TROG AND CLAY: AN IMAGINED HISTORY OF THE ELECTRIC CHAIR

posted on April 29th, 2010 at 2:14 PM by Steven Stanley


Michael Vukadinovich’s Trog And Clay: An Imagined History Of The Electric Chair may well be one of the funniest plays ever written about actual events, the ingenious playwright having turned the rivalry between electricity pioneers Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse (which led to the first ever execution by electrocution in the U.S.) into a hilarious fact-based absurdist historical farce.
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posted in Comedy, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

FULLY COMMITTED

posted on April 28th, 2010 at 9:30 PM by Steven Stanley


If you haven’t heard that one before, Sam Peliczowski probably has.  Sam is, you see, a struggling New York-based actor with the worst restaurant job in the Big Apple. Stuck deep down in a tiny basement cell, Sam is the reservations clerk for one of the city’s most shi-shi établissements.  No chance for Sam to be seen by directors, producers, casting people.  No chance for him to meet women (or men, if he happens to swing that way). No chance to get even the measliest of tips.
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posted in Comedy, Long Beach/San Pedro, Solo Performance, WOW!

JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT

posted on April 27th, 2010 at 9:26 PM by Steven Stanley


It’s taken me twenty-eight years to see my first production of 1982’s Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (and even longer if you count the show’s pre-Broadway incarnations), and now, having finally experienced the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical on the great big stage of the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, it’s rainbow clear to me why the Joseph has become an international phenomenon.  The show is one hundred minutes of pure, unadulterated, Technicolor music and fun.
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posted in Musical, South Bay, WOW!

NINE

posted on April 25th, 2010 at 9:22 PM by Steven Stanley


When Rob Marshall’s movie adaptation of Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston’s Nine came out last year, many reviewers and moviegoers shook their heads. Could this film (rated a mere 6.2 by imdb.com users and a dismal 49/100 by major media reviewers*) actually have been nominated for twelve Tonys and won five (including Best Musical and Best Score) when it debuted as a Broadway musical in 1982? What did the original show have that Marshall’s movie lacked?
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

WELCOME HOME JENNY SUTTER

posted on April 25th, 2010 at 9:18 PM by Steven Stanley


Jenny Sutter is the newest kind of wounded war vet—a female United States Marine who, just like her male counterparts did four decades ago upon returning home from an unpopular war in Southeast Asia, has no idea how she can possibly fit back into a “normal” life after the hell she experienced in Iraq.
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posted in Drama, Orange County, WOW!

STARMITES

posted on April 24th, 2010 at 9:15 PM by Steven Stanley


Here’s a trivia question for all you musical theater buffs out there. Name a Broadway musical (within the last quarter century) nominated for six Tony awards including Best Musical—that absolutely no one has heard of.
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posted in Musical, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS

posted on April 23rd, 2010 at 9:11 PM by Steven Stanley


Audrey II, the “strange and interesting plant” that made his/her/its? first appearance way back in Roger Corman’s 1960 Z-movie classic, is back, newly arrived in Thousand Oaks for a two-week visit with much voracious munching on his/her/its cannibalistic mind—and you all know what that means. “They may offer you lots of cheap thrills, fancy condos in Beverly Hills, but whatever they offer you, don’t feed the plants!”
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posted in Musical, Ventura County, WOW!

THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES

posted on April 22nd, 2010 at 9:10 PM by Steven Stanley


Quite possibly the biggest L.A. theater success story of past decade has been that of The Marvelous Wonderettes, Roger Bean’s wonderfully marvelous look back at the pop music of the 1950s and ‘60s as sung by a quartet of high school girls at their 1958 prom and their 1968 class reunion. From its original incarnation (a 45-minute workshop in Milwaukee) to its two-year run at North Hollywood’s El Portal Theatre to its successful off-Broadway engagement, The Marvelous Wonderettes has truly conquered the American musical theater world.
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posted in Long Beach/San Pedro, Musical, WOW!

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