INTO THE WOODS
Tuesday, July 29th, 2014
Fiasco Theatre Company’s re-imagined revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into The Woods is the most thrillingly imaginative production I’ve seen of the 1987 triple-Tony-winner, and trust me … I’ve seen a forest-ful of Into The Woodses, fourteen in all since the First National Tour stopped at the Ahmanson in 1989.
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IN A DARK DARK HOUSE
Sunday, July 27th, 2014NOT RECOMMENDED
It’s rare than a single performance can sink an otherwise mostly fine production, but such is the case in the Los Angeles Premiere of Neil LaBute’s In A Dark Dark House, a play consisting of three extended two-actor scenes revolving around a central character who only departs the stage during set changes. Unfortunately, since Aaron McPherson is not up to the challenges of bringing Terry to real, three-dimensional life, In A Dark Dark House fails to get the Matrix Theatre Guest Production it deserves.
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ANDRONICUS
Saturday, July 26th, 2014
”14 killings, 9 of them on stage, 6 severed members, 1 rape (or 2 or 3 depending on how you count), 1 live burial, 1 case of insanity, and 1 of cannibalism” is how critic S. Mark Hulse sums up William Shakespeare’s vengeance-fueled Titus Andronicus, and Coeurage Theatre Company gives us each and every one of the above in a mere two hours (including intermission) in Jeremy Lelliott’s exhilarating new adaptation of Shakespeare’s contribution to the “revenge play” genre, redubbed Andronicus to befit this leaner, zippier incarnation of the 16th-Century classic.
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LEADING LADIES
Friday, July 25th, 2014RECOMMENDED
Boys will be girls when a pair of traveling Shakespearean thespians impersonate a pair of long-lost sisters in hopes of inheriting a fortune in Ken Ludwig’s Leading Ladies, now entertainingly revived at Glendale Centre Theatre.
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MARY POPPINS
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2014
Moonlight Stages in San Diego-adjacent Vista once again trumps L.A. and Orange Counties by offering Southland audiences the much-awaited First Regional Production of a Big Broadway Smash, this time a terrifically staged and performed Big-Stage, Big-Cast, Big-Orchestra Disney’s And Cameron Mackintosh’s Mary Poppins.
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bare: a pop opera
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2014
Damon Intrabartolo and Jon Hartmere’s bare: a pop opera at long last gets its San Diego Premiere—and an absolutely superb one at Diversionary Theater—fourteen years after it first impacted Los Angeles theatergoers with its devastatingly powerful take on two Catholic High School boys in love.
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LAY ME DOWN SOFTLY
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2014
Nobody does Irish better in L.A. than Theatre Banshee, proof positive which is now onstage as the award-winning troupe presents the West Coast Premiere of Billy Roche’s charming if minor Lay Me Down Softly.
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BYE BYE BIRDIE
Saturday, July 19th, 2014
Cabrillo Music Theatre revives the 1960 Broadway classic Bye Bye Birdie with a now almost unheard-of cast of more than sixty, and though this is one Birdie that doesn’t say “Bye Bye” till two hours and fifty-five minutes after the first note of its Overture, the all-around sensational revival provides proof positive why theater lovers and local businesses must rally behind the endangered Southland musical theater mainstay that is Cabrillo. To paraphrase Irving Berlin, there’s no musical theater in Ventura County like Cabrillo Music Theater.
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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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