LEAR
Sunday, August 10th, 2014
A Queen with three sons, two of them ungrateful jerks wed to a pair of domineering Duchesses. An Earl with two daughters, one of them illegitimate and a conniver to boot. Meet Shakespeare Through The Looking Glass as Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum debuts its uniquely intriguing, exquisitely acted, gender-bending take on Shakespeare’s King Lear, retitled simply Lear, directed by and starring Ellen Geer as Queen Lear and Melora Marshall as her Fool.
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TIME STANDS STILL
Saturday, August 9th, 2014RECOMMENDED
A wounded photo-journalist’s return home from the war zone proves even more challenging than a life lived on the edge in Donald Margulies’ intelligent, perceptive, often funny, always compelling Time Stands Still, now being given a mostly satisfying production at San Pedro’s Little Fish Theatre under Patrick Vest’s solid direction.
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reasons to be pretty
Friday, August 8th, 2014
Even a single word can wound, particularly if the word you just happen to use to describe your girlfriend’s looks is “regular,” or so 20something Greg will learn to his eternal chagrin in Neil LaBute’s laceratingly funny reasons to be pretty, now getting a pitch-perfect Geffen Playhouse premiere under artistic director Randall Arney’s astute direction.
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OKLAHOMA!
Thursday, August 7th, 2014
American musical theater changed for good on March 31, 1943 at the St. James Theatre in New York City when Oklahoma! opened on Broadway, and those who’d like to know (or who would simply like a reminder of) just how revolutionary Oklahoma! was way back then need only head up to Solvang for PCPA’s 71st Anniversary revival of the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic—not a perfect production but one which, as directed and choreographed by Michael Jenkinson, makes it clear what a groundbreaker this seven-decade-old remains to this day.
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ONE IN THE CHAMBER
Monday, August 4th, 2014
Playwright Marja-Lewis Ryan focuses an up-close-and-personal lens on the epidemic of gun violence plaguing our country in her World Premiere drama One In The Chamber, one of the most powerful new plays I’ve seen in a good long while, and as superbly acted a production as any writer/director could possibly wish for.
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GODSPELL
Sunday, August 3rd, 2014
It’s not your grandparents’ Godspell anymore, just one of several reasons to catch Actors Repertory Theatre Of Simi’s revival of the 1971 Stephen Schwartz off-Broadway-to-Broadway classic as reconceived for The Great White Way in 2011 and now brought to effervescent life by an impressive young cast at the Simi Valley Performing Arts Center.
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SMOKEY JOE’S CAFÉ
Sunday, August 3rd, 2014
Want to hear “Kansas City,” “Yakety Yak,” “Love Potion No. 9,” “On Broadway” and a few dozen other 1950s rock and pop hits as performed by an all-around splendid young cast and enjoy a yummy dinner to boot? Then head on over to Claremont for dinner and a show as Candlelight Pavilion revives the longest-running musical revue in Broadway history, Smokey Joe’s Café, featuring forty of the greatest hits of rock-and-roll songwriting legends Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
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THE MAX FACTOR FACTOR
Saturday, August 2nd, 2014
Secretly gay 1930s film star Lance Grant falls head-over-heels for the equally famous—and equally closeted—Hoyt Baxter in Adrian Bewley, Joe Blodgett, and Chana Wise’s delightful new musical The Max Factor Factor, a fortuitous first collaboration between New Musicals Inc. and Celebration Theatre.
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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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