LEGS DIAMOND

posted on December 4th, 2012 at 6:28 PM by Steven Stanley


Legs Diamond died twice, the first time in a mob shootout on December 18, 1931, and then a second time on February 19, 1989, when the musical bearing the Prohibition-era gangster’s name died an ignominious death inside the soon-to-be-defunct-itself Mark Hellinger Theatre, the victim of too much hurried rewriting and a leading man who wasn’t quite the triple-threat the role of Legs required.

End of story, right?

Wrong, though it would have been without Michael Betts, co-producer of Musical Theatre West’s Reiner Reading Series, who fell in love with the musical’s Original Broadway Cast recording and refused to let go of a dream to bring Legs back to life, even if for One Night Only, a dream which came miraculously true on Sunday, December 2, 2012.
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posted in Concert Staged Reading, Long Beach/San Pedro, WOW!

IN THE HEIGHTS

posted on December 3rd, 2012 at 2:12 PM by Steven Stanley


In The Heights, the Tony-winning Best Musical of 2008, now gets its very first Los Angeles regional staging—an under-the-radar intimate production in L.A.’s own (Boyle) Heights that is so sensational it deserves to be on any musical theater fan’s radar throughout the month of December, and hopefully beyond.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, WOW!

A CHRISTMAS TO REMEMBER

posted on December 2nd, 2012 at 1:47 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre celebrates the holidays with a delightfully performed original musical certain to appeal to children and their grandparents (though perhaps not quite as much to those in-between).
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posted in Musical, Recommended, San Gabriel Valley

THE SNOW QUEEN

posted on December 1st, 2012 at 6:02 PM by Steven Stanley


That particularly English form of musical entertainment called “panto” is back for the holidays in Dale Sandlin and Steve Apostolina’s “Frosty Fractured Fable” The Snow Queen, now keeping audiences in stitches at South Pasadena’s Fremont Centre Theatre under the imaginative, effervescent direction of McKerrin Kelly.
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posted in Musical, Pasadena, WOW!

MATT CRABTREE

posted on December 1st, 2012 at 12:12 PM by Steven Stanley

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posted in Interview

CONEY ISLAND CHRISTMAS

posted on November 30th, 2012 at 7:08 PM by Steven Stanley


The Geffen Playhouse has begun what could well turn into an annual holiday event with their World Premiere staging of Donald Margulies’ Coney Island Christmas, the Pulitzer Prize winner’s heartwarming, crowd-pleasing look back at a Brooklyn December circa 1935, directed with flair and heart by Bart DeLorenzo.
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posted in Comedy, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

MRS. MANNERLY

posted on November 28th, 2012 at 8:58 PM by Steven Stanley


Playwright Jeffery Hatcher takes a delightful trip down memory lane in Mrs. Mannerly, his staged memoir of an etiquette class he once took under the tutelage of Mrs. Helen Anderson Kirk, aka the Emily Post of Steubenville, Ohio.
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posted in Comedy, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

THE EIGHT: REINDEER MONOLOGUES

posted on November 27th, 2012 at 6:18 PM by Steven Stanley


Chance Theater resident artist Casey Long could hardly have imagined back in 2004 that eight Christmases later he’d be performing in the Ninth Annual Chance production of The Eight: Reindeer Monologues. Yet, miracle of miracles, Casey and the rest of The Eight (reindeer that is) continue shocking and delighting Orange County audiences with year after year of raunchy, R-rated yuletide cheer, written by Jeff Goode (author of the equally adult-themed Poona The Fuckdog And Other Plays For Children).
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posted in Comedy, Orange County, WOW!

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