LEGALLY BLONDE

posted on July 20th, 2013 at 1:45 PM by Steven Stanley


Cabrillo Music Theatre now treats Ventura County residents (and SoCal musical theater lovers farther afield) to a sensational staging of Legally Blonde, 2005’s textbook example of how to turn a hit celluloid romcom into a nigh-on-perfect musical comedy, particularly as directed at Cabrillo with assurance and flair by Legally Blonde Broadway vet Tiffany Engen.
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posted in Musical, Theater Review, Ventura County, WOW!

THE 39 STEPS

posted on July 20th, 2013 at 11:22 AM by Steven Stanley


Glendale Centre Theatre proves that you don’t need a cast of dozens and a seven-figure budget to bring John Buchan’s The 39 Steps to life, despite a plot that takes hero-on-the-run Richard Hannay on an adventure from London to Edinburgh to the Scottish moors and back (during which he crosses paths with a hundred fifty characters or so). All you need are four crackerjack actors, an inventive design team, a tireless stage crew, and directorial whiz Todd Nielsen on hand to bring Buchan’s classic spy novel to vibrant, hilarious life.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Comedy, Theater Review, WOW!

PACK UP THE MOON

posted on July 16th, 2013 at 4:20 PM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

A gay couple still dealing with the sudden crib death of their adopted child decide a year later to become parents again—this time through surrogacy. Could there be a more current, hot-button topic for a world premiere play?

If only Christina Cigala’s Pack Up The Moon lived up to that promise.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Not Recommended, Theater Review

SUNSET BOULEVARD

posted on July 15th, 2013 at 4:35 PM by Steven Stanley


Let me put it simply. Musical Theatre West’s revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard is the theatrical event of the Summer Of 2013—bar none.
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posted in Long Beach/San Pedro, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

NINE

posted on July 13th, 2013 at 3:02 PM by Steven Stanley


DOMA Theatre Company follows its smash 99-seat revival of Dreamgirls with another dreamgirl-packed Tony-winning musical, a mostly quite successful downsizing of the big-stage Broadway hit Nine.
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posted in Hollywood/West Hollywood, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

FATHERS AT A GAME

posted on July 12th, 2013 at 3:15 PM by Steven Stanley


A pair of night-and-day different dads cheering on their teenage sons at a high school football game would seem more likely to inspire an odd-couple comedy à la Richard Dresser’s hilarious Rounding Third than an electrifyingly edge-of-your-seat thriller, but this is precisely what Trey Nichols has concocted in his one-act Fathers At A Game, now completing a brief Best Of Fringe extension following its original Hollywood Fringe run.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON

posted on July 11th, 2013 at 11:02 PM by Steven Stanley


Rowdy, outrageous, exhilarating, brash, and entertaining as all get-out—Chance Theater’s Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is all this and more, a slice of American history as told by a wild and crazy bunch of punk rockers that will have you cheering … and send you straight to Wikipedia to separate fact from fiction re our 7th President, “Old Hickory” himself.

Created by Alex Timbers and Michael Friedman, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson had its 2008 premiere at L.A.’s Kirk Douglas Theater before heading first to off-Broadway, then to Broadway, and now back to Southern California where director Kari Hayter, choreographer Kelly Todd, musical director Robyn Wallace, and a cast of some of SoCal’s most exciting triple-threats have joined forces to create the Orange County Musical Theater Event of the Summer ‘13.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, Theater Review, WOW!

WATSON AND THE DARK ART OF HARRY HOUDINI

posted on July 9th, 2013 at 5:44 PM by Steven Stanley


What do you do when you’re writer-director Jaime Robledo and your play Watson: The Last Great Tale Of The Legendary Sherlock Holmes has won just about every award in the book? Elementary, my dear reader. You do what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did after creating his mystery-solving supersleuth in A Study In Scarlet (and what Universal Pictures kept doing year after year for their own inimitable Sherlock, Basil Rathbone). You write and direct a sequel, in this case Watson And The Dark Art Of Harry Houdini, and if the results don’t match the original in sheer brilliance, Watson 2.0 does for the most part avoid the dreaded sophomore curse.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, WOW!

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