THE DIGNITY CIRCLE

posted on March 4th, 2026 at 10:56 AM by Steven Stanley


If someone offered you the chance to get rich quick and improve your self-esteem in the bargain, would you take it? That’s the question posed by playwright Lauren Smerkanich in The Dignity Circle, the provocative, entertaining latest from Theatre of NOTE.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Now Playing, Theater Review, WOW!

HONOUR

posted on March 3rd, 2026 at 9:48 AM by Steven Stanley

A husband’s midlife crisis gives Marcia Cross and Matt Letscher the chance to show off their considerable acting chops, but Joanna Murray-Smith’s Honour, the first production to be staged in Ruskin Group Theatre’s gorgeous new home, proves a rather chilly affair given the play’s potentially fiery subject matter.
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posted in Drama, Now Playing, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls

ALL MY SONS

posted on March 2nd, 2026 at 6:19 PM by Steven Stanley


An absolutely sensational Antaeus Theatre Company cast under the inspired direction of Oanh Nguyen make it abundantly clear why many like this reviewer consider Arthur Miller’s All My Sons (and not his more celebrated and revived Death Of A Salesman) his masterwork.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Drama, Now Playing, Theater Review, WOW!

WAITING IN THE WINGS

posted on February 28th, 2026 at 3:04 PM by Steven Stanley


The grandes dames of Whittier Community Theatre take center stage in Waiting In The Wings, Noël Coward’s charming salute to actresses of a certain age who’ve still got it in them to entertain an audience.

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posted in Comedy, Now Playing, Theater Review, WOW!

RICHARD III

posted on February 27th, 2026 at 4:35 PM by Steven Stanley

Ann Noble delivers a tour-de-force performance in the title role, but I found Guillermo Cienfuegos’s edgy, contemporary, stunningly staged take on William Shakespeare’s Richard III hard to follow (and most of its characters hard to distinguish one from another). Then again, that just might be me and my conflicted feelings about the Bard, particularly when he is in history play mode.
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posted in Classic Play, Now Playing, Pasadena, Theater Review

RED HARLEM

posted on February 24th, 2026 at 12:58 PM by Steven Stanley

An intriguing truth-is-stranger-than-fiction premise (Stalin-era Soviets’ recruitment of African-American performers for a movie expose on racism in the U.S. to be shot in the USSR) and some inventively stylized staging by director Bernadette Speakes are two major pluses in Kimba Henderson’s Red Harlem. What it needs to achieve full impact is a trim.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, Now Playing, Theater Review, World Premiere

UNCLE VANYA

posted on February 22nd, 2026 at 9:00 PM by Steven Stanley


Neil LaBute gives Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya a more contemporary-sounding tweak in the Tony nominated playwright’s third visit to Santa Monica’s City Garage Theatre, and the result is a Vanya that even Chekhov “non-fans” like this reviewer can enjoy.
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posted in Classic Play, Now Playing, Theater Review, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

I LOVE YOU, YOU’RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE

posted on February 21st, 2026 at 11:47 AM by Steven Stanley


Joe Di Pietro and Jimmy Roberts’ three-decades-old—but still delightfully relevant—smash off-Broadway musical I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change now gets a smashing 30th-anniversary revival at Long Beach’s International City Theatre
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posted in Long Beach/San Pedro, Musical, Now Playing, Theater Review, WOW!

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