COPENHAGEN

posted on May 7th, 2010 at 1:20 AM by Steven Stanley


There’s a moment early on in Michael Frayn’s Tony Award-winning Copenhagen when Margrethe Bohr says reassuringly to her physicist husband Niels, “I don’t think anyone has yet discovered a way you can use theoretical physics to kill people.” Ironic words indeed when spoken to one of the theoretical physicists who worked on the Manhattan Project developing the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, weapons which led to the immediate or eventual deaths of 200,000 human beings.
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posted in Drama, North Hollywood, WOW!

THE WOMEN OF BREWSTER PLACE

posted on May 6th, 2010 at 1:17 AM by Steven Stanley


The projects are alive with the sound of music in Tim Acito’s adaptation of Gloria Naylor’s The Women Of Brewster Place, but don’t expect any “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens” or “cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels” anywhere in the vicinity of the walled-in housing development where these women lead their dreary, heartbreaking, and heartache-plagued lives. Times are indeed tough for Mattie, Etta Mae, Kiswana, Lorraine, Tee, Cora Lee, Mavis, and Sophie, but they’ve got their music—and each other—to pull themselves through.
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posted in Hollywood/West Hollywood, Musical, WOW!

MATT AND BEN

posted on May 5th, 2010 at 1:15 AM by Steven Stanley


No one except the co-authors themselves knew the true story behind Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Academy Award-winning screenplay for Good Will Hunting until well over five years after Oscar night 1998—not until August 21, 2002, that is, when Mindy Kaling and Brenda Wither’s Matt & Ben opened at the New York International Fringe Festival.
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posted in Comedy, Los Angeles, WOW!

THE GIFT HORSE

posted on May 3rd, 2010 at 1:09 AM by Steven Stanley


Lydia R. Diamond’s Stick Fly was one of the biggest critical successes of last year’s theater season, scoring nominations and/or wins at L.A.’s Big Three award ceremonies—the Ovations, the LADCCs, and the LA Weeklys.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

L.A. NOIR UnSCRIPTED

posted on May 2nd, 2010 at 5:49 PM by Steven Stanley


They’ve done Jane Austen UnScripted, Tennessee Williams UnScripted, and William Shakespeare UnScripted to rave notices and audience cheers. Impro Theatre now turns its talents to L.A. Noir UnScripted, and the 100% improvised result may well be their very best UnScripted yet.
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posted in Comedy, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

THE PHILADELPHIA STORY

posted on May 2nd, 2010 at 5:44 PM by Steven Stanley


Fans of 1930s comedies will want to cheer Actors Co-op’s revival of Philip Barry’s 1939 hit The Philadelphia Story, a title quickly recognized by film buffs as that of the Oscar-winning 1940 movie classic starring Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart. (Hepburn starred in both stage and screen versions, with the plot of the MGM adaptation sticking much closer to the Broadway original than did, say, the movie versions of You Can’t Take It With You or Stage Door.)
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posted in Comedy, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

CRIMES OF THE HEART

posted on May 1st, 2010 at 5:41 PM by Steven Stanley


It’s probably a toss-up as to which group of Southern women are the more famous, the gals who get their hair done at Truvy’s in Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias or the Magrath sisters of Beth Henley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Crimes Of The Heart. In either case, those with a fondness for Henley’s quirky Mississippi siblings will be happy to know that they are alive and well and performing nightly at Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre.
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posted in Comedy, Ventura County, WOW!

HOW THE OTHER HALF LOVES

posted on April 30th, 2010 at 9:32 PM by Steven Stanley


In the musical theater classic Gypsy, strippers Mazeppa, Electra, and Tessie Tura sing, “You gotta have a gimmick if you wanna get ahead.” No playwright would seem to have taken this advice more seriously than prolific British comedy scribe Alan Ayckbourn, whose hit plays almost always have a gimmick.
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posted in Comedy, Long Beach/San Pedro, WOW!

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