A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE
Tuesday, June 18th, 2013
Sometimes wishes do come true.
Back in September of last year, following a superb concert staged reading of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s A Man Of No Importance, I ended my review with a wish: “Isn’t it time that A Man Of No Importance got a fully-staged L.A. production?”
Now, a mere nine months later, that wish comes true as director-choreographer extraordinaire Janet Miller and her new Good People Theater Company offer Los Angeles audiences that fully-staged A Man Of No Importance, as all-around perfect a production as this or any musical theater lover could possibly have wished for.
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FIDDLER ON THE ROOF
Monday, June 17th, 2013
No sequins. No glitz. No feathers. No frills. Nothing but glorious songs and dances and a heartstrings-tugging story to transport you back in time and space to a Jewish shtetl in early 20th Century Tsarist Russia. This is Fiddler On The Roof, the Broadway classic whose (almost) 50th Anniversary production makes for a memorable PCPA Theaterfest summer season opener under Roger DeLaurier’s assured direction.
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YES, PRIME MINISTER
Friday, June 14th, 2013
The country is England, the time is now, and the PM’s country house retreat Chequers is in crisis mode. The coalition government finds itself representing a divided electorate, the British Pound Sterling is waning in value, and an ongoing European Council conference seems headed for disaster. With all these problems and more on his table, what’s a Prime Minister to do?
In Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn’s hilariously farcical Yes, Prime Minister (now getting its US Premiere at the Geffen Playhouse), the answer comes in the form of a potential ten-trillion dollar bailout from a former Soviet republic the authors have dubbed Kumranistan. All the PM has to do is provide the Kumranistani foreign secretary with a trio of call girls for a totally illegal (and immoral and unethical) sex orgy.
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GIRL CRAZY
Tuesday, June 11th, 2013
Musical theater lovers who might have wondered just how revolutionary Oklahoma! was when it redefined the Broadway musical in 1944 got a tangy taste of what came before it at Monday night’s terrifically entertaining Musical Theatre Guild concert staged reading of George and Ira Gershwin’s Girl Crazy.
Fully integrated songs and dances? No way. Lyrics that advanced the plot? Forget it. Serious subject matter? You must be kidding! And as for 21st Century political correctness, there was no such thing back in 1930 when Jews, Mexicans, Gypsies, Asians, Gays, Women, you name it, were deemed joke-worthy.
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DEAD MAN’S CELL PHONE
Monday, June 10th, 2013
If there’s nothing more annoying than the sudden sound of a cell phone going off in a public place, how about when the owner of said phone just lets it ring … and ring … and ring? No wonder Jean, the heroine of Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone, finally loses her patience and goes over to give the negligent phone owner a piece of her mind. It’s only then that she discovers that the man with the annoying cell phone has, as they say, met his maker.
Thus begins Ruhl’s whimsical Helen Hays Award-nominated comedy, a sure bet to entertain audiences at Long Beach’s International City Theatre, particularly with director Richard Israel imaginatively in charge.
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HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING
Sunday, June 9th, 2013
That go-getting whiz kid J. Pierpont Finch is once again zipping his way up the corporate ladder as Performance Riverside gives the Broadway classic How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying a crackerjack revival well-worth the drive east.
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A MIDSUMMER SATURDAY NIGHT’S FEVER DREAM
Saturday, June 8th, 2013
“If we offend, it is with our good will, that you should think, we come not to offend, but with good will.”
The prologue is straight out of Shakespeare, but after that, you know you’re in Troubies Land as the strains of “Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive. Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive” fill the Falcon Theatre … and the Troubadour Theater Company’s latest crowd-pleaser A Midsummer Saturday Night’s Fever Dream is off and running.
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SPRING AWAKENING
Friday, June 7th, 2013
An extraordinarily talented team of students and faculty, including Broadway hoofer-turned-choreographer extraordinaire Andrew Palermo, have joined forces to create a Spring Awakening so fresh and original, my guess is that book writer-lyricist Steven Sater and composer Duncan Sheik might have a hard time choosing between the Broadway production and UC Irvine’s thoroughly original re-envisioning of their ground-breaking 2007 Tony-winning Best Musical.
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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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