ALL SHOOK UP

posted on May 13th, 2011 at 5:22 PM by Steven Stanley


Who says lightning doesn’t strike twice? Who says you can’t improve on perfection? Well, whoever said either of those things clearly hasn’t seen 3-D Theatricals’ 2nd-Time-Around production of All Shook Up.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

REEFER MADNESS

posted on May 12th, 2011 at 10:45 AM by Steven Stanley


“Creeping like a communist, it’s knocking at our doors—turning all our children into hooligans and whores. Voraciously devouring the way things are today, savagely deflowering the good ol’ U.S.A.—it’s Reefer Madness. Reefer Madness.”
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posted in Downey/La Mirada, Musical, WOW!

DOOLEY

posted on May 11th, 2011 at 1:06 AM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

Sometimes no matter how much a production has going in its favor, it simply doesn’t work for a reviewer, no matter the quality of the talent onstage. Diversionary Theatre’s World Premiere play Dooley is just such a production.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Not Recommended, San Diego County

THE CHAIRS

posted on May 11th, 2011 at 12:58 AM by Steven Stanley


A pair of nonagenarians are the only characters visible throughout most of The Chairs, but who knows how many invisible ones there are on stage by the end of Eugène Ionesco’s “tragic farce,” the latest production from A Noise Within—and a terrific one as might be expected from California’s Home For The Classics.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Comedy-Drama, WOW!

9 TO 5

posted on May 10th, 2011 at 5:19 PM by Steven Stanley


Violet, Doralee, and Judy, the trio of office gals made famous by Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, and Jane Fonda in 1980’s 9 To 5 are back—in a re-directed, re-choreographed, re-designed National Tour of the Broadway musical which world premiered a few years back at the Ahmanson.
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posted in Musical, National Tour, Orange County, WOW!

THREE SISTERS OR PERESTROIKA

posted on May 8th, 2011 at 11:05 AM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

At the risk of alienating the many who consider Anton Chekhov one of the world’s greatest playwrights, I must preface this review with a confession. I am not now, nor am I likely to become, a Chekhov fan. Having seen one or two productions each of his four greatest works, I have come to the conclusion that the author of The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, The Three Sisters, and Uncle Vanya is simply not my cup of tea—or should that be vodka? Therefore, any Chekhov lovers reading this review should take whatever I say about Three Sisters Or Perestroika with a grain of salt. By the same token, those with a similar lack of affinity for the very talky Russian may want to pass on Pavel Cerny’s 1980s adaptation of Chekhov’s ode to Moscow.
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posted in Drama, Not Recommended, San Fernando Valley

RENT

posted on May 7th, 2011 at 10:50 AM by Steven Stanley


When Jonathan Larson’s megahit Rent ended its twelve-year-long Broadway run in 2008, regional theaters finally got their crack at staging the now iconic tale of impoverished young artists and musicians living in New York’s Lower East Side during the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic. Sadly though, despite an (over)abundance of Southern California productions since then, few appear to have achieved the greatness that Rent deserves. This is a show that requires bona fide triple threats in all its roles, including its many ensemble tracks, and despite our SoCal talent pool, this may have proved more easily said than done.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, WOW!

THICKER THAN WATER

posted on May 6th, 2011 at 10:57 AM by Steven Stanley


Three-time Best Actress Emmy-winner Barbara Bain and well-known film/TV actor D.B. Sweeney are among the baker’s dozen performers headlining Thicker Than Water, an entertaining, perceptive evening of one-acts by Dale Griffiths Stamos at Santa Monica’s Promenade Playhouse.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

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