DAVID BURNHAM CABARET
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
From Fontana farm boy to CLO favorite to Broadway star. That’s the journey David Burnham has been on since his growing-up years spent halfway between San Bernardino and Rancho Cucamonga, and quite a journey it has been. A little less than six years ago, Burnham was starring down in Long Beach in Musical Theatre West’s production of Hot Mikado, following appearances in MTW’s La Cage Aux Folles and Children Of Eden. He then strutted his dramatic stuff in The Woman In Black at NoHo’s The Road Theatre, one of a long list of pre-Broadway credits. The Great White Way came calling in 2005 when Burnham appeared in the original cast of the multiple-Tony-winning The Light In The Piazza, and when the National Tour played the Ahmanson with Burnham as Fabrizio, it was a fanfare-worthy homecoming for the local boy turned Broadway star. Then came Burnham’s year as Fiyero in the Broadway production of Wicked, all of the above adding up to more than enough reason for Fontana’s favorite son to headline his very own cabaret show at L.A.’s Upright Cabaret.
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LITTLE WOMEN THE BROADWAY MUSICAL
Saturday, November 21st, 2009
Little Women The Broadway Musical has been a favorite of mine since I first heard its tuneful score (music by Jason Howland and lyrics by Mindi Dickstein) and later saw a performance of the National Tour. Book writer Allan Knee somehow managed to compact Alcott’s 400-plus-word novel into a two-and-a-half hour musical which retains the book’s most memorable moments (Jo’s stealing a Christmas tree from the neighboring Laurence family’s property, jealous Amy burning Jo’s manuscript, Jo’s shame at finding a scorch mark on her gown the night of the big party, etc.) while adding songs which run the gamut from Jo’s feisty “Better” to the bouncy “I’d Be Delighted,” to the rousing Act 1 closer “Astonishing.”
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HAMLET, SHUT UP
Friday, November 20th, 2009
For everyone who’s ever said, “Wouldn’t it be great if Shakespeare didn’t have all that Elizabethan English and iambic pentameter?”, Sacred Fools has concocted the perfect solution. Hamlet Shut Up is the world famous action/ghost/lust/revenge/murder-packed tale of the Prince Of Denmark unsullied by the spoken word—and what a brilliantly conceived and executed concoction it is!
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THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD III
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
No L.A.-area theater company does Shakespeare better than Glendale’s A Noise Within. Fans of the Bard need only check out their latest production, The Tragedy Of King Richard III, for proof positive that ANW is indeed “California’s Home For The Classics.” From its stellar cast of classically trained pros to its masterful direction by Geoff Elliott to its absolutely stunning design, this is a Richard III that’s beautifully acted, brilliantly conceived, and as exciting as any classic Hollywood adventure epic.
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SPRING AWAKENING
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
The arrival of Spring Awakening at the Orange County Performing Arts Center is welcome news indeed for anyone who missed the Tony-winning smash in its initial Los Angeles run a year ago. It’s equally exciting news for Spring Awakening fans like myself who simply couldn’t get enough of the Steven Sater/Duncan Sheik musical adaptation of Frank Wedenkind’s groundbreaking 1891 drama the first time around.
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THE VALUE OF NAMES
Monday, November 16th, 2009
Academy Award buffs will recall a dramatic moment in the 1999 Oscar ceremony when 89-year-old Elia Kazan, two-time Best Director winner (for Gentleman’s Agreement and On The Waterfront), was awarded a special lifetime achievement Oscar. Though Warren Beatty, Kathy Bates, Karl Malden, Meryl Streep and Helen Hunt were among those who gave Kazan a standing ovation, others like Nick Nolte and Ed Harris remained seated, not joining in the applause. Nolte, Harris, and those who shared their disapproval of the Academy for honoring Kazan remained unforgiving of the octogenarian director for having named names at the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952. Even forty-seven years later, Kazan’s decision to aid and abet the blacklisting of some two hundred artists for alleged Communist connections was one that could not be forgotten.
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THE HOUSE OF BESARAB
Sunday, November 15th, 2009
Fans of those 1960s Hammer Films horror classics like Dracula: Prince Of Darkness, Dracula Has Risen From The Grave, and Taste The Blood Of Dracula, all starring Christopher Lee as the blood-sucking Count, will be in Hammer Horror Heaven at The House Of Besarab, now playing at the historic Hollywood American Legion Post 43. Though Terance Duddy and Theodore Ott’s adaptation of the classic Bram Stoker tale does not set out to be Shakespeare, then again, neither did those Hammer screenplays by Jimmy Sangster and John Elder. What lifted the Technicolor/Techniscope extravaganzas out of the ordinary were their stellar casts (Christopher Lee later became SirChristopher Lee, thank you very much) and their lush settings.
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GRACE KIM & THE SPIDERS FROM MARS
Saturday, November 14th, 2009
Lodestone Theatre Ensemble, L.A.’s decade-old Asian-American 99-seat theater company, is ending its tenth (and sadly final) season with Philip W. Chung’s romantic comedy Grace Kim & The Spiders From Mars. With charismatic lead performances by Elizabeth Ho as its Korean-American title character and Hanson Tse as the man who might just be able to rescue Grace from ten years of sadness, this World Premiere production is likely to please romcom fans regardless of ethnicity or country of origin. Though its more run-of-the-mill sitcom moments could benefit from a tweaking or two, as could a few over-the-top scenes, Chung’s play is filled with characters to care about, some inspired musical numbers, and a love story that grips from the moment Grace and Wayne first meet. If only the man of Grace’s dreams weren’t her sister’s fiancé.
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