ALTAR BOYZ

posted on August 13th, 2012 at 5:13 PM by Steven Stanley


The Altar Boyz are back, and for diehard Los Angeles fans of this fictional Christian boy band, a hop, skip, and a jump down to San Diego’s Diversionary Theatre provides the first chance in over two years to spend an hour and a half being concertized by five of the cutest, sexiest, and most praise-raising triple-threats ever to share a musical theater stage.
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posted in Musical, San Diego County, WOW!

BLAME IT ON BECKETT

posted on August 13th, 2012 at 4:32 PM by Steven Stanley


Playwright John Morogiello skewers the backstage world of not-for-profit regional theater in his smart, revealing, and (most importantly) very funny new play Blame It On Beckett, now getting its West Coast Premiere at Burbank’s Colony Theatre.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Comedy, WOW!

A RING IN BROOKLYN

posted on August 11th, 2012 at 5:58 PM by Steven Stanley


The Academy For New Musical Theatre follows last year’s 40 Is The New 15 with another flashback-to-the-past World Premiere musical, A Ring In Brooklyn (subtitled “a frickin’ musical”), and if their latest project gets off to an iffy start, about halfway through Act One it kicks into gear and turns out a winner.
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posted in Musical, North Hollywood, WOW!

THE IRISH CURSE

posted on August 10th, 2012 at 11:46 PM by Steven Stanley


At the risk of sounding like a broken record, anyone with the slightest doubt about the quality of Los Angeles theater could do no better than to check out Scott Conte, Austin Hébert, Shaun O’Hagan, Joe Pacheco, and Patrick Quinlan in the Andrew Barnicle-directed The Irish Curse, now heading into the final weeks of its justly lauded two-month run at the Odyssey.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

HEARTS LIKE FISTS

posted on August 6th, 2012 at 8:25 PM by Steven Stanley


Someone in a major American metropolis has been murdering post-coital couples, injecting them with a poisonous serum as they lie entwined in each other’s arms, leaving police baffled and the city’s lovers scared out of their minds.

Fortunately, as any comic book fan knows, serial murders like these are the reason super heroes exist, or in the case of Adam Szymkowicz’s World Premiere comedy-fantasy Hearts Like Fists, super heroines.
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posted in Comedy, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

ASSASSINS

posted on August 5th, 2012 at 5:05 PM by Steven Stanley


A terrifically performed and imaginatively directed revival of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Assassins makes it three annual musical hits in a row for the young artists of Coeurage Theatre Company, following their inventive downscaling of The Rocky Horror Show and Ovation winner Gregory Nabours’ original song cycle The Trouble With Words.
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posted in Hollywood/West Hollywood, Musical, WOW!

THE RETURN TO MORALITY

posted on August 4th, 2012 at 2:29 PM by Steven Stanley


With the United States presidential election just three months away, the timing couldn’t be more perfect for The Production Company to present the Los Angeles premiere of Jamie Pachino’s political satire The Return To Morality, imaginatively directed by Mark L. Taylor and terrifically performed by Alias’s Kevin Weisman and five of L.A.’s finest supporting players.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

THE BAT

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

NOT RECOMMENDED

The swanky upstate New York home designed by Jeff G. Rack seems the ideal setting for murder, the kind written about by Queen Of Crime Agatha Christie or her American predecessor Mary Roberts Rinehart. Ric Zimmerman has lit the elegant upper class digs for maximum suspense, with candles taking the place of electricity when the lights go out (more than once as we know they will). Bill Froggatt’s sound design provides an eerie, suspenseful musical underscoring to this tale of mystery and impending doom.

If only direction and performances came anywhere close to the collaborative efforts of these three top L.A. design talents in The Bat, the latest production from Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Not Recommended, West Side/Beverly HIlls

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