MAMMA MIA!

posted on April 9th, 2014 at 1:27 AM by Steven Stanley

Mamma Mia! and its two dozen of ABBA’s Greatest Hits are back at the Segerstrom Center For The Arts for the first time in three years, and though this is the international smash’s first non-Equity tour, this latest Mamma Mia! comes across Grade-A professional all the way.
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posted in Musical, National Tour, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

RUTHLESS! THE MUSICAL

posted on April 8th, 2014 at 6:03 PM by Steven Stanley

The Bad Seed met Gypsy met All About Eve met Mame met a tickled-to-death audience of musical theater lovers on Sunday as Musical Theatre Guild presented their latest, a one-night-only concert staged reading of the murderously funny cult off-Broadway spoof Ruthless! The Musical.
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posted in Concert Staged Reading, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

‘S WONDERFUL

posted on April 6th, 2014 at 1:12 PM by Steven Stanley

Take forty classic George Gershwin tunes, round up five stellar triple-threats to perform them, tie the three dozen-plus songs together into five mini-musicals with the wispiest of plots, add some snappy choreography from an up-and-coming Broadway whiz kid, back the whole thing up with a terrific seven-piece orchestra, and you’ve got ‘S Wonderful: The New Gershwin Musical, the latest charmer from Music Theatre West.
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posted in Long Beach/San Pedro, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

ALTAR BOYZ

posted on April 5th, 2014 at 12:49 PM by Steven Stanley

The Christian boy band known as the Altar Boyz have returned to L.A. for the first time in five years in a no-frills production that proves that even without a fancy set, pricy costumes, and surround sound, entertainment value can remain high when performances sparkle under a director as imaginative as Kristin Towers-Rowles.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

GRAND HOTEL

posted on April 4th, 2014 at 4:37 PM by Steven Stanley

Broadway buffs are hereby advised. You’ve got this weekend and next to catch what may well be the only big-stage, big-cast revival you’ll ever see of the multiple Tony-winning Grand Hotel.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

THE LAST ACT OF LILKA KADISON

posted on April 3rd, 2014 at 11:33 PM by Steven Stanley

The ghosts of the past return to haunt an 87-year-old Jewish widow—and to make magic in more ways than one—as the Falcon Theatre treats L.A. audiences to the West Coast Premiere of The Last Act Of Lilka Kadison, yet another gem from one of L.A.’s finest Equity houses.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Comedy-Drama, Theater Review, WOW!

DOCTOR ANONYMOUS

posted on April 1st, 2014 at 4:22 PM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

The gay liberation movement may have started in earnest with the 1969 Stonewall riots, but homosexuality was still deemed a “curable” mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association in 1972 when a masked Dr. John E. Fryer addressed the annual APA conference as “Dr. H. Anonymous,” beginning his speech with the simple words “I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist.”

A year later homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Inspired by Fryer’s speech, psychiatrist/playwright Guy Fredrick Glass has written Doctor Anonymous, now getting its World Premiere at the Zephyr Theatre, and though several of its actors rise above the material, neither their performances nor a topnotch production design can mask Doctor Anonymous’s many serious flaws.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, Not Recommended, World Premiere

FLOYD COLLINS

posted on March 31st, 2014 at 11:42 AM by Steven Stanley

In the early days of 1925, decades before Baby Jessica and O.J. and Monica Lewinsky and Nancy & Tonya and Watergate and Laci Peterson and Patty Hearst and Jon Benet and Octomom and Iran Contra and countless other 20th Century media circuses, a young Kentucky cave explorer named Floyd Collins became trapped in a narrow crawlway over fifty feet underground. Efforts to rescue him ignited a media frenzy, aided and abetted by the recent advent of broadcast radio that helped spread the news across the country.

Inspired by the two-week-long efforts to save Collins from a subterranean grave (and the carnival atmosphere that surrounded the rescue mission), Adam Guettel and Tina Landau wrote the 1996 Lucille Lortel/Obie Award-winning Floyd Collins, one of the most powerful musicals of the past two decades and one which La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts has now given an intimate “ONSTAGE” production that proves a brilliant follow-up to last year’s smash Spring Awakening.
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posted in Downey/La Mirada, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

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