THE WILD PARTY

posted on June 2nd, 2010 at 6:15 PM by Steven Stanley


Don’t expect to see Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party on any of our CLO stages any time soon. The adults-only nature of the 2000 off-Broadway hit make it an unlikely choice for family-friendly subscription-based CLO seasons. That’s why UC Irvine’s current big-stage, live-orchestra production has real event status.  Unlike MTG’s memorable book-in-hand staged reading in 2004 or numerous fine intimate theater productions which have followed, UC Irvine’s staging is lushly staged and backed by a nine-piece pit orchestra.  That it also features a cast every bit as talented as those performing in professional productions around town makes it a must-see for Wild Party lovers and newbies alike.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

posted on June 1st, 2010 at 6:10 PM by Steven Stanley


You don’t have to be a Shakespeare lover to love the Hermosa Beach Playhouse production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Gorgeous to look at and sparklingly performed by a talented cast who make Elizabethan English sound refreshingly modern, this Stephanie A. Coltrin-directed Midsummer Night’s Dream enchants and tickles the funny bone in equal measure.
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posted in Comedy, South Bay, WOW!

USS PINAFORE

posted on May 30th, 2010 at 8:11 PM by Steven Stanley


From its title, you might guess that Crown City Theatre’s USS Pinafore was simply an Americanized version of Gilbert & Sullivan’s classic comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore—but you’d be wrong. What adapter/director Jon Mullich has up his sleeve is something considerably more outer spacey than that—a cleverly written transformation of the British warship Pinafore into the Starship Pinafore. Yes, that’s Starship, à la Star Trek’s Starship Enterprise.
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posted in Musical, North Hollywood, WOW!

CAROUSEL

posted on May 29th, 2010 at 8:08 PM by Steven Stanley


If all you knew about Rodgers and Hammerstein was The Sound Of Music, you might expect an R&H show called Carousel with its big production numbers like “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” to be all “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens,” especially considering its 1945 Broadway debut, over a decade before shows started getting dark and dramatic with Bernstein and Sondheim’s West Side Story.
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posted in Downey/La Mirada, Musical, WOW!

THE LION KING

posted on May 28th, 2010 at 8:02 PM by Steven Stanley


The arrival of the Broadway National Tour of Disney’s The Lion King for a three-week engagement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center is something to roar about. It’s not every day that one of Broadway’s longest running hits (over 5000 performances and counting) arrives in town. It’s not every day that a show that filled Hollywood’s Pantages for over 950 performances back in 2000-2003 makes a return visit.  And don’t hold your breath waiting for some Southern California regional theater or CLO to put on their own production. With its humungous cast of fifty plus performers, over 200 puppets, and roles that require cast members portraying giraffes to saunter across the stageon four stilt legs, you can be darn sure that a big budget National Tour or sit-down production is the only way you’ll be able to see The Lion King … ever. Thus, although it’s not a case of now or never, it’s certainly now or a long time from now.  If ever a production could be called a must-see for musical theater lovers of any age, it’s the one playing at OCPAC.
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posted in Musical, National Tour, Orange County, WOW!

BOOM

posted on May 27th, 2010 at 5:43 PM by Steven Stanley


From the way Jules and Jo “meet cute” in Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s Boom, now playing at Pasadena’s Furious Theatre Company, you’d think you were in for the kind of romcom that’s made stars of Meg Ryan, Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, and Reece Witherspoon, any one of whom could have played Jo at one point in their careers opposite a young Tom Hanks, Billy Crystal, or Mark Ruffalo.
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posted in Comedy, Pasadena, WOW!

BEHIND THE GATES

posted on May 23rd, 2010 at 5:40 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
Bethany Lieberman’s adoptive parents are at their wits’ end. The privileged seventeen-year-old has turned to sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll to the point that she now sees Mom and Dad as the devil incarnate. Fearing that their child, born to a crack-addicted mother, may possibly be beyond saving, Susan and Jerry Lieberman ship Bethany off to Israel, kicking and screaming.

What the Liebermans are hoping for is a miracle. What they get is the same kind of nightmare Sally Field faced in Not Without My Daughter.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Recommended

MADAGASCAR

posted on May 22nd, 2010 at 5:37 PM by Steven Stanley


A young man disappears, and five years later remains missing with nary a clue of his possible whereabouts.  

JT Rogers’ Madagascar looks at the effect of this disappearance on three of the people closest to him. Densely written, told almost entirely through monologs, Madagascar is a smart play that requires smarts from its audience. 
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posted in Drama, North Hollywood, WOW!

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