INTO THE WOODS
Thursday, November 4th, 2010
If you love Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods even half as much as I do, you must see Lucid By Proxy’s remarkable new revival, brilliantly directed by Calvin Remsberg in the most unique Into The Woods setting ever.
Since its Broadway premiere 23 years ago, Into The Woods has become one of the most performed musicals in the U.S.—in regional CLOs, on college and high school campuses, and in intimate theaters. Its first act, which magically combines some of the best loved of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and its second, which explores with considerable depth what happens after “happily ever after,” make for a show which retains its freshness and originality two decades after it first captivated Broadway audiences.
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MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010
Diehard Gone With The Wind fans may well have seen the 1939 classic 1939 times, but few may be aware of the five days movie mogul David O. Selznick shut himself, director Victor Fleming, and script doctor Ben Hecht inside his office, the three men subsisting entirely on a diet of bananas and peanuts, as Hecht rewrote the entire script of Gone With The Wind, a book he’d never read. Or at least that’s how Hollywood scuttlebutt would have it.
Playwright Ron Hutchinson imagines what might have transpired behind those closed doors in his hit comedy Moonlight And Magnolias, now making its Hermosa Beach Playhouse debut in a delightfully fresh new production. Once again HBP Artistic Director Stephanie A. Coltrin proves herself one of the most reliable directors in town, eliciting splendid performances from Patrick Vest (Selznick), Cylan Brown (Fleming), Joel Bryant (Hecht), and Nicole Wessel (Selznick’s harried secretary Miss Poppenghul). Moonlight And Magnolias is a show which will entertain and elucidate anyone who’s ever seen GWTW, and that’s just about everyone on the planet, right?
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BECKY SHAW
Sunday, October 31st, 2010
Gina Gionfriddo takes a fresh new look at the repercussions of blind dating, or at least of one particular blind date, in her wickedly funny, often biting, highly original Becky Shaw, now getting a terrific West Coast Premiere at South Coast Repertory.
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ANNIE
Sunday, October 31st, 2010
Broadway’s original Annie is back—thirty-three years after the show’s opening night—in the multiple Tony Award-winning musical’s latest revival, exciting news indeed for those who recall Andrea McCardle’s Tony-nominated star turn in the title role. McCardle has graduated terrifically to the role of Miss Hannigan, originated in 1977 by Dorothy Loudon—who beat the pint-sized thirteen-year old for the Best Leading Actress Tony. How’s that for Broadway trivia…and an L.A. musical theater event!
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ANITA BRYANT DIED FOR YOUR SINS
Saturday, October 30th, 2010
“One of the funniest and most exquisitely written comedy-dramas to come along in a long, long while” is how I described Anita Bryant Died For Your Sins when it had its West Coast Premiere in Los Angeles last year. San Diegans (and Angelinos who want a first or second look at Brian Christopher Williams’ exquisite memory play) would do well to check out its terrific San Diego premiere at Diversionary Theatre under the expert direction of Shana Wride.
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THE AUTUMN GARDEN
Friday, October 29th, 2010
It’s September of 1949 and summer is drawing to an end at the Tuckerman home-turned-guesthouse on the Gulf of Mexico, about a hundred miles from New Orleans. Proprietress Constance Tuckerman, her house filled with the usual mix of longtime summer guests, is about to welcome Nicholas Denry, the man who broke her heart twenty-three years earlier, into their midst, thereby setting the scene for the Chekhovian weekend Lillian Hellman brings to life in 1951’s The Autumn Garden.
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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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