BAT BOY THE MUSICAL
Thursday, October 9th, 2008NOT RECOMMENDED
In the eleven years since Bat Boy: The Musical began its life here in L.A. at the Actors’ Gang Theatre, it has gone on to be produced Off-Broadway, in London’s West End, at the Edinburgh Festival and in dozens of regional and international productions. The original L.A. production received four Ovation Awards, and Off-Broadway it won both the Lucille Lortel Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award as Best Musical. The revised London script is now getting its first local staging in a production which I wish I could say is worthy of the material.
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EARTH SUCKS
Sunday, October 5th, 2008NOT RECOMMENDED
–How do you explain gravity?
–Earth sucks.
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BE LIKE WATER
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008NOT RECOMMENDED
It’s not easy being 14, especially when you’re different from the other kids. That’s what Chinese-Japanese-American Tracy (Saya Tomioka) has discovered in her Uptown Chicago neighborhood in the year 1978. Unlike her popular classmate Tina (Ariel Rivera), an Asian teen Farrah Fawcett clone, Tracy would rather watch Bruce Lee movies than go to Nisei dances. Unlike her unfortunately named classmate Bruce Lee (Shawn Huang), Tracy would rather practice kung fu moves than dance the latest disco steps to “Disco Inferno” or “He’s The Greatest Dancer.”
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SUMMER SIZZLE ONE-ACT FESTIVAL
Friday, September 5th, 2008NOT RECOMMENDED
The Production Company is taking a break from its usual full length fare (following their much lauded Mrs. Warren’s Profession and preceding the much anticipated M Butterfly) to give 8 local playwrights the opportunity to show off their comic wares in The Summer Sizzle One-Act Play Festival (and competition).
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SONA TERA ROMAN HESS
Sunday, August 17th, 2008NOT RECOMMENDED
“Some people never die, and I am one.”
These are the words that begin Sona Tera Roman Hess, described in press materials as “the story of a family struggling to reconstruct itself in the aftermath of a strange infidelity, set against the backdrop of impending war.”
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SPRING’S AWAKENING
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008NOT RECOMMENDED
German playwright Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play Spring’s Awakening was so shocking for its era that when it finally opened in New York 26 years later, it took a Supreme Court injunction to allow the show to go on … and then only for a single performance before closing. With scenes of masturbation, violence, and sex between 14-year-old characters, it is no wonder that pre-Roaring 20s audiences were shocked to the point of outrage.
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IN ON IT
Sunday, June 8th, 2008NOT RECOMMENDED
In Daniel MacIvor’s In On It, two actors perform on a bare black stage, their sole “props” being a pair of chairs and a gray suit jacket. Who are these two men? Are they actors? Writers? Students in an acting class? They seem to be preparing a play or movie about someone named Ray who was involved in an accident. At various times, both performers (named “This One” and “That One”) don the jacket to become Ray, or doff it to portray one of the other characters in Ray’s life. Other scenes between the two men, a gay couple, have them discussing their work in progress. Still others seem to be flashbacks from their past.
NYMPHONY IN 12D
Saturday, May 24th, 2008NOT RECOMMENDED
Apartment 12-D tenant Brick Wilson (Rusty Hamrick) is the biggest up-and-coming opera singer in the Ansonia Hotel, which isn’t saying much. His best role so far has been that of the bearded lady in a zarzuela. Brick is frequently visited by a beauteous (though occasionally invisible) nymph (Beth Whitney), whose mission is to inspire him to greatness. Unfortunately for the nymph, Brick is gay, so her beauteousness is pretty much lost on him.
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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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