A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM
Sunday, May 3rd, 2015
The theater company whose recent reinvention of Kander & Ebb’s Cabaret for the intimate stage earned it both critical and audience raves now returns with a “downsized” staging of the Stephen Sondheim classic A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, and the result is one of the funniest—and most ingenious—Forums ever.
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ABIGAIL/1702
Saturday, May 2nd, 2015
When last we saw her in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, teen temptress Abigail Williams was about to flee Salem, Massachusetts and its infamous witch trials, leaving in her wake twenty hanged (or otherwise executed) victims of her venomous, vile, trumped-up accusations.
Playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa now imagines Abby’s life ten years later, and fascinatingly so, in Abigail/1702, a play and production no Crucible lover will want to miss, and the latest from Long Beach’s International City Theatre.
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I AND YOU
Friday, May 1st, 2015
When was the last time you saw a contemporary teen dramedy that not only featured a pair of complex, non-stereotypical characters but added something to the genre and in its final moments left you breathless?
Lauren Gunderson’s I And You is that play, at once funny, captivating, and profoundly moving, a powerful piece of theater now getting its Los Angeles Premiere in a production highlighted by Jennifer Finch’s and Matthew Hancock’s star-making performances under Robin Larsen’s inspired direction.
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MURDER FOR TWO
Thursday, April 30th, 2015
Who says you need a dozen performers and a full orchestra to create a supremely inventive, thoroughly delightful (Ladies’ and) Gentlemen’s Guide To Love And Murder? As Joe Kinosian & Kellen Blair’s Murder For Two makes abundantly clear, all it takes is a pair of gifted quadruple-threats, four hands, a baby grand piano, a nifty plot, an inventive book, and some clever, catchy songs to come up with an award-winning off-Broadway hit.
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BOY GETS GIRL
Tuesday, April 28th, 2015NOT RECOMMENDED
Terrific performances by a thoroughly engaging Ivy Khan and a riveting if miscast Jim Martyka highlight Theatre Unleashed’s ill-advised fifteenth-anniversary revival of Rebecca Gilman’s Boy Gets Girl, one which leaves this reviewer wondering how Gilman’s pseudo-thriller ended up named Time Magazine’s #1 Play Of The Year.
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SIDE SHOW
Monday, April 27th, 2015
Freaks reign supreme in 3-D Theatrical’s big-stage revival of Bill Russell and Henry Krieger’s Side Show (The Original), easily one of the finest 3-D productions ever, and for those of us who have marveled at their Ragtime, Funny Girl, and Parade (among others), that is saying something indeed.
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MY BARKING DOG
Sunday, April 26th, 2015RECOMMENDED
Performances are outstanding and the production design sensational, the director is Michael Michetti (need I say more?), and the ideas put forth are provocative, but an overreliance on monologs proves off-putting in the West Coast Premiere of Eric Cable’s two-hander My Barking Dog, the latest from The Theatre @ Boston Court.
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THE ANARCHIST
Saturday, April 25th, 2015
Felicity Huffman and Rebecca Pidgeon square off in the cat-and-mouse game that is David Mamet’s provocative yet abstruse The Anarchist, the duo’s superb performances and bona fide star power, the intimacy of Theatre Row’s Theatre Asylum, and ticket prices about a quarter of what they were when Mamet’s latest premiered on Broadway combining to make this 99-seat-plan production a likely candidate for hottest ticket in town.
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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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