PARALLEL LIVES
posted on August 27th, 2016 at 4:29 PM by Steven Stanley
A pair of busy TV actresses prove they can light up the Falcon Theatre stage as brightly as they shine on the small screen in Parallel Lives, the talented twosome bringing character after character after character to hilarious (and occasionally poignant) life while managing at the same time to comment on gender, age, sexuality, and the whole damn thing.
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Tags: Alice Hunter, Crista Flanangan, Falcon Theatre, Kathy Najimy, Los Angeles Theater Review, Mo Gaffney
posted in Burbank/Glendale, Theater Review, Two-Hander, WOW!
TITANIC
posted on August 22nd, 2016 at 3:01 PM by Steven Stanley
Titanic sails again, and breathtakingly so, as Moonlight Stage Productions gives Peter Stone and Maury Yeston’s Titanic the kind of production that might have transformed the 1997 Broadway money-loser into the box office bonanza it deserved to be.
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Tags: Maury Yeston, Moonlight Stage Productions, Peter Stone, San Diego County Theater Review
posted in Musical, San Diego County, Theater Review, WOW!
DRAMA QUEENS FROM HELL
posted on August 21st, 2016 at 10:44 AM by Steven StanleyNOT RECOMMENDED
Significant trimming and tweaking is needed to make Peter Lefcourt’s Hollywood-spoofing Drama Queens From Hell the comedy hit it aspires to be despite some occasional insider hilarity and several deliciously scene-stealing performances.
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Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Odyssey Theatre, Peter Lefcourt
posted in Comedy, Not Recommended, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, World Premiere
NEXT TO NORMAL
posted on August 20th, 2016 at 2:26 PM by Steven Stanley
The 99-seat Pico Playhouse proves a just-right setting for a compelling, powerfully-performed intimate staging of Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s Next To Normal, one of only nine musicals in Broadway history to have won the Pulitzer Prize.
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Tags: Brian Yorkey, Los Angeles Theater Review, Pico Playhouse, Tom Kid
posted in Musical, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!
GO BACK TO WHERE YOU ARE
posted on August 18th, 2016 at 9:20 AM by Steven Stanley
There’s a whole lot of fourth-wall-breaking going on in Go Back To Where You are, David Greenspan’s magical seventy-five minute bit of meta-theatrical romance and whimsy now getting an admittedly brain-challenging but absolutely captivating West Coast Premiere by the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble.
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Tags: David Greenspan, Los Angeles Theater Review, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
posted in Comedy, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!
PETER AND THE STARCATCHER
posted on August 15th, 2016 at 12:50 PM by Steven Stanley
Theatrical magic doesn’t get much more magical than the magic being made at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center as Actors Repertory Theatre Of Simi enchants audiences of all ages with their supremely imaginative albeit scaled-down production of Broadway’s Peter And The Starcatcher.
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Tags: Actors Repertory Theatre Of Simi, Rick Elise, Ridley Pearson, Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center, Ventura County Theater Review
posted in Comedy, Theater Review, Ventura County, WOW!
THE IMAGINARY INVALID
posted on August 14th, 2016 at 6:28 PM by Steven Stanley
Theatricum Botanicum legend Ellen Geer follows her 2014 Queen Lear with another gender-bending star turn, this time as Molière’s Malade Imaginaire, aka The Imaginary Invalid, Constance Congdon’s 21st-century adaptation turning a three-and-a-half-century-old farce into a playfully raunchy laughfest that would do Mel Brooks proud.
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Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Moliere, Theatricum Botanicum
posted in Classic Play, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!
BLUEPRINT FOR PARADISE
posted on August 13th, 2016 at 4:15 PM by Steven Stanley
The weeks leading up to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor provide the historical backdrop for Blueprint For Paradise, Laurel M. Wetzork’s fascinating, fact-inspired look at the unlikely friendship between the heiress wife of an American Nazi sympathizer and the African-American architect hired to design a “refugee compound” on fifty-acres of the couple’s Pacific Palisades estate.
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Tags: Hudson Mainstage Theatre, Los Angeles Theater Review, Murphy's Ranch, Paul Revere Williams
posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, World Premiere, WOW!
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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