MACBETH


Director extraordinaire Jessica Kubzansky humanizes the murderous Macbeth and his lethal Lady McB  in a uniquely powerful production of Shakespeare’s “Scottish Play,” particularly as performed by a mashup of the Antaeus Company’s double-cast ensemble.
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THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES CAPS & GOWNS


From its humble beginnings as a one-act at Milwaukee Rep way back in 1998 to its two-year run at the El Portal in the mid-2000s to its 2008 off-Broadway Premiere to its countless regional productions since then, Roger Bean’s The Marvelous Wonderettes has become its very own cottage industry, spawning an Original Cast Recording and assorted souvenirs, a holiday show (“Winter Wonderettes”), and now a wonderfully marvelous sequel, The Marvelous Wonderettes Caps & Gowns, getting its World Premiere at the Laguna Playhouse.
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MELVIN ROBERT: THE SECOND ACT


Triple-threat Melvin Robert fulfilled a childhood dream when in 2009 he dazzled audiences as Tom Collins in the Los Angeles Regional Premiere of Jonathan Larson’s Rent, a performance about which I wrote: “His rendition of the ‘I’ll Cover You’ reprise [is] one of the evening’s most gut-wrenching and beautifully performed moments.” Robert won an Outstanding Featured Performance Scenie for his powerful work opposite Jai Rodriguez in that production, and a second for Best Ensemble Cast for the Moonlight Stages production of Miss Saigon the following year.
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AVENUE Q


Following its sensational, Broadway-caliber revival of A Chorus Line, 3-D Theatricals now presents the Southern California Regional Premiere of Avenue Q, the Tony-winning Best Musical of 2003, and once again comes up with a production that rivals the Broadway original from start to finish.
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WEST SIDE STORY


Following their multiple award-winning stagings of The Who’s Tommy, Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, and Merrily We Roll Along (among others), The Chance Theater’s Oanh Nguyen and Kelly Todd have once again joined forces, this time to reinvent the Broadway classic West Side Story with equally spectacular results.
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CABARET


Theatre Out puts its personal stamp on Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret, making for one of the LGBT theater’s all-around best musical offerings to date and one that solidifies its status as one of Orange County’s top two or three intimate theater companies.
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OUR HOUSE


Theresa Rebeck skewers reality TV in her very funny—and very smart—Our House, now getting a terrific West Coast Premiere at Hollywood’s Lounge Theatre.
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JEKYLL & HYDE


If there’s anything Los Angeles theater can be justifiably proud of, it’s our particular talent for scaling down big-stage, big-bucks Broadway musicals to intimate dimensions. Recent productions of The Color Purple and Spring Awakening not only rivaled their Tony-winning New York counterparts, in the eyes of some observers they even surpassed them. Now, DOMA Theatre Company tries its hand at a downsized Jekyll & Hyde, and if a bit of miscasting and some roughness around the edges prevent it from reaching the heights hit by the aforementioned 99-seat smashes, the Marco Gomez-directed production nonetheless makes for an exciting evening of musical theater at its most dramatic and tuneful.
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