THE MOST HAPPY FELLA
Friday, April 5th, 2013
Advisory to all musical theater lovers in Los Angeles and beyond: Run, don’t walk, to USC’s Bing Theatre this week and next to catch Frank Loesser’s 1956 Broadway musical drama The Most Happy Fella in a production the likes of which you are unlikely to see any time soon (or even not that soon).
Now before you say, “But I don’t see student productions,” allow me to point out that this is USC’s prestigious School Of Dramatic Arts, many of whose grads have gone on to star on Broadway and beyond. Not only that, but The Most Happy Fella has been impeccably directed by Tony winner John Rubinstein and choreographed with athleticism and panache by two-time Ovation Award nominee Lili Fuller (herself a recent USC grad), and it features a full pit orchestra under the baton of award-winning musical director Alby Potts. Talk about credentials!
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REMEMBRANCE
Sunday, March 31st, 2013
His Protestant son was murdered by an IRA hit squad in the driveway of his father’s Belfast home. Her Catholic son was tortured, then shot to death by a vigilante Protestant street gang. Their late-in-life romance is at the heart of Graham Reid’s powerful 1987 drama Remembrance, not only one of the finest plays to be part of a Theatre 40 season, but quite possibly the best overall production I have seen at Beverly Hills’ premier 99-seat theater.
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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
Sunday, March 31st, 2013
What’s in a name? Well, to Gwendolen Fairfax, whose “ideal has always been to love someone of the name Earnest,” it means just about everything, so much so that her beau Earnest Worthing dare not let it slip that “Earnest” is merely a moniker he assumes when in big city London, his real name Jack being reserved for the rest of his life in the Hertfordshire countryside.
Any theater buff worth his or her salt can surely tell you that the “Earnest” in question is but one of two bogus “Earnests” in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance Of Being Earnest, now getting a dandy revival at North Hollywood’s Theatre Banshee under the assured direction of Sean Branney.
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ON THE SPECTRUM
Friday, March 29th, 2013
Young man with Asperger syndrome and young woman with autism fall in love to his single mom’s dismay.
Rarely has a play had as Hollywood-ready a “log line” as On The Spectrum, now getting its West Coast Premiere at The Fountain Theatre, and though Ken LaZebnik’s dramedy is not at the level of the stellar production it is being given at the Fountain, a pair of breathtaking lead performances and an extraordinary video/sound design are more than enough put it on every L.A. theater lover’s must-see list.
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MASTER CLASS
Monday, March 25th, 2013
Behind every great voice there must surely be a story, though few great voices have behind them a story as compelling as that of Maria Callas, the Greek soprano known the world over as La Divina, or so L.A. theatergoers will discover as Master Class, Terrence McNally’s Tony-winning Best Play of 1996, returns to our stages in an all-around superb production at Long Beach’s International City Theatre.
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CHICAGO
Sunday, March 24th, 2013
It’s taken a good long while—over sixteen years to be precise—for the longest-running American musical in Broadway history to make it to our Southern California regional theaters. Then again, considering that Chicago is currently closing in on 7000 performances on The Great White Way, it’s a wonder theaters like Escondido’s Lawrence Welk don’t find themselves on a mile-long waiting list to get their hands on the Kander & Ebb mega-revival, all the more reason to head down south a ways and catch Chicago, smashingly up-close-and-personal at the Welk.
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A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER
Sunday, March 24th, 2013
Imagine how it might have played out had Downton Abbey’s distant cousin Mattthew Crawley actually wanted to inherit the Grantham estate, not just wanted it but wanted it so badly that to get it, he needed to dispose of more than half a dozen Granthams standing in the path of his succession.
I realize this is a lot to imagine, but if I ask you to do so, it’s simply to give you an idea of the world inhabited by the characters of the delicious new period musical A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder, a world of manners and money and Edwardian morality, a world in which a poor relation might have no other recourse than to bump off the competition one by one if he wanted to go from rags to riches.
SPRING AWAKENING
Sunday, March 24th, 2013
Broadway’s Spring Awakening gets a fresh re-envisioning as the maiden entry in La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts’ brand new “On Stage” series, which takes the usual stage area of the 1251-seat theater and converts it into a 200-seat thrust-stage theater-within-a-theater, giving audiences a Spring Awakening that not only stands out for its originality in concept and staging, but one that has every ticket-holder seated within seven rows of the performance area, insuring the kind of up-close-and-personal experience no big-stage La Mirada production could possibly offer.
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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