SHREK THE MUSICAL
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011
Forget any preconceived notions you may harbor about Shrek The Musical being just another animated movie-turned-Broadway musical or a show designed only for tiny tots. With book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire (the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Rabbit Hole) and music by multiple award-winning Jeanine Tesori (Caroline, or Change, Thoroughly Modern Millie), Shrek The Musical is a smart, funny, tuneful musical treat whose fresh new non-Equity tour, now playing at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center For The Arts, puts it at the top of my list of favorite recent Broadway hits.
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HOW THE WORLD BEGAN
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011
Ask a big city Blue State high school science teacher and a rural Bible Belt high school student how the world began and you’ll probably get two quite different answers. Put this teacher and this student in the same classroom in small town Kansas and sparks are likely to fly.
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UP
Sunday, October 2nd, 2011
The recent spate of It Gets Better videos could easily have been made with the teenage protagonists of Bridget Carpenter’s Up in mind. Fifteen-year-old Mikey, though not gay, is “different” enough to get pushed around and called “faggot.” As for Mikey’s new friend Maria, the six-months-pregnant sixteen-year-old was sent packing when her “drunk bitch” of a mom found out her little girl had gotten herself knocked up.
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SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN
Sunday, October 2nd, 2011
The 1952 MGM Musical classic Singin’ In The Rain gives Downey Civic Light Opera its best production since 2009’s My Fair Lady, one that judging from the enthusiastic reaction of Friday’s Opening Night audience could well prove DLCO’s biggest hit in as many years.
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RICHARD O’BRIEN’S THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW
Saturday, October 1st, 2011
How does one review the revival of a camp classic? How does a reviewer deal with that oxymoronic juxtaposition of camp and classic? Can something “so bad it’s good” actually achieve the status of a classic?
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NOISES OFF
Thursday, September 29th, 2011
Imagine a production of one of those hilarious English farces like No Sex Please, We’re British whose actors are still struggling with their lines, have yet to master the requisite comic timing, and still haven’t learned when to enter and exit. Lines will be forgotten, jokes won’t get their payoff, cues will be missed, and the entire production an absolute mess. Certainly not one you’d pay to see, right?
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LOOT
Sunday, September 25th, 2011
No one wrote darker, more subversive comedies than Joe Orton—or funnier ones for that matter. Those requiring proof of the above need only head on over to San Pedro’s Little Fish Theatre to check out their terrific production of Orton’s darkly subversive farce.
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GUYS AND DOLLS
Saturday, September 24th, 2011
Damon Runyon’s colorful New York denizens are lighting up the stage at Rolling Hills Estates’ Norris Theatre in their 2011-2012 season opener, a highly entertaining production of Frank Loesser’s Guys And Dolls.
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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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