BRIGADOON
Wednesday, May 20th, 2026
Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s Brigadoon gets a long overdue makeover at the Pasadena Playhouse, one that updates Lerner’s creaky book while not changing a note of the musical theater classic’ gorgeous score, and the result is the most glorious of revivals.
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LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
Tuesday, May 19th, 2026
I’ve attended a whopping sixteen productions of the iconic horror comedy rock musical Little Shop Of Horrors, but seeing it “dancified” at the Lineage Performing Arts Center made me feel I was experiencing the off-Broadway camp classic for the very first time.
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EXIT THE KING
Wednesday, May 13th, 2026Unless you are a huge fan of existentialist theater, you’ll probably find A Noise Within’s revival of Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist comedy Exit The King a very long hour and forty-five minutes.
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DEATH OF A SALESMAN
Monday, March 30th, 2026
Geoff Elliott’s magnificent star turn as Willy Loman, nearly a dozen impeccable supporting performances, and inspired direction and design by an all-star A Noise Within team add up to as brilliant a revival of Death Of A Salesman as any Arthur Miller aficionado could ever hope to see.
RICHARD III
Friday, February 27th, 2026Ann Noble delivers a tour-de-force performance in the title role, but I found Guillermo Cienfuegos’s edgy, contemporary, stunningly staged take on William Shakespeare’s Richard III hard to follow (and most of its characters hard to distinguish one from another). Then again, that just might be me and my conflicted feelings about the Bard, particularly when he is in history play mode.
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AMADEUS
Tuesday, February 17th, 2026
Tony Award winner Jefferson Mays and West End/Bridgerton breakout star Sam Clemmett burn up the stage in what may well be the most sumptuous production in Pasadena Playhouse history in Darko Tresnjak’s stunning take on Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus.
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A CHRISTMAS CAROL
Sunday, December 21st, 2025
A production design that just keeps getting more gorgeous, staging that gets more and more inventive year after year, new songs and harmonies to make it seem almost a musical, and cast additions that only add to the magic… For these reasons and more, there’s no A Christmas Carol in town that comes close to matching A Noise Within’s one-of-a-kind take on the Charles Dickens classic.
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HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Monday, October 20th, 2025
Unique doesn’t begin to describe the out-of-the-ordinary theatrical experience that is Julia Masli’s weird and wonderful, almost entirely improvised Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha, a Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company Touring Production now wowing audiences at the Pasadena Playhouse.
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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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