BABY IT’S YOU
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
In the Eisenhower late-1950s, a housewife and mother did not suddenly come to the realization that there was life outside her kitchen and living room and traipse off to the big city in search of something more. She did not suddenly decide to “get into” the record business, even if her children were nearly grown and off on their own, and not even if told by her daughter, “Mom, there are some girls in my high school who sing so well they could be recording stars.” No. Back then housewives and mothers in Passaic, New Jersey knew that their place was in the home and they stayed there … all but one, all but Florence Greenberg. Florence saw that there was indeed life away from the suburbs, a life in New York City, and the four high school girls her daughter Mary Jane was telling her about became the first big girl group of the 1960s, The Shirelles, under contract to Scepter Records, Florence’s very own label.
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THE NIGHT IS A CHILD
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
Who wouldn’t want to escape the winter cold of Massachusetts for the beaches of Rio De Janeiro? Certainly not 50ish widow-housewife-mother-grandmother Harriet Easton, who’s just arrived in the land of sun and samba. Harriet’s face lights up with joy at the simple fact of being in Brazil, but her smile hides a pain almost too excruciating to live with, the grisly reason for which is revealed pouco a pouco in Charles Randolph-Wright’s magical new play The Night Is A Child, now getting a stunning staging at the Pasadena Playhouse under the nuanced direction of Sheldon Epps.
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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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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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