PUNK ROCK

posted on April 13th, 2017 at 5:30 PM by Steven Stanley

The Breakfast Club’s all-American teen quintet may have found themselves holed up in the high school library like the seven English “sixth-formers” of Simon Stephens’ Punk Rock, but the world inhabited by those 1980s John Hughes archetypes seems positively Disneyesque compared to the dystopia their contemporary UK counterparts call home in Stephens’ riveting slice of middle-class private-school life, now being given an edge-of-your-seat Los Angeles Premiere by the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble.
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posted in Drama, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR

posted on April 11th, 2017 at 7:58 AM by Steven Stanley

Candlelight Pavilion hits the Easter-season jackpot with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1970 rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, a spellbinding big-stage revival that earns highest marks for Chuck Ketter and John LaLonde’s dynamic, imaginative direction, its all-around stunning production design, and a cast to rival regional theater’s finest. (Oh, and there’s not a note of prerecorded instrumentals to be heard.)
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posted in Musical, San Gabriel Valley, Theater Review, WOW!

THE BELLE OF AMHERST

posted on April 10th, 2017 at 10:26 AM by Steven Stanley

Ferrell Marshall is luminous as Emily Dickinson in Sierra Madre Playhouse’s gorgeously staged intimate revival of William Luce’s the Belle Of Amherst, impeccably directed by Todd Nielsen.
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posted in San Gabriel Valley, Solo Performance, Theater Review, WOW!

MACBETH: REVISITED

posted on April 9th, 2017 at 12:44 PM by Steven Stanley

Shakespeare’s Scottish Play is back, in streamlined form, as The New American Theatre debuts Macbeth: Revisited, and if the newfangled title suggests a more radically rethought Macbeth that this one actually is, director/star Jack Stehlin and his company of actors do indeed deliver the bloody goods.
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posted in Classic Play, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

APRIL, MAY, & JUNE

posted on April 8th, 2017 at 11:42 AM by Steven Stanley

April, May, & June may be more Lifetime Channel sitcom than Chekhov, but once the play gets past its expository-dialog crash course in four decades of family dysfunction, Gary Goldstein’s entertaining World Premiere look at three sisters so close in age they could almost be triplets yields its fair share of both laughter and emotional rewards.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, World Premiere

EVITA

posted on April 7th, 2017 at 9:53 AM by Steven Stanley

Just when you thought the life and loves of Eva Peron had been done to death, along comes director Tim Dang and choreographer Cindera Che’s thrillingly reimagined Evita, this year’s USC School Of Dramatic Arts spring musical, a big-stage production that differs from regional theater’s finest only in the youth of its sensationally talented cast.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

INTO THE WOODS

posted on April 6th, 2017 at 11:22 AM by Steven Stanley

Revivals don’t come any more thrillingly imaginative than Fiasco Theater’s brilliantly re-imagined Into The Woods, now paying a visit to the Ahmanson Theatre in a production no musical theater lover will want to miss.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, National Tour, Theater Review, WOW!

THE SIEGEL

posted on April 5th, 2017 at 5:07 PM by Steven Stanley

An out-of-the-blue wedding proposal a full two years after a couple’s breakup is hardly a conventional way to start off a romantic comedy, but the originality of this opening salvo is just one reason why Michael Mitnick’s The Siegel is such a South Coast Repertory treat.
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posted in Comedy, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

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