Posts Tagged ‘Los Angeles Theater Review’
LEAR
Sunday, August 10th, 2014
A Queen with three sons, two of them ungrateful jerks wed to a pair of domineering Duchesses. An Earl with two daughters, one of them illegitimate and a conniver to boot. Meet Shakespeare Through The Looking Glass as Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum debuts its uniquely intriguing, exquisitely acted, gender-bending take on Shakespeare’s King Lear, retitled simply Lear, directed by and starring Ellen Geer as Queen Lear and Melora Marshall as her Fool.
(read more)
TIME STANDS STILL
Saturday, August 9th, 2014RECOMMENDED
A wounded photo-journalist’s return home from the war zone proves even more challenging than a life lived on the edge in Donald Margulies’ intelligent, perceptive, often funny, always compelling Time Stands Still, now being given a mostly satisfying production at San Pedro’s Little Fish Theatre under Patrick Vest’s solid direction.
(read more)
reasons to be pretty
Friday, August 8th, 2014
Even a single word can wound, particularly if the word you just happen to use to describe your girlfriend’s looks is “regular,” or so 20something Greg will learn to his eternal chagrin in Neil LaBute’s laceratingly funny reasons to be pretty, now getting a pitch-perfect Geffen Playhouse premiere under artistic director Randall Arney’s astute direction.
(read more)
ONE IN THE CHAMBER
Monday, August 4th, 2014
Playwright Marja-Lewis Ryan focuses an up-close-and-personal lens on the epidemic of gun violence plaguing our country in her World Premiere drama One In The Chamber, one of the most powerful new plays I’ve seen in a good long while, and as superbly acted a production as any writer/director could possibly wish for.
(read more)
SMOKEY JOE’S CAFÉ
Sunday, August 3rd, 2014
Want to hear “Kansas City,” “Yakety Yak,” “Love Potion No. 9,” “On Broadway” and a few dozen other 1950s rock and pop hits as performed by an all-around splendid young cast and enjoy a yummy dinner to boot? Then head on over to Claremont for dinner and a show as Candlelight Pavilion revives the longest-running musical revue in Broadway history, Smokey Joe’s Café, featuring forty of the greatest hits of rock-and-roll songwriting legends Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
(read more)
THE MAX FACTOR FACTOR
Saturday, August 2nd, 2014
Secretly gay 1930s film star Lance Grant falls head-over-heels for the equally famous—and equally closeted—Hoyt Baxter in Adrian Bewley, Joe Blodgett, and Chana Wise’s delightful new musical The Max Factor Factor, a fortuitous first collaboration between New Musicals Inc. and Celebration Theatre.
(read more)
IN A DARK DARK HOUSE
Sunday, July 27th, 2014NOT RECOMMENDED
It’s rare than a single performance can sink an otherwise mostly fine production, but such is the case in the Los Angeles Premiere of Neil LaBute’s In A Dark Dark House, a play consisting of three extended two-actor scenes revolving around a central character who only departs the stage during set changes. Unfortunately, since Aaron McPherson is not up to the challenges of bringing Terry to real, three-dimensional life, In A Dark Dark House fails to get the Matrix Theatre Guest Production it deserves.
(read more)
ANDRONICUS
Saturday, July 26th, 2014
”14 killings, 9 of them on stage, 6 severed members, 1 rape (or 2 or 3 depending on how you count), 1 live burial, 1 case of insanity, and 1 of cannibalism” is how critic S. Mark Hulse sums up William Shakespeare’s vengeance-fueled Titus Andronicus, and Coeurage Theatre Company gives us each and every one of the above in a mere two hours (including intermission) in Jeremy Lelliott’s exhilarating new adaptation of Shakespeare’s contribution to the “revenge play” genre, redubbed Andronicus to befit this leaner, zippier incarnation of the 16th-Century classic.
(read more)
Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
COPYRIGHT 2026 STEVEN STANLEY :: DESIGN BY