MY FAIR LADY

posted on August 17th, 2014 at 1:42 PM by Steven Stanley

Moonlight Stage Productions revives the Lerner & Lowe classic My Fair Lady for a 21st-century audience with the one element that’s been mostly missing since its 1956 Broadway debut—sex appeal—and the result is a My Fair Lady that is not only every bit as captivating as the best of the past century, its Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle could give the hottest Hollywood romcom stars a run for their money any day.
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posted in Musical, San Diego County, Theater Review, WOW!

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

posted on August 16th, 2014 at 11:55 AM by Steven Stanley

No set, no frills, the original script cut by more than half, and abundant imagination and flair add up to quite possibly the shortest and without a doubt one of the most entertaining Midsummer Night’s Dreams in the four-hundred-twenty or so years since those foolish mortals first ventured into the woods, sixty-five minutes of madcap Midsummer 2014 magic courtesy of Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre Group.
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posted in Comedy, North Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

OSWALD, THE ACTUAL INTERROGATION

posted on August 15th, 2014 at 5:53 PM by Steven Stanley

Playwright Dennis Richard turns audience members into flies on the walls of the Dallas Police Station interrogation room where Lee Harvey Oswald parried question after question with the aplomb of a professional liar in the two days following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Richard’s fascinating docudrama Oswald, The Actual Interrogation, now playing at San Pedro’s Little Fish Theatre.
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posted in Drama, Long Beach/San Pedro, Theater Review, WOW!

6 RMS RIV VU

posted on August 11th, 2014 at 7:40 PM by Steven Stanley

One of theatergoing’s greatest pleasures is the discovery of “forgotten gems,” plays that may have hit it big when they debuted but for one reason or another have faded into obscurity in the intervening years. Such is the case with Bob Randall’s 1972 romantic comedy 6 Rms Riv Vu, now getting a sparkling Sierra Madre Playhouse revival under Sherrie Lofton’s pitch-perfect direction.
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posted in Comedy, San Gabriel Valley, Theater Review, WOW!

LEAR

posted on August 10th, 2014 at 6:56 PM by Steven Stanley

A Queen with three sons, two of them ungrateful jerks wed to a pair of domineering Duchesses. An Earl with two daughters, one of them illegitimate and a conniver to boot. Meet Shakespeare Through The Looking Glass as Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum debuts its uniquely intriguing, exquisitely acted, gender-bending take on Shakespeare’s King Lear, retitled simply Lear, directed by and starring Ellen Geer as Queen Lear and Melora Marshall as her Fool.
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posted in Drama, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

TIME STANDS STILL

posted on August 9th, 2014 at 2:43 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED

A wounded photo-journalist’s return home from the war zone proves even more challenging than a life lived on the edge in Donald Margulies’ intelligent, perceptive, often funny, always compelling Time Stands Still, now being given a mostly satisfying production at San Pedro’s Little Fish Theatre under Patrick Vest’s solid direction.
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posted in Drama, Long Beach/San Pedro, Recommended, Theater Review

reasons to be pretty

posted on August 8th, 2014 at 11:40 PM by Steven Stanley

Even a single word can wound, particularly if the word you just happen to use to describe your girlfriend’s looks is “regular,” or so 20something Greg will learn to his eternal chagrin in Neil LaBute’s laceratingly funny reasons to be pretty, now getting a pitch-perfect Geffen Playhouse premiere under artistic director Randall Arney’s astute direction.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

OKLAHOMA!

posted on August 7th, 2014 at 4:50 PM by Steven Stanley

American musical theater changed for good on March 31, 1943 at the St. James Theatre in New York City when Oklahoma! opened on Broadway, and those who’d like to know (or who would simply like a reminder of) just how revolutionary Oklahoma! was way back then need only head up to Solvang for PCPA’s 71st Anniversary revival of the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic—not a perfect production but one which, as directed and choreographed by Michael Jenkinson, makes it clear what a groundbreaker this seven-decade-old remains to this day.
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posted in Musical, Santa Barbara County, Theater Review, WOW!

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