CAFÉ SOCIETY

posted on August 24th, 2015 at 1:00 AM by Steven Stanley

Zaniness reigns supreme in Peter Lefcourt’s screwball Café Society, now getting a terrifically performed, imaginatively directed, cleverly designed World Premiere at West L.A.’s Odyssey Theatre, the ever so “Westside” laughfest marred only by a jarring 11th-hour tonal shift that bears rethinking.
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posted in Comedy, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, World Premiere, WOW!

FENCES

posted on August 23rd, 2015 at 11:11 AM by Steven Stanley

International City Theatre revives August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize/Tony Award-winning Fences to stunning effect in a production sure to win universal acclaim for its director, its two extraordinary stars, its equally stellar supporting cast, and indeed everyone involved in this most powerful of stagings.
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posted in Drama, Long Beach/San Pedro, Theater Review, WOW!

IN THE HEIGHTS

posted on August 17th, 2015 at 11:08 PM by Steven Stanley

Candlelight Pavilion tops everything it’s done over the past year—and that includes Evita, The Producers, Spamalot, and last month’s Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat—with a sensational mid-summer staging of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’s In The Heights.
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posted in Musical, San Gabriel Valley, World Premiere, WOW!

LUKA’S ROOM

posted on August 15th, 2015 at 1:26 PM by Steven Stanley

Leave it to Rob Mersola, the playwright who gave audiences Backseats & Bathroom Stalls and Dirty Filthy Love Story, to subvert the teenage coming-of-age tale in the most outrageously unexpected of ways in Luka’s Room, the latest Rogue Machine World Premiere and sure to be one of this summer’s most buzzed-about productions.
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posted in Comedy, Los Angeles, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

PATTERNS

posted on August 14th, 2015 at 4:46 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED

Topnotch lead performances and a “plus ça change” fascination make James Reach’s Patterns, the stage adaptation of a Rod Serling screenplay set in the dog-eat-dog world of 1950s American big business, worth a look-see at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40 despite an overlong running time and a so-so supporting cast.

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posted in Drama, Recommended, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls

UP HERE

posted on August 13th, 2015 at 4:07 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED

The voices inside a neurotic computer whiz’s head take on decidedly human form in the latest from the La Jolla Playhouse, Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez’s tuneful if overly ambitious musical romcom Up Here, a show that earns high points for the Oscar-winning couple’s score (and the talents who bring its World Premiere to life in La Jolla) but could prove too Out There for future mainstream success.
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posted in Musical, Recommended, San Diego County, World Premiere

LOMBARDI

posted on August 10th, 2015 at 3:31 PM by Steven Stanley

Vince Lombardi—coach, husband, father, man—comes to emotionally resonant life in Lombardi, Eric Simonson’s powerful 2010 Broadway biodrama whose terrific West Coast Premiere at North Hollywood’s The Group Rep might turn even sports-hating theatergoers into football buffs. It certainly made a Lombardi fan out of me.
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posted in Drama, North Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

GREEN GROW THE LILACS

posted on August 9th, 2015 at 11:38 PM by Steven Stanley

Theatricum Botanicum revives a Golden-Era theatrical gem in a production worth a whole heap of whoopin’ and hollerin’ … but before I go ahead and name it, here’s a question for all you theater lovers out there.

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posted in Comedy-Drama, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

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