CHARLES DICKENS’ OLIVER TWIST

posted on November 9th, 2008 at 2:10 PM by Steven Stanley


Say the words Oliver Twist and the first thing that pops into mind may be a song—“Food Glorious Food,” “Where Is Love,” “You’ve Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two,” “Who Will Buy”…  Lionel Bart’s songs are so inextricably linked to Charles Dickens’ original story that it’s hard to imagine an Oliver Twist without them, yet British writer-director Neil Bartlett has dared to do so in his 2004 adaptation (“in twenty-four scenes with several songs and tableaux”) entitled Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, now getting a magical L.A. premiere at A Noise Within.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Drama, WOW!

SILK STOCKINGS

posted on November 8th, 2008 at 2:14 PM by Steven Stanley


Silk Stockings was songwriter Cole Porter’s last Broadway musical. The 1955 production ran for over a year, but unlike Porter’s biggest smash, the twice Broadway-revived Kiss Me Kate, Silk Stockings has pretty much vanished from view and memory. Thus, Musical Theatre West’s revisal of the Cold War comedy comes as something of an event, especially with a much rewritten book by Stuart Ross of Forever Plaid fame, who also directs.
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posted in Long Beach/San Pedro, Musical, WOW!

SONG OF EXTINCTION

posted on November 7th, 2008 at 2:19 PM by Steven Stanley


•A middle-aged immigrant biology teacher relives the genocide in his native Cambodia in which 2,000,000 of his countrymen lost their lives…
•A 40ish biologist obsesses over the impending extinction of a rare species of Bolivian beetle…
•A 15-year-old viola prodigy must come to grips with his mother’s terminal illness…

These are the threads which EM Lewis weaves together in her exquisitely poetic and deeply moving new play Song Of Extinction.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON

posted on November 6th, 2008 at 2:28 PM by Steven Stanley


Two lost ships on a stormy sea, one with no sails and one with no rudder. Ain’t it just great, ain’t it just grand?  We’ve got each udder!”
–Joe Hardy and Lola
Damn Yankees
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posted in Drama, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

SIX DANCE LESSONS IN SIX WEEKS

posted on November 5th, 2008 at 2:32 PM by Steven Stanley


Prim and proper uptight elderly Southern belle meets free-spirited foul-mouthed gay jokester for Six Dance Lessons In Six Weeks in Richard Alfieri’s touching Broadway comedy, now getting a spiffy revival at Burbank’s Falcon Theatre.

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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Comedy, WOW!

LOVELACE A ROCK OPERA

posted on November 2nd, 2008 at 2:36 PM by Steven Stanley


The lights dim and the upstage screen is filled with image after image—Richard Nixon, protests against the Vietnam war, uniformed soldiers, Woodstock, Kent State, the Manson girls, John and Yoko, the first man on the moon…

The year is 1969 and Linda Boreman is having sex for the first time, in a Cutlass Supreme. 
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posted in Los Angeles, Musical, WOW!

HAPPY DAYS

posted on November 1st, 2008 at 2:39 PM by Steven Stanley


A StageSceneLA prediction: Happy Days The Musical is going to be a sold-out hit at La Mirada Theatre and a surefire smash on its soon-to-begin national tour.  Thanks to major rewrites, a bunch of new songs, Michele Lynch’s rockin’-&-rollin’ choreography, and the firecracker direction of Gordon Greenberg, the 2006 Falcon Theatre world premiere musical has gone from so-so to wow-wow!
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posted in Downey/La Mirada, Musical, WOW!

U.S. DRAG

posted on October 30th, 2008 at 4:59 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMENDED
Romy and Michelle are alive and well and living on the stage of the Furious Theatre in Pasadena. Well, if not exactly Romy and Michelle of High School Reunion fame, at least their kissing cousins.
(read more)

posted in Comedy, Pasadena, Recommended

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