OKLAHOMA!


Musical Theatre Of Los Angeles follows its much praised downsizings of Ragtime The Musical, West Side Story, and Cabaret with one of its biggest challenges yet, a 99-seat production of Rodgers And Hammerstein’s very first collaboration—1943’s Oklahoma!
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CURTAINS


It’s always an event when a regional theater gets its first crack at a recent Broadway hit—and when that show is John Kander & Fred Ebb’s very last musical (and the recipient of eight Tony Award nominations), the event is well worth a road trip.
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SHAHEED: THE DREAM AND DEATH OF BENAZIR BHUTTO


Say the name Benazir Bhutto to a cross-section of Pakistanis and you’ll probably get as many different points of view as those expressed by the characters who people Anna Khaja’s Shaheed: The Dream And Death Of Benazir Bhutto.
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STREEP TEASE


Meryl. Meryl. Meryl.

Is there any need to add a last name? Can there be a movie fan alive today who doesn’t know straight away that the Meryl in question is the most Oscar-nominated actress (or actor) in Academy Award history? (That’s 16 nominations in case you’ve forgotten.)
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THE WILL ROGERS FOLLIES


Cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer and actor, Will Rogers packed a whole lot of living into his fifty-five years. He circled the world three times, made over seventy movies, wrote thousands upon thousands of nationally-syndicated newspaper columns, became internationally famous, and even ran once for President of the United States, if only in jest.
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ELEVATOR


Take a bunch of strangers and trap them in an enclosed space for a significant enough length of time and it’s a sure bet they’ll come out changed by the experience—if plays and movies are to be believed. Take the jurors in Twelve Angry Men, Tom Hanks and assorted others in You’ve Got Mail, or the high school kids in The Breakfast Club. Eleven jurors changed their verdict, Tom decided to leave Parker Posey for Meg Ryan, and the Princess, Jock, Brain, Criminal, and Basket Case all revealed themselves to be night-and-day different from our first impression of them and bonded in the process. Such is the stuff of stage and screen fiction.
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AMADEUS


For the past several years, August Viverito and T L Kolman have been stripping down big stage, big budget Broadway productions to their brilliant essentials on the matchbox stage of the Chandler Studio Theatre in North Hollywood. Now, to the ranks of their superb downscalings of M Butterfly, Equus, and Sweeney Todd can be added The Production Company’s equally outstanding re-envisioning of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus.
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AIN’T WE GOT FUN


Ain’t We Got Fun, Ben Hensley and Michael Montiel’s nostalgic look back at early 20th Century vaudeville, makes for forty-five of the brightest minutes you’re likely to enjoy this year. 
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