LI’L ABNER

posted on February 6th, 2008 at 11:02 PM by Steven Stanley


It’s a typical day in Dogpatch, U.S.A.–typical, that is, until the U.S.
Government decides to bomb it to smithereens. Then, local residents scramble
to find something necessary about their beloved town, birthplace of the worst
Confederate General ever, Jubilation T. Cornpone.  Meanwhile, marriage-
minded cutiepie Daisy Mae keeps on trying to convince Li’l Abner that there’s
more to life than goin’ fishin’ with his buds. That’s the plot (what there is of it)
of Norman Panama and Melvin Frank’s Li’l Abner, based on Al Capp’s classic
comic strip of the same name.
(read more)

posted in Musical, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

DRIVING MISS DAISY

posted on February 5th, 2008 at 10:55 PM by Steven Stanley


Alfred Uhry’s Driving Miss Daisy is perhaps best known from the 1989 film
adaptation which starred Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, and which
won Miss Tandy the Oscar at the age of 80. However “Miss Daisy” made her
first appearance in a tiny off-Broadway theater in 1987, with Dana Ivey and
Freeman creating the roles of Miss Daisy and her chauffeur Hoke. That Uhry’s
tale of an elderly Southern Jewish widow and the African American driver
foisted upon her by her adult son could work equally well on the big screen
and on a small stage is testimony to its power. Now, McCoy Rigby
Entertainment’s revival at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts
proves that Driving Miss Daisy is equally successful performed on a Broadway-
sized stage, especially in the hands of TV icon Michael Learned and her 3-time
Miss Daisy costar Lance C. Nichols, under the assured direction of Brian Kite.
(read more)

posted in Downey/La Mirada, Drama, WOW!

CARNAGE, A COMEDY

posted on February 3rd, 2008 at 10:50 PM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

The Actors’ Gang webpage describes their revival of Adam Simon and Tim
Robbins’ Carnage, A Comedy as a “raucous satire about televangelism and
the state of religion in America,” yet when the original production of Carnage
went to New York in 1989, Frank Rich of the New York Times wrote, “There may
have been a more amateurish work than ”Carnage” on a professional stage in
New York this year, but somehow the gods spared me from seeing it.”
(read more)

posted in Comedy, Not Recommended, West Side/Beverly HIlls

THE MONKEY JAR

posted on February 2nd, 2008 at 10:43 PM by Steven Stanley


STUDENT BRINGS GUN TO SCHOOL; THREATENS TEACHER

An everyday occurrence in inner-city high schools, yet in Richard Martin Hirsch’s
The Monkey Jar, now in its world premiere engagement at Theatre 40,
Bienvenida Charter School is not in the inner city but rather in an upscale West
Los Angeles suburb, and the child involved is just 10 years old.
(read more)

posted in Drama, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

DEPARTURES

posted on February 1st, 2008 at 10:37 PM by Steven Stanley

RECOMMMENDED
Departures is a theatrical experiment that works.  Seven playwrights each
independently  wrote a 10-15 minute one-act about an airline passenger or
group of passengers gathered in an airport waiting area. Open At The Top’s
artistic director James L. Mellon then compiled and condensed the playlets,
“composing” them into a fluid hour and twenty minutes of intertwining stories. 
The result is an entertaining and often moving dramedy that feels for the most
part like the work of a single writer. We meet, in order of appearance:
(read more)

posted in Drama, North Hollywood, Recommended

WHAT THE BUTLER SAW

posted on January 31st, 2008 at 9:59 PM by Steven Stanley

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“Doctor, help me! I keep seeing naked men!”
“From now on, we shall never have sex except in a linen cupboard.”   
   (Two of my favorite lines from What The Butler Saw.)
(read more)

posted in Comedy, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

ORSON’S SHADOW

posted on January 31st, 2008 at 9:41 PM by Steven Stanley


The year is 1960. The place is Dublin, Ireland, more specifically the Gaiety Theatre,
where renowned film critic Kenneth Tynan has just arrived on a mission. He plans
to ask Orson Welles of Citizen Kane fame to direct “the greatest actor in the
English language” in a production of Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros. The actor in
question is, of course Lawrence Olivier, fresh from his stage and screen triumph in
The Entertainer. There is one hitch to Tynan’s plan, however, and that is Welles’
belief that “Olivier destroyed me in Hollywood in 1948.”
(read more)

posted in Drama, Pasadena, WOW!

PUTTIN’ ON THE FRITZ

posted on January 30th, 2008 at 9:56 PM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

Puttin’ On The Fritz, now playing off-nights at Sacred Fools, is a pair of new one-
acts which premiered at the Fritz Blitz of New Plays at San Diego’s Fritz Theater.
(read more)

posted in Comedy, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Not Recommended

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