CHESS IN CONCERT

posted on August 19th, 2010 at 10:36 AM by Steven Stanley


While watching a recording of the 2008 London production of Chess In Concert at Royal Albert Hall, Musical Theatre Of Los Angeles’s Eduardo Enrikez and Bonnie McMahon were struck with a flash of divine inspiration (or out-and-out insanity)—to stage their own Chess In Concert with a 10-piece orchestra and 20-member cast in a 99-seat theater. A daunting task to say the very least, but then again so were MTLA’s revivals of Ragtime and West Side Story, just two of the Broadway mega-musicals which the creative duo had scaled down to 99-seat dimensions to critical acclaim and audience cheers.
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posted in Hollywood/West Hollywood, Musical, WOW!

FREE MAN OF COLOR

posted on August 14th, 2010 at 10:28 AM by Steven Stanley


“Thirty-four years before the end of slavery, I stood before my graduating class and wondered about my soul.”

The speaker is John Newton Templeton, a young ex-slave and the first man of color to attend Ohio University—over three decades before the Emancipation Proclamation.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Drama, WOW!

PARASITE DRAG

posted on August 13th, 2010 at 10:23 AM by Steven Stanley


The storm clouds on the Central Illinois horizon pale beside the shadows of abuse, adultery, addiction, illness, incest, and suicide in Parasite Drag, Mark Roberts’ slice of Midwest life now getting its Southern California Premiere at the Elephant Theatre Company. Electrically directed by David Fofi in association with Don Foster and powerfully performed by a quartet of topnotch actors, Parasite Drag mixes dramatic confrontations with biting dollops of humor to gripping effect.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

THE VILLAGE VARIETY PACK

posted on August 9th, 2010 at 12:52 AM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
TV fans of a certain age will recall TV variety shows like The Hollywood Palace and The Ed Sullivan Show, programs that brought pop singers, standup comedians, comedy sketch artists, and other assorted talents into living rooms across the country. Co-hosts Dennis Hensley and Michael Anthony have updated this format to the 21st Century and given it a decidedly gay twist in The Village Variety Pack, which has been entertaining audiences of every sexual persuasion at The Davidson/Valentini Blackbox Theatre @ The Village for some time now.
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posted in Cabaret/Concert/Variety, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Recommended

THE LAST ROMANCE

posted on August 8th, 2010 at 12:49 AM by Steven Stanley


Life begins at eighty or so for the two lead characters in The Last Romance, Joe DiPietro’s charming, funny, andvery romantic new comedy now in its West Coast Premiere at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre. Like DiPietro’s earlier Over The River And Through The Woods, The Last Romance offers some of the best comedic roles ever for septuagenarian and even octogenarian actors, and was written especially for two of them, Marion Ross of TV’s Happy Days fame and WWII vet Paul Michael, her real life partner.
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posted in Comedy, San Diego County, WOW!

ROBIN AND THE 7 HOODS

posted on August 8th, 2010 at 12:45 AM by Steven Stanley


Take a couple dozen songs written by multiple Oscar winners Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, hire a couple dozen Broadway and regional theater triple-threats to perform them to Tony-winning director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw’s fancy footwork, string them together with a plot suggested by a 1962 Frank Sinatra flick, call the confection Robin And The 7 Hoods—and you’ve got the thoroughly enjoyable World Premiere (and possibly Broadway-bound) new musical now delighting audiences at San Diego’s Old Globe Theater.
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posted in Musical, San Diego County, WOW!

SHAKE

posted on August 7th, 2010 at 12:42 AM by Steven Stanley


There’s something about Reverse Chronology that can work magic with a tale of innocence lost. Take for example Harold Pinter’s Betrayal or Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, the former beginning with the end of a marriage and ending with the characters’ first meeting, the latter starting off with three irreparably estranged friends and climaxing with the threesome as starry-eyed best-friends-forever.  There’s something particularly poignant about a happy ending when you already know the disillusionment yet to come.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

TOPDOG/UNDERDOG

posted on August 6th, 2010 at 12:39 AM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

Ben Brantley, the chief drama critic of the New York Times (i.e. the most important theater reviewer in the United States) called Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog “as exciting as any new play from a young American since Tony Kushner’s Angels In America.” It was nominated for a Best Play Tony Award and won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. I found it one of the two longest evenings I’ve spent in a theater in the past year.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood

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