SETUP & PUNCH

posted on May 21st, 2009 at 12:44 PM by Steven Stanley


Nine years following her acrimonious split from Brian, Vanya (nee Yvonne Patricia) takes pen to paper to write (yes, write, not email) her onetime creative partner with a request. “Dear Brian,” she writes.  “I know I can’t make up with you but I hope we can be friends.”
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posted in Comedy, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

ONCE UPON A MATTRESS

posted on May 17th, 2009 at 12:48 PM by Steven Stanley


Once Upon A Mattress is a popular choice for high school musicals and community theaters, but I can’t recall a professional production here in L.A., so the Lyric’s totally entertaining revival of this 1959 Broadway gem comes as particularly welcome news, especially in these gloomy economic times.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, WOW!

TRAFFICKING IN BROKEN HEARTS

posted on May 16th, 2009 at 12:51 PM by Steven Stanley


Papo is a Puerto Rican hustler who’s been selling his body on the mean streets of early 1990s New York City since the age of fifteen. Brian is a 26-year-old gay virgin who frequents phone sex lines and adult bookstores, alternately craving and fearing his first sexual experience. Bobby is a 16-year-old runaway whose older brothers have been raping him daily since he was twelve.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

BREAKING THE CODE

posted on May 15th, 2009 at 12:54 PM by Steven Stanley


Superbly directed by Robert Mammana and featuring a tour de force lead performance by M Butterfly’s Sam R. Ross, Breaking The Code is, simply put, must-see theater.  Despite its 1930s to 1950s English setting, Hugh Whitemore’s biodrama remains vital and relevant to 21st Century America, both as a reminder of a time not so long ago when a confession of homosexual acts could send a man to prison, and as proof that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
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posted in Drama, North Hollywood, WOW!

THE KING AND I

posted on May 14th, 2009 at 1:00 PM by Steven Stanley


When you’ve seen a musical theater classic like Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King And I as many times as I have, the excitement of each new production (besides the pleasure of revisiting an old favorite) is seeing new performers, directors, choreographers, musical directors, and designers put their own stamp on it.
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posted in Musical, Orange County, WOW!

MARRY ME A LITTLE/THE LAST FIVE YEARS

posted on May 12th, 2009 at 1:03 PM by Steven Stanley


My favorite East West Players shows are their productions of well-known plays and musicals which offer Asian-American actors the opportunity to tackle roles for which they might not normally be considered. Whether dramatic fare, like Proof or Equus, or musicals like Little Shop Of Horrors or pretty much all of the Sondheim oeuvre, or a play with music like Master Class, these are the productions which have left the strongest, best impressions on me.
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, WOW!

THE REHEARSAL

posted on May 10th, 2009 at 1:14 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
The French, They Are A Funny Race, or so goes the title of a 1955 Preston Sturges comedy.  Not having seen that film, I’m not quite sure which “funny” its title refers to—“funny-amusing” or “funny-peculiar.” In Jean Anouilh’s The Rehearsal, it’s quite clearly a good deal of both. 
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Drama, Recommended

THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED

posted on May 9th, 2009 at 1:17 PM by Steven Stanley


Diversionary Theatre’s production of The Little Dog Laughed makes several things perfectly clear.  First, that despite the out, proud, and successful-as-ever Neil Patrick Harrises and T.R. Knights et al, the closet is alive and well in Hollywood.  Second, that Douglas Carter Beane’s comedy may be the funniest Broadway show yet about gay movie stars, lesbian agents, and bisexual hustlers. Third, and the best news of all for San Diego audiences, Diversionary’s cast of four locally-based actors stands up very nicely to their Broadway counterparts, thank you very much.
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posted in Comedy, San Diego County, WOW!

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