LATE COMPANY
Saturday, January 21st, 2017
Anti-gay bullying and its potentially fatal consequences are hardly topics you’d expect to see tackled by a theater company perhaps best known for seniors-friendly mystery/comedy fare, but these are precisely the issues that propel Canadian playwright Jordan Tannahill’s shattering family drama Late Company, now being given a compelling American Premiere at Beverly Hill’s Theatre 40.
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COMPANY
Friday, January 20th, 2017
The all-student talent of USC’s Musical Theatre Repertory rises to the many challenges of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Company—and then some—in an intimate staging that stands out as one of the finest of the eighteen MTR productions I’ve reviewed over the past nine years.
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THE LAST VIG
Sunday, January 15th, 2017Supporting performances are uniformly terrific and design elements as good as it gets, but with a low-energy Burt Young slowing things down to a snail’s pace, audiences in search of theatrical sparks had best look elsewhere than writer-director David Varriale’s potentially entertaining Mafia comedy The Last Vig*.
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BEE-LUTHER-HATCHEE
Saturday, January 14th, 2017
With racial violence on the rise, racists increasingly fearless in spouting (and acting upon) their hate, and an incoming President owing his election, at least in part, to racist backlash against his predecessor, the timing could hardly be more apt for Sierra Madre Playhouse to give Thomas Gibbons’ provative Bee-luther-hatchee the powerful revival it deserves, now more than ever.
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TORUK – The First Flight
Friday, January 13th, 2017
Spectacle there is in abundance and performers are as spectacularly multitalented as you’d expect from Cirque Du Soleil, but the stadium-scale TORUK – The First Flight, now making a four-day stop at The Forum, is likely to prove a letdown to both Cirque fans and those expecting see James Cameron’s Avatar live on stage.
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THE ROOMMATE
Wednesday, January 11th, 2017
Jen Silverman reinvigorates the surefire (if overly familiar) odd-couple comedy in The Roommate, a South Coast Repertory West Coast Premiere that may well defy credibility in its final scenes but never fails to entertain, particularly as performed by a crackerjack couple of SoCal stage treasures.
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BLOODLETTING
Tuesday, January 10th, 2017A Filipino-American brother and sister’s pilgrimage to their recently deceased father’s birthplace takes a supernatural turn in Boni B. Alvarez’s Bloodletting, a Playwrights’ Arena World Premiere that could appeal to fans of the occult who don’t mind spending seventy-five minutes with a couple of rather obnoxious siblings.
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BLACK COMEDY
Monday, January 9th, 2017An inspired concept and some virtuoso physical comedy make the first two-thirds of Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy a one-of-a-kind Glendale Centre Theatre treat before the laughter gets derailed by a jarring second-act tonal shift and some unexpected (and decidedly unpleasant) character twists.
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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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