CHARLEY’S AUNT

posted on June 9th, 2014 at 9:25 PM by Steven Stanley

A 122-year-old play proves the perfect choice to bring Whittier Community Theatre’s 92nd season to a close, since neither the class-act community theater nor the comedy classic Charley’s Aunt seems anywhere near its age.
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posted in Comedy, San Gabriel Valley, Theater Review, WOW!

BYE BYE BIRDIE

posted on June 8th, 2014 at 11:01 PM by Steven Stanley

Audiences out Claremont way have ample reason to “Put On A Happy Face” this month and next as Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre revives the rock-n-rollin’ 1960 Broadway favorite Bye Bye Birdie, Michael Stewart’s delightful Elvis-inspired book and Charles Strouse and Lee Adams’ oh-so-memorable songs making for a crowd-pleasing evening of Golden Era musical theater.
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posted in Musical, San Gabriel Valley, Theater Review, WOW!

OTHER DESERT CITIES

posted on June 7th, 2014 at 11:51 AM by Steven Stanley

Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities, one of the best written, most thought-provoking, and ultimately most moving plays of the last decade, now arrives at Long Beach’s International City Theatre in a production that no lover of contemporary drama will want to miss.
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posted in Drama, Long Beach/San Pedro, Theater Review, WOW!

DATES AND NUTS

posted on June 6th, 2014 at 5:12 PM by Steven Stanley

Eve wants nothing more from a man than “a small commitment that will eventually turn into marriage.” Is that too much for a girl to ask?

Such is the conundrum of the 30something heroine of Dates And Nuts, Gary Lennon’s hilarious romantic comedy now getting its West Coast Premiere at Bootleg Theater nineteen years after it debuted at New York City’s now-defunct Theater Off Park.
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posted in Comedy, Los Angeles, Theater Review, WOW!

NICKEL MINES

posted on June 4th, 2014 at 11:44 AM by Steven Stanley

On October 2, 2006, a 32-year-old husband and father entered an Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, took hostage ten girls ages 6 to 13 , shot five of them to death, critically injured the remaining five, then took his own life. Hardly the stuff of your average, everyday musical, and in fact Andrew Palermo’s Nickel Mines (co-written with Shannon Stoeke and Dan Dyer) proves neither average nor everyday but something quite extraordinary indeed, tragedy turned into art, and the power of grace as it may never have been shown before.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

BACKYARD

posted on June 2nd, 2014 at 4:54 PM by Steven Stanley

Some teenagers turn to sex. Others turn to drugs. Still others turn to rock ‘n’ roll. The teenagers in Mickey Birnbaum’s violent but exhilarating Backyard turn to wrestling, and so too do the adults in their lives.
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posted in Comedy, Los Angeles, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

LES MISÉRABLES

posted on June 1st, 2014 at 3:26 PM by Steven Stanley

Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert are duking it out on the stage of the La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts in what may well be the L.A. musical theater production of the year as the international phenomenon that is Boublil And Schönberg’s Les Misérables gets its long-awaited Los Angeles Regional Premiere from the theater that has brought audiences spectacular big-stage productions of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Miss Saigon, and Peter Pan in the last two or so years alone.
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posted in Downey/La Mirada, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

DORIAN’S DESCENT

posted on May 31st, 2014 at 12:11 PM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

A quartet of stellar performers, a gifted composer/musical director, and L.A.’s costume designer du jour at his most over-the-top fabulous can’t, unfortunately, save the Oscar Wilde-based World Premiere musical Dorian’s Descent from descending into three hours’ worth of clichéd dialog and lyrics, jarring tonal shifts, and good intentions gone disastrously bad.
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posted in Hollywood/West Hollywood, Musical, Not Recommended, Theater Review, World Premiere

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