Posts Tagged ‘Alan Menken’
THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME
Sunday, September 18th, 2016Take a classic novel by Victor Hugo, half-a-dozen songs from a favorite Disney film, and the inspired casting of a deaf actor as Quasimodo and you’ve got three, though hardly the only reasons for The Hunchback Of Notre Dame to top any musical theater lover’s must-see list as summer turns to fall.
(read more)
LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
Friday, August 5th, 2016Save for one teensy tiny potted plan that doesn’t even make it through Act One, there’s nothing even vaguely botanical-looking in The B Productions’ 99-seat revival of Menken & Ashman’s Little Shop Of Horrors. What there is is an abundance of talent both onstage and off, making the NoHo Arts Center guest production a winner even if its central conceit (“Technology Can Kill”) will probably work best for those who’ve already seen Little Shop umpteen times.
(read more)
DISNEY THE LITTLE MERMAID
Saturday, July 16th, 2016More than three dozen terrifically talented performers fill Thousand Oaks’ Kavli Theatre with an ocean’s worth of Under The Sea magic this weekend and next as Cabrillo Music Theatre gives Disney The Little Mermaid one of CMT’s biggest and best productions ever.
(read more)
DISNEY THE LITTLE MERMAID
Monday, June 6th, 2016It’s taken nearly ten years for Disney The Little Mermaid to make it from Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre to “Under The Sea” at the La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts, but director Glenn Casale’s ingeniously reconceived, spectacularly staged take on the New York original makes it well worth the wait.
(read more)
NEWSIES
Wednesday, May 18th, 2016When a flop movie musical becomes a home video hit, what better for Walt Disney Studios to do than turn it into a great big Broadway smash, or at least this is what happened with Newsies The Musical, now thrilling SoCal audiences with Christopher Gattelli’s breathtaking Tony-winning choreography, Alan Menken and Jack Feldman’s eminently hummable Tony-winning songs, and much much more at the Segerstrom Center For The Arts.
(read more)
SISTER ACT
Monday, April 11th, 2016The convent is alive with the sound of disco as on-the-lam nightclub chantoozie Deloris Van Cartier teaches the nuns of The Holy Order of the Little Sisters of Our Mother of Perpetual Faith a lesson in Booty-Shaking For The Lord in Sister Act, the most all-around entertaining Musical Theatre West premiere in years.
(read more)
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
Sunday, November 30th, 2014RECOMMENDED
Alan Menken & Lynn Ahrens’s gorgeous songs are the best of quite a few reasons to catch Actors Repertory Theatre Of Simi’s holiday production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol despite the disservice its multitalented hometown cast is done by some sour notes emanating from the orchestra pit.
(read more)
THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME
Friday, November 21st, 2014From family-friendly animated funfest to powerful grown-up fare, Disney’s The Hunchback Of Notre Dame has been transformed by the folks at La Jolla Playhouse into a new stage musical so darkly dramatic that Broadway’s Phantom Of The Opera seems almost light and frothy by comparison. In other words, what they’ve come up with is that rarity—a Disney musical with the proviso “Leave the kids at home.”
(read more)