BACHELORETTE

posted on March 22nd, 2015 at 11:36 AM by Steven Stanley

Mean girls reign supreme in Bachelorette, Leslye Headland’s acidly funny glimpse into the ugliness that can hide behind pretty faces, back for a return L.A. engagement just a mile from where its 2008 World Premiere put playwright Headland and IAMA Theatre Company on the map.

This time round it’s the year-old Mine Is Yours Theatre Company who bring Becky, Gena, Katie, and Regan (and a couple of not-so-nice young men) to hilariously vicious life, and though these are not folks you’d normally want to spend even an hour with, Bachelorette’s ninety minutes add up to outrageously biting entertainment, albeit quite the opposite of “sugar and spice and everything nice.”
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posted in Comedy, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

THIEVES

posted on March 21st, 2015 at 11:54 AM by Steven Stanley

Family relationships don’t get any more twisted than those of the dysfunctional East Texas brood who air their dirty laundry in Charlotte Miller’s high-octane comedy-drama Thieves, now getting a humdinger of a World Premiere production at the Monroe Forum Theatre inside North Hollywood’s historic El Portal.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, North Hollywood, World Premiere, WOW!

posted on March 20th, 2015 at 7:10 PM by Steven Stanley

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Click here to read StageSceneLA’s official statement about why AEA’s current proposal to eliminate the Los Angeles 99-Seat Theatre Plan puts L.A.’s intimate theater scene in imminent danger.

posted in Los Angeles

HENRY IV, PART ONE

posted on March 20th, 2015 at 1:57 PM by Steven Stanley

Outstanding performances and a stylish contemporary design distinguish The Antaeus Company’s 2015 season opener, William Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part One. A hefty three-hour running time may test the patience of those for whom “90 Minutes No intermission” are the sweetest four words ever heard, but Bard fans will definitely feel they’ve gotten their money’s worth with this one.
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posted in Drama, North Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

CARRIE: THE MUSICAL

posted on March 20th, 2015 at 12:08 AM by Steven Stanley

The La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts at long last gives Stephen King’s tormented telekinetic teen Carrietta N. White the smash hit musical her fans have been waiting for since Carrie: The Musical’s 1988 Broadway debut became, according to The New York Times, “the most expensive quick flop in Broadway history.”
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posted in Downey/La Mirada, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT

posted on March 18th, 2015 at 9:49 AM by Steven Stanley

Take a classic George and Ira Gershwin musical, rewrite the book, add a whole bunch of Gershwin hits not in the original, and what have you got? Well, until recently the answer would have been “The New Gershwin Musical Comedy” Crazy For You, right?

Since 2012, however, there have been two correct answers to the above question, 1992’s Crazy For You having recently been joined by Nice Work If You Can Get It (which bills itself simply as “A New Musical Comedy”), the latter now getting its very first L.A.-adjacent production as its First National Tour makes its 30th-and-final stop at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center For The Arts—and to quote from one of the show’s lesser known ditties, it’s simply “delishious!”
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posted in Musical, National Tour, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

posted on March 16th, 2015 at 8:45 PM by Steven Stanley

Actors Repertory Theatre Of Simi gives its audiences the best big-scale musical I’ve seen at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center in their sensationally entertaining mid-sized staging of Broadway’s 2011 Best Musical Tony nominee Catch Me If You Can, a production that requires no allowances to be made “for community theater.” This is topnotch work from start to finish, and a production any professional theater would be proud to call its own.
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posted in Musical, Theater Review, Ventura County, WOW!

DONTRELL, WHO KISSED THE SEA

posted on March 16th, 2015 at 6:44 PM by Steven Stanley

An African-American teenager in search of his roots finds them deep under the Atlantic Ocean in Nathan Alan Davis’s Dontrell, Who Kissed The Sea, now getting an exquisitely staged and performed World Premiere production by Skylight Theatre Company and Lower Depths Theatre Ensemble.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

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