A CAROL CHRISTMAS
Monday, December 3rd, 2018
A bossy, workaholic fashion mogul makes major life changes thanks to a trio of late-night visitors in The Group Rep’s World Premiere holiday musical A Carol Christmas, a tuneful Charles Dickens-inspired crowd-pleaser that with some astute revisions could well end up a regional December delight.
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MIDDLE8
Monday, November 19th, 2018
If Thornton Wilder were still alive to write a rock opera about five musicians dealing with issues of love, life, death, and what comes after, he might choose to title it Our Band. Stefan Marks calls his play-with-songs Middle8, and for anyone who’s seen the playwright-actor-director-musician-designer’s past work, it should come as no surprise that Middle8 is label-defyingly special.
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REMEMBERING BOYLE HEIGHTS
Saturday, November 17th, 2018Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, its past, its present, and the challenges it faces in the future, make for an eye-opening theatrical experience in Casa 0101’s World Premiere docudrama Remembering Boyle Heights.
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DEATH AND COCKROACHES
Friday, November 16th, 2018
A man-sized cockroach with the body of a gay porn god offers a cock-addicted aspiring TV writer unexpected aid in dealing with his father’s imminent death in Eric Reyes Loo’s raunchy, risk-taking, emotionally rewarding dysfunctional-family dramedy Death And Cockroaches, a Chalk Repertory Theatre World Premiere.
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BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!)
Tuesday, November 13th, 2018Clementine, Maddy, and Antonia are women on the verge of a nervous breakdown in North Orange, New Jersey circa 1960 in Jami Brandli’s BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!). That they’re also Clytemnestra, Medea, and Antigone reincarnated is one reason Brandli’s take on mid-20th-century suburbia works considerably less well than it would if she had stuck to satire. The other is the play’s two-and-a-half-hour running time.
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VALLEY OF THE HEART
Thursday, November 8th, 2018Epic in scope, educational in intent, and exquisite in design, Luis Valdez’s Valley Of The Heart examines America’s WWII internment of its Japanese-American citizens and their foreign-born family members in ways both familiar (the Broadway musical Allegiance played L.A. just ten months ago) and original (our narrator is Mexican-American). If only the Zoot Suit playwright proved more adept at creating authentic-sounding dialog. If only Valley Of The Heart didn’t so often feel like Wikipedia on stage.
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QUACK
Tuesday, October 30th, 2018
Allegations of medical advice turned fatal threaten to destroy TV’s most beloved physician in Eliza Clark’s Quack, a Center Theatre Group World Premiere that proves as hilarious as it is timely as it is button-pushing and thought-provoking.
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BABY EYES
Tuesday, October 16th, 2018Playwright Donald Jolly takes us back to 1950s Baltimore via Ancient Greece in Baby Eyes, a Playwrights’ Arena World Premiere that scores points for ambitious intentions if not for its campy mix of ancient myth, Greek tragedy, ’50s melodrama, and men in drag.
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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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