WEST SIDE STORY

posted on March 4th, 2025 at 6:22 PM by Steven Stanley

A number of brilliant directorial choices make the first act of Nocturne Theatre’s West Side Story so thrillingly innovative that it comes as a disappointment that some less inspired ones in Act Two end up diminishing the overall impact of this otherwise impressive in-the-round revival of the 1957 Broadway classic.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Musical, Theater Review

FROU-FROU: A MENAGERIE OF SORTS

posted on March 3rd, 2025 at 10:39 AM by Steven Stanley


If Tennessee Williams were alive today, he might have written Frou-Frou: A Menagerie of Sorts, John Anthony Loffredo’s deliciously daring queer riff on Williams’ A Glass Menagerie, with a little bit of A Streetcar Named Desire testosterone (and some extended full-frontal male nudity) thrown in for seductive measure.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Pasadena, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

I LOVE YOU BECAUSE

posted on March 2nd, 2025 at 10:54 AM by Steven Stanley

I’m too much of a fan of Ryan Cunningham and Joshua Salzman’s “modern day musical love story” I Love You Because not to feel let down and put out by the overacted, misdirected Chromolume Theatre production now playing at the Zephyr Theatre.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, Theater Review

44 THE MUSICAL

posted on March 1st, 2025 at 11:31 AM by Steven Stanley


Has life under 47 got you down? If so, head on over to the Kirk Douglas Theatre where 44 The Musical’s rollicking, raunchy, R&B-packed look back at Barack Obama’s first term in office has arrived to provide L.A. audiences with a spirits-lifting respite from the DJT blues.
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posted in Musical Spoof, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

BACON

posted on February 25th, 2025 at 12:30 PM by Steven Stanley


Wesley Guimarães and Jack Lancaster deliver a pair of searing star turns as 19-year-old Londoners with an explosive shared past history in Sophie Swithinbank’s Bacon, brilliantly reconceived by director Michael Matthews for its West Coast Premiere at Rogue Machine Theatre.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, Two-Hander, WOW!

FOUR WOMEN IN RED

posted on February 23rd, 2025 at 10:55 AM by Steven Stanley

The missing and murdered Indigenous women Laura Shamas writes about in Four Women In Red deserve a better play and production than the latest Victory Theatre World Premiere.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Drama, Theater Review, World Premiere

DESPERATE MEASURES

posted on February 22nd, 2025 at 3:42 PM by Steven Stanley


Take a classic Shakespeare plot, chop out all the boring and confusing parts, and transform it into a song-packed Wild West musical romcom and what you’ve got is the off-Broadway hit Desperate Measures, now cheering audiences at International City Theatre.
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posted in Long Beach/San Pedro, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

MACBETH

posted on February 21st, 2025 at 4:01 PM by Steven Stanley


Transposing William Shakespeare’s Macbeth from the bleak moors of Scotland to the sultry streets of New Orleans is just the first of director Andi Chapman’s multiple strokes of genius in re-envisioning The Scottish Play to all-around stunning effect at A Noise Within.
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posted in Classic Play, Pasadena, Theater Review, WOW!

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