MOSCOW
Saturday, May 8th, 2010
Three gay men find themselves trapped in an empty theater that may be heaven, hell, or somewhere in-between (with only Chekhov’s The Three Sisters as their companion) in Nick Salamone and Maury R. McIntyre’s engaging, touching chamber musical Moscow, now playing at San Diego’s Diversionary Theatre.
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COPENHAGEN
Friday, May 7th, 2010
There’s a moment early on in Michael Frayn’s Tony Award-winning Copenhagen when Margrethe Bohr says reassuringly to her physicist husband Niels, “I don’t think anyone has yet discovered a way you can use theoretical physics to kill people.” Ironic words indeed when spoken to one of the theoretical physicists who worked on the Manhattan Project developing the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, weapons which led to the immediate or eventual deaths of 200,000 human beings.
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THE WOMEN OF BREWSTER PLACE
Thursday, May 6th, 2010
The projects are alive with the sound of music in Tim Acito’s adaptation of Gloria Naylor’s The Women Of Brewster Place, but don’t expect any “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens” or “cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels” anywhere in the vicinity of the walled-in housing development where these women lead their dreary, heartbreaking, and heartache-plagued lives. Times are indeed tough for Mattie, Etta Mae, Kiswana, Lorraine, Tee, Cora Lee, Mavis, and Sophie, but they’ve got their music—and each other—to pull themselves through.
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MATT AND BEN
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010
No one except the co-authors themselves knew the true story behind Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Academy Award-winning screenplay for Good Will Hunting until well over five years after Oscar night 1998—not until August 21, 2002, that is, when Mindy Kaling and Brenda Wither’s Matt & Ben opened at the New York International Fringe Festival.
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THE GIFT HORSE
Monday, May 3rd, 2010
Lydia R. Diamond’s Stick Fly was one of the biggest critical successes of last year’s theater season, scoring nominations and/or wins at L.A.’s Big Three award ceremonies—the Ovations, the LADCCs, and the LA Weeklys.
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L.A. NOIR UnSCRIPTED
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010
They’ve done Jane Austen UnScripted, Tennessee Williams UnScripted, and William Shakespeare UnScripted to rave notices and audience cheers. Impro Theatre now turns its talents to L.A. Noir UnScripted, and the 100% improvised result may well be their very best UnScripted yet.
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THE PHILADELPHIA STORY
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010
Fans of 1930s comedies will want to cheer Actors Co-op’s revival of Philip Barry’s 1939 hit The Philadelphia Story, a title quickly recognized by film buffs as that of the Oscar-winning 1940 movie classic starring Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart. (Hepburn starred in both stage and screen versions, with the plot of the MGM adaptation sticking much closer to the Broadway original than did, say, the movie versions of You Can’t Take It With You or Stage Door.)
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CRIMES OF THE HEART
Saturday, May 1st, 2010
It’s probably a toss-up as to which group of Southern women are the more famous, the gals who get their hair done at Truvy’s in Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias or the Magrath sisters of Beth Henley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Crimes Of The Heart. In either case, those with a fondness for Henley’s quirky Mississippi siblings will be happy to know that they are alive and well and performing nightly at Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre.
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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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