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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[title of show]
Sunday, January 13th, 2013
Santa Ana’s Theatre Out opens what looks to be its most exciting season to date with the Tony-nominated [title of show], a four-performer musical every bit as unique as its title, and one which offers OC audiences a combination of non-stop hilarity, bouncy songs with some inspired lyrics, and a quartet of delightful performances under the imaginative direction of three-time Scenie winner Tito Ortiz (who also choreographs this time round).
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THE ADDAMS FAMILY
Wednesday, December 19th, 2012
Talk about The Addams Family and the oldest among us will recall the darkly humorous single-panel cartoons that appeared in the New Yorker from 1938 on. Boomers will instantly flash back to the black-and-white mid-1960s sitcom of the same name, and their children will remember either the ‘73 or ‘92 animated Addams Family series, or the ’91 film adaptation (or either of its two sequels). And that’s not counting The New Addams Family (the late ‘90s remake of the original TV series) or an Addams family video game and even an Addams family pinball machine.
Still, it wasn’t until two years ago that Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, Lurch, Grandma, Wednesday, Pugsley, and Cousin It made their Broadway debut in the 725-performance The Addams Family, and it is that Drama Desk and Drama League Award-winning musical that has arrived at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center For The Arts in its hilarious, crowd-pleasingly revised First National Tour.
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CAROUSEL
Monday, December 10th, 2012
Rodgers and Hammerstein may have had their first (and longest-running) Broadway smash with Oklahoma! The Sound Of Music may well be their best-loved hit, thanks in large measure to the big-screen Julie Andrews movie classic. South Pacific and The King And I may each have their passionate fans, among which this reviewer counts himself. Be that as it may, in my humble opinion, none of the above quite match the overall brilliance and innovation of the extraordinary Carousel, R&H’s second Broadway hit.
It is this 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein classic that the enormously talented students o“Ballet.” Cal State Fullerton’s illustrious Musical Theatre BFA program now bring back to powerful, gorgeous life for 21st Century audiences.
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THE EIGHT: REINDEER MONOLOGUES
Tuesday, November 27th, 2012
Chance Theater resident artist Casey Long could hardly have imagined back in 2004 that eight Christmases later he’d be performing in the Ninth Annual Chance production of The Eight: Reindeer Monologues. Yet, miracle of miracles, Casey and the rest of The Eight (reindeer that is) continue shocking and delighting Orange County audiences with year after year of raunchy, R-rated yuletide cheer, written by Jeff Goode (author of the equally adult-themed Poona The Fuckdog And Other Plays For Children).
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LITTLE WOMEN THE BROADWAY MUSICAL
Sunday, November 25th, 2012
Little Women The Broadway Musical returns to the Chance Theater for the first time since its maiden holiday engagement in 2009, and to paraphrase an Oscar-nominated song, the Chance hit proves even more wonderful the second time around.
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MEMPHIS
Wednesday, November 7th, 2012
December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. November 6, 2012: Barack Obama is reelected to the Presidency of the United States. What a difference 57 years make!
November 6, 2012 happens also to have been the Opening Night of the National Tour of Memphis, the Tony-winning Best Musical set in the same decade Rosa Parks made her historic stand for racial equality, a serendipitous coincidence given that Memphis is the fictional but fact-inspired tale of Huey Calhoun, a Memphis DJ who made history in his own way by daring to play “race music” on mainstream, i.e. white radio. That particularly groundbreaking step, and Calhoun’s then illegal romance with a young singer he meets on his first visit to a “colored” nightclub, are at the heart of one of the most powerful—and most tuneful and exuberant—musicals Broadway has seen in many a year.
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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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