I, DANIEL BLAKE
Wednesday, October 16th, 2024Brilliant performances and dazzling production design aside, Dave Johns’ unrelentingly bleak stage adaptation of I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach’s Kafkaesque 2016 film about a good man living a British bureaucratic nightmare is the most depressing 90 minutes I’ve spent in a theater in a very long time.
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¡PASAJE!
Monday, October 14th, 2024If I were grading on good intentions alone, then J Quiroz and Asdru Sierra’s ¡Pasaje! would earn high marks. Unfortunately, this musical salute to la vida latina in South El Monte is no In The Heights.
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RENT
Monday, October 14th, 2024Jaxx Theatricals follows their Scenie-winning intimate stagings of Andrew Lippa’s Wild Party and Chess The Musical with an excitingly performed but overly choreographed revival of Jonathan Larson’s Rent.
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AMERICAN IDIOT
Thursday, October 10th, 2024
The Mark Taper Forum is back in business with an American Idiot revival so spectacular, the sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll-packed musical extravaganza ought to follow in the footsteps of Deaf West’s Big River and Spring Awakening and become a Broadway must-see.
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BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL
Tuesday, October 8th, 2024A trio of topnotch star turns are the three best reasons to catch Morgan-Wixson Theatre’s over-the-top staging of the horror rock extravaganza that is Bat Boy: The Musical. (It would help too if you could understand what the characters are saying/singing.)
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GLORIA
Monday, October 7th, 2024
Everyone’s out for their fifteen minutes of fame in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ ripped-from-today’s-headlines gut-puncher Gloria, now being given an electrifying Orange County premiere at Chance Theater.
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TROUBLE IN MIND
Sunday, October 6th, 2024A stunning Kimi Walker delivers what may well be a career-best lead performance in Actors Co-op’s mostly successful revival of pioneer African-American playwright Alice Childress’s groundbreaking Trouble In Mind.
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THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA
Monday, September 30th, 2024
Star turns don’t get more stunning than the pair delivered by Kim Huber and Valerie Larsen in Musical Theatre Guild’s spectacular one-night-only concert staged reading of Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel’s The Light In The Piazza.
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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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