HAIRSPRAY
Saturday, January 7th, 2012RECOMMENDED
Following more than six years on Broadway, a pair of National Tours, and numerous regional theater productions, the smash hit musical Hairspray is at last being licensed to community theaters across the land, the better to spread its message of love and acceptance and equality to cities large and small. Moorpark’s High Street Arts Center is first out of the gate this year with a production which, while no match for MTW’s nigh-on perfect Equity staging this past November, nonetheless offers numerous delights to Ventura County audiences.
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ASKANCE
Saturday, December 24th, 2011RECOMMENDED
The sins of the past play havoc with the lives of a trio of seniors about to be booted from their retirement home in Kerr Seth Lordygan’s World Premiere drama Askance. Though still a work in progress, Askance is capably directed for the Eclectic Company Theatre by Sabrina Lloyd, features several particularly strong performances, and concludes with some satisfying Act Two surprise twists and revelations.
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ROSES IN DECEMBER
Friday, December 9th, 2011RECOMMENDED
A formal invitation to a class reunion is but the first of dozens upon dozens of letters exchanged between the Assistant Director of Alumni Affairs at Prescott College and one of its most celebrated graduates, renowned author Joel Gordon, in Victor L. Cahn’s Roses In December, now playing at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40.
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A SNOW WHITE CHRISTMAS
Monday, December 5th, 2011RECOMMENDED
That particularly English form of musical entertainment known as panto is back in North Hollywood for the holiday season, terrific news for the kiddies—and for any adults willing to act like a kid for ninety minutes of fractured fairytale fun.
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CRUMBLE (LAY ME DOWN JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE)
Sunday, November 27th, 2011RECOMMENDED
The walls have eyes…and ears and a mouth and arms and legs in Crumble (Lay Me Down Justin Timberlake), Sheila Callaghan’s surreal family drama, now playing at Sacred Fools Theatre.
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ALL THIS AND HEAVEN TOO
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011RECOMMENDED
All This, And Heaven Too is an entertaining look at gay life over 40 viewed through
a musical comedy lens. As the production’s soft shoe opener “Trolls” (the show’s
original off-Broadway title) proclaims, gay men past a certain age are considered
“mean and crabby, soft and flabby.” As All This, And Heaven Too reveals, they
also have a zest for life, and more of an appreciation for the freedoms and the
greater acceptance society has granted them post-Stonewall than “those little
twits who don’t even know who Ethel Merman was.”
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THE PLAYGROUND
Monday, November 21st, 2011RECOMMENDED
Homeless youth are given a voice—a singing voice—in Michael Leoni’s ambitious, sprawling “street rock musical” The Playground, now playing at Hollywood’s Met Theatre under the playwright’s direction.
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ANNE OF GREEN GABLES
Sunday, November 20th, 2011RECOMMENDED
The thousands of angry Orange Countians who picketed or emailed the Chance Theater in outraged protest over Jerry Springer: The Opera, the company’s recently Ovation Awarded Best Intimate Theatre Musical, will have to look elsewhere this holiday season for a show to get their knickers in a twist over, or at least not on the nights or afternoons that Anne Of Green Gables is being performed.
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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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