HAVING IT ALL
Wednesday, March 13th, 2013
Having scored a grand total of seven Ovation Award nominations in its 2011 World Premiere run, the hit musical Having It All now graduates to the big stage of the Laguna Playhouse in a production which reunites four of its five original stars and preserves the many pleasures Angelinos enjoyed in it the first time round … and then some.
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WICKED
Friday, February 22nd, 2013
There are Broadway hits, Broadway smashes, Broadway mega-smashes, and then there is Wicked. Rapidly approaching 4000 performances at the Gershwin Theatre after nearly ten years on the Great White Way… North American and International productions and tours galore… And not one but two major National Tours currently visiting cities throughout North America. The Second National Tour* stopped at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center For The Arts two years ago, and now it’s the First National Tour making a four-week visit to Costa Mesa in a production that Wicked fans and newbies will not want to miss. Quite simply put, for song, dance, story, spectacle, and emotional impact, Wicked is in a class all by itself.
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9 To 5
Monday, February 18th, 2013
Working 9 to 5 may be “no way to make a living,” but watching office gals Judy, Violet, and Doralee triumph over their sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot of a boss makes for one very entertaining evening or afternoon at the theater, particularly when 3-D Theatricals is offering Dolly Parton’s 9 To 5 as their 2013 season opener.
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CHINGLISH
Wednesday, February 6th, 2013
“East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet” … because if so, complications will surely ensue as they do in David Henry Hwang’s hilarious (and eye-opening) Chinglish, freshly arrived at South Coast Repertory from Berkeley Rep with its entire creative team and virtually its entire cast intact.
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TRIASSIC PARQ – THE MUSICAL
Friday, February 1st, 2013
When Michael Crichton first sat down to pen Jurassic Park, little did he realize that a trio of young musical theater writers would one day come up with Triassic Parq – The Musical, an unauthorized retelling of the Crichton novel as the dinosaurs themselves might have told it … and the wildest, wackiest, filthiest, campiest, and most entertaining show ever written from a dino’s point of view.
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CHAPTER TWO
Friday, January 25th, 2013
Love’s more wonderful the second time around for widowed novelist George Schneider in Neil Simon’s Chapter Two, or at least it would be if memories of his beloved late wife Barbara didn’t get in the way of starting afresh with actress Jennie Malone.
Simon’s 1977 gem arrives at Laguna Playhouse as fresh and funny as ever, the absence of the Internet, cell phones, and social media making it a delightful period piece as do mentions of As The World Turns, Merv Griffin, and Fresca.
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WAR HORSE
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013
Simply put, War Horse is a theatrical experience unlike any other you have ever witnessed. A spectacular, breathtaking work of art that does things usually reserved only for the movies, it had this reviewer gasping in awe and blubbering like a baby. Trust me, you’ve never seen anything like it before.
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THE MOTHERF**KER WITH THE HAT
Wednesday, January 16th, 2013
The play with arguably the most unprintable title in Broadway history now gets its West Coast Premiere at South Coast Repertory, once again providing mainstream publications, broadcast media, and SCR with the following dilemma—how to write or talk about a comedy whose title New York publications censored as either The ___________ With the Hat or The [Expletive] With the Hat or The Mother With The Hat (say what?), and whose “official” title is for most media the still unprintable The Motherf**cker With the Hat. Perhaps that’s why, despite the star power of Bobby Cannavale, Chris Rock, and Annabella Sciorra in the original New York cast and a total of six Tony nominations, popular playwright Stephen Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Broadway debut closed after a grand total of 28 previews and 112 performances.
Fortunately for South Coast Rep, The Motherfucker With The Hat (there, I’ve written it and will write it again) has generated enough buzz (it was the 8th most produced play in the U.S. last year) that even lacking name stars, that buzz—plus the rave reviews this sensational production has already generated—is likely to keep every one of the Julianne Argyros Stage’s 336 seats filled throughout its three-week run.
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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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