ANIMALS OUT OF PAPER
Thursday, September 11th, 2014
A woman who has become a virtual recluse in the months since the breakup of her marriage and the disappearance of a cherished pet. A high school calculus teacher who’s been keeping a written record of his life’s every blessing since the age of twelve. The teacher’s star student, an Indian-American math nerd who fancies himself a black rapper.
Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph weaves these three ordinary lives into something quite extraordinary in his 2008 dramedy Animals Out Of Paper, now being given a pitch-perfect Los Angeles Premiere as the opening salvo in East West Players’ two-year-long celebration of its 50th season of offering Angelinos of every ethnicity the finest in Asian-American theater.
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THE TEMPEST
Wednesday, September 10th, 2014
Illusions so mystifying that you’ll give up even trying to figure out “how they did that.” Original songs by a Rock-&-Roll Hall of Famer performed by a live R&B/Alternative Pop band. Direction that makes adjectives like “imaginative” or “ingenious” or “inspired” seem tame. Performances and production design to match. All of these combine to make Aaron Posner and Teller’s touring adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest a must-see even for those might never wish to sit through another The Tempest again.
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BEIRUT
Monday, September 8th, 2014NOT RECOMMENDED
If a two-character opposite-sex love story with no specific gay content seems a curious choice for an LGBT theater, then Theatre Out’s revival of Alan Bowne’s Beirut proves even more problematic for its dull, dated look at the AIDS crisis as seen through a heterosexual lens.
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CONVICTION
Sunday, September 7th, 2014
A long-married suburban couple and their seventeen-year-old son attempt to survive the aftermath of a terrible, life-destroying accusation in Carey Crim’s powerful, provocative new play Conviction, which though still in need of work, receives an outstanding World Premiere co-production at Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre.
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THE WESTERN UNSCRIPTED
Saturday, September 6th, 2014
They’ve improvised Shakespeare. They’ve improvised Film Noir and The Twilight Zone. They’ve improvised Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Chekhov. They’ve even had the chutzpah to improvise Stephen Sondheim, music, lyrics, and all. And now the improv geniuses who call themselves Impro Theatre are back for business at the Falcon Theatre with their latest (and one of their very best) confections to date—improvising a full-length “feature film” live onstage in that most quintessential of American movie genres: The Western UnScripted.
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GYPSY
Friday, September 5th, 2014RECOMMENDED
Principal performers doing pro-level work highlight One More Productions’ revival of the Broadway classic Gypsy, and despite instances of age-inappropriate casting that make it seem at times more High School Musical than Professional Production, the Arthur Laurents-Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim classic ends up a crowd-pleaser.
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IT’S JUST SEX
Monday, September 1st, 2014
A dinner party that morphs into a spouse-swapping swingers’ bash may well be the hook that has attracted audiences to Jeff Gould’s It’s Just Sex – A Comedy About Lust & Trust since its World Premiere at the Whitefire back in 2002, but it’s the playwright’s perceptiveness about male-female relationships, the depth he gives his characters, and the unexpected life changes each couple ends up undergoing that has turned It’s Just Sex into L.A.’s longest-running comedy (factoring in its later runs at the Zephyr and the Two Roads), sent it off-Broadway in 2013, and have now brought it back to NoHo’s Secret Rose Theatre with an upcoming Las Vegas run likely in the cards.
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BULRUSHER
Monday, September 1st, 2014
The power of live theater to transport an audience to another time, another place, while exploring and revealing the mysteries of the human heart, is made gorgeously, magically clear in Skylight Theatre Company and Lower Depth Theatre Ensemble’s co-production of the Los Angeles premiere of Eisa Davis’s Pulitzer Prize finalist Bulrusher.
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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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