COMPANY

posted on February 15th, 2013 at 7:11 PM by Steven Stanley


“Phone rings, door chimes, in comes company!”

As any musical theater buff can tell you, the person whose phone is ringing and whose door is chiming and who is welcoming company into his Manhattan pad is none other than Robert, aka Bobby, aka Bob, aka Bobbo, aka Robby, aka Bobby Baby, aka Robert Darling, aka Bobby Honey, the bachelor lead of Company, Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Tony-winning Best Musical of 1970, now getting its first L.A. production in what seems like eons—and a pretty darned terrific one at that—at North Hollywood’s Crown City Theatre.
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posted in Musical, North Hollywood, WOW!

CHRISTMAS IN HANOI

posted on February 15th, 2013 at 9:02 AM by Steven Stanley


East West Players takes a chance on something new—a ghost story set in contemporary Vietnam—and comes up with a winner in Eddie Borey’s Christmas In Hanoi. As brought to life by a topnotch creative team, Borey’s EWP’s playwriting competition-winning script makes for a strong 2013 opener for the country’s premier Asian-American theater.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, WOW!

CHESS

posted on February 12th, 2013 at 10:10 PM by Steven Stanley


After their phenomenal concert staged reading of Titanic The Musical, a production I dubbed “one of Musical Theatre Guild’s crowning achievements,” you might think that the triple-threats of MTG would want to take it easy for the rest of the 2012-2013 season.

Not so, as last night’s titanic staging of Chess (In Concert) at Glendale’s Alex Theatre made abundantly clear, and for those who missed this phenomenal achievement, you have but one more chance to catch it this coming Sunday afternoon in Thousand Oaks.
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posted in Concert Staged Reading, Pasadena, WOW!

THE SOUND OF MUSIC

posted on February 12th, 2013 at 6:38 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
Candlelight Dinner Theater continues its 2013 season with the Rodgers And Hammerstein classic The Sound Of Music, giving audiences in search of wholesome family entertainment an entertaining production blessed by the best Maria von Trapp this side of Julie Andrews.
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posted in Musical, Recommended, San Gabriel Valley

BIRDS OF A FEATHER

posted on February 11th, 2013 at 5:37 PM by Steven Stanley


What do a couple of gay male penguins immortalized in a controversial children’s book, an opposite-gender pair of red-tailed hawks nesting on a top-story ledge of a pricey Upper Manhattan co-op, and the marital woes of a former ABC/CBS/Fox/CNN news anchor have in common?

The answer is that all of the above take center stage in Birds Of A Feather, Marc Acito’s sweet, funny, topical, and ultimately quite moving one-act comedy now making its West Coast debut in a something-to-squawk-about production at San Diego’s Diversionary Theatre.
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posted in Comedy, San Diego County, WOW!

YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN

posted on February 9th, 2013 at 4:19 PM by Steven Stanley


Fans of Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, Sally, and Snoopy will want to head up to Thousand Oaks to join the pint-sized Peanuts icons in a celebration of the life of a boy named Charlie Brown in the crowd-pleasing musical You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, the second production in Cabrillo Music Theatre’s 2012-2013 season.
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posted in Musical, Ventura County, WOW!

THE GIFT

posted on February 8th, 2013 at 2:18 PM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

Fine performances, impressive design elements, and an absolutely stunning action sequence prove insufficient reasons for this reviewer to recommend a trip to the Geffen Playhouse for the American Premiere of Joanna Murray-Smith’s highly problematic dark comedy The Gift.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Not Recommended, West Side/Beverly HIlls

CHINGLISH

posted on February 6th, 2013 at 7:57 PM by Steven Stanley


“East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet” … because if so, complications will surely ensue as they do in David Henry Hwang’s hilarious (and eye-opening) Chinglish, freshly arrived at South Coast Repertory from Berkeley Rep with its entire creative team and virtually its entire cast intact.
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posted in Comedy, Orange County, WOW!

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