SERIAL KILLER BARBIE

posted on November 29th, 2014 at 1:55 PM by Steven Stanley

The season’s brightest, bounciest, and most crowd-pleasing musical surprise turns out to be Colette Freedman and Nickella Moschetti’s Serial Killer Barbie, hardly the splatter fest its catchy albeit misleading title might suggest, but a show that anyone who’s gone through the 12 rounds that are Elementary, Middle, and High School can identify with and cheer.
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posted in Musical, North Hollywood, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

FLARE PATH

posted on November 26th, 2014 at 6:13 PM by Steven Stanley

A dashing English WWII fighter pilot. A handsome Hollywood film star. The pilot’s actress wife who loves them both. Could any triangle be more ripe for romantic drama than the threesome at the heart of Terence Rattigan’s 1942 stage hit Flare Path, rescued from obscurity by a 2011 West End revival and now being given a spiffy, seven-decades-awaited Los Angeles Premiere by Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40?
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posted in Drama, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

STEEL PIER

posted on November 24th, 2014 at 7:30 PM by Steven Stanley

Though I’d be hard pressed to pick just one of the fifty concert staged readings reviewed here as the Absolute Best Concert Staged Reading Ever, I can’t recall a more spectacularly staged “reading” of a Broadway musical than last night’s Reiner Reading Series staging of Kander & Ebb’s Steel Pier.
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posted in Concert Staged Reading, Long Beach/San Pedro, Theater Review, WOW!

WINTER WONDERETTES

posted on November 23rd, 2014 at 5:44 PM by Steven Stanley

There may not be snow on the ground down Escondido way this month or next, but with Winter Wonderettes spending the holidays at the Welk Theatre, the marvelous (and wonderful) quartet’s trademark blend of comedy, harmony, nostalgia, and seasonal melodies turn the San Diego-adjacent resort’s year-round green grass and blue skies into the next best thing to a traditional White Christmas.
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posted in Musical, San Diego County, Theater Review, WOW!

VOX LUMIERE–THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

posted on November 23rd, 2014 at 5:29 PM by Steven Stanley

A 1920s silent movie classic + 21st-century techno-punk-rock with an operatic twist + some of the most exciting contemporary dance moves you’re likely to see on a Los Angeles theater stage = Vox Lumiere–The Phantom of the Opera, Kevin Saunders Hayes’ latest thrilling mash-up of all of the above.
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posted in Los Angeles, Special Event, Theater Review, WOW!

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME

posted on November 21st, 2014 at 8:01 PM by Steven Stanley

From family-friendly animated funfest to powerful grown-up fare, Disney’s The Hunchback Of Notre Dame has been transformed by the folks at La Jolla Playhouse into a new stage musical so darkly dramatic that Broadway’s Phantom Of The Opera seems almost light and frothy by comparison. In other words, what they’ve come up with is that rarity—a Disney musical with the proviso “Leave the kids at home.”
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posted in Musical, San Diego County, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

a SILVER LINING

posted on November 19th, 2014 at 12:56 PM by Steven Stanley

Anyone with a yen for interactive theater at its time-travelingest need only head on over to L.A.’s downtown Arts District this week for as unique a theatrical adventure as you’re likely to experience any time soon in a Silver Lining (the uncapitalized “a” is part of its title), the latest from A Working Theatre.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, WOW!

TRIUMPH OF LOVE

posted on November 17th, 2014 at 9:35 PM by Steven Stanley

Frothy Broadway musical comedy romps don’t get any frothier than the frothy Broadway musical comedy romp Triumph Of Love, a fact made amply clear last night by Musical Theatre Guild’s one-performance-only concert staged reading of the 1997 gem.
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posted in Concert Staged Reading, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

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