THE DROWSY CHAPERONE

posted on March 25th, 2025 at 10:44 AM by Steven Stanley

The audience greeted curtain calls with cheers, but for this reviewer at least, Musical Theatre Guild’s one-performance-only concert staged reading of the 2006 Broadway hit The Drowsy Chaperone failed to live up to the company’s next-best-thing-to-fully-staged standards.
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posted in Concert Staged Reading, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls

THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE

posted on March 23rd, 2025 at 11:11 AM by Steven Stanley


Wisteria Theater Company scores their second hit in a row with their completely captivating take on the 2005 Broadway hit The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, impressively directed by Brayden Hade.
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posted in Musical, North Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

DRAT! THE CAT!

posted on March 22nd, 2025 at 11:03 AM by Steven Stanley


Sixty years after it flopped big time on Broadway, the largely forgotten Drat! The Cat! has been given fresh new life by director Bruce Kimmel in a delightful, six-decades-postponed West Coast Premiere at the Group Rep Theatre.
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posted in Musical, North Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION!

posted on March 19th, 2025 at 8:39 AM by Steven Stanley

There’s some very good work being done on the Westchester Playhouse stage in Kentwood Players frontal-nudity-free staging of Love! Valour! Compassion!, Terrence McNally’s three-and-a-half-hour-long celebration of gay love and friendship in the time of AIDS.
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posted in Drama, South Bay, Theater Review

ONE FOR MY BABY

posted on March 18th, 2025 at 8:09 AM by Steven Stanley

A musical can have hit potential where songs, dances, performances, and production design are concerned, however without a compelling, coherent book to grab an audience, it can still end up a miss, case in point the 3-plus-hour-long retro jukebox musical One For My Baby, now getting its World Premiere at North Hollywood’s El Portal Theatre.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Musical, North Hollywood, Theater Review, World Premiere

CABARET

posted on March 15th, 2025 at 12:16 PM by Steven Stanley


Even constrained by the limitations of a rented set, master director Michael Matthews and an absolutely superb cast deliver a 5-Star Theatricals Cabaret resplendent with Matthews’ unique brand of brilliance.
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posted in Musical, Theater Review, Ventura County, WOW!

THESE SHINING LIVES

posted on March 11th, 2025 at 11:32 AM by Steven Stanley


Decades before Erin Brockovich played David to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s Goliath, a young woman fought a similarly consequential battle in Ottawa, Illinois, events that playwright Melanie Marnich recounts in These Shining Lives, the stunning latest from Hollywood’s Actors Co-op.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Theater Review, WOW!

SUCH SMALL HANDS

posted on March 9th, 2025 at 12:13 PM by Steven Stanley


Adam Szymkowicz writes writes about Alzheimer’s from a spouse/caretaker’s point of view and does so with humor, compassion, and perception in Such Small Hands, a powerful Chance Theater World Premiere.
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posted in Drama, Orange County, Theater Review, Two-Hander, World Premiere, WOW!

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