A CHORUS LINE

posted on July 2nd, 2010 at 1:55 PM by Steven Stanley


Try to think of a musical where the hopes, fears, challenges, and dreams of a dozen and a half characters are explored in dialog, song, and dance … and chances are the first (and possibly only) show that will come to mind is A Chorus Line, the first Broadway musical to explore the intimate stories of Broadway’s “gypsies”—while dealing with race and sexuality and featuring big, flashy production numbers to boot.  Just as Oklahoma! and West Side Story revolutionized Broadway in the 1940s and ‘50, so too did A Chorus Line change the face of musical theater two decades later.
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posted in Musical, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

CHiPs THE MUSICAL

posted on July 1st, 2010 at 1:50 PM by Steven Stanley


The zanies who call themselves the Troubadour Theater Company are back with CHiPs The Musical, the award-winning ensemble’s first show not based on the hits of a major recording artist or group. Instead, the Troubies’ takeoff on the late-‘70s/early-‘80s action TV series has catchy original music composed by Henry Phillips, with Rick Batalla taking care of book and lyrics.  In all other respects however, CHiPs The Musical is exactly the madness and merriment we’ve come to expect from Troubies’ Artistic Director Matt Walker and company.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Musical, WOW!

SORORITY QUEEN IN A MOBILE HOME

posted on June 30th, 2010 at 9:49 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
Divorced couple Grace and Dennis each tell their own version of what went wrong in their marriage in Sorority Queen In A Mobile Home, a midweek offering at Open Fist Theatre. Though its format (extended monologs interspersed with a handful of multiple character scenes) proves a barrier to audience involvement in Grace and Dennis’s stories, performances go a long way towards making Sorority Queen a rather entertaining two-acter.
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posted in Comedy, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Recommended

OUR FAVORITE SINGS

posted on June 29th, 2010 at 9:44 PM by Steven Stanley

What do you call a blend of musical revue and cabaret?

RECOMMENDED
The Tre Stage calls it Our Favorite Sings, an entertaining hour and a quarter of musical theater talents singing their favorite songs live and un-miked in an intimate black box space.
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posted in Hollywood/West Hollywood, Musical Revue, Recommended

TOWN WITHOUT PITY

posted on June 28th, 2010 at 9:36 PM by Steven Stanley


In that brief period between the “Lollipop, Lollipop” 1950s and the British Invasion of 1964, teen idols like Dion, Ricky Nelson, and Bobby Vee were topping the charts with their blend of All American good looks and bubblegum pop.

And then there was singer-songwriter Gene Pitney.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical Revue, WOW!

KING LEAR

posted on June 27th, 2010 at 9:32 PM by Steven Stanley


When L.A.’s Classical Theatre Ensemble sets out to do its very first fully staged production of a William Shakespeare play, the result truly merits event status, especially when it is the Antaeus Company staging King Lear with not one His Majesty but two royal monarchs—Dakin Matthews and Harry Groener—and two entirely different casts to support them.
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posted in Drama, North Hollywood, WOW!

THE LAST FIVE YEARS

posted on June 26th, 2010 at 9:24 PM by Steven Stanley


For Cathy, it’s the end of a relationship. For Jamie, it’s only the start.

Thus begins Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years, a look at a marriage gone sour—from two points of view, moving two different directions in time.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

THE PRODUCERS

posted on June 26th, 2010 at 9:20 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
They said it couldn’t be done. They said that there was no way a non-Equity company of performers could possibly stage Mel Brook’s multimillion-dollar Broadway smash The Producers on a tiny stage with a reduced company of actors and a fraction of the original production’s budget.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, Recommended

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