ANYTHING GOES

posted on October 7th, 2012 at 10:59 PM by Steven Stanley


Way back in Broadway’s pre-Oklahoma! days, pretty much all that was required to create a hit musical was a a dozen or so songs (preferably by Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George & Ira Gershwin, or Rodgers & Hart) and some lively dance numbers (the kind that Busby Berkeley was creating both in New York and in Hollywood). As for plot, three-dimensional characters, or any trace of the dramatic, well who needed those so long as a show’s zany characters made you laugh?
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posted in Musical, San Gabriel Valley, WOW!

OVERLOOKED

posted on October 6th, 2012 at 3:11 PM by Steven Stanley


Playwright Brian Nelson skewers the pretentious Ways Of The (Art) World in his acidic new comedy Overlooked, now getting its World Premiere at Orange County’s award-winning Chance Theater.
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posted in Comedy, Orange County, WOW!

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS

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


The prodigiously talented students of USC’s Musical Theatre Repertory join forces to produce, direct, perform in, and design one of MTR’s absolute best productions to date, an almost perfect intimate theater revival of the Broadway/cult classic Little Shop Of Horrors that more than holds its own against the finest professional productions in town.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, WOW!

EURYDICE

posted on October 3rd, 2012 at 10:57 PM by Steven Stanley


Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl’s magical, mystical, poetic retelling of the Orpheus myth from the point of view of his bride has arrived at South Coast Repertory in a production that, in addition to being exquisitely acted and directed, is likely to be remembered as one of the most stunningly designed SCR productions ever.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Orange County, WOW!

SILENCE! THE MUSICAL

posted on October 2nd, 2012 at 11:40 PM by Steven Stanley


When a flock of musical theater triple-threats adorned with sheep’s ears and hooves blend light-operatic voices to sing out “This is the story of Clarice,” only to be joined by a pantsuit-clad jogger looking like none other than a young Jodie Foster in FBI trainee mode, there’s only one place you could possibly be, whether in New York or L.A., and that’s at SILENCE! The Musical, the “unauthorized parody of Silence Of The Lambs” whose continuing Off-Broadway run has proved so successful that a sister production has now opened in Los Angeles to audience laughter and cheers.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, WOW!

THE RED ROOM

posted on October 1st, 2012 at 10:35 AM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

Memories of the past haunt the present of a once successful Hollywood mogul, his tormented wife, and their three adult sons in Christopher Knopf’s frustratingly abstruse The Red Room, now getting its World Premiere at North Hollywood’s NoHo Arts Center.
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posted in Drama, North Hollywood, Not Recommended

AMERICAN FIESTA

posted on September 30th, 2012 at 1:17 PM by Steven Stanley


When a self-penned solo performance, the kind that Fringe Festival participants seem ever so fond of, proves so popular that actors other than the original writer get hired to perform it, that’s pretty much a guarantee of something special, or at least this is the case with the Colony Theatre’s latest, Steven Tomlinson’s autobiographical American Fiesta.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Solo Performance, WOW!

CRAZY FOR YOU

posted on September 29th, 2012 at 12:12 PM by Steven Stanley


Downey Civic Light Opera opens its 2012-13 season with one of its strongest productions in recent years, Crazy For You, the Tony-winning Best Musical of 1992. Winning lead performances by Mishi Schueller and Andrea Dodson, a bunch of terrific supporting turns, and some of the best dancing I’ve seen on the Downey Theatre stage make this a worthy follow-up to last spring’s excellent The Pajama Game.
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posted in Downey/La Mirada, Musical, WOW!

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