CLOWNFISH
Saturday, July 16th, 2022Playwright Amy Dellagiarino’s script shows considerable promise, but her Theatre of NOTE World Premiere comedy Clownfish would work a whole lot better had the director reined in one particularly over-the-top performance (and those around it in the play’s frenetic midsection).
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THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
Saturday, July 9th, 2022
Tim Venable’s hot-button-issue World Premiere two-hander The Beautiful People will have you thinking and talking about the gut-punching latest from Rogue Machine long after the stage has gone dark at Melrose’s Matrix Theatre.
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ARENA: A House MUSIC-al
Sunday, June 26th, 2022A young gay Latino exits the closet to a ‘90s dance club beat in Abel Alvarado’s ARENA: A House MUSIC-al, a heartfelt but overpopulated coming-of-age story that works best when the spotlight is on Alvarado stand-in Lucio, particularly as brought to engaging, charismatic life by newcomer Preston Gonzalez Valle.
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INTERSTATE
Sunday, June 19th, 2022
A 20something trans man and his lesbian best friend take a road trip across America (and in so doing transform the life of a transgender Kentucky teen) in East West Players’ powerful, exhilarating World Premiere musical Interstate.
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KING JAMES
Thursday, June 9th, 2022
Two young men forge a life-changing best-friendship thanks to their shared love of basketball (and more specifically of b-ball superstar LeBron James) in Rajiv Joseph’s heart-stopping brom-com King James, now bringing audiences to their feet at the Mark Taper Forum.
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BELOVED
Saturday, May 28th, 2022
The Road Theatre Company’s three-shows-in-a-row return season goes from good to better to best of all with the World Premiere of Arthur Holden’s Beloved, a suspense-filled, twist-packed stunner that will leave you blown-away and breathless.
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UNTITLED BABY PLAY
Friday, May 27th, 2022Performances are impeccable (and laughs are abundant, at least in Act One), but by the time Laila Ayad, Anna Rose Hopkins, Courtney Sauls, Sonal Shah, Jenny Soo, and Sarah Utterback finally take their bows (at close to 11:00 p.m. on Opening Night), a more suitable title for Nina Braddock’s Untitled Baby Play would be Interminable Baby Play.
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TAMBO & BONES
Sunday, May 8th, 2022Dave Harris’s Tambo & Bones, a Center Theatre Group World Premiere, takes black anger against white America to such extremes that sitting through ninety minutes of it had me wishing I were anyone other than inside the Kirk Douglas Theatre. And it didn’t help that at least forty-five of its ninety minutes are devoted to ear-splitting, N-word/expletive-filled rap.
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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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