VICTOR/VICTORIA
Saturday, November 5th, 2011NOT RECOMMENDED
A show-stopping performance by Kristin Towers-Rowles, StageSceneLA’s Scenie-winning Breakthrough Musical Theater Performer Of The Year, is the best reason to see Malibu Stage Company’s small-stage production of the rarely staged Victor/Victoria.
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THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS
Sunday, October 9th, 2011
Stephen Metcalfe’s gripping new drama The Tragedy Of The Commons takes as its title a term coined in the early 1960s by sociobiologist Garrett Hardin, though it’s not until late in the play that its protagonist explains Hardin’s concept: (read more)
CABARET
Friday, September 16th, 2011
It takes chutzpah to fiddle with a classic and heaps of talent to pull it off, both of which Tony-nominated director-choreographer Marcia Milgrom Dodge does to breathtaking effect in her brilliant revisal of Joe Masterhoff, John Kander, and Fred Ebb’s Cabaret for Reprise Theatre Company.
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THE WAR CYCLE: GOSPEL ACCORDING TO FIRST SQUAD
Friday, September 9th, 2011
Let’s say you want to tell a gripping, “ripped from today’s headlines” war story—and you’re operating on a tight budget. You can spend $11,000,000 as Kathryn Bigelow did for The Hurt Locker (and that’s cheap for a Hollywood flick). Or how about this for a suggestion? For maybe one-tenth of one percent of that budget, you can produce The War Cycle: Gospel According to First Squad, currently generating equivalent sparks at The Powerhouse Theatre. Talk about a no-brainer!
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THE ALTRUISTS
Saturday, September 3rd, 2011
Nicky Silver skewers liberal do-gooders in his outrageously funny The Altruists, a hilarious confection that kept this liberal do-gooder wannabe in stitches throughout its ninety nonstop minutes of absurdist fun at West L.A.’s Pico Playhouse.
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TARTUFFE (OR THE IMPOSTER)
Wednesday, August 31st, 2011
If like this reviewer you’ve never seen a show at The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, then you are in for a treat, particularly if Moliere’s Tartuffe is your first exposure to this rustic gem of a an outdoor theater.
RABBIT HOLE
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011RECOMMENDED
For a play that won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole has had surprisingly few local productions in the ensuing years, perhaps a result of its seemingly grim subject matter. For that reason alone, the play’s arrival at Theatre Palisades is good news for L.A. theatergoers. Though this high-end community theater production doesn’t reach the heights of the Chance Theater’s award-winning 2008 production, it is one worth checking out, whether you’ve seen last year’s Oscar-nominated film adaptation, a previous live staging, or this is your first exposure to Rabbit Hole.
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SMALL ENGINE REPAIR
Saturday, August 20th, 2011
If you grow up in New Hampshire, chances are your elementary school best friends will remain your besties for life, even in Manchester, its biggest city, whose population of 109,565 would make it hardly more than a small town here in Southern California.
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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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