LOCH NESS, a new musical

posted on February 8th, 2015 at 10:33 AM by Steven Stanley

A young English girl and the Loch Ness Monster become the most improbable of life-changing friends in Chance Theater’s World Premiere production of Marshall Pailet and A.D. Penedo’s irresistibly entertaining, utterly magical new musical Loch Ness, a new musical. (The lower-case addendum is part of its title, not a case of reviewer redundancy.)
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posted in Musical, Orange County, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

GREASE

posted on February 5th, 2015 at 9:58 PM by Steven Stanley

A number of imaginative directorial touches and a fresh young cast of up-and-coming triple-threats make Inland Valley Repertory Theatre’s midweek revival of Grease at Candlelight Dinner Theatre worth a drive out to Claremont even if you’ve seen the musical or its smash movie adaptation umpteen times before.
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posted in Musical, San Gabriel Valley, Theater Review, WOW!

THE WHIPPING MAN

posted on February 4th, 2015 at 6:35 PM by Steven Stanley

On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House, at long last ending what is still the deadliest war in United States history. Five days later, President Abraham Lincoln was dead, the victim of an assassin’s bullet. Coincidentally, during this fateful week in our country’s history, Jews in both North and South observed Pesach, the festival of Passover, celebrating the freeing of the Israelites from centuries of slavery in Egypt.

Inspired by this bit of historical happenstance, and armed with the knowledge that there were indeed Jewish slaveholders (and Jewish slaves) in the pre-Civil War Deep South, playwright Matthew Lopez sat down to write The Whipping Man, a gripping, eye-opening look at three Jews—two black, one white—in the days just following Appomattox, a play now brought to compelling life in a spectacular new production just transferred from South Coast Rep to the Pasadena Playhouse.
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posted in Drama, Pasadena, Theater Review, WOW!

DIRTY DANCING – THE CLASSIC STORY ON STAGE

posted on February 4th, 2015 at 5:34 PM by Steven Stanley


An Oscar-winning ‘80s smash returns to exciting new life as the Segerstrom Center For The Arts presents Dirty Dancing – The Classic Story On Stage, the ultimate 3-D “movie” musical experience.
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posted in Musical, National Tour, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

KNEEHIGH’S TRISTAN & YSEULT

posted on February 2nd, 2015 at 3:30 PM by Steven Stanley

When you’ve taken Broadway and the world by storm with your magical, imaginative, supremely theatrical adaptation of Noël Coward’s Brief Encounter, the question is what to do for an encore? Well, if you’re the Cornwall-based Kneehigh Theatre, the answer is to revive a decade-old company hit, then take it on the road, which is precisely why Costa Mesa’s South Coast Repertory is the place to be over the next few weeks for Kneehigh’s magical, imaginative, supremely theatrical adaptation of the legend of Tristan & Yseult.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

THE MISSING PAGES OF LEWIS CARROLL

posted on February 1st, 2015 at 11:37 PM by Steven Stanley

Playwright Lily Blau speculates on one of the most controversial real-life relationships in literary history—that of the then 31-year-old Charles Dotson, better known as Lewis Carroll, and Alice Liddell, the 11-year-old inspiration for Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland—in her provocative new play The Missing Pages Of Lewis Carroll, now getting a superbly acted and directed (and gorgeous-to-look-at) World Premiere at Pasadena’s The Theater @ Boston Court.
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posted in Drama, Pasadena, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE

posted on January 31st, 2015 at 12:23 PM by Steven Stanley

Theatre Out starts out 2015 with a B-A-N-G as Santa Ana’s gem of an LGBT theater offers Orange County and OC-adjacent theatergoers the chance to savor every M-A-R-V-E-L-O-U-S-L-Y M-A-G-I-C-A-L moment of William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

REBORNING

posted on January 30th, 2015 at 5:39 PM by Steven Stanley

The Fountain Theatre gives Zayd Dohrn’s powerful personal drama Reborning a Los Angeles Premiere that easily rivals those productions that have scored the Fountain more Ovation Award nominations and wins than any other intimate L.A. theater.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, WOW!

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