MEET & GREET

posted on August 25th, 2014 at 5:49 PM by Steven Stanley

“A+ CAST PLUS BOFFO SCRIPT EQUALS FRINGE FEST SMASH” is how I concluded my review of Meet & Greet, Stan Zimmerman and Christian McLaughlin’s outrageously funny tale of a quartet of fictional Broadway/Hollywood divas vying for a sitcom pilot lead, when it played this past June at the Hollywood Fringe Festival.  Now, Meet & Greet is back for a second run at Theatre Asylum, and as evidenced by the nonstop laughter at yesterday’s SRO matinee, Meet & Greet 2.0 is even more outrageously funny the second time around than it was the first.
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posted in Comedy, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

MATT WOLPE

posted on August 25th, 2014 at 10:50 AM by Steven Stanley

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posted in Interview

OKLAHOMA!

posted on August 24th, 2014 at 8:45 PM by Steven Stanley

Director-choreographer Dan Mojica and an exciting young cast offer Welk Theatre San Diego audiences an Oklahoma! certain to delight both blue-haired Welk regulars and the Glee generation of its late teens-early 20s ensemble, sixteen talented performers who enrich the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic with a freshness and life belying its 71 years of age.
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posted in Musical, San Diego County, Theater Review, WOW!

TRYING

posted on August 23rd, 2014 at 10:35 AM by Steven Stanley

Two-character plays don’t get much more entertaining or ultimately moving than Joanna McClelland Glass’s Trying, a humungous hit for the Colony Theatre back in 2007. Now, seven years later, the same lightning could easily strike for Long Beach’s International City Theatre with performances as memorable as those being given by Tony Abatemarco and Paige Lindsey White on the ICT stage.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Long Beach/San Pedro, Theater Review, WOW!

I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND

posted on August 22nd, 2014 at 4:46 PM by Steven Stanley

Seven years ago, Erik Patterson’s best friend’s head “exploded,” or at least that’s how the playwright describes the brain aneurysm that sent him rushing to the Manhattan ICU where best friend Uma and her fellow aneurysm victims waged their life-and-death struggle while loved ones watched and waited, hoped and prayed, and bonded with similarly concerned strangers in the hospital waiting room.

Cut to 2014, and the author of the multiple Scenie-winning He Asked For It has taken these real-life events as the point of departure for his latest, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, now getting its World Premiere at Hollywood’s Theatre Of NOTE, and in words I used to describe its predecessor, Patterson’s newest play is “fresh, entertaining, gripping and entirely unpredictable” … and beautifully acted to boot.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

BROADWAY BOUND

posted on August 21st, 2014 at 5:55 PM by Steven Stanley

Neil Simon plays don’t get any finer than his semi-autobiographical 1986 dramedy Broadway Bound, nor intimate theater revivals any more flawless than the Broadway Bound revival now playing at West L.A.’s Odyssey Theatre under Jason Alexander’s inspired direction.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

ONCE

posted on August 20th, 2014 at 10:03 AM by Steven Stanley

Sometimes execution can be everything. It certainly is in the case of Once, the multiple Tony-winning Best Musical of 2012. The story and the songs are the same as those in the film on which it is based (a movie I found quite unbearable), and yet as brought to freshly inspired life on the musical theater stage, Once The Musical turns out to be one of the best, and quite possibly the most original Broadway smashes, of the past decade.
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posted in Musical, National Tour, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

BUSKER ALLEY

posted on August 18th, 2014 at 11:43 AM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED

A pair of stellar lead performances, a topnotch supporting cast, and direction by the musical’s original leading lady bring out the best in the never-made-it-to-Broadway Busker Alley, Musical Theatre West’s Reiner Reading Series 2013-14 season closer. Still, despite some terrific Sherman Brothers songs, it’s hard to become invested in the story of as sad sack a lead character as street entertainer Charlie Baxter, even as played with abundant pizzazz by triple-threat extraordinaire James Leo Ryan.
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posted in Concert Staged Reading, Long Beach/San Pedro, Recommended, Theater Review

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