STRANGER
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
The rock-based notes of an Ennio Morricone-like melody inform us that, once again, it’s once upon a time in the West. The year is 1847 and the tiny Nevada town of San Lorenzo has been enslaved by a ruthless villain known only as Lagarto. Showdown time has arrived, and the town sheriff orders his teenage daughter Lucinda to get inside. “You do it for Mama,” Lucy cries out. “You kill him for her!” The sheriff looks the evil Lagarto in the eye and informs him, “This is your last chance. Take your men and be on your way.” “You look like a simple man,” responds Lagarto, “so I’ll keep it simple. No.” And with that, he shoots the sheriff, then his deputy. Pulling out an enormous knife, he grabs Lucy and tells her, “I like you. I think I’m going to keep you.” Lagarto then proceeds to slit the sheriff’s throat with the knife until his blood is splattered everywhere.
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VIOLET
Monday, June 15th, 2009
For about a thousand Los Angeles musical theater aficionados, June 15, 2009 will be remembered as the evening Shannon Warne played Violet. As a young woman whose emotional scars run as deep as the facial scar she longs for a miracle to erase, Warne gave one of the most dazzling performances by a lead actress in a musical I have seen in the past several years. That this performance was achieved in a “concert staged reading” allowed a mere twenty-five hours rehearsal time by Actors’ Equity, and that the entire undertaking was every bit as memorable as its leading lady is nothing short of amazing. How lucky to have been at the Alex on June 15!
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SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK LIVE TOO
Sunday, June 14th, 2009
For the many who saw and loved Schoolhouse Rock Live! when it played the Greenway Court Theatre a year and a half ago, there’s some great news. Schoolhouse Rock Live! Too has arrived, with 20 more classic Schoolhouse Rock songs/lessons performed live by a stellar cast of triple threat talents and a rocking live band.
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LES MISÉRABLES
Saturday, June 13th, 2009
When a musical runs over thirteen years on Broadway, it’s a long, long wait until regional theaters get a crack at it. Les Misérables lasted from 1987 to 2003 (6691 performances) and again from 2006 to 2008 (another 480 performances), and during those two decades, the show was never playing in more than two American cities at any one time. There was the Broadway production and there was the National Tour, and both of them featured Trevor Nunn and John Caird’s original direction, as well as the original design team’s sets, costumes, and lighting. Though casts changed, and changed, and changed again, it was still the same basic Les Miz, and no more than a few thousand theatergoers could ever see it on any given day (except of course for two-performance days).
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THE APPLE TREE
Friday, June 12th, 2009
Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s The Apple Tree, one of Broadway’s forgotten gems of the mid-60s, gets a small stage revival worth remembering in this charming, funny, tuneful, and sparklingly performed production by North Hollywood’s Crown City Theatre Company.
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FELLOWSHIP! A MUSICAL PARODY OF “THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING”
Thursday, June 11th, 2009
Fellowship! is back in town, and it’s not just Lord Of The Rings fans who have reason to celebrate.
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THE SOMETHING-NOTHING
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
Fielding Edlow’s The Something-Nothing is a hilarious, biting, highly original look at a 20something love triangle in pre-9/11 New York City.
RING OF FIRE
Saturday, June 6th, 2009
Johnny Cash fans will be in country music heaven through June 21 as La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts and McCoy Rigby Entertainment present Ring Of Fire: The Music Of Johnny Cash. Correction: make that music fans, pure and simple. Singer-songwriter-icon Johnny Cash transcended easy classification, blending rock and roll, rockabilly, folk, and gospel, making this production an L.A. musical event of the first order.
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