BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL
Monday, June 13th, 2011
If it weren’t for the Musical Theatre Guild, Southern California audiences might never have had the chance to see and hear bygone Broadway shows like this season’s 70, Girls, 70 (1971), Little Me (1962), and One Touch Of Venus (1943), or last season’s Stop The World, I Want To Get Off (1962), Fade Out Fade In (1964), High Spirits (1964), and Irma La Douce (1960)—and for that, musical theater fans owe MTG a sincere debt of gratitude.
A MEMORY OF TWO MONDAYS
Sunday, June 12th, 2011
“Attention must be paid to such a person,” declares Linda Loman at the end of Arthur Miller’s 1949 masterpiece Death Of A Salesman, eulogizing a husband who woke up one morning to find that the thirty-four years he’d spent as a traveling salesman had been for naught.
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THE TROUBLE WITH WORDS
Saturday, June 11th, 2011
“If I could find the words… If I could speak my heart. If I could open up… If I could sing my love…”
Anyone wondering who the next Jason Robert Brown, William Finn, or Adam Guettel might be need look no further than Hollywood’s Actors Circle Theatre where Gregory Nabours’ The Trouble With Words has just opened to standing ovations.
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I’M JUST WILD ABOUT HARRY
Friday, June 10th, 2011
Take an 1892 British farce that broke records with its 1466-performance London run. Add to it nearly two-dozen song hits from the 1900s, ‘10s, and early ‘20s. Cast it with a terrific bunch of actors who can also sing and dance. Add to the mix a director, musical director, choreographer, and trio of designers, each of whom is blessed with ingenuity and flair. Do all of the above and the result is I’m Just Wild About Harry, Gary Lamb and William A. Reilly’s delightful jukebox musical now playing at the duo’s Crown City Theatre Co.
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SUPERIOR DONUTS
Thursday, June 9th, 2011
It’s taken a few years for Tracy Letts’ Superior Donuts to make it from Chicago to Broadway to Westwood—even San Diego beat the Geffen Playhouse to the punch—but for those in search of two-and-a-half hours of laughter with more than a bit of depth, the latest from Pulitzer-&-Tony-winning Letts proves well worth the wait.
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THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES
Tuesday, June 7th, 2011
Since The Marvelous Wonderettes’ made its first full-length big-stage Southern California appearance at the Laguna Playhouse in 2008, there’s scarcely a mid or large-sized Southland theater that hasn’t jumped at the chance to present this off-Broadway megahit to its local audience of theatergoers, and with reason. Roger Bean’s wonderfully marvelous look back at the pop music of the 1950s and ‘60s as sung by a quartet of high school girls at their 1958 prom and their 1968 class reunion is the very definition of a crowd-pleaser. Following runs at Musical Theatre West, the Norris Theatre, and Cabrillo Music Theatre, the Wonderettes have now arrived in La Mirada, once again directed by their writer-creator, and if last night’s audience reaction was any indication, McCoy Rigby Entertainment has a smash hit on its hands. Performing with a live band, these Marvelous Wonderettes are sure to captivate audiences from teens to grandfolks, and everyone in between.
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WORKING
Sunday, June 5th, 2011
What A Chorus Line is to Broadway dancers, Working is to the American work force, a musical salute to the cleaning women, iron workers, masons, mill workers, supermarket checkers, teachers, waitresses and countless others who have built America and kept it strong.
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YEAR ZERO
Saturday, June 4th, 2011
In fact, our very first glimpse of Vuthy in Michael Golamco’s Year Zero is of a shaggy-haired, hugely bespectacled teenager rapping about his life to said skull. “Everywhere I look, all I see is ghosts,” he syncopates to the prerecorded beats of a cassette tape. “All around me up in here, all I see is ghosts.”
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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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