THE COLOR PURPLE
Wednesday, June 20th, 2018
Swing Nikisha Williams’ star turn as Celie, a fabulous supporting cast, and imaginative staging make the Broadway Revival Tour of The Color Purple, Alice Walker’s powerful recounting of a young black woman’s road to self-discovery and self-assertion, well worth seeing despite a minimalist scenic design ill suited to (and volume levels turned way too low for) a hall as mammoth as the Segerstrom Center For the Arts.
(read more)
LEGALLY BLONDE
Sunday, June 17th, 2018
Rising musical theater star Callandra Olivia is a pretty-in-pink Harvard Law School stunner as Elle Woods in Candlelight Pavilion’s irresistible big-stage production of the 2007 Hollywood-to-Broadway hit Legally Blonde.
(read more)
MEXICAN DAY
Saturday, June 16th, 2018
Following the hallucinogenic surrealism of Plunge and the real-time fireworks of Tar, playwright Tom Jacobson concludes his mammoth Bimini Bath Trilogy with no less than an old-fashioned 1940s-style screwball comedy (with dramatic overtones) called Mexican Day, like its predecessors an enthralling, enlightening look at 20th-century L.A. history.
(read more)
SKELETON CREW
Friday, June 15th, 2018
If Arthur Miller had written a play about auto workers facing the personal and professional consequences of a possible plant closure, it might have been Skeleton Crew, which is about the highest praise I can bestow upon Dominique Morisseau’s powerful blue-collar drama, now making a breathtakingly designed, directed, and performed Geffen Playhouse debut.
PLUNGE
Wednesday, June 13th, 2018
Long-buried secrets of power, passion, and perversion propel Plunge, the first installment of Tom Jacobson’s concurrently running Bimini Baths Trilogy, as provocative a World Premiere play as you’re likely to experience any time soon.
(read more)
CLYBOURNE PARK
Monday, June 11th, 2018
White flight circa 1959 and urban gentrification five decades later fuel Bruce Norris’s button-pushing, political-correctness-be-damned comedy Clybourne Park, winner of both the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2012 Tony Award for Best Play, the finest production I’ve seen at Laguna Playhouse and one of the year’s very best.
(read more)
TAR
Sunday, June 10th, 2018
L.A.’s fabled Bimini Hot Springs and Sanitarium (1903-1956) provide the backdrop for Tom Jacobson’s The Ballad of Bimini Baths trilogy, the prolific Angelino playwright’s most ambitious project to date, and if the Playwrights’ Arena World Premiere Tar is any indication of what Plunge and Mexican Day hold in store, audiences are in for an exhilarating, elucidating three-part treat.
(read more)
AS WE BABBLE ON
Thursday, June 7th, 2018
Millennials get their turn in the East West Players spotlight in Nathan Ramos’s World Premiere comedy As We Babble On, a crowd-pleasing Asian-American take on Friends with more than just laughter on its mind.
(read more)
Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
COPYRIGHT 2026 STEVEN STANLEY :: DESIGN BY