THE LONG WEEKEND

posted on June 11th, 2012 at 5:31 PM by Steven Stanley


The Long Weekend is one heck of a dull title for a play as hilarious and cleverly written as the one now getting its West Coast Premiere at Theatre 40. Then again, if you’re Canada’s most produced playwright whose 38 scripts receive an average of 150 productions a year, it probably doesn’t matter Up North what you call each new one, your fellow Canadians will turn out in droves for it. Still, for us Americans who may not know the difference between Norm Foster, Jodie Foster, Cheers’ Norm Peterson, or Foster Farms, the title The Long Weekend suggests a dreary dramatic piece, when in fact Foster’s 1994 two-acter is a tantalizing comedic gem of a play, terrifically performed at Theatre 40 by its cast of four and directed with verve by the prolific Bruce Gray.
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posted in Comedy, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

THE MUSIC MAN

posted on June 10th, 2012 at 5:07 PM by Steven Stanley


Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre welcomes the upcoming Independence Day holiday with a terrific revival of The Music Man, one of the three longest-running musicals of the 1950s and one of the best Broadway shows ever. Refreshingly sophisticated, surprisingly deep, and more than a tad acidic at times, Meredith Willson’s self-described “valentine” to his home state of Iowa turns out to be far from the saccharine musical some have accused it of being
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posted in Musical, San Gabriel Valley, WOW!

VERY STILL AND HARD TO SEE

posted on June 9th, 2012 at 3:02 PM by Steven Stanley


The ghosts are deceased and (relatively) well and haunting the hotel where Steve Yockey has set Very Still And Hard To See, his World Premiere Scary Play and the latest offering from August Viverito and T L Kolman’s The Production Company.

The theatrical equivalent of Disneyland’s Space Mountain, i.e. equal parts excitement, terror, and glee, Very Still And Hard To See provides thrills galore under Michael Matthews’ masterful direction.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

THE SLEEPER

posted on June 8th, 2012 at 3:13 PM by Steven Stanley


Among the many changes the events of 9/11 have brought about in American life is the new crop of words we’ve seen added to our daily lexicon, not the least of which is the term 9/11. Foreign words have become part of our vocabulary. Old words have been combined to create new phrases. Network news broadcasts have given us one media slogan after another. Who knew what a jihad was before the “axis of evil” launched its “Attack On America”? Even everyday words have acquired new meanings. Take the colors “blue,” “yellow,” “orange,” and “red,” no longer harmless hues but each one more frightening than the previous when modifying the word “alert.” Take too the word “sleeper,” once merely “a person or animal who is asleep” or perhaps a railroad sleeping car, now considerably more sinister in this post-9/11 world.

It’s this newer, scarier “sleeper” that playwright Catherine Butterfield has in mind in her 2004 comedy The Sleeper, now getting a sensational Los Angeles premiere by North Hollywood’s Theatre Tribe.
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posted in Comedy, North Hollywood, WOW!

DAMES AT SEA

posted on June 6th, 2012 at 10:59 PM by Steven Stanley


The campy 42nd Street spoof affectionately titled Dames At Sea proves a terrific showcase for the musical theater talents of UC Irvine in the Department Of Drama’s annual end-of-school-year big-stage musical, directed with oodles of imagination by UCI’s brand new Head Of Directing Jane Page.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

NO WAY AROUND BUT THROUGH

posted on June 6th, 2012 at 10:45 PM by Steven Stanley


Actor, writer, director, photographer, musician Scott Caan, star of TV’s Hawaii 5-0, spotlights the first two of these talents in his entertaining new comedy No Way Around But Through, now getting its World Premiere at Burbank’s Falcon Theater, an engagement made even more noteworthy by the presence of Oscar-nominated film star Melanie Griffith among its talented cast of five.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Comedy, WOW!

STONEFACE

posted on June 4th, 2012 at 9:39 PM by Steven Stanley


Imagine you’re writer-director Jaime Robledo, and your play Watson won you just about every award in the book, including a pair of Scenies. Then imagine you’re writer-performer Vanessa Claire Stewart, whose Louis And Keely Live At The Sahara and its holiday spin-off won you just about every award in the book, including a grand total of four Scenies. Now try to think of what to do for an encore.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

PETER PAN

posted on June 3rd, 2012 at 5:13 PM by Steven Stanley

Hear the words “I won’t grow up” and the name most likely to pop into your head will surely be Peter Pan, the boy who has become so synonymous with a refusal to grow older, he’s even got a syndrome named after him.  That’s why it makes perfect sense for the ageless Cathy Rigby to once again be starring in the Broadway/TV smash Peter Pan, whose title role she first played in the first of four separate Broadway engagements way back in 1990 … when she was a mere thirty-eight. As to the question of whether she can still pull it off twenty-two years later in the musical’s latest National Tour, the answer is a resounding “Yes!”

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posted in Downey/La Mirada, Musical, WOW!

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