THE WESTERN UNSCRIPTED

posted on September 6th, 2014 at 11:24 PM by Steven Stanley

They’ve improvised Shakespeare. They’ve improvised Film Noir and The Twilight Zone. They’ve improvised Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Chekhov. They’ve even had the chutzpah to improvise Stephen Sondheim, music, lyrics, and all. And now the improv geniuses who call themselves Impro Theatre are back for business at the Falcon Theatre with their latest (and one of their very best) confections to date—improvising a full-length “feature film” live onstage in that most quintessential of American movie genres: The Western UnScripted.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Comedy, Theater Review, WOW!

GYPSY

posted on September 5th, 2014 at 5:26 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED

Principal performers doing pro-level work highlight One More Productions’ revival of the Broadway classic Gypsy, and despite instances of age-inappropriate casting that make it seem at times more High School Musical than Professional Production, the Arthur Laurents-Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim classic ends up a crowd-pleaser.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, Recommended, Theater Review

IT’S JUST SEX

posted on September 1st, 2014 at 8:45 PM by Steven Stanley

A dinner party that morphs into a spouse-swapping swingers’ bash may well be the hook that has attracted audiences to Jeff Gould’s It’s Just Sex – A Comedy About Lust & Trust since its World Premiere at the Whitefire back in 2002, but it’s the playwright’s perceptiveness about male-female relationships, the depth he gives his characters, and the unexpected life changes each couple ends up undergoing that has turned It’s Just Sex into L.A.’s longest-running comedy (factoring in its later runs at the Zephyr and the Two Roads), sent it off-Broadway in 2013, and have now brought it back to NoHo’s Secret Rose Theatre with an upcoming Las Vegas run likely in the cards.
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posted in Comedy, North Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

BULRUSHER

posted on September 1st, 2014 at 8:07 PM by Steven Stanley

The power of live theater to transport an audience to another time, another place, while exploring and revealing the mysteries of the human heart, is made gorgeously, magically clear in Skylight Theatre Company and Lower Depth Theatre Ensemble’s co-production of the Los Angeles premiere of Eisa Davis’s Pulitzer Prize finalist Bulrusher.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, WOW!

REGRETS ONLY

posted on August 31st, 2014 at 6:28 PM by Steven Stanley

It’s a measure of how much times have changed over the less than eight years since Paul Rudnick’s Regrets Only debuted off-Broadway that Rudnick’s contemporary comedy has already become what some critics might call “dated” … and it’s a measure of Rudnick’s comedic mastery that this matters not a whit, not with characters as wedding-cake delectable as those now onstage at San Diego’s Diversionary Theatre, and certainly not in a production as pitch-perfect as the one Jessica John has directed for America’s third-oldest continuously-producing LGBT theater.
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posted in Comedy, San Diego County, Theater Review, WOW!

PSYCHE: A MODERN ROCK OPERA

posted on August 30th, 2014 at 1:49 PM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

A sensational cast, phenomenal choreography, a spectacular production design, and Michael Matthews’s imaginative direction do everything possible to make the most of Cindy Shapiro’s Psyche: A Modern Rock Opera. Unfortunately, the gifted team’s best efforts can’t rescue “Psyche The Musical” from its ponderous libretto, mostly tedious tunes, and lyrics that clunk where they should soar.
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posted in Hollywood/West Hollywood, Musical, Not Recommended, Theater Review, World Premiere

THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE

posted on August 29th, 2014 at 5:15 PM by Steven Stanley

For a Broadway hit that won six Tony awards (including Best Musical of 2002), Thoroughly Modern Millie has made relatively few Southland appearances in the intervening twelve years, just one of many reasons to celebrate the Thoroughly Modern (circa 1922) Miss’s arrival at Glendale Centre Theatre under the thoroughly marvelous co-direction of Danny Michaels and Orlando Alexander.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD

posted on August 27th, 2014 at 10:57 AM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED

Inland Valley Repertory Theatre celebrates the end of summer with Jason Robert Brown’s Songs For A New World, the song cycle that put the future Tony winner’s name on the map, and if not the inspired vision of Brown’s 1995 debut that I’ve seen previously, a number of fine performances (and one in particular) make this a mostly effective, ultimately affecting revival of the very first JRB hit.
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posted in Musical Revue, Recommended, San Gabriel Valley, Theater Review

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