THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE
Saturday, February 6th, 2010
The competitive urge to come in first starts at an early age in William Finn’s Broadway smash, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Winning is everything for Finn’s band of adolescent regional spelling bee finalists, as well as for many of their parents, and if you have any doubt that kids can be every bit as competitive as adults, this quirky, highly original musical will soon cure you of this misconception.
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ALL SHOOK UP
Friday, February 5th, 2010
Ask me to name my favorite musicals of the past decade and All Shook Up (the “Elvis Musical”) is sure to make the Top Ten. With its hit-filled score made up of over two dozen Elvis hits, a clever, funny book by Joe DiPietro, a cast of delicious characters that make this one of the best triple-threat ensemble shows around, and opportunities aplenty for a choreographer to strut his or her stuff, All Shook Up is a non-stop crowd-pleasing delight. Having seen it on Broadway, in its National Tour, and at Musical Theatre West (twice), I can state without reservations that 3-D Theatricals’ production is as exciting as it gets.
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SWEENEY TODD
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street is back, supersized, in Musical Theatre West’s excellent revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. A cast of twenty-seven and a twenty-two piece orchestra make this the biggest Sweeney in recent memory, welcome news indeed for theatergoers grown tired of downsized shows.
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WHISPER HOUSE
Sunday, January 31st, 2010
I present to you a story set upon a Northern shore. Denizens of lighthouse during times of war. The foolish things they did. The foolish things they said. I’m sure you would agree they would be better off dead.”
Singing these lyrics are a 1910s-garbed 2010-alternative-rock-performing pair of ghosts haunting a 1941 Maine lighthouse. The spectral vocalists, one male, one female, and their equally deceased backup band are the victims of a 1912 Halloween night shipwreck, unable even 29 years later to depart from the lighthouse whose keeper brought about their deaths through negligence. If only he had remembered to turn on the light that fateful night.
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LOST IN YONKERS
Sunday, January 31st, 2010
Back when Neil Simon started writing plays like Come Blow Your Horn and Barefoot In The Park for the Broadway stage, few could have imagined that the author of such lightweight fare would go on to one day be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Then came Brighton Beach Memoirs and the rest of the “Eugene Trilogy” and critics were forced to admit that Simon was a playwright of unique, remarkable gifts. His 1991 masterwork Lost In Yonkers impressed audiences and reviewers alike and from that play forward Simon would forever be referred to as Pulitzer Prize Winner Neil Simon.
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STAGE DOOR
Saturday, January 30th, 2010
Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman’s 1936 comedy Stage Door is the kind of play that inspires the proverbial, “They don’t write ’em like that anymore.” Three acts. Twenty-seven characters. Witty dialog. Snappy repartee. Not only do they not “write ’em” like that. In these tough economic times, no mid-to-large-size theater could afford toproduce’em like that either. (Just imagine the cost of salaries and costumes!)
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NO SEX PLEASE, WE’RE BRITISH
Friday, January 29th, 2010
All those doors is the first clue that we’re in the land of farce. After all, how many apartment living rooms have six (count’em) doors leading off who-knows-where, in addition to stairs leading up to a second floor? Only the needs of farce (plenty of “he goes out just as she comes in” moments and slammed doors galore) could inspire such a floor plan. Then there are the intercoms (not one, but two) and a hatch opening on to the kitchen that keeps flying down and shutting. Clearly we’re going to be in for an evening of screwball merriment.
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SEASCAPE WITH SHARKS AND DANCER
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
A young man pulls a young woman out of the ocean and brings her back to his rundown Provincetown beach house. He says she was drowning; she says she was dancing. From the get-go, romantic sparks seem to be flying between them. Their repartee recalls those screwball comedies of the 1930s, but the year is 1975 and there are hints that the young woman’s playfully argumentative nature hides a darker side. There’s also the engagement ring she finds hidden in a desk drawer that suggests that the young man too may carry emotional baggage.
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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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