BYE BYE BIRDIE

Audiences out Claremont way have ample reason to “Put On A Happy Face” this month and next as Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre revives the rock-n-rollin’ 1960 Broadway favorite Bye Bye Birdie, Michael Stewart’s delightful Elvis-inspired book and Charles Strouse and Lee Adams’ oh-so-memorable songs making for a crowd-pleasing evening of Golden Era musical theater.
(read more)

THE GONDOLIERS

NOT RECOMMENDED

Gorgeous voices fill the stage at the Sierra Madre Playhouse but that’s about all there is to recommend in Alison Eliel-Kalmus’s adaptation of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers. Though G&S fans may find the production more interest-piquing than this reviewer did, SMP’s follow-up to 2012’s Ruddigore could benefit from a tighter directorial hand, less “director’s concept,” and a stricter adherence to the operetta’s original book.
(read more)

THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE

Misfit kids once again rule as Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre presents The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, one of the past decade’s crowd-pleasingest musicals, and whether it’s your first time at The Bee, or your eleventh (as it was for this reviewer), you’ll be smiling—and cheering on the competitors—from start to finish.
(read more)

GYPSY

Inland Valley Repertory Theatre continues its 2014 season midweek at Claremont’s Candlelight Pavilion with an audience-pleasing revival of one of the greatest musicals in Broadway history, Gypsy.
(read more)

CRAZY FOR YOU

The songs are all Gershwin, the dancing is virtually non-stop, and the entertainment value is sky-high in the Tony-winning Best Musical of 1992 Crazy For You, which Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre is now reviving to justified audience cheers.
(read more)

ARSENIC AND OLD LACE


Playwright Joseph Kesselring may have written only one enduring hit in his lifetime, but endure Arsenic And Old Lace most certainly has, its latest revival by Inland Valley Repertory Theatre providing 2014 audiences with as many laughs as must have greeted the black comedy’s Broadway debut back in 1941.
(read more)

MY FAIR LADY


Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre celebrates its 200th production with a crowd-pleasing revival of the musical that started it all for the Claremont gem nearly thirty years ago, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe’s 1956 classic My Fair Lady.
(read more)

AN IDEAL HUSBAND


Classical theater fans impatient for the start of A Noise Within’s Spring 2014 season need head a mere five minutes east of ANW’s Pasadena digs to catch Sierra Madre Playhouse’s 2014 opener, an impeccably staged and acted revival of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband.
(read more)

« Older Entries Newer Entries » « Older Entries Newer Entries »