ADELINE’S PLAY
Thursday, August 27th, 2009
In the final five days of the homestretch of StageSceneLA’s 2nd calendar year, just when I think that there can’t possibly be another truly great new play (and production) to add to my upcoming Best Of 2008-9 lists, along comes Kit Steinkellner’s Adeline’s Play, the best World Premiere I’ve seen this year in a production which could not be better. Blessed with six performance gems and directed with love and finesse by Amanda Glaze, Adeline’s Play is the kind of play you find yourself enjoying so much that you simply can’t bear to see it end.
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OEDIPUS THE KING. MAMA
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
The Troubadour Theater Company is back with Oedipus The King, Mama, one of their funniest shows ever and of those I’ve seen the best danced bar none.
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STEPHEN SCHWARTZ
Sunday, August 23rd, 2009
Upright Cabaret’s Wicked Summer Nights came to a smashing conclusion with a star-studded tribute to mega-composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz at Hollywood’s Ford Amphitheatre on Sunday, August 23, produced by power duo Chris Isaacson and Shane Scheel, and directed by Broadway’s sensational Billy Porter.
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THE RECEPTIONIST
Saturday, August 22nd, 2009
A middle-aged man in a business suit sits alone on the edge of a blackened stage, illuminated by a sole spot, and quietly describes the humane way to kill a fish which has been wounded by the fisherman’s hook in such a way that it cannot be thrown back into the water to carry on its submarine life. He then comments somewhat ambiguously, albeit ominously, about “people who don’t like what we do to people over there.”
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ANITA BRYANT DIED FOR YOUR SINS
Friday, August 21st, 2009
If every man’s life is a story, then the time has come to write mine,” types fifteen-year-old Horace Poore from his tree house at the start of Anita Bryant Died For Your Sins, Brian Christopher Williams’ terrific memory play. Under West Coast Ensemble Co-Artistic Director Richard Israel’s inspired direction, and with a star-making turn by the brilliant young Wyatt Fenner, Anita Bryant Died For Your Sins shapes up to be this summer’s most talked-about and praised new play.
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WHAT THE BUTLER SAW
Saturday, August 15th, 2009
Here’s a question for theater aficionados? Can you think of a play which deals with, features, or mentions all of the following: depravity, disguises, gender identity, the government, hanky-panky, hermaphroditism, homosexuality, incest, insanity, marriage, mistaken identities, nymphomania, pederasty, psychiatry, rape, religion, reunited orphan siblings, slapstick, and transvestitism? Who could possibly have found a way to put all of the above into one play—and make it one of the most laugh-out-loud hilarious screwball farces ever?
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LEGALLY BLONDE
Friday, August 14th, 2009
Having conquered both Harvard Law School and Hollywood in the movie smash that made Reese Witherspoon an A-list star, Legally Blonde’s Elle Woods then went on to take Broadway by storm as the heroine of 2007’s Legally Blonde The Musical. Now, the not-so-dumb-blonde has arrived at Hollywood’s Pantages Theatre in a textbook example of how to turn a hit celluloid romcom into a nigh-on-perfect Broadway musical.
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TREEFALL
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
At some time in the perhaps not so distant future, after a series of “ecological events” has altered civilization as we know it, a trio of teenage boys have set up house in a primitive one-room mountain cabin somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Despite the cataclysms that have befallen society, the “family unit” has somehow found a way to survive in Henry Murray’s Treefall, now in its world premiere engagement by Rogue Machine. Though a post-apocalyptic nightmare fairy tale would not be my usual theatrical cup of tea, the performances of its talented, charismatic young cast, the contributions of a superb design team, and some ultimately moving, thought-provoking writing make Treefall an absorbing piece of theater.
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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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