THE SEAGULL: MALIBU
Monday, August 18th, 2025
Ellen Geer updates Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull from 1890s tsarist Russia to Malibu, California during the “It’s All About Me” 1970s, and the exhilarating result is The Seagull: Malibu, a romantic dramedy that’s both Chekhovian and Southern Californian, and a Summer Of 2025 treat no matter how you feel about Chekhov.
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ANTIGONE
Sunday, August 17th, 2025
Neil LaBute puts a 21st-century spin on French playwright Jean Anouilh’s 1944 adaptation of Sophocles’ classic Greek tragedy Antigone, itself a thinly veiled attack on the Nazi-allied Vichy government that controlled Paris during World War II, in the compelling, thought-provoking latest from City Garage.
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& JULIET
Saturday, August 16th, 2025
Romeo’s teenage bride gets a new lease on life in the West End-to-Broadway smash & Juliet, quite possibly the most hit-packed musical in Broadway history and one that now tops my list of favorite shows of the past ten years right up there with The Prom, Come From Away, and Dear Evan Hansen.
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TUNE IN
Wednesday, August 13th, 2025
Playwright Carlos Lacámara tackles university politics, mental illness, psychedelic drug therapy, childhood trauma, and women in academia in the early 1960s, stirs in at least one soap opera-worthy plot twist, and garners more than a few laughs along the way in Tune In, another fabulous Theatre Of NOTE World Premiere.
STRIFE
Tuesday, August 12th, 2025
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer in Strife, John Galsworthy’s more-relevant-than-ever look at the darker side of HBO’s The Gilded Age.
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SOMETHING ROTTEN
Monday, August 11th, 2025
Torrance Theatre Company has done it again, delivering a big-stage, big-cast, big-orchestra summer musical so professionally staged and performed, you just might find yourself thinking you’re seeing the 2015 Broadway hit Something Rotten being performed at one of our major SoCal regional theaters.
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GLORY DAYS
Saturday, August 9th, 2025
Four high school besties discover that life after graduation isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in Nick Blaemire and James Gardiner’s engaging slice-of-teen-life musical Glory Days, a terrific (and terrifically entertaining) talent showcase for a quartet of up-and-coming triple threats at the Broadwater Black Box Theatre.
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THE FANTASTICKS
Sunday, August 3rd, 2025The ups and downs of first love are explored to engaging, tuneful effect in the Ruskin Group Theatre’s 65th-anniversary revival of Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s The Fantasticks, though for me at least, the world’s longest-running musical begins somewhat to outstay its welcome at around the two-hour point.
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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