A SHAYNA MAIDEL


On the surface, Rose White would appear to be the quintessential All American New Yorker circa 1946. She has her own West Side apartment, a good job, a fashionable wardrobe, and an independent lifestyle. Scratch a little deeper, however, and you’ll discover that Rose White is European-born Rayzel Weiss, the daughter of Polish Jews born just a decade before Hitler’s rise to power. Papa Mordechai and four-year-old Rose emigrated to America in the mid-1920s, but older sister Lusia came down with scarlet fever shortly before the family’s planned departure, so Mama and Lusia stayed behind. Then came the Nazis, and mother and daughter were shipped off to Auschwitz along with everyone else in their extended family. Only Lusia survived. Now, a year after the declaration of peace in Europe, older sister has come to America at last.
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DAS BARBECÜ


Musical Theatre Guild concluded its 2009-10 season with a one-night-only concert staged reading of Das Barbecü, a show you’ve probably never heard of before, but one that proved a delightful discovery.
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GRACE AND GLORIE


Take two very different individuals, put them in the same space over a period of days, weeks, or years, and watch how they change each other’s lives. This is a formula that has worked to perfection in the Colony Theatre’s critically acclaimed productions of Trying and Educating Rita. The same formula works its magic once again in Tom Ziegler’s Grace And Glorie, a gem of a “two hander” sure to be as much a critical and audience favorite as its predecessors, all three superbly helmed by director Cameron Watson.
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YELLOW


It’s been four years since Del Shores’ Greatest Hits (Sordid Lives, Southern Baptist Sissies, and Trials And Tribulations Of A Trailer Trash Housewife) packed audiences into the Zephyr Theatre for eight memorable months, and over seven years since Shores’ last new play debuted. Since then, Shores and company have gone on to tour the country with the writer’s particular brand of Southern-fried charm and humor, and to produce Sordid Lives: The Series to considerable acclaim. Still, it’s been far too long since Angelinos have had the chance to experience the Shores magic live on stage.
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AGATHA CHRISTIE’S BLACK COFFEE


Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot give Theatre 40 one of its best productions with the Queen Of Crime’s classic mystery thriller Black Coffee, one which delivers at least as many laughs as thrills, the entire cast delivering sparkling performances with just the right amount of tongue in cheek.
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ANNE FRASER THOMAS


Tall, dark-haired, and gorgeous, Anne Fraser Thomas is one of our finest, and most unique, musical theater talents—as Monday’s standing room only crowd at Hollywood’s Magic Castle can certainly attest to. Over the course of an eclectic hour of song and magic (of the musical sort), Anne took her devoted family, friends, and fans on a musical journey through her life from her early years as a multi-ethnic wunderkind (there wasn’t a lesson or class young Anne wasn’t taking) up through her present day bicoastal life.
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ALL MY SONS


There’s no greater work of 20th Century American theater than Arthur Miller’s now classic All My Sons. 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—sixty-three years after its New York premiere.
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SKYLIGHT


30-year-old schoolteacher Kyra Hollis has scarcely gotten back to her East London flat, the evening’s groceries in tow, when recent high school grad Edward Sargeant arrives on her doorstep with a question and a request. Kyra, a former employee of Edward’s restaurateur father, had been living with the Sargeants for half a dozen years until suddenly vanishing from their lives a couple years back. Not long after, Edward’s mother was diagnosed with cancer, her death last year leaving Edward without the two most important women in his life, his real life Mum and the “older sister” Kyra had become to him. Edward wants to know why Kyra abandoned them. He also wants her to do something to help his father, Tom, who’s not been doing all that well since his wife’s death.
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