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

TARTUFFE

posted on March 4th, 2014 at 6:41 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
A Noise Within opens its Spring 2014 season with the classical theater company’s own distinctive take on Molière’s classic French farce Tartuffe*, and though not the inspired revival audiences were treated to in Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Beaux Stratgem, this entertaining if at times overly dark production does at the very least make relevant points about the hypocrisy, greed, and corruption of (at least certain members of) the clergy.
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posted in Comedy, Pasadena, Recommended, Theater Review

CLOSELY RELATED KEYS

posted on March 3rd, 2014 at 7:12 PM by Steven Stanley


A hotshot young corporate lawyer discovers she has an Iraqi half-sister from her father’s long ago extramarital relationship in Wendy Graf’s riveting Closely Related Keys, a World Premiere drama as topical as today’s headlines.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Theater Review, World Premiere, WOW!

GOING TO ST. IVES

posted on March 1st, 2014 at 5:32 PM by Steven Stanley


A woman wracked with guilt over the unintentional role she has played in her son’s accidental death. A woman tormented by having given birth to a murderous son. These two mothers meet, with life-changing consequences, in Lee Blessing’s powerful two-hander Going To St. Ives, the latest from Hollywood’s illustrious Actors Co-op.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

MY NAME IS ASHER LEV

posted on March 1st, 2014 at 11:59 AM by Steven Stanley

“Be a great painter, Asher Lev. It is the only justification for all the pain you are about to cause.”

Chaim Potok’s acclaimed 1972 novel My Name Is Asher Lev has now been transformed into a powerfully performed, deeply moving showcase for three of L.A.’s finest acting talents and one of our best directors at the award-winning Fountain Theater.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, WOW!

A NICE INDIAN BOY

posted on February 27th, 2014 at 5:44 PM by Steven Stanley


Playwright Madhuri Shekar puts a fresh, multicultural, same-sex spin on the classic romantic comedy in her World Premiere dramedy A Nice Indian Boy, one of the best original plays I’ve seen at East West Players, a romcom that had me at “Hello,” or in the case of Naveen and Keshav, at “Om.”
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, World Premiere

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