ANASTASIA
Wednesday, November 6th, 2019A Disney-style animated flick for the kiddies gets transformed into an epic romantic musical for grown-ups in Anastasia, now evoking oohs and aahs at the Segerstrom Center For The Arts for its gorgeous costumes and spectacular projection designs as well as abundant applause for its trio of thrilling lead performances, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s lush musical score, and Peggy Hickey’s eclectic choreography.
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AUBERGINE
Monday, October 28th, 2019Julia Cho returns to South Coast Repertory with Aubergine, the Korean-American playwright’s deeply moving meditation on love, life, dying, death, family, memory … and the role that food plays in all of the above.
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DISNEY’S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Thursday, October 24th, 2019Leave it to Cal State Fullerton’s musical-theater majors to give audiences a Disney’s Beauty And The Beast that tops just about every professional production I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a bunch.
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THE CANADIANS
Monday, October 14th, 2019A couple of small-town 20something BFFs embark on the gay cruise of a lifetime courtesy of South Coast Repertory in Adam Bock’s hilarious–and unexpectedly touching–World Premiere romantic comedy The Canadians.
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MISS SAIGON
Thursday, October 3rd, 2019Miss Saigon’s epic blend of war, romance, and show-stopping production numbers has rarely if ever been brought to more dazzling, breathtaking life than in its Tony-nominated 2017 Broadway revival’s First National Tour, now mesmerizing and moving audiences in equal measure at the Segerstrom Center For The Arts.
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THE VANDAL
Saturday, September 28th, 2019A teenager chats up a woman old enough to be his mother (but just barely) at a freezing cold hospital-and-cemetery-adjacent Kingston, NY bus stop and then …
It’s the “and then” that makes Hamish Linklater’s The Vandal a quirkily comedic, profoundly moving 80-minute wonder in its Chance Theater West Coast Premiere.
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AMERICAN MARIACHI
Monday, September 16th, 2019I dare you not to fall for South Coast Repertory’s American Mariachi, the crowd-pleasingest season opener any major American regional theater could wish for.
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STRONG ARM
Tuesday, July 16th, 2019Taking as his inspiration Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, playwright Wyn Moreno has created a contemporary dysfunctional family dramedy that stands tall on its own merits in Strong Arm, the World Premiere latest from Orange County’s The Wayward Artist.
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