RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDOORS
Saturday, December 8th, 2012
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and for Los Angeles theatergoers that means the latest annual Troubies Christmas show at Burbank’s Falcon Theatre.
Last year’s A Christmas Westside Story mixed the music of West Side Story with the plot of the family film classic A Christmas Story. 2010’s The First Jo-el recounted that starry Bethlehem December with the music of Billy Joel. And 2009’s Frosty The Snow Manilow recreated the stop-motion animated TV classic with the music of Barry M—all of the above with the audacious flair, plethora of adlibs (or apparent adlibs), and sensational triple-threat performances that have become The Troubadour Theater Company’s stock in trade.
This year’s Rudolph The Red-Nosed ReinDOORS is no exception.
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CALL ME MADAM
Tuesday, November 20th, 2012
Here’s a question for Los Angeles area musical theater lovers. Of the two Tony-winning musicals of 1951, Guys And Dolls and Call Me Madam, which one have you seen over and over again and which one have you never seen—or at least not until last night at Glendale’s Alex Theatre?
The answer to the second part of the question is, of course, Irving Berlin’s Call Me Madam, the mostly forgotten winner of three Tonys (for Best Score, Best Actress, and Best Featured Actor), a musical gem/chestnut that hundreds of Angelinos got to experience last night in Concert Staged Reading form, thanks to the oh-so talented triple-threats of L.A.’s Musical Theatre Guild.
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THE MORINI STRAD
Monday, November 19th, 2012NOT RECOMMENDED
As any Colony Theatre regular can tell you, Burbank’s premier regional theater has had crowd-pleasing hit after hit with its series of “odd couple” two-character plays, from Rounding Third to Trying to Educating Rita to Visiting Mr. Green to Grace & Glorie to Shooting Star to Old Wicked Songs. That’s why, as a longtime Colony fan who loved each and every one of this magnificent seven, it pains me to report that their latest two-hander, The Morini Strad, failed to capture or hold my attention despite the best efforts of all concerned.
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EDITH CAN SHOOT THINGS AND HIT THEM
Monday, October 29th, 2012
How times have changed for gay American teens over the past two decades. Kenny Tolentino could scarcely have conceived of Gay Straight Alliances or “It Gets Better” videos or out celebrities like Ricky Martin and Zachary Quinto (Mr. Spock, no less!) when he was sixteen just twenty years ago, a coming of age now chronicled by A. Rey Pamatmat in his absolutely wonderful Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them.
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I OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES
Thursday, October 25th, 2012
There was a time a while back there that every Broadway season seemed to feature a World Premiere Neil Simon hit. 1980’s I Ought To Be In Pictures arrived smack dab in the middle of those prolific years, and though its fame may pale in comparison to better known Simon classics like Barefoot In The Park, The Odd Couple, Lost In Yonkers and the Brighton Beach Trilogy, even minor Simon can provide major entertainment as its current revival at The Falcon Theatre makes quite clear.
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AMERICAN FIESTA
Sunday, September 30th, 2012
When a self-penned solo performance, the kind that Fringe Festival participants seem ever so fond of, proves so popular that actors other than the original writer get hired to perform it, that’s pretty much a guarantee of something special, or at least this is the case with the Colony Theatre’s latest, Steven Tomlinson’s autobiographical American Fiesta.
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TITANIC THE MUSICAL
Wednesday, September 26th, 2012
Few 20th Century events continue to exert the fascination of the 1912 sinking of the Titanic. The mind still boggles at the epic tragedy of a supposedly unsinkable ocean liner on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City striking an iceberg in dead of night. What terror must have been inspired by the sudden realization that death was but an inexorable hour or two away?
2,224 passengers and crew in all—and only enough lifeboats onboard to carry half of them. 1,514 dead. Only 710 survivors, despite there having been space for 500 more.
And the “what ifs.” What if there had been sufficient lifeboats? What if the ship hadn’t been traveling at full speed so as to reach its destination in record time? What if a few critical modifications had been integrated into its design? What if a nearby ship had gotten Titanic’s SOS? What if? What if? What if?
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LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
Friday, August 24th, 2012
Inspired direction, imaginative choreography, splendid performances, and an in-the-round stage make Glendale Centre Theatre’s revival of the cult musical classic Little Shop Of Horrors one of the very best of the many this reviewer has seen over the past decade.
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