ONCE UPON A MATTRESS

posted on April 21st, 2012 at 1:57 PM by Steven Stanley


For musical theater fans in search of something out of the ordinary, Cabrillo Music Theatre has just the show for you, a star-studded revival of the 1959 Broadway hit Once Upon A Mattress and a terrific companion piece to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, which Cabrillo just happens to have staged two summers ago.
(read more)

posted in Musical, Ventura County, WOW!

THE BEWILDERED HERD

posted on April 21st, 2012 at 12:10 PM by Steven Stanley


Among political commentator Walter Lippmann’s best known quotes is the following: “The public must be put in its place…so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd.” In other words, if you want democracy to work, you’ve got to control the minds of the masses, something which political consultant Charlie “Bingo” Bingham, the (anti)hero of Cody Henderson’s World Premiere The Bewildered Herd knows only too well. You might even call it Bingo’s mission in life to keep the bewildered herd (i.e.  the people in his life—and you and me) in line.
(read more)

posted in Comedy-Drama, Los Angeles, WOW!

MISS SAIGON

posted on April 20th, 2012 at 2:31 PM by Steven Stanley


When recreating one of Broadway’s biggest smash hits of the 1990s, there’s perhaps no better way of keeping things fresh than to start off with a creative team brand new to the project. That’s precisely the approach that McCoy Rigby Entertainment have taken with the La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts’ Miss Saigon, a production guaranteed to thrill Southland audiences with its epic blend of war, romance, gorgeous melodies, and show-stopping production numbers. Directed by Brian Kite with an eye to the authentic, this Miss Saigon focuses on the human relationships central to the story while maintaining the elements of spectacle that have been thrilling audiences worldwide for more than two decades.
(read more)

posted in Downey/La Mirada, Musical, WOW!

DEREK KEELING

posted on April 19th, 2012 at 2:13 PM by Steven Stanley

(read more)

posted in Interview

A NEW BRAIN

posted on April 17th, 2012 at 5:25 PM by Steven Stanley


Musical Theatre Guild continued its finest season in years with Monday evening’s one-night-only concert staged reading of William Finn’s A New Brain, so brilliantly directed (by Todd Nielsen) and performed with such polish and panache that it came close to meriting the words “fully staged,” quite an achievement considering that the entire shebang was put together with a mere twenty-five hours of rehearsal.
(read more)

posted in Burbank/Glendale, Concert Staged Reading, WOW!

FORBIDDEN BROADWAY GREATEST HITS, VOLUME 2

posted on April 16th, 2012 at 11:44 PM by Steven Stanley


It’s been thirty years now since New York City audiences first got treated to Forbidden Broadway, a series of revues spoofing The Great White Way’s latest hits (and flops).

Since 1982, a revolving quartet of supertalented performers backed by a piano—and the master-satirist that is writer/creator Gerard Alessandrini—have lampooned Broadway legends like Carol Channing, Ethel Merman, and Mandy Patinkin, current hit shows like Wicked and Mary Poppins, and musical theater classics from Evita to Annie to Cats.
(read more)

posted in Long Beach/San Pedro, Musical Revue, WOW!

DAMES AT SEA

posted on April 15th, 2012 at 11:32 AM by Steven Stanley


It’s the 1930s and the height of the Great Depression. A pretty young would-be hoofer arrives in New York City with dreams of starring on the Great White Way. When a temperamental Broadway diva becomes indisposed, our sweet young thing is the only chorus girl able to take on the star’s leading role at a moment’s notice. Recognize the plot? It’s 42nd Street, right?

Wrong!
(read more)

posted in Burbank/Glendale, Musical, WOW!

MORNING’S AT SEVEN

posted on April 14th, 2012 at 12:37 PM by Steven Stanley


“Morning’s at seven. The hill-side’s dew-pearled. The lark’s on the wing. The snail’s on the thorn. God’s in His heaven. All’s right with the world!”
–Robert Browning

All does indeed seem right with the world, at least at first glance, in Paul Osborn’s 1939 classic Morning’s At Seven, now being revived at the venerable Sierra Madre Playhouse. Sisters Cora and Ida have each been married for decades to men they adore, and have lived in side-by-side houses somewhere in the American Midwest for the past forty years or so. Married eldest sister Esther lives only a block and a half away, while spinster Arry resides with Cora and Cora’s husband Thor. Aside from Thor’s hypochondriacal complaints, which his wife has long gotten used to, the Gibbs sisters would seem to be, if not the happiest siblings ever, then at least far from the unhappiest.
(read more)

posted in Comedy, San Gabriel Valley, WOW!

Next PagePrevious Page