MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION

posted on March 16th, 2013 at 3:06 PM by Steven Stanley


Daughter Discovers Mom To Be Millionaire Madam

No, this isn’t a headline story in The National Inquirer or on TMZ, nor is it the latest reality TV show or nighttime soap. In fact, the mother and daughter in question are from over a century back (when you only needed $40,000 to be a millionaire) and the two lead characters in George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Can you say “ahead of its time?”

Shaw’s 1893 ground-breaker makes an exciting return to Los Angeles as The Antaeus Company premieres another if its couldn’t-be-better revivals starring the incomparable Anne Gee Byrd in the title role. Who could ask for anything more?
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posted in Comedy-Drama, North Hollywood, WOW!

WHAT MAY FALL

posted on March 15th, 2013 at 4:50 PM by Steven Stanley


A senseless random tragedy causes nine Minneapolitans to reevaluate their lives in Peter Gil-Sheridan’s What May Fall, now getting a compelling, beautifully acted, incisively directed West Coast Premiere at Hollywood’s Theatre Of NOTE.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

HAVING IT ALL

posted on March 13th, 2013 at 11:32 AM by Steven Stanley


Having scored a grand total of seven Ovation Award nominations in its 2011 World Premiere run, the hit musical Having It All now graduates to the big stage of the Laguna Playhouse in a production which reunites four of its five original stars and preserves the many pleasures Angelinos enjoyed in it the first time round … and then some.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

TENDER NAPALM

posted on March 12th, 2013 at 6:33 PM by Steven Stanley


The East London exes of Philip Ridley’s Tender Napalm could give the long-married spouses of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a lesson in how to use language as both weapon and aphrodisiac, or so Los Angeles audiences can now discover in the sensational West Coast Premiere of Ridley’s surreal romantic tragedy at the downtown warehouse-turned-performance space Six-01 Studio.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, WOW!

LEGALLY BLONDE

posted on March 11th, 2013 at 6:42 PM by Steven Stanley


When rights to a hit Broadway musical get released to regional theaters, it often takes longer than you’d expect for a show to reach L.A. Take the case of Legally Blonde. Though its rights were made available way back in September of 2011, it had until recently made its way only as close as Vista (94 miles away), with Thousand Oaks not scheduled to get it till this coming July, and Fullerton (a “mere” 26 miles away) not till October of 2013. And who knows when it will actually reach L.A. County?

All the more reason to zip on up to relatively nearby Simi Valley (only half an hour from downtown L.A.) where right this very minute Elle Woods is discovering the joys of higher education in Actors’ Repertory Theatre of Simi’s terrific (if not quite perfect) staging of the 2007 Broadway adaptation of the 2001 movie smash, solidly directed by David Daniels.
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posted in Musical, Ventura County, WOW!

DREAMGIRLS

posted on March 10th, 2013 at 1:37 PM by Steven Stanley


Deena Jones, Effie White, Lorrell Robinson, and Michelle Morris are singing up a storm and DOMA has got’em.

A news flash like this can only mean one thing. Dreamgirls is in town, with DOMA Theatre Company once again proving that you don’t need a gazillion dollars and a 1500-seat house to make musical theater magic in L.A.
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posted in Hollywood/West Hollywood, Musical, WOW!

WOLVES

posted on March 9th, 2013 at 2:17 PM by Steven Stanley


There Will Be Blood. What a title this would have made for playwright Steve Yockey’s latest creation had the name not already been taken. Or There Will Be Chills, or There Will Be Turmoil, or There Will Be Sex (or at the very least Foreplay), or There Will Be Laughs. Wisely, Yockey has simply called his newest devilish confection Wolves (as in Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad …) and as its real and alternate titles suggest, the prolific stage scribe has confectioned one sexy, funny, dark, bloody fairy tale for adults.

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posted in Comedy-Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

CRAZY FOR YOU

posted on March 9th, 2013 at 1:07 AM by Steven Stanley


The Tony-winning Best Musical of 1992 has arrived at Glendale Centre Theatre in an in-the-round production so all-a-round terrific, you’d have to be crazy not to be crazy about Crazy For You. With its ever so talented pair of triple-threat leads, splendid supporting performances, a fabulous song-and-dance ensemble executing some of the most inventive choreography around, and costumes you’d expect to see on a Broadway stage, Crazy For You is is one of GCT’s best.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Musical, WOW!

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