RAGTIME
Monday, September 15th, 2025Some fine lead performances and plenty of soaring full-cast harmonies shine in Actors Repertory Theater of Simi’s restaging of the Broadway classic Ragtime, but the move from the intimate Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center to the far larger El Portal Theatre mainstage proves more a minus than a plus.
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INTO THE WOODS
Saturday, August 30th, 2025
Wisteria Theater Company reimagines Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into The Woods as seen through the eyes of a child and the result is a production so sparklingly new, I felt almost as if I were experiencing the Broadway musical classic, one I’ve now seen in a whopping 24 productions, for the very first time.
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SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER
Saturday, August 23rd, 2025Even a minor Tennessee Williams play like Suddenly Last Summer deserves far better than the misbegotten revival the 1958 one-act is being given at North Hollywood’s Whitmore-Lindley Theatre.
THE HEIDI CHRONICLES
Saturday, August 2nd, 2025
Playwright Wendy Wasserstein encapsulates a quarter century of the American women’s movement as she recounts the Life and Loves of Heidi Holland in her Pulitzer Prize-winning dramedy The Heidi Chronicles, now being given an absorbing, illuminating 37th-anniversary revival at the Group Rep Theatre.
XANADU
Saturday, July 12th, 2025
Wisteria Theater Company makes it five hits in a row with their zestfully entertaining take on Douglas Carter Beane’s 2005 Broadway treat Xanadu, itself a textbook example of how to turn a movie lemon into multiple Tony-nominated lemonade.
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MOTEL 66
Saturday, June 28th, 2025The seven one-acts that comprise the latest incarnation of the Group Rep’s Motel 66 may not all be slam-dunks, and a couple of them are not ideally cast, but put them all together and you’ve got one enjoyable afternoon or evening of short-form live theater.
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NETWORK
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025Bert 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
Sunday, May 25th, 2025
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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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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