Eyes come back to life in Christmas My Way – A Sinatra Holiday Bash!, now entertaining audiences at North Hollywood’s historic El Portal Theater.
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COLLECTED STORIES


Two of L.A.’s most gifted actresses ignite the stage in The Group Rep’s production of Donald Margulies’ Pulitzer Prize finalist Collected Stories,  giving performances every bit as brilliant as one might expect to see on the stages of our finest regional theaters.
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YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU

If you love Kaufman and Hart’s 1930s classic You Can’t Take It With You as much as I do, then the best news in town will surely be The Antaeus Company’s sensational revival of this screwball gem, a production that gives audiences two completely different casts to choose from—and more.
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DANGEROUS CORNER

RECOMMENDED
“Director’s concept” is a tricky business. When inspired, it can enhance a writer’s intentions and allow audiences to see a play or musical in new, exciting ways. When misguided, it can detract from a production’s effectiveness and distract an audience from a clear perception of what the playwright is trying to say. The latter proves to be the case in Crown City Theatre Company’s revival of J.B. Priestley’s 1932 drama Dangerous Corner, though fortunately not fatally so.
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THE RED ROOM

NOT RECOMMENDED

Memories of the past haunt the present of a once successful Hollywood mogul, his tormented wife, and their three adult sons in Christopher Knopf’s frustratingly abstruse The Red Room, now getting its World Premiere at North Hollywood’s NoHo Arts Center.
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EPIC PROPORTIONS

RECOMMENDED
If ever there were a play more suited to North Hollywood’s Avery Schreiber Theatre than Broadway’s Helen Hayes (where it flopped back in 1999), that play is Larry Coen & David Crane’s Epic Proportions, an entertaining small-scale spoof of those cheesy Biblical epics that were once part of Hollywood’s bread and butter. (Or should that be dates and hummus?)
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WAR BRIDE


When returning WWII G.I. Alvin Rhodes told his mother Catherine he’d be bringing a surprise back to Merced with him, she thought he meant a lovely tea set. About the last thing she was expecting was a Japanese bride. After all, it was only the month before that the “Japs” had surrendered, and as far as Catherine was concerned, they were still our enemy. How dare Alvin play this sick joke on her? How dare he commit treason in this way!

Thus begins Samantha Macher’s highly original and often quite gripping War Bride, now getting its World Premiere production by SkyPilot Theatre, astutely directed and imaginatively choreographed by Nancy Dobbs Owen.
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