GOD’S MAN IN TEXAS

posted on April 27th, 2013 at 2:36 PM by Steven Stanley


“And I am telling you, I’m not going!”

No, it’s not Effie White belting out a showstopper in Dreamgirls, but the spoken words of Dr. Philip Gottschall, an 81-year-old Texas megapreacher unwilling to give up the pulpit of a church he’s built up to a congregation of 30,000 and counting, and it’s not Deena Jones who’s in Eve Harrington mode, but 40something San Antonio pastor Jeremiah Mears, whom fully half of the pastoral search committee would like to see replace their aging leader. As for the other half, the status quo is fine, just fine.

Playwright David Rambo pits preacher against preacher in God’s Man In Texas, the latest offering from the newly re-energized Sierra Madre Playhouse, and if being forced to listen to considerable sermonizing by the kind of Christian fundamentalists who have recently made it their mission to “protect the sanctity of marriage” proved tough going in Act One, once Rambo’s central concern became evident in the play’s thoroughly compelling second act, this reviewer came to realize that any Act One discomfort was personal, and no reflection on what ends up one humdinger of a play.
(read more)

posted in Drama, San Gabriel Valley, WOW!

THE BEAUX’ STRATAGEM

posted on April 26th, 2013 at 5:16 PM by Steven Stanley


Frank Galati’s 1990 stage adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes Of Wrath, Sarah Ruhl’s 2003 take on Eurydice, and now Ken Ludwig and Thornton Wilder’s 2006 adaptation of The Beaux Stratagem…  Has A Noise Within ever had as contemporary (and 2013 audience-friendly) a season as the three plays now in rep at their Pasadena digs?
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posted in Comedy, Pasadena, WOW!

THE LARAMIE PROJECT: 10 YEARS LATER

posted on April 25th, 2013 at 5:56 PM by Steven Stanley

The hate crime that was the brutal 1998 murder of 21-year-old University Of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard brought playwright Moisés Kaufman and fellow members of New York’s Tectonic Theater Project to the town of Laramie in search of answers. Who could have committed such a barbaric act (and why?) … and how did the residents of Laramie react to Shepard’s murder, and to the attention it focused on their city of 28,000?

The result of Kaufman and his team’s* eighteen-month research was The Laramie Project, which Los Angeles audiences got their first look at when the Colony Theatre Company staged it to memorable effect in 2002.

Ten years after their initial visits, Kaufman and the Tectonics returned to Laramie to find out how much the city and its residents had changed in the ensuing decade, the result of which is The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later.

Orange County’s award-winning Chance Theater now presents both plays in rep, offering Southern California audiences the rare opportunity to see not only where we were at the time of Matthew’s murder, but also how far we’ve come since then, and assuming Oanh Nguyen’s staging of the original is as powerful as the sequel reviewed here (as I’m certain it must be), then Angelinos and Orange County residents alike are in for a humdinger of a double feature.
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posted in Drama, Orange County, WOW!

THE PARISIAN WOMAN

posted on April 24th, 2013 at 11:19 AM by Steven Stanley


Calculating, conniving, deceitful, devious, shrewd, sly, underhanded, and unscrupulous are just a handful of the ways audience members might describe Chloe, the title character in Beau Willimon’s World Premiere play The Parisian Woman. Add beguiling, bewitching, captivating, seductive, and sexy, and you’ve got an idea of how this born-and-raised-in-the-USA “Parisienne” manages to be such a schemer … and get away with it, particularly when played to perfection by two-time Emmy winner Dana Delany, who manages to convince us that Chloe is all of the above … and more.
(read more)

posted in Comedy-Drama, Orange County, WOW!

MONTY PYTHON’S SPAMALOT

posted on April 22nd, 2013 at 12:16 PM by Steven Stanley


You don’t need Broadway sets and costumes and professional credits a mile long to put on a bang-up show, not if you’re the talented team of artists at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center and the show in question is Monty Python’s Spamalot.
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posted in Musical, Ventura County, WOW!

THE MIRACLE WORKER

posted on April 21st, 2013 at 10:22 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
A pair of powerhouse performances would make Actors Co-op’s revival of William Gibson’s Tony-winning The Miracle Worker must-see theater if only attention been paid to sightlines, or had the Co-op staged it at the David Schall Theatre next door.
Note: See update at end of review.
(read more)

posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Recommended

ALL SHOOK UP

posted on April 21st, 2013 at 7:30 PM by Steven Stanley


With its hit-filled score made up of over two dozen Elvis classics, its clever, funny book by Joe DiPietro, its delicious cast of characters, and ample opportunities for a choreographer to strut his or her stuff, All Shook Up, “The Elvis Musical,” is not only one of the most thoroughly entertaining Broadway shows of the past decade, it makes for an ideal talent showcase for the gifted Cal State Fullerton students who play its ten leading roles and for its sensational triple-threat ensemble as well.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

[title of show]

posted on April 20th, 2013 at 1:36 PM by Steven Stanley


Following last fall’s gem of a production of Adam Gwon’s Ordinary Days, the students of Cal State Fullerton’s prestigious Musical Theater BFA program have returned to Santa Ana’s blackbox Grand Central Theatre for Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen’s [title of show], which like Ordinary Days serves as a couldn’t-be-better showcase for a quartet of triple-threats (two juniors and two seniors) on their way to successful careers in musical theater.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

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