THE FEW

posted on October 7th, 2013 at 9:42 PM by Steven Stanley


Samuel D. Hunter. Remember that name, because if the three Sam Hunter plays I’ve had the great good fortune to see over the past twelve months are any indication, this Idaho-born, New York-based playwright is one whose name you’ll be hearing for years to come. A Bright New Boise and The Whale have proven him “one to watch.” The Few (his latest, now getting the sensational World Premiere it deserves), further cements the young playwright’s place in contemporary American theater.
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posted in Drama, San Diego County, Theater Review, WOW!

LA CAGE AUX FOLLES

posted on October 7th, 2013 at 11:09 AM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
The “birds” are boys and the boys are girls as Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center presents Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein’s La Cage Aux Folles (aka The Birdcage), and if an uninspired scenic design gives the production a more “community theater” look than it deserves, the result is nonetheless a crowd-pleasing, gender-bending treat.
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posted in Musical, Recommended, Theater Review, Ventura County

TIME STANDS STILL

posted on October 5th, 2013 at 2:49 PM by Steven Stanley


A wounded photo-journalist’s return home from the war zone proves even more challenging than a life lived on the edge in Donald Margulies’ intelligent, perceptive, often funny, always compelling Time Stands Still, now getting a superb Orange County Premiere at Anaheim’s Chance Theater with crackerjack director Marya Mazor assuredly at the helm.
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posted in Drama, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

THE NORMAL HEART

posted on October 5th, 2013 at 12:57 AM by Steven Stanley


Larry Kramer’s landmark drama The Normal Heart gets its first L.A. staging in nearly two decades, and tough as it may be to revisit the earliest days of the AIDS epidemic, this absolutely brilliant production is one that no Los Angeles theater lover should miss, and the younger the audience the better.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, WOW!

THE WHO’S TOMMY

posted on October 1st, 2013 at 10:43 AM by Steven Stanley


Moonlight Stage Productions concludes its 33rd Summer Season with a sensational production of the legendary The Who’s Tommy, one sure to thrill both Baby Boomers (in their teens and twenties when Tommy began its life) and Generation Xers and Millennials, Tommy’s multiple 1960s hits (“Pinball Wizard,” “I’m Free,” “See Me, Feel Me”) sounding hardly to have aged even a decade in the ensuing years.
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posted in Musical, San Diego County, Theater Review, WOW!

THE LION IN WINTER

posted on September 29th, 2013 at 1:28 PM by Steven Stanley


It’s a classic nighttime soap, that is if Dallas or Dynasty had been set in 12th-Century England. It’s a Shakespeare history, that is if you could understand every word the actors are saying. It’s a 1960s film classic that won Katharine Hepburn the third of her four Best Actress Oscars.

It’s Peter Goldman’s Broadway flop play-turned-Hollywood hit movie, and if (as Wikipedia puts it rather ungrammatically) “The Lion in Winter is fictional and none of the dialogue and actions is historical,” it still makes for one of modern American theater’s most entertaining dramas and offers actors some of the meatiest roles of their careers—proof of which is now onstage at the Sierra Madre Playhouse.
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posted in Drama, San Gabriel Valley, Theater Review, WOW!

HAIRSPRAY

posted on September 28th, 2013 at 5:04 PM by Steven Stanley


The plus-size mother/daughter duo of Tracy and Edna Turnblad have arrived at Escondido’s Welk Theatre in a mid-sized Hairspray that diverts, dazzles, and delights under director-choreographer Dan Mojica’s accomplished hand.
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posted in Musical, San Diego County, Theater Review, WOW!

THE END OF IT

posted on September 27th, 2013 at 12:29 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
A 50ish couple (or is it three?) confront the dissolution of a twenty-year relationship in Paul Coates’ The End Of It, a World Premiere production elevated above a too generic script by sensational direction, fine acting, and one humdinger of a gimmick.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, Recommended, Theater Review

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