THE WHALE
Thursday, March 21st, 2013
A morbidly obese man attempts to reconcile with his angry teenage daughter.
This is all I knew about Samuel D. Hunter’s The Whale going in, and if you wish to be as blown away by this absolutely brilliant, unexpectedly funny, devastatingly powerful new play as I was, ask no questions. Simply reserve your seat at South Coast Repertory and let Hunter, director Martin Benson, and five phenomenal actors do the rest. You’ll thank me for not having given anything but this away.
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THE SECRET GARDEN
Tuesday, March 19th, 2013
You’d think that theaters in search of grown-up entertainment for the entire family would be jumping at the chance to program Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman’s musical adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s novel The Secret Garden. 709 performances on Broadway, seven Tony Award nominations and two wins (for Norman’s book and Daisy Eagan’s performance as Mary). And as if that weren’t already enough, Norman’s book pays as much attention to the novel’s adult characters as it does its children while show’s Tony-nominated songs (music by Simon, lyrics by Norman) capture ever so gorgeously the sound and feel of the Yorkshire moors.
You’d think that this would be true, but you’d be wrong. The Secret Garden hasn’t had a big stage L.A.-area professional production for over a dozen years, all the more reason for Musical Theatre West to add it to this season’s Reiner Reading Series, a one-night-only event that not only brought Burnett’s classic story to unforgettable life, it did so after a mere twenty-five hours of rehearsal.
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EURYDICE
Sunday, March 17th, 2013
A Noise Within continues its Spring 2013 season, one with a decidedly more modern spin than is usual at California’s Home For The Classics, with Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl’s magical, mystical, poetic retelling of the Orpheus myth from the point of view of his bride.
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MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION
Saturday, March 16th, 2013
Daughter Discovers Mom To Be Millionaire Madam
No, this isn’t a headline story in The National Inquirer or on TMZ, nor is it the latest reality TV show or nighttime soap. In fact, the mother and daughter in question are from over a century back (when you only needed $40,000 to be a millionaire) and the two lead characters in George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Can you say “ahead of its time?”
Shaw’s 1893 ground-breaker makes an exciting return to Los Angeles as The Antaeus Company premieres another if its couldn’t-be-better revivals starring the incomparable Anne Gee Byrd in the title role. Who could ask for anything more?
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WHAT MAY FALL
Friday, March 15th, 2013
A senseless random tragedy causes nine Minneapolitans to reevaluate their lives in Peter Gil-Sheridan’s What May Fall, now getting a compelling, beautifully acted, incisively directed West Coast Premiere at Hollywood’s Theatre Of NOTE.
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HAVING IT ALL
Wednesday, March 13th, 2013
Having scored a grand total of seven Ovation Award nominations in its 2011 World Premiere run, the hit musical Having It All now graduates to the big stage of the Laguna Playhouse in a production which reunites four of its five original stars and preserves the many pleasures Angelinos enjoyed in it the first time round … and then some.
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TENDER NAPALM
Tuesday, March 12th, 2013
The East London exes of Philip Ridley’s Tender Napalm could give the long-married spouses of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a lesson in how to use language as both weapon and aphrodisiac, or so Los Angeles audiences can now discover in the sensational West Coast Premiere of Ridley’s surreal romantic tragedy at the downtown warehouse-turned-performance space Six-01 Studio.
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LEGALLY BLONDE
Monday, March 11th, 2013
When rights to a hit Broadway musical get released to regional theaters, it often takes longer than you’d expect for a show to reach L.A. Take the case of Legally Blonde. Though its rights were made available way back in September of 2011, it had until recently made its way only as close as Vista (94 miles away), with Thousand Oaks not scheduled to get it till this coming July, and Fullerton (a “mere” 26 miles away) not till October of 2013. And who knows when it will actually reach L.A. County?
All the more reason to zip on up to relatively nearby Simi Valley (only half an hour from downtown L.A.) where right this very minute Elle Woods is discovering the joys of higher education in Actors’ Repertory Theatre of Simi’s terrific (if not quite perfect) staging of the 2007 Broadway adaptation of the 2001 movie smash, solidly directed by David Daniels.
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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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