THE SEAGULL: MALIBU

posted on August 18th, 2025 at 4:52 PM by Steven Stanley


Ellen Geer updates Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull from 1890s tsarist Russia to Malibu, California during the “It’s All About Me” 1970s, and the exhilarating result is The Seagull: Malibu, a romantic dramedy that’s both Chekhovian and Southern Californian, and a Summer Of 2025 treat no matter how you feel about Chekhov.
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posted in Classic Play, Comedy-Drama, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

ANTIGONE

posted on August 17th, 2025 at 12:40 PM by Steven Stanley


Neil LaBute puts a 21st-century spin on French playwright Jean Anouilh’s 1944 adaptation of Sophocles’ classic Greek tragedy Antigone, itself a thinly veiled attack on the Nazi-allied Vichy government that controlled Paris during World War II, in the compelling, thought-provoking latest from City Garage.
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posted in Drama, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

& JULIET

posted on August 16th, 2025 at 4:26 PM by Steven Stanley


Romeo’s teenage bride gets a new lease on life in the West End-to-Broadway smash & Juliet, quite possibly the most hit-packed musical in Broadway history and one that now tops my list of favorite shows of the past ten years right up there with The Prom, Come From Away, and Dear Evan Hansen.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, National Tour, Theater Review, WOW!

TUNE IN

posted on August 13th, 2025 at 8:43 AM by Steven Stanley

Playwright Carlos Lacámara tackles university politics, mental illness, psychedelic drug therapy, childhood trauma, and women in academia in the early 1960s, stirs in at least one soap opera-worthy plot twist, and garners more than a few laughs along the way in Tune In, another fabulous Theatre Of NOTE World Premiere.

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posted in Comedy-Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

STRIFE

posted on August 12th, 2025 at 9:13 AM by Steven Stanley


The rich get richer and the poor get poorer in Strife, John Galsworthy’s more-relevant-than-ever look at the darker side of HBO’s The Gilded Age.
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posted in Drama, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

SOMETHING ROTTEN

posted on August 11th, 2025 at 12:59 PM by Steven Stanley


Torrance Theatre Company has done it again, delivering a big-stage, big-cast, big-orchestra summer musical so professionally staged and performed, you just might find yourself thinking you’re seeing the 2015 Broadway hit Something Rotten being performed at one of our major SoCal regional theaters.
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posted in Musical, South Bay, Theater Review, WOW!

GLORY DAYS

posted on August 9th, 2025 at 12:31 PM by Steven Stanley


Four high school besties discover that life after graduation isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in Nick Blaemire and James Gardiner’s engaging slice-of-teen-life musical Glory Days, a terrific (and terrifically entertaining) talent showcase for a quartet of up-and-coming triple threats at the Broadwater Black Box Theatre.
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posted in Hollywood/West Hollywood, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

THE FANTASTICKS

posted on August 3rd, 2025 at 3:34 PM by Steven Stanley

The ups and downs of first love are explored to engaging, tuneful effect in the Ruskin Group Theatre’s 65th-anniversary revival of Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s The Fantasticks, though for me at least, the world’s longest-running musical begins somewhat to outstay its welcome at around the two-hour point.

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posted in Musical, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls

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