DINNER WITH FRIENDS
Saturday, June 5th, 2010
There’s a moment in Donald Margulies’ Dinner With Friends when one of its characters comments, “The thing is, you never know what couples are like when they’re alone; you never do.”
(read more)
SUPERNOVA
Friday, June 4th, 2010
Mabel Davies is trying to make the most of her Midwest hell of a life in Timothy McNeil’s World Premiere drama Supernova—but it sure as hell isn’t easy. Her inattentive, loutish husband John spends his days plunked down in front of the tube before heading off to his graveyard-shift factory job, leaving Mabel alone at home to fend for herself. Son Kip used to be the apple of both his parents’ eyes, but as his eighteenth birthday approaches, the surly youth wastes his days and nights drinking, getting high, and spouting right wing militia catchphrases. (He’s also carrying on a secret sexual affair with the Davies’ recently separated next door neighbor Fran, twice his age.) No wonder Mabel finds solace in her nightly phone calls with Joe, a lonely watch salesman in far away California.
(read more)
LENNY BRUCE IS BACK (AND BOY IS HE PISSED)
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
Ask most people about Lenny Bruce and the first words that pop into their heads might be “comedian,” “arrested,” and “obscenity.” That and maybe “died young” and “drug overdose.”
(read more)
THE WILD PARTY
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
Don’t expect to see Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party on any of our CLO stages any time soon. The adults-only nature of the 2000 off-Broadway hit make it an unlikely choice for family-friendly subscription-based CLO seasons. That’s why UC Irvine’s current big-stage, live-orchestra production has real event status. Unlike MTG’s memorable book-in-hand staged reading in 2004 or numerous fine intimate theater productions which have followed, UC Irvine’s staging is lushly staged and backed by a nine-piece pit orchestra. That it also features a cast every bit as talented as those performing in professional productions around town makes it a must-see for Wild Party lovers and newbies alike.
(read more)
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
You don’t have to be a Shakespeare lover to love the Hermosa Beach Playhouse production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Gorgeous to look at and sparklingly performed by a talented cast who make Elizabethan English sound refreshingly modern, this Stephanie A. Coltrin-directed Midsummer Night’s Dream enchants and tickles the funny bone in equal measure.
(read more)
USS PINAFORE
Sunday, May 30th, 2010
From its title, you might guess that Crown City Theatre’s USS Pinafore was simply an Americanized version of Gilbert & Sullivan’s classic comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore—but you’d be wrong. What adapter/director Jon Mullich has up his sleeve is something considerably more outer spacey than that—a cleverly written transformation of the British warship Pinafore into the Starship Pinafore. Yes, that’s Starship, à la Star Trek’s Starship Enterprise.
(read more)
CAROUSEL
Saturday, May 29th, 2010
If all you knew about Rodgers and Hammerstein was The Sound Of Music, you might expect an R&H show called Carousel with its big production numbers like “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” to be all “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens,” especially considering its 1945 Broadway debut, over a decade before shows started getting dark and dramatic with Bernstein and Sondheim’s West Side Story.
(read more)
THE LION KING
Friday, May 28th, 2010
The arrival of the Broadway National Tour of Disney’s The Lion King for a three-week engagement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center is something to roar about. It’s not every day that one of Broadway’s longest running hits (over 5000 performances and counting) arrives in town. It’s not every day that a show that filled Hollywood’s Pantages for over 950 performances back in 2000-2003 makes a return visit. And don’t hold your breath waiting for some Southern California regional theater or CLO to put on their own production. With its humungous cast of fifty plus performers, over 200 puppets, and roles that require cast members portraying giraffes to saunter across the stageon four stilt legs, you can be darn sure that a big budget National Tour or sit-down production is the only way you’ll be able to see The Lion King … ever. Thus, although it’s not a case of now or never, it’s certainly now or a long time from now. If ever a production could be called a must-see for musical theater lovers of any age, it’s the one playing at OCPAC.
(read more)
Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
COPYRIGHT 2026 STEVEN STANLEY :: DESIGN BY