THE SOUND OF MUSIC

posted on February 11th, 2012 at 2:59 PM by Steven Stanley


Here’s a question I’d like census takers to ask the next time around. Is there anyone in America who hasn’t seen The Sound Of Music, either its 1964 movie adaptation—the third biggest moneymaker in film history when adjusted for inflation—or any one of a gazillion regional, community, or school productions of the Rodgers And Hammerstein classic?
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

OLD WICKED SONGS

posted on February 11th, 2012 at 2:39 PM by Steven Stanley


No L.A.-area theater has a better track record with two-character “odd couple” plays that Burbank’s The Colony, which over the past half decade has won acclaim—along with numerous awards—for its popular two-handers, including Rounding Third, Trying, Educating Rita, Visiting Mr. Green, and Grace And Glorie. To this list can now be added the Colony’s nigh-on perfect revival of Jon Marans’ 1996 Pulitzer Prize-nominated Old Wicked Songs.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Drama, WOW!

FINDING FOSSILS

posted on February 10th, 2012 at 12:13 AM by Steven Stanley


A grown son attempts to reconnect with his crotchety old man in Ty DeMartino’s first-rate dramedy Finding Fossils, a three-actor one-act which transcends soap opera through the playwright’s gift for believable dialog and a trio of superb performances at North Hollywood’s Road Theatre.
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posted in Drama, North Hollywood, WOW!

ELEMENO PEA

posted on February 8th, 2012 at 5:49 PM by Steven Stanley


Blue collar meets upper crust in of Elemeno Pea, Molly Smith Metzler’s hilarious, perceptive culture clash comedy, now making its West Coast debut at South Coast Repertory.
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posted in Comedy, Orange County, WOW!

TWENTIETH CENTURY

posted on February 6th, 2012 at 12:30 PM by Steven Stanley


Screwball comedy is in expert hands as the Sierra Madre Playhouse revives Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s Twentieth Century, tweaked by Ken Ludwig to give the 1930s piece a 21st Century sensibility while maintaining all the classic elements of screwball.
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posted in Comedy, San Gabriel Valley, WOW!

ROOMS: a rock romance

posted on February 5th, 2012 at 10:03 PM by Steven Stanley


The burgeoning punk music scene of the late 1970s provides the setting for the Outer Critics Circle Award-nominated ROOMS: a rock romance, whose exhilarating West Coast Premiere proves once again that Chance Theater is unmatched as Orange County’s finest intimate theater.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

YOURS, ISABEL

posted on February 4th, 2012 at 8:29 PM by Steven Stanley


Playwright Christy Hall reinvents the epistolary play (one based on an exchange of letters) with her zesty, captivating World War II romance Yours, Isabel, now getting its official American Premiere at Hollywood’s Actors Co-op, and an all-around splendid one at that.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

GOD OF CARNAGE

posted on February 3rd, 2012 at 6:31 PM by Steven Stanley


Long Beach’s International City Theater trumps the competition with its 2012 season opener of Yasmina Reza’s Tony-winning Best Play of 2009 God Of Carnage, a production which, while not technically its West Coast Premiere (Center Theatre Group got that honor by merely importing the Broadway team), nonetheless merits true event status for being built entirely from the ground up—brand new actors, a brand new director, and a brand new team of designers, all of them doing bang-up work on the ICT stage.
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posted in Comedy, Long Beach/San Pedro, WOW!

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