MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS

posted on July 22nd, 2012 at 1:21 AM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
Director Linda Kerns, choreographer Heather Castillo, and a terrifically talented cast make the most of Cabrillo Music Theatre’s summer offering, a revival of the short-lived 1989 Broadway adaptation of the 1944 MGM movie musical Meet Me In St. Louis.  Though the material being brought to life doesn’t hold up nearly as well as our rose-colored memories of the Judy Garland classic would like it to, the resulting production has much to recommend in it.

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posted in Musical, Recommended, Ventura County

MACBETH

posted on July 21st, 2012 at 2:12 PM by Steven Stanley


Director extraordinaire Jessica Kubzansky humanizes the murderous Macbeth and his lethal Lady McB  in a uniquely powerful production of Shakespeare’s “Scottish Play,” particularly as performed by a mashup of the Antaeus Company’s double-cast ensemble.
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posted in Drama, North Hollywood, WOW!

THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES CAPS & GOWNS

posted on July 18th, 2012 at 2:51 PM by Steven Stanley


From its humble beginnings as a one-act at Milwaukee Rep way back in 1998 to its two-year run at the El Portal in the mid-2000s to its 2008 off-Broadway Premiere to its countless regional productions since then, Roger Bean’s The Marvelous Wonderettes has become its very own cottage industry, spawning an Original Cast Recording and assorted souvenirs, a holiday show (“Winter Wonderettes”), and now a wonderfully marvelous sequel, The Marvelous Wonderettes Caps & Gowns, getting its World Premiere at the Laguna Playhouse.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

MELVIN ROBERT: THE SECOND ACT

posted on July 17th, 2012 at 5:16 PM by Steven Stanley


Triple-threat Melvin Robert fulfilled a childhood dream when in 2009 he dazzled audiences as Tom Collins in the Los Angeles Regional Premiere of Jonathan Larson’s Rent, a performance about which I wrote: “His rendition of the ‘I’ll Cover You’ reprise [is] one of the evening’s most gut-wrenching and beautifully performed moments.” Robert won an Outstanding Featured Performance Scenie for his powerful work opposite Jai Rodriguez in that production, and a second for Best Ensemble Cast for the Moonlight Stages production of Miss Saigon the following year.
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posted in Cabaret/Concert/Variety, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

AVENUE Q

posted on July 16th, 2012 at 4:27 PM by Steven Stanley


Following its sensational, Broadway-caliber revival of A Chorus Line, 3-D Theatricals now presents the Southern California Regional Premiere of Avenue Q, the Tony-winning Best Musical of 2003, and once again comes up with a production that rivals the Broadway original from start to finish.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

WEST SIDE STORY

posted on July 16th, 2012 at 12:15 PM by Steven Stanley


Following their multiple award-winning stagings of The Who’s Tommy, Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, and Merrily We Roll Along (among others), The Chance Theater’s Oanh Nguyen and Kelly Todd have once again joined forces, this time to reinvent the Broadway classic West Side Story with equally spectacular results.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

CABARET

posted on July 14th, 2012 at 2:19 PM by Steven Stanley


Theatre Out puts its personal stamp on Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret, making for one of the LGBT theater’s all-around best musical offerings to date and one that solidifies its status as one of Orange County’s top two or three intimate theater companies.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

THE EXORCIST

posted on July 14th, 2012 at 1:26 AM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
It takes chutzpah to adapt a horror movie classic for the stage, especially one as iconic as William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, one of the highest grossing films ever. Nominated for ten Oscars (and winning two for Adapted Screenplay and for Sound), The Exorcist not only spawned two sequels and a prequel, it was named Scariest Film Of All Time by Entertainment Weekly and Movies.com.
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posted in Drama, Recommended, West Side/Beverly HIlls

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