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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HERE LIES JEREMY TROY
Thursday, April 9th, 2009
About 25 years ago, a young thespian named Tim Dietlein read a 1965 comedy called Here Lies Jeremy Troy and said to himself, “That’s a show I’d like to do someday.” Now, in 2009, Dietlein’s dream has come true in a laugh-out-loud hilarious production of playwright Jack Sharkey’s “forgotten gem.”
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LAND OF THE TIGERS
Sunday, April 5th, 2009
Land Of The Tigers is a realm where tigers walk on two legs, wear wigs (some of them powdered), hats (some of them three-cornered) and assorted 18th Century garb—and speak English. It is a land where the only enemy is the dreaded swan, and because “the ‘Swan Alert’ remains as high as ever,” guards are thankfully keeping watch day and night. In Land Of The Tigers, reproduction is strictly controlled, and mating rituals keep bloodlines strong. Thus, when one of the elite, Fang Stalkington, complains to the Tigressional Congress that his sister Sheba is not doing her duty by mating with him, it is serious business indeed. Though Fang has peed on Sheba to demonstrate in no uncertain terms that she belongs to him and him alone, the beauteous Sheba is having none of this. ‘You cannot spray our troubles away,” she growls at him.
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