END OF THE RAINBOW

The facts behind Judy Garland’s death on June 22, 1969 are a matter of public record. Several months after a five-week stint at London’s trendy Talk of the Town, the legendary screen/recording star was found dead at the age of 47 by fifth husband Mickey Deans in the bathroom of their rented Chelsea house, the cause of death “an incautious self-overdosage” of barbiturates.

Peter Quilter’s critically acclaimed End Of The Rainbow, now playing at Long Beach’s International City Theatre, lets us be flies on the walls of Judy and Mickey’s London hotel (and of the London nightclub as well) during that much talked about Talk Of The Town run, and a humdinger of a play and production this is under John Henry Davis’ incisive direction.
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THE BROADWAY CAGE MATCH

L.A.’s brightest musical theater stars square off once a month, not in the boxing ring, but in the next best thing to it, at Rockwell Table & Stage in trendy Los Feliz for Justin Jones’ and Bruce Merkle’s Broadway Cage Match.
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THE THREEPENNY OPERA

A Noise Within kicks off its Spring 2015 season with a sensationally performed and designed revival of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera. Theatergoers who’ve not acquired a taste for Brecht’s brand of early 20th-century avant-garde or Weill’s dirge-like melodies may find its three-hour running time a bit of a long haul, however those with a fondness for Threepenny (and they are, I am told, legion) will find themselves in Brecht/Weill heaven.
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THE OTHER PLACE

Trust nothing you see or hear until about halfway through the riveting, complex puzzle that is Sharr White’s The Other Place, now getting its first Los Angeles production, and a superb one at that, at North Hollywood’s 99-seat-plan Road Theatre.
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THE ROAD TO APPOMATTOX

A war approaching its bloody end and a marriage quite possibly nearing its own death throes come together Catherine Bush’s enlightening, entertaining new dramedy The Road To Appomattox, now getting its West Coast Premiere at Burbank’s Colony Theatre.
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WASHER/DRYER

Sometimes all it takes to turn a cramped, overpriced, single-occupancy big-city condo into a must-own Manhattan co-op is something as seemingly trivial as a washer/dryer, which is why newlywed Sonya will do anything to maintain ownership of her co-op in Nandita Shenoy’s terrific World Premiere Comedy Washer/Dryer—even if it means pretending that her handsome hubby is merely a frequent sleep-over chum.
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ENTER LAUGHING THE MUSICAL

A long and winding road has at last led a long-forgotten musical comedy gem from its blink-and-you-missed 1976 Broadway run to a delightfully nostalgic, laugh-out-loud hilarious, infectiously tuneful intimate revival at Beverly Hills’ Wallis Annenberg Center For The Performing Arts Lovelace Studio Theatre.
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A LOVELY LINEAGE

When you grow up the granddaughter of both an MGM movie musical goddess and the pop vocalist who took “Laura” to the top of the Hit Parade, your lineage is a lovely one indeed, as this past year’s Scenie-winning Director/Star Of The Year Kristin Towers-Rowles makes abundantly clear in A Lovely Lineage, her musical tribute to her Hollywood heritage.
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