Posts Tagged ‘Los Angeles Theater Review’

WONDERFUL TOWN


From autobiographical short story collection to play to movie to Broadway musical to musical movie (but with different songs) to TV series. Few musical comedies have had as many incarnations as 1953’s Wonderful Town, and though Broadway revived it in 2003, this Golden Era hit has faded a bit too much into obscurity to join perennial 1950s favorites like Damn Yankees and The Pajama Game onto any major theater’s annual season—making it a perfect choice for Musical Theatre Guild to revive for one night only as the first of their 2013-2014 “concert staged reading” treats.
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ON GOLDEN POND


Cast aside any preconceived notions you might have about “community theater” and head on over to Whittier Community Theatre to catch Ernest Thompson’s On Golden Pond (a play that hasn’t lost an iota of its humor or charm since winning the Drama Desk Award as Outstanding New Play of 1979) in a production that stands comparison to what you might see on one of our local professional stages.
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BARRYMORE


Southern California musical theater star Gordon Goodman brings to life stage-and-screen legend John Barrymore in William Luce’s Barrymore, the virtual one-man-show that won its originator Christopher Plummer the Tony and could well earn Goodman equivalent recognition when L.A. award season comes around.
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LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL


No intimate theater company in L.A. has produced more—or more consistently excellent—intimate revivals of contemporary Broadway classics over the past half-dozen years than August Viverito and TL Kolman’s The Production Company. Now, following in the illustrious footsteps of The ProdCo’s M Butterfly, Equus, Copenhagen, Amadeus, and The Beauty Queen Of Leenane, comes Viverito and Kolman’s latest (and one of their best), Ketti Frings’ 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning adaptation of Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel.
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THE NISEI WIDOWS CLUB: How Tomi Got Her Groove Back


The Japanese-American Golden Girls who call themselves The Nisei Widows are back at East West Players, and if those who caught the first installment Nisei Widows Club in 2003 can ignore the knee-jerk reaction, “Never again!”, this return visit ten years later, while still pure sitcom, proves considerably more entertaining, and ultimately quite touching once (as the play’s title gives away) Tomi’s got her groove back.
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12 ANGRY MEN


A black-and-white cast adds provocative new shadings to 12 Angry Men as the Pasadena Playhouse revives the 20th Century jury room drama for a 21st Century audience, and though director Sheldon Epps’ re-envisioning of Reginald Rose’s now iconic play proves problematic, there’s no denying the power of the dynamic dozen actors onstage at the Playhouse or of Rose’s ingeniously constructeds, beautifully written classic.
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MIRACLE ON SOUTH DIVISION STREET


Playwright Tom Dudzick, whose Over The Tavern and Greetings! have racked up more than three hundred productions between then, is back, and Los Angeles audiences are the lucky beneficiaries of the latest comedic confection from America’s “Catholic Neil Simon” as Burbank’s Colony Theatre presents the West Coast Premiere of Miracle On South Division Street (The Holiday Version).
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THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS (THE MUSICAL!)


How would you like to relive every single musical ever written by Rodgers & Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Kander & Ebb … all in under two hours and performed by a cast, not of thousands or hundreds (or even dozens) but a mere four terrifically talented triple-threats?
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