MORNING’S AT SEVEN
Saturday, April 14th, 2012
“Morning’s at seven. The hill-side’s dew-pearled. The lark’s on the wing. The snail’s on the thorn. God’s in His heaven. All’s right with the world!”
–Robert Browning
All does indeed seem right with the world, at least at first glance, in Paul Osborn’s 1939 classic Morning’s At Seven, now being revived at the venerable Sierra Madre Playhouse. Sisters Cora and Ida have each been married for decades to men they adore, and have lived in side-by-side houses somewhere in the American Midwest for the past forty years or so. Married eldest sister Esther lives only a block and a half away, while spinster Arry resides with Cora and Cora’s husband Thor. Aside from Thor’s hypochondriacal complaints, which his wife has long gotten used to, the Gibbs sisters would seem to be, if not the happiest siblings ever, then at least far from the unhappiest.
(read more)
HAIRSPRAY
Friday, March 30th, 2012
Inland Valley Repertory Theatre opens its 2012 season with a crowd-pleasing production of the 2003 multiple Tony award-winning Hairspray.
(read more)
A CHORUS LINE
Monday, March 12th, 2012
The first musical to explore the intimate stories of Broadway’s “gypsies,” 1975’s A Chorus Line forever changed the face of musical theater by revealing the hopes, fears, challenges, and dreams of a dozen and a half young dancers in dialog and song, in addition to dealing with issues of race and sexuality alongside big, flashy production numbers choreographed by the legendary Michael Bennett.
(read more)
TWENTIETH CENTURY
Monday, February 6th, 2012
Screwball comedy is in expert hands as the Sierra Madre Playhouse revives Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s Twentieth Century, tweaked by Ken Ludwig to give the 1930s piece a 21st Century sensibility while maintaining all the classic elements of screwball.
(read more)
THE LAST FIVE YEARS
Saturday, September 17th, 2011
One of the most exciting things about live theater is being able to see favorite plays and musicals revived with new actors tackling iconic roles, new directors putting their stamp on familiar material, and new design teams giving old shows new looks.
(read more)
GOOD NEWS
Sunday, September 11th, 2011RECOMMENDED
For the past ninety years, Whittier Community Theatre has been offering amateur thespians the opportunity to trod the boards while still maintaining their day jobs—to the delight of these eager and often very talented performers and of the audiences who get to see friends and family showing off their triple threats.
(read more)
CHICAGO
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011
When a Broadway musical settles in for a long run on the Great White Way, it’s a pretty sure bet that your local big city CLO won’t be producing its own regional production for a good long while. That’s why you’re unlikely to see Musical Theatre West or Civic Light Opera Of South Bay Cities presenting Mamma Mia, Jersey Boys, The Lion King, Phantom Of The Opera, or Wicked anytime soon. That’s also why Inland Valley Repertory Theatre’s production of Chicago is big news indeed.
(read more)
ARCADIA
Saturday, June 19th, 2010RECOMMENDED
The venerable Sierra Madre Playhouse challenges its subscribers and theatergoing regulars with something quite different in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, an intellectual comedy whose characters discuss physics, thermodynamics, computer algorithms, fractals, population dynamics, and chaos theory—as well as others of a slightly less scientific bent.
(read more)