VENUS IN FUR

posted on October 15th, 2014 at 11:50 AM by Steven Stanley

Provocative, daring, audacious, intriguing, and sexy as all get-out, David Ives’ Venus In Fur has at long last made it to L.A.-adjacent Costa Mesa following dozens of regional productions, giving its arrival at South Coast Rep bona fide event status. That director Casey Stangl and stars Jaimi Paige and Graham Hamilton deliver the goods … and then some, makes a drive down to Orange County an absolute must for any theater lover worth his or her salt.
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posted in Drama, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

RAGTIME

posted on October 14th, 2014 at 4:12 PM by Steven Stanley

Well-to-do early 20th-Century White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, their less fortunate African-American fellow New Yorkers, and a gaggle of fresh-off-the-boat Eastern European immigrants collide to life-altering (and occasionally life-shattering) effect in the 1998 Tony-winning musical Ragtime, now being revived by 3-D Theatricals in a production that would do any Broadway theater proud.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

4000 MILES

posted on October 12th, 2014 at 11:08 AM by Steven Stanley

Anyone longing to see an intergenerational relationship depicted in all its potential richness, a family drama that grips without resorting to soap opera melodramatics, and an elderly character not made the butt of the joke need drive a mere six minutes east of Pasadena’s A Noise Within where the Sierra Madre Playhouse is presenting its absolutely splendid Los Angeles Premiere production of Amy Herzog’s Obie-winning dramedy—and 2013 Pulitzer Prize finalist—4000 Miles.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, San Gabriel Valley, Theater Review, WOW!

GLORIOUS!

posted on October 11th, 2014 at 1:03 PM by Steven Stanley

It’s been seventy years now since Florence Foster Jenkins met her maker, but the voice that could shatter glass and bring an audience to its feet (for a quick escape?) lives on seven decades later as International City Theatre delights audiences with Peter Quilter’s Glorious!, aka “the true story of Florence Foster Jenkins, the worst singer in the world.”
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posted in Comedy, Long Beach/San Pedro, Theater Review, WOW!

WICKED LIT 2014

posted on October 10th, 2014 at 5:33 PM by Steven Stanley

The Mountain View Mausoleum And Cemetery is the undisputed star of Wicked Lit 2014, providing a venue so mysterious and spooky that it outweighs any objections one might have about the 5th-annual creepy, kooky trio of terr(or)ific one-acts’ more than three-hour-long running time.
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posted in Drama, Pasadena, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

BRIGHT STAR

posted on October 8th, 2014 at 11:59 AM by Steven Stanley

Some of the most gorgeous songs I’ve heard in a new musical plus a bevy of equally memorable performances bode well for the post-World Premiere future of Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s Bright Star despite an “original story” so reminiscent of this or that 1930s/40s Hollywood weeper that audience members may find themselves convinced they’re watching the musical stage adaptation of an oldtime Barbara Stanwyck/Claudette Colbert flick. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
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posted in Musical Revue, San Diego County, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

BETTER

posted on October 6th, 2014 at 10:50 AM by Steven Stanley

When humorist Erma Bombeck wrote about “loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that [binds] us all together,” the family she was referring to could easily have been the one to whose nest successful New York restaurateur Annie returns to face her father’s imminent death in Jessica Goldberg’s funny, perceptive, beautifully acted and directed new drama Better, the latest World Premiere from The Echo Theater Company.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN

posted on October 5th, 2014 at 11:50 AM by Steven Stanley

Lucy and Linus and Schroeder and Sally and Snoopy and the Good Man himself are alive and well and singing and dancing and reawakening memory after memory after memory as Sustaining Sound Theatre Company and Chromolume Theatre present their family-pleasing intimate revival of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

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