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Musical Theatre Guild has had a splendid track record with obscure Sondheim: they made their bones as a substantial company with the first local presentation of Passion in 1999, and later did a crackerjack job with his resuscitated first (unproduced) Broadway show, 1955’s Saturday Night. Director Richard Israel, with no time at all to solve the material’s intractable difficulties, ploughed headlong into inventive staging stratagems that rely almost entirely on the persuasive musical abilities of his cast and orchestra. --BY MYRON MEISEL

I left Philadelphia for Los Angeles more than 20 years ago to become a working actor. I had spent my last six years in Philadelphia on staff at People’s Light & Theatre, a LORT-D regional theatre in Malvern, and I used to know the theatre community back there. Talking with a Philadelphia-based candidate who recently ran for a seat on AEA’s council made me realize how long I’d been away. I was trying to explain to him why I was so opposed to AEA’s efforts to end the 99-Seat Plan out here in Los Angeles. It quickly became clear that I didn’t understand Philadelphia anymore, but also that he didn’t know L.A., either. --BY WENDY WORTHINGTON