SHE LOVES ME

posted on February 22nd, 2011 at 4:16 PM by Steven Stanley


Civic Light Opera Of South Bay Cities opens the Southland’s most exciting 2011 CLO season with about as perfect a musical (and as exquisite a production) as you’re likely to see all year, Jerry Bock & Sheldon Harnick’s She Loves Me.
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posted in Long Beach/San Pedro, Musical, WOW!

KISS ME KATE

posted on February 20th, 2011 at 10:54 AM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
Cole Porter’s 1948 Broadway smash has opened at San Pedro’s historic Warner Grand, the latest offering of The Relevant Stage theater company. Dedicated to the memory of Kathryn Grayson (who played Kate in the 1953 MGM Technicolor movie classic), the production stars none other than her granddaughter Kristen Towers-Rowles.
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posted in Long Beach/San Pedro, Musical, Recommended

SPEECH & DEBATE

posted on February 19th, 2011 at 4:20 PM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

Stephen Karam’s comedy Speech & Debate points a webcam lens at three teenage outsiders living up Salem, Oregon way, while at the same time making strong points about hypocritical politicians, “ex-gay” ministries, and the importance of coming out. Having seen two brilliant productions of it, this reviewer finds its current Orange County Premiere at Theatre Out a letdown.
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posted in Comedy, Not Recommended, Orange County

THE MELODY LINGERS ON

posted on February 18th, 2011 at 3:48 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
In his 101 years on this planet, Irving Berlin wrote somewhere between 1250 and 1450 songs, 850 of which make up Wikipedia’s “Best Of Berlin” list. From very early 20th Century standards like “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” to 1966’s “An Old Fashioned Wedding,” written for the 20th Anniversary Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun, Berlin’s music and lyrics are synonymous with American Musical Theater.
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posted in Downey/La Mirada, Musical Revue, Recommended

THE CRADLE WILL ROCK

posted on February 17th, 2011 at 10:33 AM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

Corruption and corporate greed are nothing new to the 21st Century. Composer-playwright Marc Blitzstein wrote about both in The Cradle Will Rock, his 1937 “play in music,” now being revived by the company that won the LA Weekly Award for Musical Of The Year for its first production of it back in 1994.
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posted in Hollywood/West Hollywood, Musical, Not Recommended, WOW!

WRINKLES

posted on February 16th, 2011 at 5:10 PM by Steven Stanley


The Fukutani-Komiyamas are your typical middle-class Pasadena family. Mom Nancy is a divorced single mother and successful attorney. Teenaged Jason is a high school student who’d rather listen to his iPod and play video games on his laptop than write the university essay his mom is always on his case about. “Why don’t you just bang me over the head with a blunt object,” retorts his frustrated mom when Jason informs her that his essay is (pointing at head) “up here.” Grandpa Harry shares digs with daughter and grandson, the better to provide Jason with a mature male influence. Yes, the Fukutani-Komiyamas are your typical middle-class Pasadena family with one exception.
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posted in Comedy, Los Angeles, WOW!

DANGEROUS BEAUTY

posted on February 13th, 2011 at 10:38 AM by Steven Stanley


If career options for women were limited in the decades before women’s lib, they were even fewer in the mid-16th Century when Veronica Franco was born, particularly if your mother had at one time been a courtesan, something Veronica found out the hard way when her dreams of marrying her life’s true love were dashed by the realities of Venetian society. For Veronica Franco, there was but one option—to follow in her mother’s footsteps, and if she couldn’t be Marco Venier’s wife, then his mistress she would be.
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posted in Musical, Pasadena, WOW!

“MASTER HAROLD” … AND THE BOYS

posted on February 12th, 2011 at 10:57 AM by Steven Stanley


Sometimes the event of a single day, of a single conversation even, can change a person’s life forever. This is certainly the case for seventeen-year-old Hally in Athol Fugard’s “Master Harold”…and the boys, now playing at Ventura’s esteemed Rubicon Theatre in a couldn’t-be-better production.
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posted in Drama, Ventura County, WOW!

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