OLIVER!

posted on February 11th, 2019 at 8:50 AM by Steven Stanley

Lionel Bart’s Oliver! is back in town in its first major L.A. production in over ten years and what a joy it is to re-experience (or to discover for the first time) Broadway’s Greatest Dickens Musical at Long Beach’s Musical Theatre West.
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posted in Long Beach/San Pedro, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

THE MOUNTAINTOP

posted on February 9th, 2019 at 1:02 PM by Steven Stanley

America’s greatest civil rights leader spends the last night of his life with a sultry, saucy motel maid in Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop, a concept likely to rile those who prefer to remember Dr. Martin Luther King as a sin-and-vice-free saint, but one that makes for gripping, thought-provoking dramatic sparks at the Garry Marshall Theatre just in time for Black History Month 2019.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Drama, Theater Review, WOW!

MAN OF GOD

posted on February 8th, 2019 at 4:18 PM by Steven Stanley

The discovery of a spy cam pointing up from inside the hotel bathroom toilet of four Korean-American teens on a mission trip to Thailand sets in motion a wild and unexpected chain of events in Anna Moench’s Man Of God, an East West Players World Premiere as funny, dramatic, and edge-of-your-seat gripping as it is a timely reminder that there are no age restrictions where the #metoo movement is concerned.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

MATTHEW BOURNE’S CINDERELLA

posted on February 7th, 2019 at 6:24 PM by Steven Stanley

The world’s favorite step-daughter once again meets her Prince Charming (but this time the man in question is an injured WWII pilot, the setting is London circa The Blitz, and their romantic tale-as-old-as-time is told entirely in dance as only Sir Matthew Bourne can choreograph it) in the thrillingly performed, apty retitled Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella (Music By Prokoviev), now paying a return visit to the Ahmanson Theatre twenty years after it first captivated L.A.
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posted in Dance, Los Angeles, National Tour, Theater Review, WOW!

COME FROM AWAY

posted on February 6th, 2019 at 8:46 AM by Steven Stanley

Heroism, humanity, and heart triumph over terror in Come From Away, the 2017 Broadway Tony winner that turns the most unlikely of subject matters into the most feel-good of musicals. (That it’s also the best-directed, most powerfully performed show now touring the country is icing on the cake.)
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posted in Musical, National Tour, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

LAST CALL

posted on February 4th, 2019 at 5:32 PM by Steven Stanley

Anne Kenney is hardly the first writer to tackle the issues confronting adult children of aging parents but her theatrical debut, Last Call, an Open Fist Theatre Company World Premiere, is as perceptive and powerful as family dramas get.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

AUGUST WILSON’S TWO TRAINS RUNNING

posted on February 3rd, 2019 at 5:36 PM by Steven Stanley

August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated Two Trains Running arrives at the Matrix just in time for Black History Month in as powerfully staged and performed a production as any theatergoer, regardless of color, could possibly wish for.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, WOW!

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

posted on February 2nd, 2019 at 1:05 PM by Steven Stanley

Multitalented director Michael Marchak ups the physical comedy to entertaining effect in Crown City Theatre Company’s 124th-anniversary revival of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance Of Being Earnest, but it remains Wilde’s way with words delivered by a terrific cast of Crown City favorites that earn the lion’s share of laughs.
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posted in Classic Play, North Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

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