SHENANDOAH
Wednesday, June 13th, 2012
Musical Theatre Guild closes its strongest season in years with an imaginatively staged, powerfully performed “concert staged reading” of the 1975 Broadway hit Shenandoah.
(read more)
HAIR
Wednesday, June 13th, 2012
A 2006 Cal State Northridge production of the 1960s Broadway smash Hair so impacted the student playing Woof that when several years later he established his own theater company, he named it theTRIBE Productions, after the musical’s band of anti-war, pro-peace-&-love hippies who called themselves “The Tribe.”
(read more)
THE LONG WEEKEND
Monday, June 11th, 2012
The Long Weekend is one heck of a dull title for a play as hilarious and cleverly written as the one now getting its West Coast Premiere at Theatre 40. Then again, if you’re Canada’s most produced playwright whose 38 scripts receive an average of 150 productions a year, it probably doesn’t matter Up North what you call each new one, your fellow Canadians will turn out in droves for it. Still, for us Americans who may not know the difference between Norm Foster, Jodie Foster, Cheers’ Norm Peterson, or Foster Farms, the title The Long Weekend suggests a dreary dramatic piece, when in fact Foster’s 1994 two-acter is a tantalizing comedic gem of a play, terrifically performed at Theatre 40 by its cast of four and directed with verve by the prolific Bruce Gray.
(read more)
THE MUSIC MAN
Sunday, June 10th, 2012
Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre welcomes the upcoming Independence Day holiday with a terrific revival of The Music Man, one of the three longest-running musicals of the 1950s and one of the best Broadway shows ever. Refreshingly sophisticated, surprisingly deep, and more than a tad acidic at times, Meredith Willson’s self-described “valentine” to his home state of Iowa turns out to be far from the saccharine musical some have accused it of being
(read more)
VERY STILL AND HARD TO SEE
Saturday, June 9th, 2012
The ghosts are deceased and (relatively) well and haunting the hotel where Steve Yockey has set Very Still And Hard To See, his World Premiere Scary Play and the latest offering from August Viverito and T L Kolman’s The Production Company.
The theatrical equivalent of Disneyland’s Space Mountain, i.e. equal parts excitement, terror, and glee, Very Still And Hard To See provides thrills galore under Michael Matthews’ masterful direction.
(read more)
THE SLEEPER
Friday, June 8th, 2012
Among the many changes the events of 9/11 have brought about in American life is the new crop of words we’ve seen added to our daily lexicon, not the least of which is the term 9/11. Foreign words have become part of our vocabulary. Old words have been combined to create new phrases. Network news broadcasts have given us one media slogan after another. Who knew what a jihad was before the “axis of evil” launched its “Attack On America”? Even everyday words have acquired new meanings. Take the colors “blue,” “yellow,” “orange,” and “red,” no longer harmless hues but each one more frightening than the previous when modifying the word “alert.” Take too the word “sleeper,” once merely “a person or animal who is asleep” or perhaps a railroad sleeping car, now considerably more sinister in this post-9/11 world.
It’s this newer, scarier “sleeper” that playwright Catherine Butterfield has in mind in her 2004 comedy The Sleeper, now getting a sensational Los Angeles premiere by North Hollywood’s Theatre Tribe.
(read more)
DAMES AT SEA
Wednesday, June 6th, 2012
The campy 42nd Street spoof affectionately titled Dames At Sea proves a terrific showcase for the musical theater talents of UC Irvine in the Department Of Drama’s annual end-of-school-year big-stage musical, directed with oodles of imagination by UCI’s brand new Head Of Directing Jane Page.
(read more)
NO WAY AROUND BUT THROUGH
Wednesday, June 6th, 2012
Actor, writer, director, photographer, musician Scott Caan, star of TV’s Hawaii 5-0, spotlights the first two of these talents in his entertaining new comedy No Way Around But Through, now getting its World Premiere at Burbank’s Falcon Theater, an engagement made even more noteworthy by the presence of Oscar-nominated film star Melanie Griffith among its talented cast of five.
(read more)
Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
COPYRIGHT 2026 STEVEN STANLEY :: DESIGN BY