CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
Sunday, September 14th, 2014
Moonlight Stages closes its Summer 2014 season with the Southern California Regional Premiere of Catch Me If You Can, and if the musical adaptation of Steven Spielberg’s popular 2002 biopic “underperformed” during its less than half-a-year on Broadway, you’d be hard-pressed to figure out why it wasn’t a humungous smash from the sensational goings-on down in Vista under the inspired direction of Larry Raben.
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EQUIVOCATION
Saturday, September 13th, 2014
Imagine that you, as the foremost writer of your time, have been ordered by your country’s leader upon pain of imprisonment, torture, and death to come up with a play that would dramatize a supposed plot against your government, solidify its legitimacy, and demonize many of your fellow citizens simply because of your words. What would you do?
This is the conundrum faced by Shag (aka William Shakespeare) in Bill Cain’s extraordinary Equivocation, back in L.A. for the first time since its 2009 pre-off-Broadway engagement at the Geffen in an absolutely superb production at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum, one that tops its predecessor if only for the clarity that director Mike Peebler (doing outstanding work) and his all-around sensational cast bring to Cain’s labyrinthine tale.
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WHAT I LEARNED IN PARIS
Friday, September 12th, 2014
The 1973 election of Maynard Jackson as Atlanta’s first African-American mayor is merely the backdrop for Pearl Cleage’s What I Learned In Paris, a romantic roundelay Noël Coward could have confectioned, its made-for-each-other exes J.P. and Evie giving Private Lives’ Elliot and Amanda a run for their money, albeit with a good deal more soul.
Following its 2012 World Premiere at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, Cleage’s entertaining if overlong comedy now arrives at Burbank’s Colony Theatre with some sparkling performances and an often fascinating look back at the heady changes wrought by the previous two decades’ Civil Rights crusade and the then burgeoning Feminist Movement.
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ANIMALS OUT OF PAPER
Thursday, September 11th, 2014
A woman who has become a virtual recluse in the months since the breakup of her marriage and the disappearance of a cherished pet. A high school calculus teacher who’s been keeping a written record of his life’s every blessing since the age of twelve. The teacher’s star student, an Indian-American math nerd who fancies himself a black rapper.
Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph weaves these three ordinary lives into something quite extraordinary in his 2008 dramedy Animals Out Of Paper, now being given a pitch-perfect Los Angeles Premiere as the opening salvo in East West Players’ two-year-long celebration of its 50th season of offering Angelinos of every ethnicity the finest in Asian-American theater.
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THE TEMPEST
Wednesday, September 10th, 2014
Illusions so mystifying that you’ll give up even trying to figure out “how they did that.” Original songs by a Rock-&-Roll Hall of Famer performed by a live R&B/Alternative Pop band. Direction that makes adjectives like “imaginative” or “ingenious” or “inspired” seem tame. Performances and production design to match. All of these combine to make Aaron Posner and Teller’s touring adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest a must-see even for those might never wish to sit through another The Tempest again.
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CONVICTION
Sunday, September 7th, 2014
A long-married suburban couple and their seventeen-year-old son attempt to survive the aftermath of a terrible, life-destroying accusation in Carey Crim’s powerful, provocative new play Conviction, which though still in need of work, receives an outstanding World Premiere co-production at Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre.
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THE WESTERN UNSCRIPTED
Saturday, September 6th, 2014
They’ve improvised Shakespeare. They’ve improvised Film Noir and The Twilight Zone. They’ve improvised Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Chekhov. They’ve even had the chutzpah to improvise Stephen Sondheim, music, lyrics, and all. And now the improv geniuses who call themselves Impro Theatre are back for business at the Falcon Theatre with their latest (and one of their very best) confections to date—improvising a full-length “feature film” live onstage in that most quintessential of American movie genres: The Western UnScripted.
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IT’S JUST SEX
Monday, September 1st, 2014
A dinner party that morphs into a spouse-swapping swingers’ bash may well be the hook that has attracted audiences to Jeff Gould’s It’s Just Sex – A Comedy About Lust & Trust since its World Premiere at the Whitefire back in 2002, but it’s the playwright’s perceptiveness about male-female relationships, the depth he gives his characters, and the unexpected life changes each couple ends up undergoing that has turned It’s Just Sex into L.A.’s longest-running comedy (factoring in its later runs at the Zephyr and the Two Roads), sent it off-Broadway in 2013, and have now brought it back to NoHo’s Secret Rose Theatre with an upcoming Las Vegas run likely in the cards.
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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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