BEIJING SPRING
Thursday, May 22nd, 2014RECOMMENDED
A sensationally talented, mostly very young cast of Asian-American triple-threats, exciting, eclectic choreography, and a story that merits retelling are the best reasons to catch East West Players’ season closer, Tim Dang and Joel Iwataki’s Beijing Spring. The musical itself, however, still needs work despite considerable revision since its 1999 World Premiere.
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TARTUFFE
Wednesday, May 21st, 2014
You may have seen Molière’s Tartuffe before (what theater lover hasn’t?), but you’ve never seen a Tartuffe quite like the stunningly conceived, directed, designed, and performed production now dazzling audiences at South Coast Repertory—or at least those willing to see the Molière classic through a strikingly different lens.
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GREASE
Monday, May 19th, 2014
Grease is the word down Escondido way, and will be through the end of July as Escondido’s Welk Theatre presents their all-around terrific revival of the 3,388-performance Broadway megahit Grease.
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I TOTALLY KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST (DONNA) SUMMER
Saturday, May 17th, 2014
The wild-and-wacky (and wildly talented) folks who brought you Are You There, God? It’s Me, Karen Carpenter (in the Summer of 2012) and Prairie-oke! (in the Summer of ’13) are back with their latest summer spoof (and who cares that it’s still spring?), the aptly-named “new musical mash-up parody slasher musical” I Totally Know What You Did Last (Donna) Summer, and if its current Cavern Club Celebrity Theatre run is, like, totally sold-out, the good news is that it’s coming back in the Fall!
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A DELICATE BALANCE
Friday, May 16th, 2014
A superb, superbly-directed cast not only manage to survive an overlong, overly talky first act that perhaps no contemporary playwright could get away with, they go on to make theatrical magic as the Odyssey Theatre presents A Delicate Balance, Edward Albee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musings on the nature of family and friendship—and the responsibilities that each entails.
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THE BOOK OF MORMON
Friday, May 16th, 2014
Elders Price and Cunningham have arrived in beautiful Costa Mesa, California with their offer of a “free book written by Jesus” as the Segerstrom Center For The Arts presents the Orange County Premiere of Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone’s absolutely brilliant, super-smash Broadway hit The Book Of Mormon.
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THE HYPOCHONDRIAC
Tuesday, May 13th, 2014RECOMMENDED
Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid gets trimmed down from three acts to a fast-moving fifty-minutes as Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre presents Roger K. Weiss’s The Hypochondriac, and thought results fall short of the brilliance of December’s A Christmas Carol, there are laughs aplenty to be had.
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YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN
Monday, May 12th, 2014
Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center proves that you don’t need a Broadway budget to give audiences their money’s worth, not with a show as crowd-pleasing as Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein (one of the few musicals you can feel safe in inviting even your most Broadway-musical-phobic friends to for a monstrous good time), and not with performers as multi-talented as this production’s seven leads.
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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