THE BEDROOM WINDOW

posted on September 2nd, 2010 at 10:39 AM by Steven Stanley


REVIEW UPDATE:
There’s a reason why Broadway musicals have out-of-town tryouts and weeks of previews before opening to the New York press. Creating a new musical requires the kind of tweaking that only performances in front of live audiences can suggest. Scenes may need to be cut or rewritten, old songs may have to make way for new ones, and cast changes may need to be made. 
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posted in Musical, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

TITUS REDUX

posted on August 29th, 2010 at 11:14 AM by Steven Stanley


John Farmanesh-Bocca’s Titus Redux is William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus like you’ve never seen it before.  Yes, there’s still rape, mutilation, and two boys cooked in a pie, and much of Shakespeare’s original dialog remains intact. Still, from the moment Tamora responds to Titus’s “I give him you, the noblest that survives, the eldest son of this distressed queen,” with a very contemporary “Fuck you! You stubborn pigheaded asshole,” you know you’re in for something different.
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posted in Drama, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD

posted on August 28th, 2010 at 11:07 AM by Steven Stanley


PCPA Theaterfest concludes its Summer 2010 season with Jason Robert Brown’s Songs For A New World, a magical change-of-pace evening of music starring three sensational PCPA favorites (and one terrific “newcomer”) and directed with consummate imagination and flair by PCPA’s multi-talented Erik Stein.
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posted in Musical Revue, Santa Barbara County, WOW!

THE CLEAN HOUSE

posted on August 27th, 2010 at 11:04 AM by Steven Stanley


How’s this for a cast of characters? Lane, a doctor (and doctor’s wife) who wants nothing more than to live in a clean house.  Matilde, Lane’s Brazilian cleaning lady, who loves jokes almost as much as life itself but doesn’t like cleaning house—not one bit.  Lane’s sister Virginia, who loves to clean house so much that simply cleaning her own is not enough for her. Lane’s surgeon husband Charles, who wants to leave Lane for Ana.  Ana, Charles’ Argentinean patient and paramour, who has breast cancer. Characters who meet and interact in what playwright Sarah Ruhl describes as “a metaphysical Connecticut,” in “a house that is not far from the city and not far from the sea.”
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posted in Comedy, Long Beach/San Pedro, WOW!

A WITHER’S TALE

posted on August 26th, 2010 at 11:00 AM by Steven Stanley


William Shakespeare’s darkest comedy A Winter’s Tale and the soulful Seventies sound of Bill “Ain’t No Sunshine” Withers make for a perfect match in A Wither’s Tale, the latest offering by the multi-award-winning Troubadour Theater Company and one of the Troubies’ richest and best productions yet.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Musical, WOW!

EAT THE RUNT

posted on August 24th, 2010 at 10:33 AM by Steven Stanley


A candidate for a high-level fund-raising position in a major big city art museum is interviewed by various museum higher-ups in Avery Crozier’s Eat The Runt, now getting its Los Angeles Premiere at Theatre Of NOTE.

If the above mini-synopsis seems hardly the stuff of great drama, let alone the laugh-out-loud comedy that Eat The Runt is, then wait till you hear the gimmick that makes it a truly unparalleled theatrical experience.
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posted in Comedy, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

SOUTHERN BAPTIST SISSIES

posted on August 22nd, 2010 at 10:54 AM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
Growing up Southern Baptist is no piece of cake for the four title characters in Southern Baptist Sissies, the fifth production of Theatre Out’s 2010 season.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Orange County, Recommended

ALL MY SONS

posted on August 21st, 2010 at 10:44 AM by Steven Stanley


Arthur Miller’s All My Sons is my very favorite 20th Century play, one I have now had the good fortune of seeing staged a half-dozen times.  Debuting on Broadway less than two years after World War II ended with Japan’s surrender, Miller’s examination of personal responsibility in time of war remains every bit as powerful—and relevant— today, sixty-three years after its New York premiere. 
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posted in Drama, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

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