HAMLET
Friday, October 30th, 2009RECOMMENDED
Since William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is considered by many to be the greatest play ever written, with just about every major stage actor having at one time or other tackled its title role, it’s noteworthy to say the least whenever a theater company takes on the challenge of staging it. John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Peter O’Toole, Richard Burton, Ralph Fiennes, and Broadway’s latest Hamlet, Jude Law, are hard acts to follow. Nevertheless, on a shoestring budget and without a single “name” in their cast, the Knightsbridge Theatre’s National American Shakespeare Company has staged a highly commendable Hamlet featuring excellent work by a young actor named Joshua Hayden as the Prince Of Denmark.
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EXIT STRATEGY
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
Life begins at seventy in Bill Semans and Roy Close’s Exit Strategy, now entertaining audiences eighteen to eighty at Garry Marshall’s Falcon Theatre.
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CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
How do you adapt a 550+ page novel like Dostoevsky’s Crime And Punishment for the stage? If you’re playwriting team Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus, you pare it down to ninety minutes with a cast of three actors to play all the characters. Well, not actually all of them. Of the two-dozen or so major roles in the Russian classic, Campbell and Columbus have chosen the nine they consider most important, given one actor the pivotal role of Raskolnikov the student/thief/murderer, and divvied up the remaining eight roles between the other two cast members.
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LOUIS AND KEELY LIVE AT THE SAHARA
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
World Premiere musicals are pretty much a monthly event in Los Angeles, and though many of them become audience and critical favorites, even the best of them tend to disappear after their initial engagements, the business of musical theater being what it is. Thus, one can suppose that when Jake Broder and Vanessa Claire Smith debuted Louis And Keely Live At The Sahara at Sacred Fools Theater back on May 30 of last year, the duo had reason to expect that their self-penned tribute to Louis Prima and Keely Smith would close as scheduled on June 29–and that would be the end of it.
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BETTER ANGELS
Saturday, October 24th, 2009
An elderly man enters from the back of the theater, climbs slowly onto the stage, and apologizes for his late arrival. Pointing to a star-spangled banner framed upstage center, he declares, “A beautiful flag, is it not?,” adding, “Forty-five stars.” (Program notes give the year as 1909.) This elderly man, John Hay, informs us that he is going to tell us a story … about “a man, a lady, and a man whose secretary I was. The lady will be new to you, but the man will be as familiar to you as the penny in your pocket.”
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WHITE CHRISTMAS
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
Christmas has arrived early this year in beautiful downtown Fullerton as FCLO Music Theatre presents the stage adaptation of the 1954 movie classic White Christmas. Those who wonder if that’s jumping the gun a tad have only to visit their neighborhood shopping mall to see that the holiday season is already upon us. Besides, with Irving Berlin hits like “Blue Skies,” “The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing, “Sisters,” and “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep” appropriate for any month of the year, a plot that isn’t all that “Christmas-centric,” and choreography that entertains equally in October or December, White Christmas is an appealing Fall CLO offering.
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WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
The first act of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf is called “Fun And Games,” but beware. These are not your usual party games, as audiences can once again discover in Hermosa Beach Playhouse’s absolutely sensational revival of the 1962 Broadway classic. Under Stephanie A. Coltrin’s expert direction, and featuring bravura lead performances by Matthew Brenher as George and Suzanne Dean as Martha, this is a production that more than holds its own against the Bill Irwin/Kathleen Turner Broadway revival which played the Ahmanson a few years back, or last season’s Ovation-nominated staging at the Rubicon.
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GUYS AND DOLLS
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
If you want to know why Cabrillo Music Theatre was the most honored company at last year’s Ovation Awards ceremony, winning six crystal trophies for their productions of Jekyll & Hyde and Singin’ In The Rain, check out their equally award-worthy revival of Frank Loesser’s Broadway classic Guys And Dolls. With musical theater director extraordinaire Nick DeGruccio at the helm, Broadway-worthy choreography by Roger Castellano, an all-around terrific cast of twenty-nine, and a sensational design team, this Guys And Dolls proves just how great CMT has become under President/CEO Carole W. Nussbaum and artistic director Louis Wilkenfeld.
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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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