A GOOD FAMILY
Sunday, November 29th, 2015RECOMMENDED
A charge of rape lodged against their college student son casts a pall over a Midwestern American couple’s Christmas Eve celebration in A Good Family, Marja-Lewis Ryan’s World Premiere drama that combines several of the elements that made her award-winning One In The Chamber a critical/popular hit last year—crisp writing, outstanding acting, edge-of-your-seat suspense—yet feels incomplete, and not simply for its hour-and-change running time.
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MIRAVEL
Saturday, November 14th, 2015RECOMMENDED
Cyrano de Bergerac gets a jazz-infused contemporary update in Jake Broder’s play with music Miravel, a Sacred Fools World Premiere that scores high marks for performance, both vocal and instrumental, but could use some tweaking and tightening, particularly in its overlong first act.
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HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
Sunday, October 18th, 2015RECOMMENDED
Sherlock Holmes is back and Actors Co-op’s got him, though Tim Kelly’s stage(y) adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound Of The Baskervilles proves an only okay showcase for both its cast and its master sleuth protagonist.
GUYS AND DOLLS
Friday, September 4th, 2015RECOMMENDED
The American musical theater classic Guys And Dolls gets a mostly quite good in-the-round revival at Glendale Centre Theatre highlighted by a pair of scene-stealing Dolls—Heather Lundstedt as Sarah Brown and Ann Myers as the one-and-only Miss Adelaide.
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SOMEONE WHO’LL WATCH OVER ME
Thursday, August 27th, 2015RECOMMENDED
Frank MacGuinness may have written Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me back in the early 1990s, but the Irish playwright’s seriocomedic look at three Westerners held hostage somewhere in the Middle East remains, nearly a quarter century later, as timely as today’s headlines, as San Pedro’s Little Fish Theatre imaginatively directed revival makes clear.
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PATTERNS
Friday, August 14th, 2015RECOMMENDED
Topnotch lead performances and a “plus ça change” fascination make James Reach’s Patterns, the stage adaptation of a Rod Serling screenplay set in the dog-eat-dog world of 1950s American big business, worth a look-see at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40 despite an overlong running time and a so-so supporting cast.
UP HERE
Thursday, August 13th, 2015RECOMMENDED
The voices inside a neurotic computer whiz’s head take on decidedly human form in the latest from the La Jolla Playhouse, Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez’s tuneful if overly ambitious musical romcom Up Here, a show that earns high points for the Oscar-winning couple’s score (and the talents who bring its World Premiere to life in La Jolla) but could prove too Out There for future mainstream success.
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THE DRAGON PLAY
Friday, August 7th, 2015RECOMMENDED
Interspecies love fuels Jenny Connell Davis’ The Dragon Play, a gorgeously designed Chance Theater production most likely to enchant those willing and able to buy into its boy-meets-dragon, boy-loses-dragon conceit.
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Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
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