StageSceneLA

INTO THE WOODS

posted on November 18th, 2010 at 11:32 PM by Steven Stanley

Over the past quarter century or so, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into The Woods has become one of the most performed musicals in the U.S.—in regional CLOs, on college and high school campuses, and in intimate theaters. Its first act, which magically combines some of the best loved of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and its second, which explores with considerable depth what happens after “happily ever after,” make for a show which retains its freshness and originality two decades after it first captivated Broadway audiences.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

WALT DISNEY’S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

posted on November 16th, 2010 at 1:00 AM by Steven Stanley

Walt Disney’s Beauty And The Beast made movie history in 1992 when it became the first full-length animated feature to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Major musical sequences like “Belle,” “Gaston,” and “Be Our Guest” felt so much like Broadway production numbers that its 1994 transfer to The Great White Way made perfect sense, leading to nine Tony nominations, three National Tours, English and foreign language productions the world round, and regional productions like the one staged by Cabrillo Music Theater in 2007. February of this year marked the start of Beauty And The Beast’s Fourth National Tour, a sensational production now making a one-week stop at Costa Mesa’s Orange County Performing Arts Center.
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posted in Musical, National Tour, Orange County, WOW!

THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW

posted on November 14th, 2010 at 9:03 PM by Steven Stanley

Few musicals have enjoyed the success of The Rocky Horror Show. Its 1973 West End World Premiere was followed by a ’74 Los Angeles run at the Roxy, a ’75 Broadway premiere, and subsequent productions throughout the world leading to what may well be a record number of cast recordings—a grand total of twenty-eight, plus the movie soundtrack. Audience participation at live productions and midnight movie screenings has become legendary, with Rocky fans showing up in costume, throwing food, toilet paper, and confetti on the stage at appropriate moments, and shouting out punch lines in unison.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, WOW!

FAIRIES WITH CHILDREN

posted on November 13th, 2010 at 11:12 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
Gay best friends go underground in a Pomona cul-de-sac in an attempt to change the hearts and minds of conservative America in John Trapper’s Fairies With Children (The Yes On Hate Episode), a World Premiere comedy now playing at the Meta Theatre.
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posted in Comedy, Los Angeles, Recommended

LITTLE FLOWER OF EAST ORANGE

posted on November 12th, 2010 at 11:40 PM by Steven Stanley

“Dysfunctional” doesn’t begin to describe the O’Connor family in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s The Little Flower Of East Orange, now in its West Coast Premiere engagement by the Elephant Theatre Company. Indeed, elderly matriarch Marie Therese Sullivan O’Connor, and her grown son and daughter Danny and Justina are so totally f*cked up as to make Amanda, Tom, and Laura Wingfield seem positively well-adjusted by comparison.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

MAESTRO: THE ART OF LEONARD BERNSTEIN

posted on November 11th, 2010 at 8:01 AM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
Hershey Felder, the award-winning creator of George Gershwin Alone, Monsieur Chopin, and Beethoven, As I Knew Him, now returns with Maestro: The Art Of Leonard Bernstein.

CRIMES OF THE HEART

posted on November 10th, 2010 at 10:55 PM by Steven Stanley

East West Players 2010-11 season continues with its second smash hit in a row—an absolutely splendid staging of the quirky Southern comedy Crimes Of The Heart. The third major Southern California revival of Beth Henley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play since May, East West’s is the first to feature an all-Asian American cast—and why not? As Artistic Director Tim Dang has stated, “Asians do live in the South, Asians do speak with Southern accents and Asians historically have been part of the American landscape for well over a century.” Since Hollywood casting directors remain for the most part blithely unaware of this reality, it’s up to theater companies like East West to give members of the Asian American acting community roles like Henley’s delightfully quirky Magrath sisters—parts which Elizabeth Liang, Kimiko Gelman, and Maya Erskine bring to vivid, authentic, hilarious, and emotionally resonant life.
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