FLASHDANCE THE MUSICAL
Wednesday, May 8th, 2013
The ‘80s come exhilaratingly back to life as Alex Owens once again pursues her dream of leaving behind her drab steel mill-worker-by-day, nightclub-dancer-by-night life and becoming a serious ballerina in Flashdance The Musical, now playing at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center For the Arts. And the verdict? Despite a book that still needs work, last night’s Opening Night standing ovation leaves no doubt that Flashdance is a bona fide crowd-pleaser.
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THE LARAMIE PROJECT: 10 YEARS LATER
Thursday, April 25th, 2013
The hate crime that was the brutal 1998 murder of 21-year-old University Of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard brought playwright Moisés Kaufman and fellow members of New York’s Tectonic Theater Project to the town of Laramie in search of answers. Who could have committed such a barbaric act (and why?) … and how did the residents of Laramie react to Shepard’s murder, and to the attention it focused on their city of 28,000?
The result of Kaufman and his team’s* eighteen-month research was The Laramie Project, which Los Angeles audiences got their first look at when the Colony Theatre Company staged it to memorable effect in 2002.
Ten years after their initial visits, Kaufman and the Tectonics returned to Laramie to find out how much the city and its residents had changed in the ensuing decade, the result of which is The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later.
Orange County’s award-winning Chance Theater now presents both plays in rep, offering Southern California audiences the rare opportunity to see not only where we were at the time of Matthew’s murder, but also how far we’ve come since then, and assuming Oanh Nguyen’s staging of the original is as powerful as the sequel reviewed here (as I’m certain it must be), then Angelinos and Orange County residents alike are in for a humdinger of a double feature.
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THE PARISIAN WOMAN
Wednesday, April 24th, 2013
Calculating, conniving, deceitful, devious, shrewd, sly, underhanded, and unscrupulous are just a handful of the ways audience members might describe Chloe, the title character in Beau Willimon’s World Premiere play The Parisian Woman. Add beguiling, bewitching, captivating, seductive, and sexy, and you’ve got an idea of how this born-and-raised-in-the-USA “Parisienne” manages to be such a schemer … and get away with it, particularly when played to perfection by two-time Emmy winner Dana Delany, who manages to convince us that Chloe is all of the above … and more.
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ALL SHOOK UP
Sunday, April 21st, 2013
With its hit-filled score made up of over two dozen Elvis classics, its clever, funny book by Joe DiPietro, its delicious cast of characters, and ample opportunities for a choreographer to strut his or her stuff, All Shook Up, “The Elvis Musical,” is not only one of the most thoroughly entertaining Broadway shows of the past decade, it makes for an ideal talent showcase for the gifted Cal State Fullerton students who play its ten leading roles and for its sensational triple-threat ensemble as well.
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[title of show]
Saturday, April 20th, 2013
Following last fall’s gem of a production of Adam Gwon’s Ordinary Days, the students of Cal State Fullerton’s prestigious Musical Theater BFA program have returned to Santa Ana’s blackbox Grand Central Theatre for Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen’s [title of show], which like Ordinary Days serves as a couldn’t-be-better showcase for a quartet of triple-threats (two juniors and two seniors) on their way to successful careers in musical theater.
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BILLY ELLIOT
Wednesday, April 17th, 2013
Musicals don’t get much bigger or more spectacular than the international smash Billy Elliot, a nearly three-hour song-and-dance extravaganza that never forgets that it is, at heart, the intimate story of a boy who, in the words of Gene Kelly, has simply “Gotta Dance.”
L.A./Orange County audiences now have the next two weeks to experience the laughter, the tears, the thrills, and the sheer joy that is Billy, winner of ten 2009 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Direction of a Musical, and in a Broadway first, a Best Leading Actor Tony awarded to all three Broadway Billys.
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SMOKEFALL
Wednesday, April 10th, 2013
Man, woman, birth, death, infinity.
The spirit of Thornton Wilder is alive and well and living inside playwright Noah Haidle, whose remarkable Smokefall, now getting its World Premiere at South Coast Repertory, bears comparison with Wilder’s Our Town and The Skin Of Our Teeth.
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THE WHALE
Thursday, March 21st, 2013
A morbidly obese man attempts to reconcile with his angry teenage daughter.
This is all I knew about Samuel D. Hunter’s The Whale going in, and if you wish to be as blown away by this absolutely brilliant, unexpectedly funny, devastatingly powerful new play as I was, ask no questions. Simply reserve your seat at South Coast Repertory and let Hunter, director Martin Benson, and five phenomenal actors do the rest. You’ll thank me for not having given anything but this away.
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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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