RECORDED IN HOLLYWOOD: THE MUSICAL

posted on April 13th, 2015 at 3:24 PM by Steven Stanley

When you think about history-making 20th-century African-American music impresarios, Berry Gordy and Quincy Jones and perhaps two or three other names probably top the list. A less likely name to spring to mind is that of John Grayton Dolphin, an omission that Recorded In Hollywood: The (World Premiere) Musical sets out to rectify … and does so so crowd-pleasingly under Denise Dowse’s pizzazzy direction that it could easily end up giving the Broadway smash Memphis a run for its money.
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posted in Hollywood/West Hollywood, Musical, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES

posted on April 13th, 2015 at 12:17 AM by Steven Stanley

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes may have played nearly 750 performances on Broadway, turned Carol Channing into a star, featured hit songs like “Bye, Bye, Baby” and “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” and got turned into a Hollywood Movie Classic starring Marilyn Monroe, but when’s the last time you saw it onstage?

The answer may well be “Never,” because that’s what happens to 60something Broadway hits that aren’t Kiss Me Kate, South Pacific, or Guys And Dolls … or rather that’s what would happen without Musical Theatre Guild’s much-loved concert staged readings, the latest of which brings that “little girl from Little Rock,” aka blonde bombshell Lorelei Lee, and her brunette chum Dorothy Shaw, back to entertaining 21st-century musical life.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

LES MISÉRABLES

posted on April 12th, 2015 at 12:08 PM by Steven Stanley

A twenty-year wait for the rights to the international phenomenon that is Boublil And Schönberg’s Les Misérables pays off at long last for Musical Theatre West in an absolutely spectacular big-stage, big-cast, big-budget production that gives Broadway a run for its money.
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posted in Long Beach/San Pedro, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

SWEENEY TODD

posted on April 11th, 2015 at 12:00 PM by Steven Stanley

A cast of eighteen, ten of them members of Actors’ Equity, bring Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street to thrilling life on the intimate stage of North Hollywood’s Monroe Forum Theatre, a powerful reminder that should Equity’s 99-seat plan bite the dust per AEA’s wishes, productions of this size, scope, and caliber may soon be a much-mourned memory of our Los Angeles theater past.
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posted in Musical, North Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

FIGARO

posted on April 10th, 2015 at 5:15 PM by Steven Stanley

The very first West Coast staging of a 2012 World Premiere may not be what folks expect from A Noise Within given the company’s usual slate of Shakespeare, Shaw, Racine, Moliere, and other long-deceased playwrights, but that is precisely what California’s Home For The Classics now offers its audiences in Charles Moray’s Figaro, the frothiest, funniest, most farcical romp I’ve yet seen at ANW.
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posted in Comedy, Pasadena, Theater Review, WOW!

MIKE McLEAN

posted on April 7th, 2015 at 2:59 PM by Steven Stanley

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posted in Interview

OF GOOD STOCK

posted on April 6th, 2015 at 6:23 PM by Steven Stanley

“Sisters. Sisters. There were never such devoted sisters,” warbles one of the three female siblings created by playwright Melissa Ross in her crowd-pleasing new comedy Of Good Stock, though considering the squabbling going on in their Cape Cod family home at this weekend’s summer family reunion, “devoted” might not be the first word that comes to mind when describing the oh-so dysfunctionally bound Jess, Amy, and Celia.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Orange County, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

WOLVES

posted on April 5th, 2015 at 10:39 AM by Steven Stanley

Little Red Riding Hood’s Big Bad Wolf was a mere puppy dog compared to the wolves that roam wild in the big city where ex-lovers/still-roommates Ben and Jack make their home in Steve Yockey’s Wolves, now getting its Orange County Premiere at Theatre Out, and though assorted Grimms’ Contes De Fées may be its inspiration, Yockey’s dark, sexy fairy tale for adults is about the farthest thing from grim.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

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