BALM IN GILEAD

posted on February 20th, 2012 at 5:25 PM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

Balm In Gilead, Lanford Wilson’s gritty slice of the lives of a couple dozen addicts, hookers, hustlers, pimps, and thieves has been enthusiastically lauded by theater critics since its 1965 premiere and its roles welcomed by actors eager for a walk on the wild side. Having now spent two and a half hours with these largely unsympathetic, offputting folks, however, this reviewer does not particularly share their enthusiasm.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Not Recommended

NEXT FALL

posted on February 20th, 2012 at 4:42 PM by Steven Stanley


Geoffrey Nauffts’ Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award-nominated Next Fall has arrived at San Diego’s esteemed Diversionary Theatre in an intimate-theater production that actually surpasses its West Coast Premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, and that’s indeed saying something considering how powerful that big-bucks staging was.
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posted in Drama, San Diego County, WOW!

COLE

posted on February 18th, 2012 at 1:04 PM by Steven Stanley


When asked who wrote “Some Enchanted Evening,” Cole Porter is said to have replied, “Rodgers and Hammerstein, if you can imagine it taking two men to write one song,” a clever way of pointing out that unlike most of his contemporaries (Irving Berlin excluded), Cole Porter did the work of two. Not only that, but he did it better than just about anyone else around, writing both de-loveliest melodies in town and quite possibly the cleverest lyrics ever heard on a Broadway stage. “Birds do it, bees do it. Even educated fleas do it. Let’s do it. Let’s fall in love.” “I get no kick from champagne. Mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all. So tell me why should it be true, that I get a kick out of you?” “He may have hair upon his chest but, sister, so has Lassie.” Did anyone do it better than Cole?
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posted in Downey/La Mirada, Musical Revue, WOW!

THE COST OF THE ERECTION

posted on February 17th, 2012 at 6:06 PM by Steven Stanley


Pulitzer Prize nominee Jon Marans plays headily with time and space—and two couples’ lives—in his tantalizingly complex new play The Cost Of The Erection, masterfully directed at Hollywood’s The Blank Theatre by its founding artistic director Daniel Henning.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

THREE YEAR SWIM CLUB

posted on February 16th, 2012 at 7:50 PM by Steven Stanley


In the time-honored tradition of fact-based underdog sports tales like Hoosiers, We Are Marshall, and the recent Moneyball, East West Players now presents the Mainland Premiere of Three Year Swim Club, Lee Tonouchi’s crowd-pleasing true story of a Hawaiian swim coach and the ragtag band of Maui plantation kids he is bound and determined to send to the 1940 Olympics.
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posted in Comedy, Los Angeles, WOW!

LITTLE WOMEN

posted on February 14th, 2012 at 10:48 PM by Steven Stanley


One of the largely unsung Broadway musical treasures of the early 2000s now provides ten of the most talented L.A.-based performers to shine as Musical Theatre Guild presents its concert staged reading of Little Women, with just one performance remaining.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Concert Staged Reading, WOW!

DISSONANCE

posted on February 13th, 2012 at 5:11 PM by Steven Stanley


You might expect a look at the behind-the-scenes interactions of a string quartet to provide little food for drama, let alone be the source of not one but two distinct plays world premiering within a year and a half of each other. You’d be wrong.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Drama, WOW!

MAN OF LA MANCHA

posted on February 12th, 2012 at 2:47 PM by Steven Stanley


You know from the striking “a cappella” flamenco dance tableau which opens Musical Theatre West’s revival of Man Of La Mancha that you’re in for something special. Then again, with multi-award winners Davis Gaines, Lesli Margherita, and Justin Robertson in the starring roles, Nick DeGruccio directing with his accustomed brilliance and imagination, and choreographic whiz Carlos Mendoza in charge of dance numbers, musical theater aficionados could expect nothing less.
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posted in Long Beach/San Pedro, Musical, WOW!

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