THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE

posted on October 4th, 2014 at 11:13 PM by Steven Stanley

A bunch of up-and-coming musical theater performers have joined forces as Yutopian Entertainment to do what up-and-coming musical theater performers do best—put on a show (in this case William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), and the show they have put on ends up easily rivaling the best of the now dozen Spelling Bees I’ve attended so far.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

MELISSA ARCTIC

posted on October 4th, 2014 at 1:20 PM by Steven Stanley

Magic is being made at North Hollywood’s Road Theatre, and not just the slight-of-hand illusions in Alby Selznick’s much-extended Smoke And Mirrors at the Road-on-Lankershim. Magic of the purely theatrical sort lights up the stage of The Road’s spiffy new Magnolia space with the West Coast Premiere of Craig Wright’s Melissa Arctic, as enchanted (and enchanting) a production as any theater lover could possibly wish for.

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posted in Drama, North Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

SCARY MUSICAL The Musical

posted on October 3rd, 2014 at 11:35 AM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED

Stellar performances and a laugh-packed book are the best reasons to catch Richard Hochberg and Michael Paternosto’s SCARY MUSICAL The Musical. What’s still missing are the kind of catchy, hummable tunes that would take the creative duo’s deliciously campy send-up of Psycho, Carrie, Halloween, and other assorted scream-fests beyond its current NoHo Arts Center World Premiere run.
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posted in Musical Spoof, North Hollywood, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

CHOIR BOY

posted on October 1st, 2014 at 9:30 PM by Steven Stanley

A gay African-American prep school student comes of age in the Geffen Playhouse West Coast Premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play-with-music Choir Boy, exquisitely performed by an all-around superb cast and impeccably helmed by its original New York/Atlanta director.
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posted in Drama, Theater Review, WOW!

THE GOAT, OR WHO IS SYLVIA?

posted on September 30th, 2014 at 10:18 AM by Steven Stanley

A different kind of Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name speaks its name in Edward Albee’s Tony Award-winning Best Play Of 2002, The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia?, the latest from the theater and director who revived Ira Levin’s Deathtrap to brilliant, controversial life a couple years back—and that’s about all I have to say about the team’s latest production before launching into a spoiler-filled second paragraph. Proceed with caution.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

THE WHY

posted on September 30th, 2014 at 9:38 AM by Steven Stanley

Comedy might be the last approach you’d expect a playwright to take in response to the Columbine High School massacre of April 20, 1999, but leave it to an audacious teenager to pen The Why, the darkest, funniest, most button-pushing and thought-provoking play you may ever see about gun violence.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

BRONIES: THE MUSICAL

posted on September 28th, 2014 at 4:23 PM by Steven Stanley

The charming musical-in-the-rough that was Bronies: The Musical at this past summer’s Hollywood Fringe Festival has since been polished into the sparklingly rainbow-hued gem now getting its official World Premiere Production at the Third Street Theatre. Simply put, Bronies: The Musical is the feel-best show in town.
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posted in Hollywood/West Hollywood, Musical, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

MAPLE AND VINE

posted on September 27th, 2014 at 11:59 AM by Steven Stanley

If you could leave your cell phone and sushi and Facebook and lattes and 21st-Century stress behind for a trip back in time to the halcyon Leave It To Beaver mid-1950s, would you? Could you?

This is the question faced by a publishing executive and her plastic surgeon husband in Jordan Harrison’s provocative if somewhat problematic Maple And Vine, now getting a first-rate Greater Los Angeles Premiere at Orange County’s Chance Theater.
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posted in Drama, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

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