MONTY PYTHON’S SPAMALOT

posted on July 2nd, 2012 at 2:33 PM by Steven Stanley


It’s taken eight long years for Monty Python’s Spamalot to go from its preview engagement in Chicago to its Regional Premiere at Long Beach’s Musical Theatre West, but in the case of the one-of-a-kind Spamalot, the resulting production proves well worth the wait. Using the original Broadway sets, costumes, and choreography (but in all other respects building its production “from the ground up”), MTW gives Los Angeles-area audiences abundant reasons to celebrate Spamalot’s long-awaited arrival.
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posted in Long Beach/San Pedro, Musical, WOW!

JULIET &HER ROMEO

posted on June 30th, 2012 at 3:34 PM by Steven Stanley


Vanguard Rep opens its Summer 2012 La Cañada Flintridge Shakespeare Festival with Juliet &her Romeo, Matthew Kellen Burgos’s 80-minute 3-actor adaptation of a play you might have read in high school.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Drama, WOW!

FLUFFY BUNNIES IN A FIELD OF DAISIES

posted on June 29th, 2012 at 9:59 AM by Steven Stanley


With a title as cutesy yet unwieldy as Fluffy Bunnies In A Field Of Daisies, you’d hardly expect Matt Chaffee’s 2002 two-acter to be a delightful, smart, cleverly written, occasionally raunchy but more often than not mush-hearted comedic gem, let alone one that ran off-and-on for an amazing two or three years in its initial Los Angeles run. Still, this is precisely what Fluffy Daisies is, as audiences can once again discover in its 10 Year Anniversary Revival at Hollywood’s Arena Stage Theatre.
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posted in Comedy, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

AUGUST WILSON’S JITNEY

posted on June 26th, 2012 at 12:20 PM by Steven Stanley


Back in 1979 when it was first written, August Wilson’s Jitney was a contemporary slice of African-American life as lived in Pittsburg, PA, and the first of a projected series of ten plays, each set in a different 20th Century decade. By the time Wilson completed his ambitious labor in 2005 with Radio Golf (set in the ‘90s), Jitney had morphed into a period piece, perhaps even more noteworthy for the look back in time it now offered.
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posted in Drama, Pasadena, WOW!

HARMONY, KANSAS

posted on June 24th, 2012 at 8:58 PM by Steven Stanley


If it seems at times that native Angelinos are about as rare as a 99-seat production that starts at 8:00 on the dot, it’s perhaps even harder to find big-city LGBTs who haven’t left their small town homes for greener big city pastures, or so it may seem. No wonder, then, that Blue State gays and lesbians tend to forget just how many of us there still are in the American heartland.
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posted in Musical, San Diego County, WOW!

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

posted on June 23rd, 2012 at 6:51 PM by Steven Stanley


Most Palisades High School theater students would probably never dream of making a career out of producing and starring in William Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits, yet that is precisely the dream that Charles Pasternak and his fellow Pali-Highers Edward Castuera and Jack Leahy shared a decade or so ago, a dream which led to the 2006 founding of an exciting young theater company bent on staging every single play in the Shakespearean oeuvre. When I reviewed my very first The Porters Of Hellgate production, Love’s Labor’s Lost, back in 2008, they were already at number eight in only their second season. The Merry Wives Of Windsor makes it fourteen* and counting, and as in productions past, The Porters have once again come up with an original take on a Shakespeare standard and done so with considerable skill and panache.
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posted in Comedy, North Hollywood, WOW!

D IS FOR DOG

posted on June 23rd, 2012 at 10:48 AM by Steven Stanley


What starts out as a clever, visually stunning satire of 1950s family sitcoms like Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, and The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet turns into something a good more Twilight Zonesque in Rogue Artists Ensemble’s D Is For Dog, now returning to Los Angeles a year after its award-winning initial run, terrific news for those like this reviewer who somehow missed it the first time around.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

THE NEW ELECTRIC BALLROOM

posted on June 19th, 2012 at 3:34 PM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

When deciding whether to spend an hour and a half with a trio of loony Irish sisters in Enda Walsh’s The New Electric Ballroom, the latest production of the multiple award-winning Rogue Machine, you might want to ask yourself how important it is for you to understand what’s happening onstage when watching a play. How important is it for you that a story should unfold in some kind of recognizable reality? How willing are you to suspend disbelief, ignore confusion, and simply go with the flow?
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, Not Recommended, WOW!

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