MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Monday, July 21st, 2025
Beatrice and Benedick are once again at it tooth and nail, but this time round she’s wearing a hoopskirt and he’s sporting a Civil War-era Army uniform as director Ellen Geer transposes the Shakespeare comedy classic from 16th-century Italy to 1860s Virginia while sprinkling in one I Love Lucy-inspired physical comedy bit after another.
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SPRING AWAKENING
Monday, July 21st, 2025
Brilliantly innovative direction, stunningly original choreography, a baker’s dozen revelatory performances, and a Broadway-caliber production design guarantee Southland audiences as outstanding a Spring Awakening as any musical theater lover could ever hope to see.
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BUDDY – THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY
Sunday, July 13th, 2025
Buddy Holly may have left this earth some six-and-a-half decades ago on “the day the music died”, but the 1950s rock and roll legend lives on in Long Beach in the person of dazzling quadruple-threat phenom Will Riddle in Musical Theatre West’s rousing revival of musical/tribute concert hybrid that is Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story.
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XANADU
Saturday, July 12th, 2025
Wisteria Theater Company makes it five hits in a row with their zestfully entertaining take on Douglas Carter Beane’s 2005 Broadway treat Xanadu, itself a textbook example of how to turn a movie lemon into multiple Tony-nominated lemonade.
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YANKEE DAWG YOU DIE
Tuesday, July 8th, 2025
Kelvin Han Yee and Daniel J. Kim are on fire in East West Players’ 37th-anniversary revival of Yankee Dawg You Die, Philip Kan Gotanda’s look at Asian-American representation on stage and screen, at how it has changed since the days of Anna May Wong and Sessue Hayakawa, and at the changes that remained to be made in 1988 … and still do in 2025.
GASLIGHT
Sunday, July 6th, 2025
Decades before “gaslighting” became a thing people talked about, a villainous Victorian set about convincing his submissive spouse that she was losing her increasingly muddled mind in Patrick Hamilton’s classic thriller Gaslight, a mouthwateringly melodramatic treat from Pacific Resident Theatre.
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A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
Monday, June 30th, 2025
Summer has come to L.A., and with it the annual return to Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Shakespearean classic once again delighting audiences of all ages, whether they are experiencing its magic for the first time or returning for another summer afternoon or evening of enchantment.
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THE RESERVOIR
Saturday, June 28th, 2025
Two talented Jakes make stunning Geffen Playhouse debuts in The Reservoir, Jake Brasch’s hilarious, heartbreaking, ultimately hopeful look at alcoholism and Alzheimer’s that has rising star Jake Horowitz standing in for the playwright in one of the year’s most captivating performances.
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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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