A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED
Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
Miss Jane Marple, the elderly spinster/amateur sleuth created by Agatha Christie in 1930, starred in a dozen novels up through the early 1970s (never aging a day), but only twice did she appear live on stage, thereby making it a special treat for whodunit fans that Glendale Centre Theatre has revived Leslie Darbon’s stage adaptation of A Murder Is Announced with all-around terrific results.
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MAKING PARADISE: THE WEST HOLLYWOOD MUSICAL
Sunday, October 24th, 2010
Cornerstone Theatre Company and the city of West Hollywood celebrate their mutual Silver Anniversaries with the World Premiere of Making Paradise: The West Hollywood Musical. Featuring a cast of thirty-one, some of whom have never acted before, let alone sung and danced on a theater stage, Making Paradise tells the story of the founding of WeHo through exactly the kind of people who make up its population—a gay, lesbian, straight, and transgender, rainbow colored, multiracial, multiethnic mix of 20somethings, middle-agers, and octogenarians. Some of the voices are only so-so and some cast members appear to be working hard on remembering which dance step follows which—and it matters not a whit. Making Paradise: The West Hollywood Musical succeeds not just because of its strengths but also because of (what in a more traditional production would be considered) its weaknesses. It’s a thrilling, dramatic, informative, entertaining, suspenseful, and ultimately quite moving piece of theater.
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BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE
Saturday, October 23rd, 2010
A decade and a half before Samantha “Bewitched” Darren Stephens, a gorgeous young sorceress named Gillian cast a spell over New York publisher Shep Henderson in John Van Druten’s 1950 Broadway comedy Bell, Book, And Candle, best known for its 1959 film adaptation starring James Stewart and Kim Novak. Though the original stage version made it into John Gassner’s Best American Plays series as one of 1945-1951’s seventeen best (alongside Death Of A Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Mister Roberts), Bell, Book, And Candle has pretty much disappeared from theatrical view, at least in major professional productions. That’s why its arrival at Burbank’s Colony Theater qualifies as rather an event, even more so because unlike many mid-century plays, Van Druten’s romcom holds up very well indeed, scarcely seeming sixty years of age.
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GOD’S FAVORITE
Saturday, October 23rd, 2010
A messenger from God arrives at the Long Island mansion of multimillionaire business tycoon Joe Benjamin and informs him, “If you cherish your children and wife, the house that shelters you, the clothes that warm you and the flesh that covers you, if pain, calamity and disaster do not in any manner whatsoever appeal to you, then renounce your God!” Joe refuses, and is soon afflicted by a series of calamities that would test the patience of Job. Does this sound like a Neil Simon comedy to you?
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HAPPY DAYS
Friday, October 22nd, 2010
Happy Days (and nights) have arrived at the Thousand Oaks Performing Arts Center as Cabrillo Music Theatre presents Happy Days, the popular new(ish) musical based on Garry Marshall’s TV favorite.
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DIVING NORMAL
Wednesday, October 20th, 2010
The lives of three 20something New Yorkers intersect in Diving Normal, Ashlin Halfnight’s smart, funny, engrossing comedy-drama now getting its West Coast Premiere at the SFS Theatre under Neil H. Weiss’s astute direction.
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THE ACCIDENTAL BLONDE
Sunday, October 17th, 2010
She’s done Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, and Wrath. Now playwright Leslye Headland turns her deliciously acerbic pen to Envy in The Accidental Blonde, the sixth and latest of her Seven Deadly Plays, a dark comedy that’s one of her best and easily the most unique.
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I LOVED LUCY
Saturday, October 16th, 2010
There’s hardly an American of TV viewing age who hasn’t seen at least one episode of I Love Lucy, but only a comparative few can claim to have known its iconic star Lucille Ball, and of those, even fewer knew her as well as Lee Tannen, author of the affectionate memoir I Loved Lucy. Tannen’s popular book now makes a smooth and satisfying transition from the printed page to the legitimate stage in his play of the same name, currently in its World Premiere production at the Laguna Playhouse.
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