BLONDE POISON
Sunday, January 11th, 2015
Salome Jens gives an absolutely riveting performance as Stella Goldschlag, the Berliner whose collaboration with the Gestapo sent thousands of her fellow German Jews to the death camps, in the American Premiere of Gail Louw’s Blonde Poison, now playing at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40.
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INTO THE WOODS
Friday, December 5th, 2014
Into The Woods is back in town again, the musical’s long-awaited film adaptation’s upcoming Christmas Day opening certain to inspire more ITW revivals than have been seen locally in years and years … and leave L.A. theatergoers scratching their heads wondering which of the bunch to see.
For this reviewer, at least, the answer is simple. Head on over to Beverly Hills’ ritzy Wallis Annenberg Center For The Performing Arts to catch the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Summer Of 2014 smash revival, now spending the holiday season indoors at the Wallis after four SRO months under the Ashland, Oregon skies.
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FLARE PATH
Wednesday, November 26th, 2014
A dashing English WWII fighter pilot. A handsome Hollywood film star. The pilot’s actress wife who loves them both. Could any triangle be more ripe for romantic drama than the threesome at the heart of Terence Rattigan’s 1942 stage hit Flare Path, rescued from obscurity by a 2011 West End revival and now being given a spiffy, seven-decades-awaited Los Angeles Premiere by Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40?
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TRIUMPH OF LOVE
Monday, November 17th, 2014
Frothy Broadway musical comedy romps don’t get any frothier than the frothy Broadway musical comedy romp Triumph Of Love, a fact made amply clear last night by Musical Theatre Guild’s one-performance-only concert staged reading of the 1997 gem.
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SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS
Tuesday, September 16th, 2014
There’s nothing at all sweet about the sleazy, smarmy, downright despicable protagonist of Sweet Smell Of Success, the Broadway musical adaptation of the 1957 Burt Lancaster/Tony Curtis pic, which may well be the main reason the 2002 John Lithgow-starrer flopped, the last of its mere 109 performances (plus 18 previews) less than two weeks after Lithgow won a Best Actor Tony.
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EQUIVOCATION
Saturday, September 13th, 2014
Imagine that you, as the foremost writer of your time, have been ordered by your country’s leader upon pain of imprisonment, torture, and death to come up with a play that would dramatize a supposed plot against your government, solidify its legitimacy, and demonize many of your fellow citizens simply because of your words. What would you do?
This is the conundrum faced by Shag (aka William Shakespeare) in Bill Cain’s extraordinary Equivocation, back in L.A. for the first time since its 2009 pre-off-Broadway engagement at the Geffen in an absolutely superb production at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum, one that tops its predecessor if only for the clarity that director Mike Peebler (doing outstanding work) and his all-around sensational cast bring to Cain’s labyrinthine tale.
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BROADWAY BOUND
Thursday, August 21st, 2014
Neil Simon plays don’t get any finer than his semi-autobiographical 1986 dramedy Broadway Bound, nor intimate theater revivals any more flawless than the Broadway Bound revival now playing at West L.A.’s Odyssey Theatre under Jason Alexander’s inspired direction.
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LEAR
Sunday, August 10th, 2014
A Queen with three sons, two of them ungrateful jerks wed to a pair of domineering Duchesses. An Earl with two daughters, one of them illegitimate and a conniver to boot. Meet Shakespeare Through The Looking Glass as Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum debuts its uniquely intriguing, exquisitely acted, gender-bending take on Shakespeare’s King Lear, retitled simply Lear, directed by and starring Ellen Geer as Queen Lear and Melora Marshall as her Fool.
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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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