THE DODGERS
Monday, February 1st, 2016
What if all it took to determine whether you lived or died was your date of birth? This was the worst nightmare come true of over 850,000 18-26-year-old American males back on December 1, 1969, when the United States government held its first “Draft Lottery,” the losers of which were virtually assured a one-way ticket to Vietnam.
Playwright Diana Amsterdam takes us back to this not-so-long-ago reality in her gripping new play The Dodgers, now getting an exciting World Premiere at the Hudson Mainstage with as star-studded a 20something cast as you’re likely to see all year in a 99-seat production.
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THE MADWOMAN IN THE VOLVO
Wednesday, January 13th, 2016RECOMMENDED
Solo queen Sandra Tsing Loh has arrived at South Coast Rep with a couple of guest actresses in tow for The Madwoman In The Volvo, an autobiographical look at menopause and infidelity more likely to appeal to female theatergoers forty-five and older than to those who don’t fit this specific demographic.
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TIMESHARE
Monday, January 11th, 2016RECOMMENDED
A ragtag sales staff’s attempts to convince would-be buyers to take a chance on the proverbial “deal of a lifetime” add up to a series of wild-and-wacky Act One vignettes till a pre-intermission plot twist sends Steve B. Green’s World Premiere comedy Timeshare into darker, somewhat less successful territory.
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HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
Friday, December 18th, 2015
The Christmas season has arrived in Claremont, and with it Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre’s 30th-annual original holiday musical, and though Home For Christmas may not offer the grown-up pleasures of 2014’s It’s Christmas Every Day and 2013’s Because It’s Christmas, Candlelight’s latest nonetheless provides ample reason for families with children to treat themselves to lunch or dinner and a show at the Pavilion.
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RIO HONDO
Saturday, December 5th, 2015
Earlier this year in their brilliantly spoofy Entropy, playwright Bill Robens and Theatre Of NOTE managed somehow to stage a gazillion-dollar Hollywood space-travel epic inside a 40something-seat theater. Robens and NOTE now work the same magic on that most American of movie genres—the Western—in their World Premiere comedy Rio Hondo, to my knowledge the very first L.A. theater production presented “in CinemaStage” and one that no horse opera lover will want to miss.
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A GOOD FAMILY
Sunday, November 29th, 2015RECOMMENDED
A charge of rape lodged against their college student son casts a pall over a Midwestern American couple’s Christmas Eve celebration in A Good Family, Marja-Lewis Ryan’s World Premiere drama that combines several of the elements that made her award-winning One In The Chamber a critical/popular hit last year—crisp writing, outstanding acting, edge-of-your-seat suspense—yet feels incomplete, and not simply for its hour-and-change running time.
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@thespeedofJake
Wednesday, November 25th, 2015
A grieving father’s attempt to connect with his deceased elementary-school-age son leads him on an unexpected journey towards healing in Jennifer Maisel’s transformative family drama @thespeedofJake, the superbly directed/acted latest World Premiere from Jon Lawrence Rivera and Playwrights’ Arena.
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FRONT DOOR OPEN
Monday, November 23rd, 2015NOT RECOMMENDED
An improbable script, grating characters, problematic performances, lackluster direction, and above all the trivialization of a crippling anxiety disorder afflicting over three million Americans make Tom Baum’s Front Door Open a World Premiere production not worth leaving your house for.
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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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