A RAISIN IN THE SUN
Sunday, July 31st, 2016
Star turns you’d expect to see at the Pasadena Playhouse or the Geffen distinguish Ruskin Group Theatre’s 57th-anniversary revival of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award-winning A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry’s piercing look at racial discrimination, gender roles, family values, and burgeoning African-American identity—a modern American classic that remains as relevant today as it was in the pre-Civil Rights Era 1950s.
(read more)
BABY DOLL
Saturday, July 30th, 2016
A just-right darkly comedic tone and pitch-perfect performances turn minor Tennessee Williams into major summer entertainment as the Fountain Theater gives West Coast audiences their first taste of Pierre Laville and Emily Mann’s streamlined, Williams-estate-approved adaptation of the 1956 movie potboiler Baby Doll.
(read more)
SPACE
Saturday, July 30th, 2016
Disproving the oft-suggested notion that a playwright should never direct his own work, Stefan Marks not only scores a double bulls-eye at the Stella Adler; in never leaving the stage as Space’s riveting protagonist, the Ovation Award-winning director-writer-actor proves himself a bona fide triple-threat in this brain-teasing dazzler of a play.
(read more)
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
Monday, July 25th, 2016
The Dashwood Sisters sing, and gloriously so, in Paul Gordon’s charming, witty, heartstrings-tugging musical adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense And Sensibility, Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s gift, not just to San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre and Jane Austen lovers across the Southland, but to anyone in the mood for music, laughter, tears, and romance-with-a-capital-R.
(read more)
OBAMA-OLOGY
Sunday, July 24th, 2016
The months leading up to Barack Obama’s election as this country’s first African-American President serve as the backdrop for Aurin Squire’s semi-autobiographical Obama-ology, the 2015 Juilliard grad’s engaging look at a pivotal moment in our nation’s history as seen through one 20something black man’s eyes.
(read more)
I LOVE YOU BECAUSE
Saturday, July 23rd, 2016
A sparkling book, a dozen or so delightfully quirky characters, and above all one of the catchiest (and often most gorgeous) scores in recent years add up to Joshua Salzman and Ryan Cunningham’s unabashedly romantic I Love You Because, at long last getting the Los Angeles staging I’ve been wishing and hoping for since first falling in love with the musical’s original cast recording nearly ten years ago—and what a terrific production ILYB has been given at Hollywood’s Hudson Theatre.
(read more)
THE SOUND OF MUSIC
Thursday, July 21st, 2016
If you’re one of the gazillion who’ve watched Julie Andrews declare the Austrian hills “alive with the sound of” you know what, or seen any of the gazillion community, school, or regional stagings of a certain Rodgers & Hammerstein Tony Award winner, you may be asking yourself, “Do I really want to see The Sound Of Music again?” If this is the case, here are ten reasons not to miss the one-in-a-gazillion touring production now captivating audiences at the Segerstrom Center For The Arts.
(read more)
ONE OF THE NICE ONES
Tuesday, July 19th, 2016
Expect the unexpected—and then some—in Erik Patterson’s One Of The Nice Ones, an edge-of-your-seat dark comedy so filled with “I didn’t see that coming” twists that it’s almost impossible to review without revealing a spoiler or two, but I’ll do my best, while at the same time still providing a taste of the latest from one of L.A.’s most exciting contemporary playwrights now making his Echo Theater Company debut.
(read more)
Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
COPYRIGHT 2026 STEVEN STANLEY :: DESIGN BY