ANGELS FALL

posted on November 24th, 2012 at 5:54 PM by Steven Stanley


Confine a group of strangers in an enclosed space and what do you get? Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential classic No Exit? Michael Leoni’s smash L.A. hit Elevator? TV’s Big Brother, now in its 14th season?

To this list Los Angeles theatergoers can now add Lanford Wilson’s Tony-nominated (for Best Play of 1982) Angels Fall, now getting a marvelous intimate staging by The Production Company, a 30th Anniversary revival which not only does ample justice to Wilson’s themes but does so in the most entertaining of ways.
(read more)

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

HUGHIE

posted on November 22nd, 2012 at 1:24 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
Andrew Schlessinger delivers a tour-de-force performance as a down-on-his-luck hustler in Hughie, a quirky Eugene O’Neill one-act that will be of greatest interest to fans of the Nobel/Pulitzer-prize-winning playwright.
(read more)

posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Recommended

RISE

posted on November 21st, 2012 at 5:38 PM by Steven Stanley


Take a man and a woman with a shared past, place them in an enclosed space with no intermission to lessen the tension, and you’ve got a recipe for dramatic sparks. Scottish playwright David Harrower did just this in his multiple-Scenie-winning Blackbird, and Cal Barnes follows that example in his Hollywood Fringe Festival hit Rise, currently keeping audiences on the edge of their seats at Elephant Stages.
(read more)

posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

CALL ME MADAM

posted on November 20th, 2012 at 11:32 PM by Steven Stanley


Here’s a question for Los Angeles area musical theater lovers. Of the two Tony-winning musicals of 1951, Guys And Dolls and Call Me Madam, which one have you seen over and over again and which one have you never seen—or at least not until last night at Glendale’s Alex Theatre?

The answer to the second part of the question is, of course, Irving Berlin’s Call Me Madam, the mostly forgotten winner of three Tonys (for Best Score, Best Actress, and Best Featured Actor), a musical gem/chestnut that hundreds of Angelinos got to experience last night in Concert Staged Reading form, thanks to the oh-so talented triple-threats of L.A.’s Musical Theatre Guild.
(read more)

posted in Burbank/Glendale, Concert Staged Reading, WOW!

THE MORINI STRAD

posted on November 19th, 2012 at 3:03 PM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

As any Colony Theatre regular can tell you, Burbank’s premier regional theater has had crowd-pleasing hit after hit with its series of “odd couple” two-character plays, from Rounding Third to Trying to Educating Rita to Visiting Mr. Green to Grace & Glorie to Shooting Star to Old Wicked Songs. That’s why, as a longtime Colony fan who loved each and every one of this magnificent seven, it pains me to report that their latest two-hander, The Morini Strad, failed to capture or hold my attention despite the best efforts of all concerned.
(read more)

posted in Burbank/Glendale, Drama, Not Recommended

WHEN LAST WE FLEW

posted on November 19th, 2012 at 12:01 AM by Steven Stanley


Playwright Harrison David Rivers and Diversionary Theatre score a pair of coups, the former in having his award-winning* when last we flew get its West Coast Premiere at San Diego’s esteemed LGBT theater, the latter in giving Rivers’ mystical, magical dramedy its first major, fully-staged production since its limited-run debut at the 2010 New York International Fringe Festival.  The result is one of the best (and most unique) coming of age stories I’ve seen onstage.
(read more)

posted in Comedy-Drama, San Diego County, WOW!

IN THE RED AND BROWN WATER

posted on November 17th, 2012 at 4:08 PM by Steven Stanley


The gods and goddesses of the West African Yoruba people are transformed into African-Americans living in the projects of San Pere, Louisiana in Tarell Alvin McCraney’s award-winning In The Red And Brown Water, now getting an impressive Los Angeles premiere at the Fountain Theatre.
(read more)

posted in Drama, Los Angeles, WOW!

DOESN’T ANYONE KNOW WHAT A PANCREAS IS?

posted on November 16th, 2012 at 7:08 PM by Steven Stanley


Friends (and friends of friends) find themselves Looking For Love In Los Angeles in Carole Real’s funny, perceptive new comedy Doesn’t Anybody Know What A Pancreas Is?, now getting a sparkling World Premiere production by Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA.
(read more)

posted in Comedy, Los Angeles, WOW!

Next PagePrevious Page