SWEENEY TODD

posted on September 25th, 2012 at 6:32 PM by Steven Stanley


The sexual heat is on in Sweeney Todd, and if that sounds like an impossibility to those who’ve only seen Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett played by actors well into their forties, fifties, or even older, then just wait till you feel the heat ignited by Robert J. Townsend and Bets Malone in Moonlight Stage Productions’ ground-breaking revival of Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 musical smash, brilliantly directed by Steven Glaudini.
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posted in Musical, San Diego County, WOW!

ALLEGIANCE

posted on September 25th, 2012 at 6:31 PM by Steven Stanley


Imagine you were told by the country in which you were born and raised that you had only a few days to sell your home and all your possessions, minus of what you could carry with you. Imagine that you were then transported hundreds of miles away and forced to live in cramped barracks where you would swelter during the summer and freeze during the winter, month after month, year after year. Imagine what kind of country that would be and how you would feel about the land you had believed with all your heart was your own.

To those Americans who take comfort in the certainty that “It couldn’t happen here,” an extraordinary World Premiere musical called Allegiance reveals that it not only could, it did happen here, and a mere seventy years ago when almost 70,000 American citizens and another 40,000 who called America home were imprisoned in internment camps for most of World War II simply because of their race.

A truly dark chapter in our country’s history, but one from which composer-lyricist Jay Kuo and book writers Marc Acito, Kuo, and Lorenzo Thione have created a musical that educates, moves, and entertains, particularly as performed by a stellar cast under the inspired direction of Stafford Arima at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre.
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posted in Musical, San Diego County, WOW!

A KIND OF LOVE STORY

posted on September 24th, 2012 at 5:03 PM by Steven Stanley


“This is the story of two people who were made for each other, true soul mates, a man and a woman destined to fall in love with each other, if only they could ever meet” … is how an unseen narrator opens Jenelle Riley’s contemporary storybook romcom A Kind Of Love Story, now entertaining audiences at Sacred Fools Theatre.
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posted in Comedy, Los Angeles, WOW!

JUSTIN LOVE

posted on September 22nd, 2012 at 4:15 PM by Steven Stanley


Neil Patrick Harris. Zachary Quinto. Jesse Tyler Fergusson. Ricky Martin. Andrew Rannells. Jim Parsons. Matt Bomer. Cheyenne Jackson. Gavin Creel. Sean Hayes. Jonathan Groff. T.R. Knight. It seems lately that hardly a month goes by without another movie, TV, or Broadway leading man coming out of the closet—and coming out ahead career-wise, as the abovementioned dozen make perfectly clear.

Still, despite the increasing number of celebrity coming-out stories, there has yet to be a major A-list romantic/action hero movie star we can embrace as “Openly Gay,” someone the stature of a George Clooney or a Jake Gyllenhaal or a Bradley Cooper—to name three totally random examples. Someone like Justin Rush, the fictitious hero of Justin Love, the best new intimate stage musical I’ve seen in years, now getting a spectacular World Premiere at Celebration Theatre under the inspired direction of 4-time Scenie-winning Director Of The Year Michael Matthews.
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posted in Hollywood/West Hollywood, Musical, WOW!

BACH AT LEIPZIG

posted on September 22nd, 2012 at 3:37 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
Were I to tell you I saw a play entitled Bach At Leipzig last night, you’d probably assume that it was some sort of epic historical drama. That’s certainly what it sounds like, right?

Think again. Itamar Moses’ Bach At Leipzig turns out to be a comedy, and not just a comedy. A laugh-out-loud screwball farce written with uncommon intelligence and originality.

San Pedro’s much esteemed Little Fish Theatre now tries its hand at this hysterical historical romp, and if the element of pomp is missing (and missed), there are still good reasons to check out this very entertaining (if bare-ish bones) production.
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posted in Comedy, Long Beach/San Pedro, Recommended

UNDER MY SKIN

posted on September 20th, 2012 at 6:15 PM by Steven Stanley


I’ll admit it. I’m a sucker for body-swapping flicks. Name a title and I’ve probably seen it. All Of Me. 13 Going On 30. 17 Again. 18 Again! Like Father, Like Son. Big. Chances Are. Vice Versa. Heaven Can Wait. Freaky Friday. Switch. Prelude To A Kiss. Have a character suddenly find him or herself inhabiting someone else’s body or an older or younger version of the one he or she already has—and I am in for the duration, knowing that there’ll be laughter, romance, and maybe even a tear or two as life lessons are learned all the way up to the moment when—inevitably—the switch back is made.

That’s probably why I proved such a sucker for the Pasadena Playhouse’s season opener Under My Skin, a body-swapping comedy by Robert Sternin and Prudence Fraser that takes the genre from screen to stage to hilarious effect, even as it updates it to our 2012 world and gives it a particularly inspired twist that only one of the above movies has even vaguely attempted.
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posted in Comedy, Pasadena, WOW!

ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR

posted on September 19th, 2012 at 5:27 PM by Steven Stanley


South Coast Repertory opens its 2012-2013 season with a 40th Anniversary revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s Absurd Person Singular, a terrifically directed and performed production which spotlights what Orange County’s premier regional theater and the “British Neil Simon” do best.
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posted in Comedy, Orange County, WOW!

DAMN YANKEES

posted on September 17th, 2012 at 12:09 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
Simi Valley Performing Arts Center hit the jackpot earlier this year with productions of the Broadway hits Hairspray and Pippin that rivaled those of bigger-stage, bigger-budget companies like Thousand Oaks’ Cabrillo Music Theatre and Long Beach’s Musical Theatre West. Their latest, a revival of the 1950s Broadway smash Damn Yankees, while not in the same league as its predecessors, does offer sufficient pleasures to recommend it to Simi Valley audiences (with a couple of reservations).
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posted in Musical, Recommended, Ventura County

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