THE HEIRESS
posted on April 30th, 2012 at 1:14 PM by Steven Stanley
The Heiress may have reached the ripe old age of sixty-five, but you’d hardly know it from the latest revival of Ruth and Augustus Goetz’s 1947 Broadway hit, adapted from Henry James’ classic novel Washington Square and currently engrossing and delighting audiences in equal measure at the Pasadena Playhouse.
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posted in Drama, Pasadena, WOW!
REBORNING
posted on April 29th, 2012 at 12:27 PM by Steven Stanley
The past continues to haunt the present of the two women whose lives intersect in Zayd Dohrn’s powerful personal drama Reborning, now getting its Southern California Premiere—and only its second production—at Orange County’s illustrious Chance Theater, with Resident Artists Casey Long, Jennifer Ruckman, Karen Webster doing some of their best work ever under Artistic Director Oanh Nguyen’s inspired direction.
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posted in Drama, Orange County, WOW!
THE FIX
posted on April 28th, 2012 at 3:47 PM by Steven Stanley
When Senator Reed Chandler dies in flagrante delicto, his Spiderwoman of a widow and his embittered, crippled brother connive to make the Senator’s handsome but dim son the next President of the United States.
No, this isn’t an upcoming Meryl Streep flick or nighttime network series created to coincide with this election year, though it well could be. It is instead the setup that John Dempsey and Dana P. Rowe use to open their highly topical and equally entertaining musical The Fix, now getting its official West Coast Premiere at Long Beach’s International City Theatre (though Angelino theater buffs will recall its Musical Theatre Guild’s one-night-only concert staged reading our last big national election year).
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posted in Long Beach/San Pedro, Musical, WOW!
THE GIRL MOST LIKELY TO
posted on April 27th, 2012 at 5:35 PM by Steven Stanley
By day, he is a schoolteacher in the Philippines. By night, he becomes the gowned and bejeweled drag entertainer known to all Luzon as Mama Cid.
Across the world, an American high schooler dons girls’ clothes too, but for a very different reason. “This is how I have to be,” he tells his mother. “Otherwise I die.”
Playwright Michael Premsrirat takes these two characters—separated by an ocean and several decades—and ties their stories together quite extraordinarily in The Girl Most Likely To, now getting its World Premiere production under the truly inspired direction of Jon Lawrence Rivera.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, WOW!
MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET
posted on April 25th, 2012 at 4:03 PM by Steven Stanley
It takes you thrillingly by surprise, that first glance at Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins onstage together, and from then on the excitement never lags in Million Dollar Quartet, Tony-nominated as Best Musical of 2010 and now touring the country, its latest stop at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center For The Arts.
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posted in Musical, National Tour, Orange County, WOW!
CLOUDLANDS
posted on April 24th, 2012 at 5:23 PM by Steven Stanley
Adam Gwon and Octavio Solis might well have subtitled Cloudlands, their World Premiere chamber musical now playing at South Coast Repertory, An American Musical Greek Tragedy, not all that bad an idea considering how much darker its story turns out to be than the airy romance its one-word title suggests. Regardless, if the idea of divinely preordained doom seems apter subject matter for Euripides or Sophocles (had the two tragedians teamed to write a musical with elements of both Medea and Oedipus), so it might be without Gwon’s gorgeous, haunting melodies to propel the tale of a suicidal San Franciscan teen whose depression is compounded by the discovery that Mom has been cheating on Dad.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!
LITTLE WOMEN THE MUSICAL
posted on April 23rd, 2012 at 9:55 PM by Steven Stanley
Few recent Broadway shows offer as many fine roles for theater majors as Little Women The Musical, making it a terrific showcase for students of Cal State Fullerton’s illustrious BFA in Musical Theatre program. That CSUF’s spring musical 2012 also happens to be a delightful, entertaining family treat makes it well worth a drive down to the OC.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!
ELTON JOHN & TIM RICE’S AIDA
posted on April 22nd, 2012 at 6:35 PM by Steven StanleyRECOMMENDED
At any time in the 20th Century, if you’d asked a theatergoer to say the first word to pop into his or her head upon hearing the name Aida, chances are it would have been “opera” or “Verdi” or some other classical music reference. Then came the year 2000, and the smash Broadway hit of the same name, and a whole new bunch of word associations were born—composer Elton John, lyricist Tim Rice, original star Heather Headley, replacement stars Toni Braxton and Deborah Cox, “Written In The Stars” (the hit single by John and LeAnn Rimes), or any number of more contemporary references. These days, when you talk about Aida, more than Verdi’s heroine comes to mind.
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posted in Musical, Recommended, San Gabriel Valley
Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
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