DEATH OF THE AUTHOR
Friday, May 30th, 2014
An accusation of plagiarism is but the opening shot in Death Of The Author, Steven Drukman’s academia-set World Premiere drama that unfolds like an edge-of-your-seat suspense-thriller from its “gotcha” hook to the unexpectedly satisfying way Drukman manages to tie the whole thing up some ninety minutes later.
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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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RUTH DRAPER’S MONOLOGUES
Friday, April 18th, 2014
Four-time Academy Award nominee Annette Bening brings her movie-star glamour and a career-long commitment to the legitimate stage to the Geffen Playhouse in Ruth Draper’s Monologues, as captivating and deliciously performed a one-woman show as you’re likely to see all year.
THE VORTEX
Sunday, April 13th, 2014RECOMMENDED
A pair of sensational lead performances and a fabulous 1960s design are the best reasons to catch this rare revival of Noël Coward’s 1924 hit The Vortex despite a half-hour or so of cuts which make the latest Malibu Playhouse production a less-than-unqualified success.
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RUTHLESS! THE MUSICAL
Tuesday, April 8th, 2014
The Bad Seed met Gypsy met All About Eve met Mame met a tickled-to-death audience of musical theater lovers on Sunday as Musical Theatre Guild presented their latest, a one-night-only concert staged reading of the murderously funny cult off-Broadway spoof Ruthless! The Musical.
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A STEADY RAIN
Friday, March 28th, 2014
Two superb actors stand in for the proverbial “cast of thousands” to make for as thrillingly visual a ninety minutes of edge-of-your-seat theater as you’d get in any big-screen blockbuster, as the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble presents the Los Angeles Premiere of Keith Huff’s A Steady Rain under Jeff Perry’s electric direction.
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THE WHIPPING MAN
Saturday, March 22nd, 2014
On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House, at long last ending what is still the deadliest war in United States history. Five days later, President Abraham Lincoln was dead, the victim of an assassin’s bullet. And during this fateful week in our country’s history, Jews in both North and South observed Pesach, the festival of Passover, celebrating the freeing of the Israelites from centuries of slavery in Egypt.
Inspired by this bit of historical coincidence, and armed with the knowledge that there were indeed Jewish slaveholders (and Jewish slaves) in the pre-Civil War Deep South, playwright Matthew Lopez sat down to write The Whipping Man, a gripping, eye-opening look at three Jews—two black, one white—in the days just following Appomattox, now getting its Los Angeles Premiere at the Pico Playhouse.
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SPRING AWAKENING
Monday, March 10th, 2014RECOMMENDED
A talented young cast and some imaginative directorial touches highlight Spring Awakening at Santa Monica’s Morgan-Wixson, a laudably bold programming choice for the venerable Westside community theater despite certain deficiencies in design, particularly sound, that prevent the Steven Sater/Duncan Sheik musical from being an unqualified success.
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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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