LITTLE ME
Monday, April 18th, 2011
Take music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Carolyn Leigh, and a book by Neil Simon and what do you get?
You get Little Me, a 1962 Broadway gem that starred Sid Caesar in a septet of roles, scored ten Tony nominations (winning one for Bob Fosse’s choreography), closed way too soon due mostly to a newspaper strike, then toured the country with most of its original cast, its L.A. run one of the earliest musicals seen by a certain Steven Stanley just a year into his teens.
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THE ECCENTRICITIES OF A NIGHTINGALE
Sunday, April 17th, 2011
“The thing for you to give up is your affectations, your little put-on mannerisms that make you seem, well, slightly peculiar to people. You express yourself in fantastic high-flown phrases. Your hands fly about you like a pair of wild birds! You get out of breath, you stammer, you laugh hysterically and clutch at your throat.”
–Reverend Winemiller, The Eccentricities Of A Nightingale
It can’t have been easy for Tennessee Williams growing up gay in the South in the early 20th Century, and the above-quoted advice could easily have been given to him by a well-meaning father unaware of the hurt his words could inflict. In fact, words like these are probably still being heard, even in 2011, by gay youths whose outcast status leaves them very little faith that it will ever (in the words of a spate of recent YouTube videos) “get better.”
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UPRIGHT CABARET LA MIRADA
Sunday, April 17th, 2011
Chris Isaacson and his Upright Cabaret are back for their second season of New York-style cabaret at the La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts, and if I Want To Hold Your Hand, the recent Beatles tribute is any indication, pop music aficionados are in for some great evenings of entertainment at future shows.
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LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
Saturday, April 16th, 2011
Audrey II, the “strange and interesting plant” that made his/her/its? first appearance way back in 1960 in Roger Corman’s Z-movie classic, is back once again, this time at the La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts, with human flesh on his/her/its? cannibalistic mind—and you all know what that means. “They may offer you lots of cheap thrills, fancy condos in Beverly Hills, but whatever they offer you, don’t feed the plants!”
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THE TEMPERAMENTALS
Friday, April 15th, 2011
Wikipedia calls the 1969 Stonewall riots “the first instance in American history when people in the homosexual community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities” and “the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.”
Sorry Wikipedia, but you’ve got it wrong. The movement for gay rights actually began about two decades earlier right here in Los Angeles, the brainchild of a man named Harry Hay, and Jon Marans’ The Temperamentals sets the record straight (or gay, if you wish).
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SONDHEIM UNSCRIPTED
Thursday, April 14th, 2011
They’ve improvised William Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, Jane Austen, and Film Noir to side-splitting success. Now, the comic geniuses that call themselves ImproTheatre strut their musical comedy stuff in Sondheim UnScripted, running in rep with their Will and Williams shows at the Odyssey Theatre.
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THE SONNETEER
Monday, April 11th, 2011
Nick Salamone’s exquisite The Sonneteer has the look and feel of a theatrical classic, yet it is one that could only have been written by a contemporary playwright.
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ALL IN THE TIMING
Sunday, April 10th, 2011
Trust me. David Ives’ All In The Timing is unlike any program of one-acts you’ve ever seen. Imagine a series of sketches on Saturday Night Live, but with their intelligence level upped to the nth power. Ives’ six comic concoctions are smart plays indeed, each one with its own particular (and peculiar) “high concept.” As performed by a stellar troupe of eight at Crown City Theatre, the sextet of playlets make for one quirky, entertaining evening of theater at its most unique.
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