THE FISHERMAN’S WIFE

posted on November 6th, 2012 at 6:40 PM by Steven Stanley


An unhappily married fisherman and his wife get some unsolicited sex therapy from a nautically tattooed traveling salesman and a sexually insatiable pair of tentacled sea creatures in Steve Yockey’s laugh-out-loud surreal screwball comedy The Fisherman’s Wife, Ensemble Studio Theatre’s maiden offering in The Speakeasy, its brand new (and aptly named) performance space in Atwater Village.
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posted in Comedy, Los Angeles, WOW!

AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

posted on November 5th, 2012 at 6:07 PM by Steven Stanley


A mysterious host invites eight guests, each of them a stranger to the others, for an island holiday off the coast of Devon, a pair of married servants in attendance and said host (or hostess?) nowhere to be seen. Does this sound like recipe for murder?

To a diehard Agatha Christie fan, it not only does, it sounds suspiciously like And Then There Were None (aka Ten Little Indians), published first as a novel in 1939 and then adapted for the stage by the author herself in 1943.

Hollywood’s Actors Co-op now revives this Christie gem in a production that makes for as entertaining and suspenseful a mystery thriller as any Christie fan or neophyte could possibly ask for, thanks to incisive direction by Linda Kerns and topnotch performances by an all-around terrific cast.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW

posted on November 4th, 2012 at 12:39 PM by Steven Stanley


What would the Halloween season be without the camp classic Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show, the science fiction/horror movie spoof that has become so iconic, it now includes its creator’s name in its official title?
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

SPRING AWAKENING

posted on November 3rd, 2012 at 3:05 PM by Steven Stanley


More than a dozen talented young Southland triple-threats have brought Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik’s Spring Awakening to the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center, where they star in a topnotch staging of the Tony-winning musical adaptation of Frank Wedenkind’s groundbreaking 1891 drama.
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posted in Musical, Ventura County, WOW!

HOW TO WRITE A NEW BOOK FOR THE BIBLE

posted on October 31st, 2012 at 8:23 PM by Steven Stanley


I wonder if any son has ever paid greater tribute to his mother than Bill Cain does in How To Write A New Book For The Bible, his extraordinary new play about her death—and her life, told extraordinarily well in its Southern California Premiere at South Coast Repertory.
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posted in Drama, Orange County, WOW!

JILL MORRISON

posted on October 30th, 2012 at 5:53 PM by Steven Stanley

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posted in Interview

EDITH CAN SHOOT THINGS AND HIT THEM

posted on October 29th, 2012 at 8:51 PM by Steven Stanley


How times have changed for gay American teens over the past two decades. Kenny Tolentino could scarcely have conceived of Gay Straight Alliances or “It Gets Better” videos or out celebrities like Ricky Martin and Zachary Quinto (Mr. Spock, no less!) when he was sixteen just twenty years ago, a coming of age now chronicled by A. Rey Pamatmat in his absolutely wonderful Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Comedy-Drama, WOW!

42nd STREET

posted on October 28th, 2012 at 9:19 PM by Steven Stanley


The audience has only just finished applauding this Broadway classic’s “Greatest Hits” overture when the curtain rises to reveal the legs—and only the legs—of thirty  long-legged hoofers tap-dancing as if their Broadway careers depended on it (as they indeed do) … and the audience erupts in high-decibel cheers.

Anyone who knows musical theater can surely identify the show in question. It’s the Broadway megahit 42nd Street (3486 performances in its original run and another 1524 in its smash revival), now playing to sold-out houses at Long Beach’s Musical Theatre West in a production that sets the bar spectacularly high for any other company with the chutzpah to follow in their foot-taps.
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posted in Long Beach/San Pedro, Musical, WOW!

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