SHAHEED: THE DREAM AND DEATH OF BENAZIR BHUTTO
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
Say the name Benazir Bhutto to a cross-section of Pakistanis and you’ll probably get as many different points of view as those expressed by the characters who people Anna Khaja’s Shaheed: The Dream And Death Of Benazir Bhutto.
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STREEP TEASE
Monday, June 21st, 2010
Meryl. Meryl. Meryl.
Is there any need to add a last name? Can there be a movie fan alive today who doesn’t know straight away that the Meryl in question is the most Oscar-nominated actress (or actor) in Academy Award history? (That’s 16 nominations in case you’ve forgotten.)
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SUPERNOVA
Friday, June 4th, 2010
Mabel Davies is trying to make the most of her Midwest hell of a life in Timothy McNeil’s World Premiere drama Supernova—but it sure as hell isn’t easy. Her inattentive, loutish husband John spends his days plunked down in front of the tube before heading off to his graveyard-shift factory job, leaving Mabel alone at home to fend for herself. Son Kip used to be the apple of both his parents’ eyes, but as his eighteenth birthday approaches, the surly youth wastes his days and nights drinking, getting high, and spouting right wing militia catchphrases. (He’s also carrying on a secret sexual affair with the Davies’ recently separated next door neighbor Fran, twice his age.) No wonder Mabel finds solace in her nightly phone calls with Joe, a lonely watch salesman in far away California.
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ROAD TO SAIGON
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
Three Filipina divas take center stage in the musical memoir Road To Saigon, now in its world premiere engagement at East West Players.
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MATT AND BEN
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010
No one except the co-authors themselves knew the true story behind Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Academy Award-winning screenplay for Good Will Hunting until well over five years after Oscar night 1998—not until August 21, 2002, that is, when Mindy Kaling and Brenda Wither’s Matt & Ben opened at the New York International Fringe Festival.
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INTO THE WOODS
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010
Anyone interested in getting a preview of tomorrow’s musical theater stars today could do no better than to check out the USC School Of Theatre’s current production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into The Woods, performed CLO-scale and directed by Emmy, Tony, Drama Desk, Ovation and LADCC Award-winning John Rubinstein (Broadway’s original Pippin). Like last year’s sensational Brigadoon, also directed by Rubinstein, Into The Woods is a terrifically performed treat, and one that does justice to its brilliant source material.
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ABOVE THE LINE
Saturday, March 20th, 2010
a•bove-the-line: (ə-bŭv’-THə-līn’) adj. the part of a film’s budget that covers the costs associated with major creative talent: the stars, the director, the producer(s) and the writer(s)
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SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM
Sunday, March 14th, 2010
Yes, Virginia, there was a Stephen Sondheim before Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday In The Park with George, Into The Woods, Assassins, Dick Tracy, and Passion—as the 1976 musical revue Side By Side By Sondheim makes perfectly clear.
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