BABE

posted on September 26th, 2022 at 11:21 AM by Steven Stanley

Cliffhangers are perfectly fine if you’re writing a series pilot or season finale. Not so much if you’ve written what purports to be a full-length play, which is why, engaged as I was throughout Echo Theater Company’s Babe, I left feeling frustrated, angry, and confused as to why playwright Jessica Goldberg didn’t finish what she’d started so provocatively sixty-five minutes earlier in a more satisfyingly conclusive way.
(read more)

Tags: , , ,
posted in Drama, Los Angeles, Theater Review, World Premiere

ANDREW LIPPA’S WILD PARTY

posted on September 25th, 2022 at 11:22 AM by Steven Stanley


Santa Monica’s Morgan-Wixson Theatre once again gives professional houses a run for their much bigger bucks with a fabulously staged and performed Andrew Lippa’s Wild Party.
(read more)

posted in Musical

EVERYBODY

posted on September 24th, 2022 at 3:38 PM by Steven Stanley

If 90 minutes of occasionally amusing but more often longwinded philosophizing about the meaning of (among other things) Life, Love, Friendship, Beauty, Material Possessions, and Death sounds like your thing, then Antaeus Theatre Company’s Everybody, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ 21st-century adaptation of a 600-year-old morality play, might just be your cup of tea. It wasn’t mine.
(read more)

Tags: , ,
posted in Burbank/Glendale, Comedy, Theater Review

SANCTUARY CITY

posted on September 19th, 2022 at 11:40 AM by Steven Stanley


Martyna Majok puts a personal face on the plight of undocumented Americanized teens in Sanctuary City, a riveting, thought-provoking Los Angeles Premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse.
(read more)

Tags: , ,
posted in Drama, Pasadena, Theater Review, WOW!

OKLAHOMA!

posted on September 16th, 2022 at 3:28 PM by Steven Stanley


Forget every Oklahoma! you’ve ever seen. Forget everything you’ve ever heard or said or thought about the 79-year-old classic. Director Daniel Fish’s radically revisionist revival of the Broadway musical that reinvented the genre back in 1943 now feels every bit as revolutionary in 2022 as Rent did in 1994, Spring Awakening in 2006, and Hamilton just a handful of years back.
(read more)

Tags: , , , ,
posted in Los Angeles, Musical, National Tour, Theater Review, WOW!

JAGGED LITTLE PILL

posted on September 16th, 2022 at 9:08 AM by Steven Stanley


A double album’s worth of Alanis Morissette’s Greatest Hits provide the plot-propelling dramatic soundtrack to Jagged Little Pill, the thrillingly of-the-moment Tony winner that redefines the oft-derided “jukebox musical” to stunning effect.
(read more)

Tags: , , , , ,
posted in Hollywood/West Hollywood, Musical, Theater Review, WOW!

13 THE MUSICAL

posted on September 12th, 2022 at 10:11 AM by Steven Stanley


Ventura county teens reveal budding triple-threat talents in Panic! Productions’ exhilarating live staging of Jason Robert Brown’s 13 The Musical at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center.
(read more)

Tags: , , , , ,
posted in Musical, Theater Review, Ventura County, WOW!

SILENT SKY

posted on September 11th, 2022 at 10:45 AM by Steven Stanley


Sierra Madre Playhouse pays tribute to a groundbreaking, trailblazing astronomer who refused to let her gender hold her back in Lauren Gunderson’s engaging, informative biodrama Silent Sky.
(read more)

Tags: , ,
posted in Drama, San Gabriel Valley, Theater Review, WOW!

Next PagePrevious Page