THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO
Friday, February 25th, 2011
The Adventures Of Pinocchio and Deaf West Theatre prove a match made in Family Theater Heaven in the company’s 20th Anniversary Season production of the classic children’s tale.
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URNED HAPPINESS
Sunday, January 2nd, 2011RECOMMENDED
“Cheery, upbeat, even festive” are hardly the words one would normally use to describe a funeral, but then again the recently deceased “Mother Hapshaw” was probably the last person to inspire tears and lamentations. In fact, “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” could easily be the theme song of Ernest Kearney’s black comedy Urned Happiness, now playing at North Hollywood’s T.U. Studios.
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BULLSHOT CRUMMOND & THE INVISIBLE BRIDE OF DEATH
Sunday, January 2nd, 2011
It’s been nearly four decades since British master police detective wannabe Hugh “Bullshot” Crummond made his stage debut, doing his darnedest to outwit fiendish German villain Otto Von Bruno and his seductive “niece” Lenya to the delight of audiences in England and the United States. Co-creator Ron House now brings back Bullshot, the Von Brunos, Bullshot’s blushing bride Rosemary, and a host of other outlandish 1930s characters in Bullshot Crummond & The Invisible Bride Of Death, getting its world premiere production at North Hollywood’s Whitmore-Lindley Theatre. The result is as hilarious and inventive a show as you’re likely to see this or any other holiday/New Year’s season.
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ROCK WITH YOU – The King Of Pop Latin Style
Sunday, December 26th, 2010RECOMMENDED
The songs of Michael Jackson are performed to a Latin beat in ROCK WITH YOU – The King Of Pop Latin Style, a short but entertaining musical revue now on the main stage of North Hollywood’s historic El Portal Theatre.
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CINDERELLA
Sunday, November 28th, 2010
Now here’s something you don’t see every day in North Hollywood—the Cinderella story as a “modern musical extravaganza” starring Harry Potter heartthrob Freddie Stroma of the UK, TVLand’s very own (Leave It To) Beaver (the now 62-year-old Jerry Mathers), a teenage discovery named Veronica Dunne (who snagged the title role in a talent competition at a local Westfield Shopping Mall), Broadway belter Jennifer Leigh Warren, British comedian Benny Harris as Buttons (Buttons?), the very male duo of Eddie Driscoll and Mark Edgar Stephens as Cinderella’s ugly sisters Cowel and Seecrest (Cowel and Seecrest?), and “guest starring” a miniature horse named Little Man in the role of Blitzen—all of this choreographed by Mark Ballas of TV’s Dancing With The Stars.
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A CHICAGO CHRISTMAS CAROL
Friday, November 19th, 2010
What do you get when you combine Charles Dickens’ classic tale of Christmastime redemption (you know the one) with The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s exposé of meat packing conditions in early 20th Century Chicago, then add a musical score with much of the stark dissonance of Kurt Weill’s collaborations with Bertolt Brecht?
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THE AUTUMN GARDEN
Friday, October 29th, 2010
It’s September of 1949 and summer is drawing to an end at the Tuckerman home-turned-guesthouse on the Gulf of Mexico, about a hundred miles from New Orleans. Proprietress Constance Tuckerman, her house filled with the usual mix of longtime summer guests, is about to welcome Nicholas Denry, the man who broke her heart twenty-three years earlier, into their midst, thereby setting the scene for the Chekhovian weekend Lillian Hellman brings to life in 1951’s The Autumn Garden.
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THE BUTCHER OF BARABOO
Friday, October 8th, 2010
The Coen Brothers meet Beth Henley in Marisa Wegrzyn’s The Butcher Of Baraboo, a quirky bit of Fargo crossed with Crimes Of The Heart, now getting its Los Angeles premiere at North Hollywood’s The Road Theater Company.
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