BILLY BOY
Thursday, September 28th, 2017An unexpected sexual encounter with a former high school girlfriend sends a 60ish gay man and a pair of long-dead ghosts on a trip down memory lane in Nick Salamone’s Billy Boy, a Playwrights Arena World Premiere that starts out promisingly enough before veering off into the Twilight Zone.
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SUGAR
Monday, September 25th, 2017
Characters made famous in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot, songs by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill of Funny Girl fame, a couple of men in drag, all-around terrific performances, and one particularly inspired bit of casting turned Sunday’s concert staged reading of the 1972 Broadway hit Sugar into another one-performance-only Musical Theatre Guild concert staged reading delight.
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THE MADWOMAN OF CHAILLOT
Sunday, September 24th, 2017
A cabal of super-wealthy corporate execs conspire to drill for oil deep under the cafés and museums and monuments of Paris, environmental consequences be damned, in Jean Giraudoux’s The Madwoman Of Chaillot, the latest bit of theatrical alchemy from A Noise Within.
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MASTER CLASS
Saturday, September 23rd, 2017
Carolyn Hennesy gives one of the year’s most dazzling performances as the legendary Maria Callas in the virtual one-woman-show that is Terrence McNally’s Master Class, the inaugural season opener of the newly rechristened, spiffily refurbished Garry Marshall Theatre.
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HEARTBREAK HELP
Friday, September 22nd, 2017
Four fabulous females feud, fuss, fight, and forge unlikely bonds as women on a weekend self-improvement quest in Stan Zimmerman’s terrifically performed 21st-anniversary revival of Justin Tanner’s laugh-packed Heartbreak Help.
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THE RED SHOES
Thursday, September 21st, 2017
Matthew Bourne makes another triumphant return to the Ahmanson Theatre with his latest feat of dance brilliance, the American Premiere of The Red Shoes, Sir Matthew’s breathtakingly imaginative reinvention of the British film classic that made Moira Shearer a star.
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PIPE DREAM
Tuesday, September 19th, 2017
Once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to discover a “brand new” Rodgers & Hammerstein musical happen about once in lifetime, which is why those who got to discover the almost-never-produced Pipe Dream this past Sunday, the first offering in the final season of Musical Theatre West’s Reiner Reading Series, can count themselves among the luckiest people in the world.
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BIG NIGHT
Sunday, September 17th, 2017Paul Rudnick flounders Big-Time in Big Night, a World Premiere comedy-melodrama likely to prove a Big Letdown to fans hoping for more of the same hearts-and-minds-changing comedic magic that made Jeffrey and In & Out such crowd-pleasing delights.
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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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