LA RONDE DE LUNCH
Friday, November 13th, 2009
Peter Lefcourt skewers Hollywood deal-making—brilliantly—in La Ronde De Lunch, the funniest show you’re likely to see this fall and one of the most terrifically performed comedies of this or any season.
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TREE
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
The last thing Louisianan Didi Marcantel expects to find soon after the death of her father is a bunch of letters written to him over forty-years ago … love letters addressed to a woman he knew while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps. Even more surprising is the discovery that her Caucasian father’s one-time lover was African American—back in the days when Jim Crow laws made interracial relationships not only “improper” but illegal as well. Tripling the effect of this surprise is the news that the union between Ray Marcantel and his beloved Jessalyn produced a child, Didi’s now 46-year-old half-brother Leo Price, father of Didi’s 20ish half-niece JJ.
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BABY IT’S YOU
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
In the Eisenhower late-1950s, a housewife and mother did not suddenly come to the realization that there was life outside her kitchen and living room and traipse off to the big city in search of something more. She did not suddenly decide to “get into” the record business, even if her children were nearly grown and off on their own, and not even if told by her daughter, “Mom, there are some girls in my high school who sing so well they could be recording stars.” No. Back then housewives and mothers in Passaic, New Jersey knew that their place was in the home and they stayed there … all but one, all but Florence Greenberg. Florence saw that there was indeed life away from the suburbs, a life in New York City, and the four high school girls her daughter Mary Jane was telling her about became the first big girl group of the 1960s, The Shirelles, under contract to Scepter Records, Florence’s very own label.
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WAIT UNTIL DARK
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
The cell phone may well be the third-greatest invention of the past fifty years, right after the home computer and the Internet. Most of us look back at the pre-cellular 1980s (and before) and think, “How did we ever survive without them?” On the other hand, it’s fortunate indeed for lovers of classic stage thrillers that playwright Frederick Knott lived most of his life in a mostly cell phone-free 20th Century. How could Knott have written 1952’s Dial M For Murder had Margot Wendice had a cell phone in her purse or pocket? 1966’s Wait Until Dark is even harder to imagine in a cell phone age. Knott’s thriller about a blind New York City newlywed targeted by a trio of thugs in search of a heroin-filled doll they believe to be hidden somewhere in her walk-down flat is absolutely dependent on there being only one land-line phone in the apartment and a (now virtually non-existent) phone booth on a nearby corner.
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FADE OUT – FADE IN
Monday, November 9th, 2009
When was the last time you saw a production of the 1964 Jule Styne-Betty Comden & Adolph Green musical Fade Out – Fade In? Have you ever even heard of Fade – Out Fade In?
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JUNIE B. JONES
Sunday, November 8th, 2009
“The World According To Me” is just the first of ten sparkling musical numbers in Barbara Park’s Junie B. Jones And A Little Monkey Business, the latest entry in South Coast Rep’s Theatre For Young Audiences. Like its predecessors Imagine and The Brand New Kid, Junie B. Jones is a musical treat that will keep kids enthralled throughout its fast-moving under-ninety minutes (intermission included for snack and potty breaks). Fortunately for any adults in attendance, Joan Cushing’s delightful book, music and lyrics, a talented sextet of triple-threat performers, and a fanciful rainbow-hued set and costumes are likely to entertain audience members of any age.
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A BIG GAY NORTH HOLLYWOOD WEDDING
Friday, November 6th, 2009
Run, don’t walk, to see A Big Gay North Hollywood Wedding!
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JUST 45 MINUTES FROM BROADWAY
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
Start with quite possibly the most gorgeous set ever designed for a 99-seat theater production, add to that an intelligent, witty script which reads like a 21st Century version of Kaufman and Ferber’s The Royal Family, cast it with some of L.A.’s finest stage and screen talent—and the result is Henry Jaglom’s Just 45 Minutes From Broadway, one of the best new plays I’ve reviewed on StageSceneLA.
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