A WITHER’S TALE
Thursday, August 26th, 2010
William Shakespeare’s darkest comedy A Winter’s Tale and the soulful Seventies sound of Bill “Ain’t No Sunshine” Withers make for a perfect match in A Wither’s Tale, the latest offering by the multi-award-winning Troubadour Theater Company and one of the Troubies’ richest and best productions yet.
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EAT THE RUNT
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010
A candidate for a high-level fund-raising position in a major big city art museum is interviewed by various museum higher-ups in Avery Crozier’s Eat The Runt, now getting its Los Angeles Premiere at Theatre Of NOTE.
If the above mini-synopsis seems hardly the stuff of great drama, let alone the laugh-out-loud comedy that Eat The Runt is, then wait till you hear the gimmick that makes it a truly unparalleled theatrical experience.
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ALL MY SONS
Saturday, August 21st, 2010
Arthur Miller’s All My Sons is my very favorite 20th Century play, one I have now had the good fortune of seeing staged a half-dozen times. Debuting on Broadway less than two years after World War II ended with Japan’s surrender, Miller’s examination of personal responsibility in time of war remains every bit as powerful—and relevant— today, sixty-three years after its New York premiere.
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CHESS IN CONCERT
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
While watching a recording of the 2008 London production of Chess In Concert at Royal Albert Hall, Musical Theatre Of Los Angeles’s Eduardo Enrikez and Bonnie McMahon were struck with a flash of divine inspiration (or out-and-out insanity)—to stage their own Chess In Concert with a 10-piece orchestra and 20-member cast in a 99-seat theater. A daunting task to say the very least, but then again so were MTLA’s revivals of Ragtime and West Side Story, just two of the Broadway mega-musicals which the creative duo had scaled down to 99-seat dimensions to critical acclaim and audience cheers.
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FREE MAN OF COLOR
Saturday, August 14th, 2010
“Thirty-four years before the end of slavery, I stood before my graduating class and wondered about my soul.”
The speaker is John Newton Templeton, a young ex-slave and the first man of color to attend Ohio University—over three decades before the Emancipation Proclamation.
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PARASITE DRAG
Friday, August 13th, 2010
The storm clouds on the Central Illinois horizon pale beside the shadows of abuse, adultery, addiction, illness, incest, and suicide in Parasite Drag, Mark Roberts’ slice of Midwest life now getting its Southern California Premiere at the Elephant Theatre Company. Electrically directed by David Fofi in association with Don Foster and powerfully performed by a quartet of topnotch actors, Parasite Drag mixes dramatic confrontations with biting dollops of humor to gripping effect.
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THE LAST ROMANCE
Sunday, August 8th, 2010
Life begins at eighty or so for the two lead characters in The Last Romance, Joe DiPietro’s charming, funny, andvery romantic new comedy now in its West Coast Premiere at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre. Like DiPietro’s earlier Over The River And Through The Woods, The Last Romance offers some of the best comedic roles ever for septuagenarian and even octogenarian actors, and was written especially for two of them, Marion Ross of TV’s Happy Days fame and WWII vet Paul Michael, her real life partner.
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ROBIN AND THE 7 HOODS
Sunday, August 8th, 2010
Take a couple dozen songs written by multiple Oscar winners Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, hire a couple dozen Broadway and regional theater triple-threats to perform them to Tony-winning director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw’s fancy footwork, string them together with a plot suggested by a 1962 Frank Sinatra flick, call the confection Robin And The 7 Hoods—and you’ve got the thoroughly enjoyable World Premiere (and possibly Broadway-bound) new musical now delighting audiences at San Diego’s Old Globe Theater.
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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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