DADDY


Actor-playwright Dan Via puts an intriguing new spin on the romantic triangle—and the often blurred line between friendship and romance—in the highly provocative Daddy, now getting an impressive West Coast Premiere under the skilled, nuanced direction of Rick Sparks.
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greedy


Some of Hollywood’s busiest and best TV/film actors return to their stage roots in the West Coast Premiere of greedy, Karl Gajdusek’s dryly amusing though frustratingly cryptic dark mystery suspense comedy given about as fine a West Coast Premiere as can be imagined by the talented bunch who call themselves Red Dog Squadron.
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LOVE, SEX, AND THE I.R.S.


Imagine you’re a 20something male living with your longtime best buddy and the tax season is drawing near. As you scan down the seemingly endless list of federal tax rules and regulations, you come to the realization that you’re paying loads more taxes simply because your roommate isn’t a woman and your wife. Then it dawns on you. Since your best friend is lucky enough to have one of those unisex names (like Ashley, Kelly, Tracy, Robin, or in this case Leslie), you suddenly realize how easy it would be simply to check F instead of M on Leslie’s tax return, and married instead of single on both of your returns. Voila, you’re saving a ton of money that Uncle Sam would otherwise pocket and do who knows what with.
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BULLSHOT CRUMMOND & THE INVISIBLE BRIDE OF DEATH


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


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


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


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


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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