DALLAS NON-STOP

posted on November 28th, 2013 at 4:48 PM by Steven Stanley


The age-old tale of a small-town girl with big-city dreams gets retold with Filipino tang in Boni B. Alvarez’s bittersweet romcom Dallas Non-Stop, the crowd-pleasing latest from Playwrights’ Arena.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, WOW!

LITTLE ME

posted on November 27th, 2013 at 12:39 PM by Steven Stanley


It takes directorial brilliance (and balls) to take a Broadway show with a cast of thirty-six playing more than three dozen roles and stage it with a mere nine performers and no set design other than one comfy armchair and pull it off, but pull it off director David Lamoureux and his cast of nine did on Sunday as Musical Theatre West opened its Reiner Reading Series’ fourth season with the 1962 Broadway gem Little Me.
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posted in Concert Staged Reading, Long Beach/San Pedro, Theater Review, WOW!

VENUS IN FUR

posted on November 26th, 2013 at 8:33 PM by Steven Stanley


David Ives’ Venus In Fur has come to town, or about as close to L.A. as she’s going to get for a while, which is more than enough reason to head down south to catch San Diego Repertory Theatre’s mesmerizing production of the 2012 Best Play Tony nominee.
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posted in Drama, San Diego County, Theater Review, WOW!

A PERFECT LIKENESS

posted on November 25th, 2013 at 5:01 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
Writer-director Daniel Rover Singer imagines a ninety-minute meeting between Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll in the World Premiere of A Perfect Likeness, now playing at South Pasadena’s Fremont Centre Theatre, and despite bravura performances by Bruce Ladd and Daniel J. Roberts, I must confess to having found Singer’s play rather too talky for my tastes and not nearly as appealing and engaging as its unanimous rave reviews had led me to expect.
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posted in Comedy, Pasadena, Theater Review

IN THE HEIGHTS

posted on November 23rd, 2013 at 2:22 PM by Steven Stanley


Usnavi, Vanessa, Benny, Nina, Sonny, Daniela, Piragua Man, and all the colorful Washington Heights locals of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegria Hudes’ In The Heights are back in the Heights (Boyle Heights that is) as Teatro Nuevos Horizontes’ multiple Scenie-winning production of the 2008 Broadway hit returns for this year’s holiday season with four of its original stars intact and many of its new principal players living up to memories of last year’s all-around phenomenal leads.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

ILLYRIA

posted on November 22nd, 2013 at 7:09 PM by Steven Stanley


A gifted young cast directed by one of SoCal’s finest, a gorgeous score, and romance and comedy in equal measure are several of the best reasons to catch Cal State Fullerton’s blackbox staging of Illyria, Peter Mills’ musicalization of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night*. Add to that the unlikelihood of a major L.A. theater miraculously discovering Illyria’s existence, and anyone who loves musicals should make it a point not to miss this largely unknown gem.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

SIDE SHOW

posted on November 20th, 2013 at 7:32 PM by Steven Stanley


Daisy and Violet Hilton, the “Siamese twins” of Bill Russell and Henry Krieger’s Side Show, are back onstage in a heartstoppingly beautiful revival of the 1997 multiple-Tony Award nominee at San Diego’s La Jolla Playhouse, a production which despite a couple too many deleted songs, makes for one powerful “revisal” as re-imagined by its creators and director Bill Condon.
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posted in Musical, San Diego County, Theater Review, WOW!

WONDERFUL TOWN

posted on November 18th, 2013 at 11:08 PM by Steven Stanley


From autobiographical short story collection to play to movie to Broadway musical to musical movie (but with different songs) to TV series. Few musical comedies have had as many incarnations as 1953’s Wonderful Town, and though Broadway revived it in 2003, this Golden Era hit has faded a bit too much into obscurity to join perennial 1950s favorites like Damn Yankees and The Pajama Game onto any major theater’s annual season—making it a perfect choice for Musical Theatre Guild to revive for one night only as the first of their 2013-2014 “concert staged reading” treats.
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posted in Concert Staged Reading, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

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