ONLY THE MOON HOWLS

posted on March 2nd, 2016 at 12:28 AM by Steven Stanley

Star-crossed love gets a fresh new highly theatrical spin as Theatre Unleashed gives Dean Farell Bruggeman’s 50-minute Hollywood Fringe Festival gem, Only The Moon Howls, a thoroughly engaging first full staging.
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posted in Drama, North Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

POCATELLO

posted on February 28th, 2016 at 12:09 PM by Steven Stanley

Small lives matter in Pocatello, just as they do in all of Samuel D. Hunter’s “Idaho plays,” the latest of which now gets an impressive West Coast Premiere by the theater company that gave L.A. audiences Hunter’s equally memorable A Bright New Boise and A Permanent Image.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

BROKEN FENCES

posted on February 27th, 2016 at 12:18 PM by Steven Stanley

The effects of urban gentrification on two Chicago couples, one upwardly mobile and white, the other financially challenged and black, are examined in Broken Fences, a Road Theatre Company World Premiere whose star performances and impressive production design largely overcome the tonal inconsistencies and missed opportunities of Steven Simoncic’s thought-provoking, often quite powerful script.
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posted in Drama, North Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

A CLASS ACT

posted on February 22nd, 2016 at 8:25 PM by Steven Stanley

Tony winner Edward Kleban had been gone for thirteen years when Broadway finally gave the songwriter his due (albeit for a scant 135 performances, previews included) in the biomusical A Class Act, the latest one-night-only concert staged reading from Musical Theatre Guild, and one that could scarcely have been improved upon.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Concert Staged Reading, Theater Review, WOW!

COLONY COLLAPSE

posted on February 22nd, 2016 at 12:23 PM by Steven Stanley

Overambitious Colony Collapse may well be, and run about fifteen minutes longer than it should, but Stefanie Zadravec’s interweaving of five crisscrossing monologs with a realistic family drama plus a mysterious girl inhabiting a world of her own add up to a compelling World Premiere for The Theatre @ Boston Court, one sure to provoke much post-performance discussion with its themes of children gone missing, family relationships broken by drug-addiction, and a mysterious disease that has caused the death of over ten million North American bees in the past ten years.
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posted in Drama, Pasadena, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

ROMEO AND JULIET

posted on February 21st, 2016 at 6:59 PM by Steven Stanley

Graffiti-covered inner-city walls, dumpsters, and assorted skid-row detritus provide a startling but effective backdrop for A Noise Within’s Romeo And Juliet, director Dámaso Rodríguez’s electrifying new look at the age-old classic.
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posted in Classic Play, Pasadena, Theater Review, WOW!

PAST TIME

posted on February 20th, 2016 at 1:07 PM by Steven Stanley

Stepping inside someone else’s skin may be just what Grandpa James and Grandson Chris need to make their respective romantic lives click in Padraic Duffy’s deliciously quirky, often side-splittingly funny, ultimately heartwarming (albeit somewhat over-padded) World Premiere comedy Past Time, now playing at Sacred Fools’ excitingly refurbished digs on Hollywood’s Theatre Row.
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posted in Comedy, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

CRIERS FOR HIRE

posted on February 18th, 2016 at 6:09 PM by Steven Stanley

A trio of SoCal Filipinas earning extra cash by weeping and wailing at funerals may provide the title (and the hook) for Giovanni Ortega’s Criers For Hire, but it’s the play’s mother-daughter reunion and its look at a teenage girl’s coming-of-age in a new land that give Ortega’s delightful, charming World Premiere comedy its emotional heart and punch.
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posted in Comedy, Los Angeles, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

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