IF/THEN
Wednesday, January 20th, 2016
For everyone who has ever wondered just how different things might have been had they not made that one single life-altering decision, the National Tour of Broadway’s If/Then has arrived at the Segerstrom Center For The Arts, the last stop before its Tony-nominated star and two other original cast leads exit the tour, and if that’s not already enough to send you down Costa Mesa way, rest assured, this engaging, unpredictable, emotionally potent new musical is well worth the drive.
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PRIVATE EYES
Sunday, January 17th, 2016
Reality and fiction. Truth and lies. Has any playwright had more fun fooling (and delighting and engaging) an audience than Steven Dietz does in Private Eyes, the best straight-play production I’ve seen at Santa Monica’s venerable community theater, the Morgan-Wixson, and one that easily holds its own against the top professional houses in town.
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AWAKE & SING!
Sunday, January 10th, 2016
Clifford Odets’ Depression-era drama Awake & Sing! has reopened at the Odyssey Theatre for a January extension, exciting news indeed for fans of the kind of big-cast, big-issue Great American Classics that don’t get written anymore.
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GUYS AND DOLLS
Sunday, December 6th, 2015
“Fresh” and “new” are probably not the first words that spring to mind when you think about the 65-year-old Broadway classic Guys And Dolls, that is unless the Guys And Dolls you’re thinking about is the Oregon Shakespeare Festival revival now wowing audiences at Beverly Hills’ Wallis Annenberg Center For The Performing Arts.
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PERFECT TIMING
Thursday, December 3rd, 2015
Audiences in search of a perfectly marvelous time at the theater could hardly make a more perfect choice than the latest from Theatre 40, Kristi Kane’s Perfect Timing, a play so perfectly delightful that you’d expect it had run a decade or more on London’s West End and not a mere six months in Van Nuys way back in the mid-80s before fading into unjust obscurity.
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OUTSIDE MULLINGAR
Saturday, November 21st, 2015
A couple of long-feuding Irish neighbors find themselves moonstruck in John Patrick Shanley’s delightfully quirky romantic comedy Outside Mullingar, now charming audiences at the Geffen Playhouse.
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DOUBLE DOOR
Tuesday, October 13th, 2015
No matter who your favorite TV soap villainess might be, she could learn a thing or two from the selfish, conniving, ruthless monster created way back in 1931 by Elizabeth McFadden for her suspense melodrama Double Door, now deliciously revived for a 21st-century audience at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40.
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THESE PAPER BULLETS!
Friday, September 18th, 2015
The Bard meets The Fab Four in Rolin Jones’ exuberantly entertaining These Paper Bullets!, now getting its West Coast Premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, and while audience members lacking either a soft spot for iambic pentameter or a familiarity with Beatles legend might just end up tuning out, at least during the show’s overlong first act, by the time Act Two rolls around with its Monty-Python-meets-Benny-Hill delights (and with Billie Joe Armstrong’s songs the absolute next best thing to Lennon-&-McCartney circa 1964), it’s hard to imagine anyone not ultimately falling under These Paper Bullets!’ magic spell.
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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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