KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN
Monday, April 20th, 2009
When the folks at Musical Theatre Guild were planning their 2008-2009 season of rarely performed Broadway musicals, it probably didn’t occur to anyone that their one-night-only revival of Kiss Of The Spider Woman would come only months after L.A.’s first fully staged production of Kiss since Chita Rivera and the National Tour played at the Ahmanson in 1996. Havok’s production (which featured many MTG performers, and which many felt surpassed the Tour in excellence) would indeed be a hard act to follow. There was no way a “concert staged reading” could match Havok’s design elements or the complexity of the many production numbers which recently won Lee Martino the LADCC Award for Best Choreography. MTG’s readings are, after all, presented with minimal sets and lighting, and few if any costume changes, and the entire show is allowed only 25 hours rehearsal time per Actor’s Equity rules. On the other hand, what MTG could and did offer Monday’s audience at Glendale’s Alex Theatre was a whole bunch of superb performances, and a chance to go back to the basics of Terrence McNally’s book, John Kander’s music, and Fred Ebb’s lyrics. The result, I’m happy to say, was an absolute triumph.
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NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY
Sunday, April 19th, 2009
A serial killer is on the loose in New York, strangling elderly women one by one, and leaving a lipstick kiss on the forehead of each of his victims. Hardly the stuff of musical theater, you might think.
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VOICE LESSONS
Sunday, April 19th, 2009
No one writes comedy quite like Justin Tanner; his writing style and comic sensibility are, quite frankly, almost impossible to describe. Wacky? Demented? Bizarre? Over the top? Maybe even brilliant? The answer is all of the above, and never has this been clearer than in the hour of inspired lunacy that is Voice Lessons.
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THE GIRL, THE GROUCH, AND THE GOAT
Saturday, April 18th, 2009
The Chance Theater scores a real coup in presenting the West Coast Premiere and first professional production of the latest musical by Mark Hollmann, the Tony-winning composer/co-lyricist of Urinetown. (I guess this means that it could well be billed as the show’s Professional World Premiere.) The musical is The Girl, The Grouch, And The Goat, and if Urinetown’s Little Sally had issues with the title of her musical, imagine what she’d have to say about this new mouthful of a title. Then again, this is indeed the story of a girl (named Myrrhine), a grouch (named Clemnon), and a goat (who remains nameless).
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MAURITIUS
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
A play about stamps. How boring, you might imagine.
Wrong!
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LITTLE WOMEN
Sunday, April 12th, 2009
There’s scarcely a girl or woman alive who hasn’t at one time read Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Add to that the millions who’ve seen at least one of its filmings, whether 1933’s with Katharine Hepburn as Jo, or 1949’s with June Allyson, or 1994’s with Winona Ryder, and you have a built-in audience for Little Women The Musical. L.A.’s Lyric Theatre scales down the Broadway production to 99-seat theater dimensions (a full orchestra becomes a single piano here), the more intimate setting providing a particularly appropriate fit for Alcott’s family tale. A quartet of talented recent musical theater grads bring the four March sisters to vibrant life, surrounded by an all-around excellent supporting cast to make for an evening of theater sure to enchant not only Little Women’s legion of fans but just about any musical theater aficionado.
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BRIGADOON
Saturday, April 11th, 2009
Anyone wondering where to see great musical theater without having to pay a fortune would do well to check out the USC Theater Department’s upcoming schedule. If the just closed production of Lerner and Lowe’s Brigadoon is any example, USC’s theater kids are some of the best musical theater performers around, and working under famed professionals like director John Rubinstein and choreographer Troy Magino, they are doing sensational work indeed.
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STICK FLY
Friday, April 10th, 2009
The wealthy LeVay family are having a weekend get-together at their Martha’s Vineyard home away from (Manhattan) home. Housekeeper’s daughter Cheryl is removing slipcovers just in time for younger son Kent to arrive with fiancée Taylor, who is awestruck at the home’s opulence. “I was going to marry you for love,” Taylor tells her handsome beau with a smile, “but now I’m going to marry you for money.” Next to arrive is older son Flip, a successful plastic surgeon, soon to be joined by Kimber, his latest girlfriend. Last to show up is patriarch Dr. Joseph LeVay, who greets Taylor with old world manners—a slight bow and a kiss on the hand. Absent from the weekend gathering are Mrs. LeVay and Cheryl’s mother, for reasons that will eventually become clear. Over the next day or two, family secrets will be revealed and no one will prove to be quite the person he or she has seemed on first impression.
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