EPIC PROPORTIONS
Tuesday, September 11th, 2012RECOMMENDED
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
Monday, August 20th, 2012
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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PAUL+CHRIS: TOGETHER AGAIN (FOR THE FIRST TIME)
Wednesday, August 15th, 2012
Take two of L.A.’s most handsome and vocally gifted musical theater performers—partners in music and life for the past eleven years. Stir in a dozen and a half tunes showcasing their talents both as individuals and as a duo. Back with some terrific ivory-tickling and surround with a theaterful of fans and friends and you’ve got Paul+Chris: Together Again (for the first time), an evening of musical theatre songs “exploring the surprises of friendship, longing, and love,” and one far too entertaining for its one performance only last night at the NoHo Arts Center.
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A RING IN BROOKLYN
Saturday, August 11th, 2012
The Academy For New Musical Theatre follows last year’s 40 Is The New 15 with another flashback-to-the-past World Premiere musical, A Ring In Brooklyn (subtitled “a frickin’ musical”), and if their latest project gets off to an iffy start, about halfway through Act One it kicks into gear and turns out a winner.
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THE PARIS LETTER
Monday, July 30th, 2012
Back in the pre-Stonewall decade when Anton Kilgallen and Sandy Sonnenberg were in their twenties, there were basically two choices for big city gay men. Anton opted for the first, living as “openly” as was possible in the underground world of illegal gay bars and private parties. Sandy chose the second, attempting a pseudo-straight lifestyle by marrying someone of the opposite sex and doing his best to repress whatever same-sex urges might threaten to erupt.
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MACBETH
Saturday, July 21st, 2012
Director extraordinaire Jessica Kubzansky humanizes the murderous Macbeth and his lethal Lady McB in a uniquely powerful production of Shakespeare’s “Scottish Play,” particularly as performed by a mashup of the Antaeus Company’s double-cast ensemble.
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THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
Saturday, June 23rd, 2012
Most Palisades High School theater students would probably never dream of making a career out of producing and starring in William Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits, yet that is precisely the dream that Charles Pasternak and his fellow Pali-Highers Edward Castuera and Jack Leahy shared a decade or so ago, a dream which led to the 2006 founding of an exciting young theater company bent on staging every single play in the Shakespearean oeuvre. When I reviewed my very first The Porters Of Hellsgate production, Love’s Labor’s Lost, back in 2008, they were already at number eight in only their second season. The Merry Wives Of Windsor makes it fourteen* and counting, and as in productions past, The Porters have once again come up with an original take on a Shakespeare standard and done so with considerable skill and panache.
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THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED
Monday, June 18th, 2012
The Little Dog Laughed, Douglas Carter Beane’s hilarious, edgy Hollywood-New York showbiz satire, has arrived in North Hollywood with its cutting-edge love story between a gay movie star and a bisexual hustler and its much touted (albeit brief) display of full-frontal male nudity. Though one of its four performances still needs considerably sharpening, director Jon Cortez and cast are largely successful in entertaining, titillating, and maybe even coaxing a tear or two from audiences in search of comedy with a bite.
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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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