IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE – ON AIR!
Monday, December 4th, 2023A ragtag bunch of inadvertent thespians find themselves forced to step in for a dozen snowstorm-stranded 1940s Hollywood A-listers in It’s A Wonderful Life – ON AIR!, a clever concept given an entertaining if overlong (and at times overplayed) execution at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center.
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FREIGHT
Wednesday, November 29th, 2023
Audiences are flocking to the Fountain Theatre and with good reason. J. Alphonse Nicholson’s tour-de-force star turn as a man with five lives in Howard L. Craft’s off-Broadway-to-L.A. hit Freight is the stuff awards are made for.
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THE HALF-LIGHT
Monday, November 27th, 2023
Four emotionally scarred individuals get a second chance at happiness in Monica Wood’s The Half-Light, a Theatre 40 West Coast Premiere whose touching performances and message of hope make this heartstrings-tugger a bona fide audience-pleaser.
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METEOR SHOWER
Saturday, November 25th, 2023
Leave it to “a wild and crazy guy” like Steve Martin to write a wild and crazy play like Meteor Shower, the deliciously quirky, stealthily surreal hour-long gem now tickling audiences at San Pedro’s Little Fish Theatre.
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INSULTED. BELARUS
Tuesday, November 21st, 2023
A nation’s failed efforts to unseat one of the world’s most reviled dictators comes to stunning, gut-punching life in City Garage Theatre’s English-language World Premiere of Andrei Kureichik’s Insulted. Belarus, an eye-opener to those like myself who knew little to nothing about recent events in Europe’s 13th largest country.
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ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
Monday, November 20th, 2023Whether you love the entirety of the Porters of Hellgate’s All’s Well That Ends Well, or enjoy some parts of it more than others, will likely depend on how much of a William Shakespeare fan you are where this “problem comedy” is concerned.
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A FAMILY BUSINESS
Saturday, November 18th, 2023
All hell breaks loose when a dating couple and two sets of parents get together for the first time in A Family Business, Matt Chait’s thoroughly entertaining follow-up to Bearings, which won the playwright a 2022-2023 Best Of The Year Scenie.
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70, GIRLS, 70
Monday, November 13th, 2023Its songs may not be John Kander and Fred Ebb at their Cabaret-Chicago best, and its wisp of a book may give them little to write memorably about, but there’s no denying the exuberance of a cast made up almost entirely of performers anywhere from 50something to 93 years young in The Group Rep’s intimate revival of the 1971 Broadway flop 70, Girls, 70.
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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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