THE LAST FIVE YEARS

posted on January 30th, 2015 at 12:07 AM by Steven Stanley

Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years is revived to powerful, affecting life at Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre thanks to the combined efforts of director Stephanie A. Coltrin, costars Ashley Fox Linton and Louis Pardo, musical director Brent Crayon, and perhaps most remarkably of all, of scenic, lighting, and projection designer Mike Billings.
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posted in Musical, Theater Review, Ventura County, WOW!

DOUG CARPENTER 2015

posted on January 28th, 2015 at 6:52 PM by Steven Stanley

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posted in Interview

BABES IN ARMS

posted on January 27th, 2015 at 6:08 PM by Steven Stanley

Here’s a thought for schools considering yet another production of Grease, Bye Bye Birdie, or High School Musical. How about having a go at the quintessential “Hey, kids, let’s put on a show!” show, Rodgers & Hart’s Babes In Arms, and not the “sanitized, de-politicized rewrite” that debuted in 1959 but the 1937 original, political incorrectness be damned. As anyone attending Sunday’s one-night-only Concert Staged Reading at Musical Theatre West can tell you, there’s not a funnier, dancier, or more gorgeously tuneful show for up-and-coming musical theater majors to show off their triple-threat talents than Babes In Arms 1.0.

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posted in Concert Staged Reading, Long Beach/San Pedro, Theater Review, WOW!

TIME STANDS STILL

posted on January 25th, 2015 at 2:01 PM by Steven Stanley

A wounded photo-journalist’s return home from the war zone proves even more challenging than a life lived on the edge in Donald Margulies’ intelligent, perceptive, often funny, always compelling Time Stands Still, back in town now in a production every bit the outstanding equal of Aquila Morong Studio’s previous intimate revivals of Proof and Crimes Of The Heart.
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posted in Drama, North Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

COMPANY

posted on January 24th, 2015 at 11:46 AM by Steven Stanley

It’s been over a decade since Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Tony-winning Best Musical of 1970, Company, has had an L.A. (or L.A.-adjacent) big-stage revival, making its arrival at Thousand Oaks’ Cabrillo Music Theater big news indeed, particularly as directed with abundant inspiration and flair by Nick DeGruccio and performed by an all-around fabulous cast, with Cate Caplin’s imaginative choreography giving the show an added dash of pizzazz.
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posted in Musical Revue, Theater Review, Ventura County, WOW!

INTO THE WOODS

posted on January 23rd, 2015 at 5:10 PM by Steven Stanley

Into The Woods is back big time, its long-awaited film adaptation joined by a couple of recent, much lauded out-of-town imports at the Old Globe and the Wallis Annenberg, community theater productions galore, and now by the supremely talented students who’ve been starring in, directing, and designing one terrific intimate revival after another at USC over the past eight years, the musical theater stars of the future who call themselves Musical Theatre Repertory.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

BUDDY – THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY

posted on January 19th, 2015 at 1:16 PM by Steven Stanley

February 3, 1959 may well have been, as Don McLean sang it, “the day the music died,” but the music of Buddy Holly lives on at Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theater in the crowd-pleasing musical/tribute concert hybrid that is Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story.
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posted in Musical, Musical Revue, San Gabriel Valley, Theater Review, WOW!

BILLY ELLIOT THE MUSICAL

posted on January 18th, 2015 at 1:36 PM by Steven Stanley

Few Broadway shows of recent years combine the drama, the laughter, the heart, and the emotional punch of Billy Elliot The Musical, now playing at the La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts. Factor in the music of Sir Elton John, brilliantly original direction and choreography by La Mirada’s very own Brian Kite and Dana Solimando, and a cast who prove that nobody does it better than our SoCal triple-threats and you’ve got not only the first Must-See big-stage musical of 2015, you will likely find yourself waiting a good long while before any other locally-staged musical achieves the heights to which Billy—at one point quite literally—soars.
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posted in Downey/La Mirada, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

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