CINNAMON GIRL

posted on March 17th, 2014 at 10:22 AM by Steven Stanley


Velina Hasu Houston and Nathan Wang transport us to another time, another place, another world in their magical, mystical, marvelous new musical Cinnamon Girl, now playing at the Greenway Court Theatre.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

FLYIN’ WEST

posted on March 16th, 2014 at 8:44 PM by Steven Stanley


12 Years A Slave’s recent Oscar wins make Flyin’ West, Pearl Cleage’s post-Civil-War slice-of-African-American-life-on-the-Kansas-plains, a particularly serendipitous choice as International City Theatre’s latest crowd-pleaser. That director Saundra McClain and her cast of six have come up with a particularly fine production of Cleage’s 1992 hit is icing on the cake, or in the case of Flyin’ West, ice cream on the apple pie.
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posted in Drama, Long Beach/San Pedro, Theater Review, WOW!

TOP GIRLS

posted on March 16th, 2014 at 8:33 PM by Steven Stanley


English playwright Caryl Churchill examines what it takes to be a “top girl” in the dog-eat-dog world we call business in her challenging, thought-provoking 1982 drama Top Girls, the terrific latest from The Antaeus Company and a tailor-made showcase for a baker’s dozen of L.A.’s finest working actresses.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, North Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

CARNIVAL

posted on March 11th, 2014 at 6:06 PM by Steven Stanley


Bob Merrill and Michael Stewart’s 1961 hit Carnival may have run a healthy 719 performances on Broadway, but unlike its fellow early-’60s Tony winners The Sound of Music, Gypsy, Bye Bye Birdie, How to Succeed .., Funny/Forum, and Oliver!, regional revivals of Carnival have been few and far between, hence its inclusion in Musical Theatre West’s Reiner Reading Series as a one-night-only concert staged reading, one that reminded those in attendance on Sunday that even forgotten Broadway gems have much to offer.
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posted in Concert Staged Reading, Long Beach/San Pedro, Theater Review, WOW!

SPRING AWAKENING

posted on March 10th, 2014 at 5:00 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
A talented young cast and some imaginative directorial touches highlight Spring Awakening at Santa Monica’s Morgan-Wixson, a laudably bold programming choice for the venerable Westside community theater despite certain deficiencies in design, particularly sound, that prevent the Steven Sater/Duncan Sheik musical from being an unqualified success.
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posted in Musical, Recommended, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls

THE DYING GAUL

posted on March 8th, 2014 at 1:40 PM by Steven Stanley


How far will an aspiring writer go to see his screenplay turned into a celluloid blockbuster? How far will a film producer go in seeking same-sex pleasures behind his “understanding” wife’s back? How far will a Hollywood Wife go after finding out steamy details of her husband’s infidelity with another man? Playwright Craig Lucas answers these questions … and quite a few more … in his provocative psychological thriller The Dying Gaul, now getting an almost perfect revival at Santa Ana’s Theatre Out.
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posted in Drama, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

ME AND MY GIRL

posted on March 8th, 2014 at 12:50 AM by Steven Stanley


Here’s a Broadway trivia quiz for you. Which of the following musicals ran the longest on The Great White Way: How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, Funny Girl, The King And I, Cabaret, Annie Get Your Gun, Kiss Me Kate, The Pajama Game, or Me And My Girl?

If you’re anything like this reviewer/Broadway buff, you may be astonished by the answer. 1986’s Me And My Girl trumps its far better known competitors with a grand total of 1420 performances, just one of many reasons to cheer the arrival of this largely obscure Broadway smash, now smashingly revived by L.A.’s premier theater-in-the-round, Glendale Centre Theatre.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

50 SHADES! THE MUSICAL

posted on March 5th, 2014 at 5:23 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
Performances are all-around sparkling, a few of them quite impressive indeed; songs are catchy, their lyrics a mix of cleverness and four-letter-word raunch; a live band provides expert musical backup; and the cocktail-swigging, mostly female audience goes nearly as wild as they would at a bachelorette party. Still, whether or not you decide to see 50 Shades! The Musical, the often outrageously funny spoof of the phenomenally popular Fifty Shades Of Grey, will depend on your wiliness to pay as much as $85 a ticket for an under-90-minute show with all the production values of a Fringe Festival offering produced on the cheap, on the very cheap.
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posted in Musical Spoof, Recommended, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls

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