CROWNS
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009RECOMMENDED
The all-around stupendous performances of its seven stars are the best reason to see Crowns at the Pasadena Playhouse. Six of the country’s most talented African American singer-actresses and one equally gifted singer-actor do powerful work in Regina Taylor’s musical adaptation of Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry’s eponymous book about church women and their beloved hats.
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THE LITTLE FOXES
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009
There were no air conditioners or airplanes, no television or traffic lights in 1900. Ballpoint pens and shopping carts had yet to be invented, nor had calculators or computers. Still, despite how different our 21st Century world may seem from the one inhabited by the Hubbards of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, at least one thing remains very much the same—greed. When Ben Hubbard utters the prophetic lines, “There are hundreds of Hubbards sitting in rooms like this throughout the country. All their names aren’t Hubbard, but they are all Hubbards and they will own this country some day,” he could easily be speaking of the CEOs whose greed is in large part responsible for today’s economic woes. Despite being seventy years old and taking place more than a century ago, The Little Foxes is as relevant as ever, as well as being crackling good theater, especially in a production as exciting, powerful, and contemporary as the one now playing at the Pasadena Playhouse.
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MAURITIUS
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
A play about stamps. How boring, you might imagine.
Wrong!
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STORMY WEATHER
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009
The legendary Lena Horne is brought to vivid life by a pair of stellar performers in the Pasadena Playhouse production of Stormy Weather. Like the Playhouse’s electric Ray Charles Live, Sharleen Cooper Cohen’s bio-musical (under the assured direction of Michael Bush) revisits the life of a show biz superstar through the eyes of her grown-up self, played here by triple-threat stage, screen, and recording star Leslie Uggams. Young Lena is the equally gifted Nicki Crawford, and together they take the audience on a half-century journey from Harlem’s Cotton Club to the stages of the world—punctuated by some of the greatest songs of the era.
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U.S. DRAG
Thursday, October 30th, 2008RECOMMENDED
Romy and Michelle are alive and well and living on the stage of the Furious Theatre in Pasadena. Well, if not exactly Romy and Michelle of High School Reunion fame, at least their kissing cousins.
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THE LADY WITH ALL THE ANSWERS
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008
Advice columnist Ann Landers had for decades been famous as “the lady with all the answers” when, on a night in 1975, she sat down to write the most difficult column in her career. “The lady with all the answers doesn’t have an answer to this one,” wrote Ann … in the column which announced to her readers the end of her 36-year marriage.
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VANITIES
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
Vanities, the new Broadway-bound musical at the Pasadena Playhouse, takes a tuneful, laugh-filled, and sometimes emotional look at the lives of three small town Texas women from the optimistic Camelot years of the early 1960s, through the draft card and bra burning the late 60s, and on into the swinging 70s. Based on Jack Heifner’s immensely popular three-character three-scene comedy (one of the longest running plays in off-Broadway history), Vanities (the musical) adds David Kirshenbaum’s catchy melodies and story-propelling lyrics to the mix, plus a fourth scene (bringing the women up to 1990), to create a laughter and tear-filled 90-minute musical journey through the lives of three very different best friends.
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LOOPED
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
Tallulah.
For anyone over a certain age, there was, is, will always be only one Tallulah.
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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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