CRAZY FOR YOU
Monday, July 9th, 2012
Santa Monica’s venerable Morgan-Wixson Theater once again redefines “community theater” with its latest big-stage musical revival, Crazy For You, the Tony-winning Best Musical of 1992, directed with assurance and pizzazz by Anne Gesling.
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12th NIGHT
Saturday, July 7th, 2012
Twelfth Night. Eighty minutes. No intermission. Shakespeare purists may cavil, but to those with more contemporary sensibilities, these words could hardly be more musical to the ears.
A shorter, brisker running time proves but one of many reasons why Vanguard Rep’s stripped-down 12th Night comes as such a delightful treat this summer season. Add to that inventive direction by adapter Sam R. Ross and featured player Matthew Kellen Burgos, sparkling performances by an all-Equity cast of nine, a splendid production design, and an optional pre-show bring-your-own-feast picnic with a panoramic view of the San Gabriel Valley and you’ve got a 2012 La Cañada Flintridge Shakespeare Festival offering too irresistible to say “No” to.
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THE IMMIGRANT
Friday, July 6th, 2012
From the rear of the Pico Playhouse comes a foreign-accented male voice singing a beautiful, mournful refrain: “The stars can see what we cannot, the stars remember what we forgot. See that shining spark. God is there in the dark…” Little by little, a slight, bearded figure enters our field of vision, pushing a cart filled with ripening bananas down the center aisle.
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LEGALLY BLONDE
Monday, July 2nd, 2012
Nothing makes this musical theater lover happier than when a recent Broadway favorite makes its way to regional productions on our local stages. Such is the case with 2007’s Legally Blonde, now getting its Southern California Regional Premiere at Vista’s Moonlight Amphitheatre, and if 90 or so miles seems a bit of a schlep to catch SoCal’s very first from-the-ground-up Legally Blonde, then you’re far less of a musical theater (and Elle Woods) aficionado than this reviewer. The Broadway stage adaptation of the 2001 movie smash is a textbook example of how to turn a hit celluloid romcom into a nigh-on-perfect musical comedy, and one that the folks down at Moonlight have staged about as terrifically as imaginable.
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MONTY PYTHON’S SPAMALOT
Monday, July 2nd, 2012
It’s taken eight long years for Monty Python’s Spamalot to go from its preview engagement in Chicago to its Regional Premiere at Long Beach’s Musical Theatre West, but in the case of the one-of-a-kind Spamalot, the resulting production proves well worth the wait. Using the original Broadway sets, costumes, and choreography (but in all other respects building its production “from the ground up”), MTW gives Los Angeles-area audiences abundant reasons to celebrate Spamalot’s long-awaited arrival.
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JULIET &HER ROMEO
Saturday, June 30th, 2012
Vanguard Rep opens its Summer 2012 La Cañada Flintridge Shakespeare Festival with Juliet &her Romeo, Matthew Kellen Burgos’s 80-minute 3-actor adaptation of a play you might have read in high school.
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FLUFFY BUNNIES IN A FIELD OF DAISIES
Friday, June 29th, 2012
With a title as cutesy yet unwieldy as Fluffy Bunnies In A Field Of Daisies, you’d hardly expect Matt Chaffee’s 2002 two-acter to be a delightful, smart, cleverly written, occasionally raunchy but more often than not mush-hearted comedic gem, let alone one that ran off-and-on for an amazing two or three years in its initial Los Angeles run. Still, this is precisely what Fluffy Daisies is, as audiences can once again discover in its 10 Year Anniversary Revival at Hollywood’s Arena Stage Theatre.
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AUGUST WILSON’S JITNEY
Tuesday, June 26th, 2012
Back in 1979 when it was first written, August Wilson’s Jitney was a contemporary slice of African-American life as lived in Pittsburg, PA, and the first of a projected series of ten plays, each set in a different 20th Century decade. By the time Wilson completed his ambitious labor in 2005 with Radio Golf (set in the ‘90s), Jitney had morphed into a period piece, perhaps even more noteworthy for the look back in time it now offered.
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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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