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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A CHRISTMAS TWIST
Monday, December 27th, 2010
What Blazing Saddles did to the western, what Young Frankenstein did to the
horror movie, what High Anxiety did to Alfred Hitchcock’s oeuvre, this is what A
Christmas Twist does to Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol … and the result is the
funniest Christmas show of this year’s holiday season.
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BROADWAY HOLIDAY
Friday, December 17th, 2010
From the opening bars of The Four Seasons’ “Oh What A Night,” it’s clear that the Geffen Playhouse’s December offering isn’t going to be your traditional Christmas revue. In fact, Broadway Holiday splits its songs almost equally between the two words of its title, its cast of five Great White Way vets serenading their Westwood audience with a baker’s dozen of Broadway’s Greatest Hits and about as many holiday favorites.
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AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS
Thursday, December 16th, 2010
No child growing up in the 1950s or 1960s’ could consider his or her Christmas complete without an annual viewing of Gian Carlo Monotti’s Amahl And The Night Visitors, the first opera specifically composed for American television. This fifteen year tradition ended in 1966, when the rights to a 1963 taping reverted to Menotti, who refused to allow this version (one which he disapproved of) ever to be shown again, thereby depriving later generations of one of the most extraordinary of holiday memories. An imperfect VHS-to-DVD transfer of a 1955 black-and-white kinescope is currently the only in-print version available to parents wanting to share the Amahl experience with their children, or boomers wishing to relive childhood memories.
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PLAID TIDINGS
Wednesday, December 15th, 2010
The 1950s foursome (and eponymous 1990 musical) known as Forever Plaid, who’ve been entertaining audiences with their close-harmony vocals and amusing between-song patter for the past two decades, now make a Christmas season return to earth at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre in a holiday spin-off cleverly titled Plaid Tidings.
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THE FIRST JO-EL
Wednesday, December 15th, 2010
Here’s a bit of Biblical trivia for you. According to the Gospel According To The Troubies, there were not one but two pregnant women at the Bethlehem Inn on December 25th of the year 0. Joseph and Mary were there, of course, but unbeknownst until now, an unmarried couple named Manolo and Letty were about to give birth as well—or at least so we’re told in this year’s Troubadour Theatre Company holiday show, The First Jo-el.
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THE EIGHT: REINDEER MONOLOGUES
Monday, December 13th, 2010
Jeff Goode’s The Eight: Reindeer Monologues has been entertaining Orange County audiences at the Chance Theater for the past seven Decembers. In my review of last year’s production, I called it “the funniest (and filthiest) Christmas show in town.” As for its plot, “one by one, Santa’s eight reindeer weigh in on the sex scandal that’s been rocking the North Pole. Is it true that Jolly Old St. Nick (aka ‘that fat fuck’) sexually molested Reindeer Number 8 (aka Vixen), or is the sexiest of The Eight merely looking for her fifteen minutes of fame?”
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CELEBRATE ME HOME 2
Sunday, December 12th, 2010
The second Sunday of the month turned out once again to be an evening to remember when Aaron Jacobs’ Spotlight Cabaret presented its second annual Christmas cabaret—Celebrate Me Home Deux—at downtown L.A.’s Café Metropol.
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