SPRING AWAKENING

posted on January 18th, 2019 at 3:49 PM by Steven Stanley

Outstanding performances, nuanced direction, and thrillingly original choreography (all by USC students) make Musical Theatre Repertory’s intimate staging of the 2007 Broadway musical hit Spring Awakening one of the best in a long line of Grade-A MTR productions.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, Student-Cast Production, Theater Review, WOW!

LINDA VISTA

posted on January 17th, 2019 at 12:00 PM by Steven Stanley

Tracy Letts could just as easily have called his latest play Train Wreck, so hot a mess is its 50-year-old protagonist that much of the pleasure of Letts’ relentlessly funny, defiantly unsentimental Linda Vista (a Steppenwolf visitor to the Mark Taper Forum) is watching its antihero (emphasis on the anti) get what he so richly deserves.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Los Angeles, Presented Production, Theater Review, WOW!

MAMMA MIA!

posted on January 15th, 2019 at 10:11 AM by Steven Stanley

Get out your disco boots and spandex as Cupcake Theater gives L.A. audiences their very first chance to enjoy the international megasmash Mamma Mia! up close and personal.
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posted in Musical, North Hollywood, Theater Review

1776

posted on January 14th, 2019 at 12:52 PM by Steven Stanley

American history comes stirringly alive in Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone’s 1776, turning audiences at the La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts into flies on the walls of the Continental Congress of 1776 as our country’s Founding Fathers wrangle over the question of Independence.
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posted in Downey/La Mirada, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

JOCASTA: A MOTHERF**KING TRAGEDY

posted on January 13th, 2019 at 11:04 AM by Steven Stanley

Technical marvels and some inventive directorial touches aren’t enough to rescue The Ghost Road Company’s Jocasta: A Motherf**king Tragedy from its performance-artsy approach to Greek tragedy and its lackluster lead.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Theater Review, World Premiere

DESERT RATS

posted on January 8th, 2019 at 10:36 AM by Steven Stanley

It isn’t just aspiring kidnappers who owe it to themselves to check out Nate Rufus Edelman’s Desert Rats for a primer on what not to do when abducting a high school cheerleader but anyone seeking L.A. theater at its entertainingly edgy best.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, WOW!

DEAR EVAN HANSEN

posted on January 3rd, 2019 at 10:32 AM by Steven Stanley

A socially challenged teen experiences unexpected life changes when a well-intentioned self-esteem-building exercise backfires in the extraordinary, multiple Tony-winning Dear Evan Hansen, now bringing audiences to tears (and to their feet) at the Segerstrom Center For The Arts.
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posted in Musical, National Tour, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

WINK

posted on December 29th, 2018 at 11:08 AM by Steven Stanley

Casting a non-binary actor as a non-binary protagonist merits snaps, but the two-hour suspension of disbelief required of an audience by Neil Koenigsberg’s Wink sinks whatever good intentions may have prompted its playwright to put fingertips to keyboard.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review

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