THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS

posted on October 9th, 2011 at 10:33 PM by Steven Stanley

Stephen Metcalfe’s gripping new drama The Tragedy Of The Commons takes as its title a term coined in the early 1960s by sociobiologist Garrett Hardin, though it’s not until late in the play that its protagonist explains Hardin’s concept: (read more)

posted in Drama, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

CarnEvil

posted on October 8th, 2011 at 2:20 PM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

Sacred Fools Theatre Company, the troupe that brought Los Angeles such delightful oddities as Hamlet Shut Up, Land Of The Tigers, and BeaverQuest! The Musical, now gives us CarnEvil: A Gothic Horror Rock Musical, a show which makes its predecessors seem positively tame by comparison and one that David Cronenberg fans may well drink up like Dracula at a victim’s neck. Still, despite considerable talent onstage and off, CarnEvil ended up being not this reviewer’s cup of tea, or goblet of blood as the case may be.
(read more)

posted in Los Angeles, Musical, Not Recommended

LOVE SICK

posted on October 7th, 2011 at 4:50 PM by Steven Stanley


A loaded gun proves the best medicine for lovesick Emily in Kristina Poe’s deliciously dark comedy Love Sick, now getting its World Premiere production at the always edgy Elephant Theatre.
(read more)

posted in Comedy-Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS

posted on October 6th, 2011 at 11:27 PM by Steven Stanley


The 1954 MGM musical movie hit Seven Brides For Seven Brothers comes to life in-the-round at Glendale Centre Theatre in a production that provides old-fashioned G-rated family entertainment under Robert Marra’s assured direction.
(read more)

posted in Burbank/Glendale, Musical, WOW!

SHREK THE MUSICAL

posted on October 5th, 2011 at 5:55 PM by Steven Stanley


Forget any preconceived notions you may harbor about Shrek The Musical being just another animated movie-turned-Broadway musical or a show designed only for tiny tots. With book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire (the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Rabbit Hole) and music by multiple award-winning Jeanine Tesori (Caroline, or Change, Thoroughly Modern Millie), Shrek The Musical is a smart, funny, tuneful musical treat whose fresh new non-Equity tour, now playing at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center For The Arts, puts it at the top of my list of favorite recent Broadway hits.
(read more)

posted in Musical, National Tour, Orange County, WOW!

HOW THE WORLD BEGAN

posted on October 4th, 2011 at 5:12 PM by Steven Stanley


Ask a big city Blue State high school science teacher and a rural Bible Belt high school student how the world began and you’ll probably get two quite different answers. Put this teacher and this student in the same classroom in small town Kansas and sparks are likely to fly.
(read more)

posted in Drama, Orange County, WOW!

PSYCHO BEACH PARTY

posted on October 3rd, 2011 at 11:23 AM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

No one sends up popular film genres with a campier (i.e. gayer) sensibility than Charles Busch, whether it’s the “Oriental” melodramas of Hollywood’s Golden Era in Shanghai Moon, or those ’50s/’60s Ross Hunter soap operas in Die! Mommy! Die!, or WWII “Women In Peril” thrillers in The Lady In Question, or the red-baiting propaganda films of the late ’40s/early ’50s in Red Scare On Sunset.
(read more)

posted in Comedy, Not Recommended, Orange County

UP

posted on October 2nd, 2011 at 5:56 PM by Steven Stanley


The recent spate of It Gets Better videos could easily have been made with the teenage protagonists of Bridget Carpenter’s Up in mind. Fifteen-year-old Mikey, though not gay, is “different” enough to get pushed around and called “faggot.” As for Mikey’s new friend Maria, the six-months-pregnant sixteen-year-old was sent packing when her “drunk bitch” of a mom found out her little girl had gotten herself knocked up.
(read more)

posted in Comedy-Drama, Orange County, WOW!

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