WHEN STARS ALIGN
Monday, September 7th, 2015
A mixed-race slave comes of age on a Mississippi River cotton plantation during the Civil War years in Carole Eglash-Kosoff and John Henry Davis’s epic interracial love story When Stars Align, a mini-series worth of plot compacted into two hours (plus intermission) of gorgeously-staged historical melodrama that proves involving and ultimately quite moving despite some occasionally clunky dialog along the way.
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ASSASSINS
Sunday, September 6th, 2015
Haste is of the essence in catching Red Blanket Productions’ superb intimate stage revival of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Assassins, not simply because only weeks remain in what looks to be a sold-out run at the Pico Playhouse but because, if Actors Equity has its way, starting next June you will never again see such a 99-seat production in Los Angeles County. Ever. (More on that later.)
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CAFÉ SOCIETY
Monday, August 24th, 2015
Zaniness reigns supreme in Peter Lefcourt’s screwball Café Society, now getting a terrifically performed, imaginatively directed, cleverly designed World Premiere at West L.A.’s Odyssey Theatre, the ever so “Westside” laughfest marred only by a jarring 11th-hour tonal shift that bears rethinking.
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PATTERNS
Friday, August 14th, 2015RECOMMENDED
Topnotch lead performances and a “plus ça change” fascination make James Reach’s Patterns, the stage adaptation of a Rod Serling screenplay set in the dog-eat-dog world of 1950s American big business, worth a look-see at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40 despite an overlong running time and a so-so supporting cast.
GREEN GROW THE LILACS
Sunday, August 9th, 2015
Theatricum Botanicum revives a Golden-Era theatrical gem in a production worth a whole heap of whoopin’ and hollerin’ … but before I go ahead and name it, here’s a question for all you theater lovers out there.
AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY
Monday, July 6th, 2015
It’s hard to imagine a more gorgeous setting for Tracy Letts’ sprawling August: Osage County than under the Topanga stars at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum, just one reason why the Oklahoma family saga’s return to L.A. (for the first time since A:OC’s Broadway National Tour played the Ahmanson back in 2009) makes for news worth shouting to the heavens and beyond.
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OFF THE KING’S ROAD
Saturday, July 4th, 2015NOT RECOMMENDED
Several bright supporting performances and a topnotch production design are not enough to rescue Off The King’s Road from its lackluster script, languorous pacing, and a numbingly dull lead performance, though truth be told it would take an actor with the charisma and star power of the late James Garner to stir up any interest in playwright Neil Koenigsberg’s sad sack protagonist.
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BAD JEWS
Friday, June 19th, 2015
To the list of female comedy leads that any actress would kill to play (and win awards for), a list that includes Born Yesterday’s Billie Dawn, Twentieth Century’s Lily Garland, and Lost In Yonkers’ Bella Kurnitz, you can now add the name Daphna Feygenbaum, a role that Molly Ephraim knocks out of the ball park—and then some—in the Geffen Playhouse’s West Coast Premiere of Joshua Harmon’s Bad Jews, a play as hilarious as it is brilliant, and one you’ll be talking about for quite some time to come.
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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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