Cary Ginell - Page 6

Jukebox musical featuring Elvis Presley catalog is refreshing, funny, and has some of the most energetic, stellar choreography of the year.

5-Star Theatricals (formerly Cabrillo Music Theatre) unveils its first production, an ambitious reworking of 'Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.' Did it work? Read our review to find out!

Newcomer Miyuki Miyagi was stunning in her SoCal debut in 'Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris' and is now making her first appearance with 5 Star Theatricals with 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.' The Brooklyn transplant is an impressive singer and actress and if her past performance was any indication, she will certainly find her place in L.A.'s theater community.

The temptation to take a film classic and turn it into a Broadway musical is a road fraught with peril. How do you take something perfect and make it better? This was the question posed in 1972 when producer David Merrick decided to musicalize the uproarious 1959 farce Some Like It Hot. The result was Sugar, which enjoyed a respectable 14-month run on Broadway (505 performances) and received four Tony nominations, including one for lead actor Robert Morse, who played Jerry/Daphne. The 86-year-old Morse was on hand at the Alex Theatre in Glendale Sunday night as Musical Theatre Guild presented a rousing staged reading of the musical. Morse and the audience clearly enjoyed the show (he could be seen doing a virtual karaoke act of the score from his seat), but most of what works for the show is what worked for the film, with little new of substance added to the musical.

Nick Payne's acclaimed Off-Broadway smash 'Incognito' makes its West Coast debut with this thought-provoking production, staged at the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura.

The Elite Theatre Company begins a new theatrical experiment as three high school actors not only perform, but help in writing the script for a new drama, 'At the End of the Day.'

Versatile actor Will Shupe moonlights as a set designer. Some of his secrets are revealed in this fascinating interview.

Choreographer Becky Castells talks with VC On Stage about working with children and eleven-year-old dance whiz Marcello Silva in the Actors' Repertory Theatre of Simi's production of 'Billy Elliot The Musical'

Cabrillo Music Theatre Changes Its Name To 5 Star Theatricals

An interview with Carly Bracco, who performed as Jane and Tootles in the national tour of 'Peter Pan' who is now playing the title role.

Any time a high school theater department takes on a Stephen Sondheim musical, the intensity level cranks up a notch. So when drama teacher Joseph Donia took on Into the Woods, which the school last did in 2008, he needed some extra expertise behind the scenes to deal with Sondheim's uniquely difficult vocal score. Enter Kayla Bailey, a graduate of Oaks Christian High School (2007), Cal Lutheran University (2011), and a former Miss Ventura County (2012), who has been seen locally mainly as a performer. Donia chose Bailey to be his vocal director despite Bailey never having served in that capacity before. But when, as the saying goes, opportunity knocks, you go for it, and Bailey, who has a uniquely positive spin on life, leaped in feet first and has been having the time of her life. We spoke with Kayla in between performances about this unique experience, one which has already had a major effect on her career outlook going forward.

The corn was high as an elephant's eye at the Alex Theatre in Glendale last Sunday as Musical Theater Guild presented a staged reading of Rodgers and Hammerstein's bucolic musical State Fair, the only musical R&H wrote specifically for the screen. State Fair wasn't adapted for the stage until 1996, the final show produced by David Merrick, Broadway's notorious 'abominable showman.'

What would it be like if dogs could speak? That's one question that is answered in A. R. Gurney's 1995 play Sylvia, which deals with much more than just a man and his dog.  Sylvia is currently playing through Sunday, May 7 at the Rubicon Theatre Company Ventura. 

King of the Road: The Roger Miller Story features brilliant performance by Jesse Johnson as the late country music star

Tonight, we are excited in welcoming Playhouse 101, a new multi-use theater which makes its debut in Agoura Hills. Located in an office building complex at 28720 Canwood St., Playhouse 101 is managed by Jeff Wallach, artistic director for Curtain Call Youth Theatre. Jeff has ambitious plans for his new venue, including renting it out for rehearsals and concerts in addition to conventional theatrical plays and musicals. We visited the theater yesterday, where Jeff proudly showed us around. Its first production, the popular baseball comedy Bleacher Bums, bats leadoff in the Playhouse 101 season.

Director Aileen-Marie Scott discusses directing techniques and the 2012 Off-Broadway musical, 'Dogfight,' about a special relationship that develops on the eve of the Vietnam War.

It's been 80 years since Bessie Smith, the celebrated Empress of the Blues, died a lonely death, after an auto accident on a desolate Mississippi road. Contrary to legend, Smith did not bleed to death after being refused admission to a white Southern hospital. That story was related to Down Beat magazine by Columbia Records impresario John Hammond, who later apologized, saying that it was all based on hearsay. But her injuries were severe enough so that when she was taken to the nearest hospital (which happened to be one that accepted blacks), that she was beyond saving, and died at the young age of 43.

Last month I went to a private showcase of music from the musical Hamilton. The showcase was organized by pianist/arranger/singer Justin Ramos, former director of vocal music at Newbury Park High School who is now living in New York. For his cast, Ramos utilized some of the more talented singers he worked with during his tenure at NPHS to make the showcase happen. Marlie Rodriguez played the role of Eliza, Alexander Hamilton's wife, and got an outpouring of applause for her singing from the invitation-only audience. We got together a few weeks later to talk not just about the singular honor of performing songs from Hamilton, which has already revolutionized Broadway, but how she has reached a crossroads in her still young career in musical theater.

In See Rock City, the second installment of Arlene Hutton's trilogy about a post-World War II family, aspiring novelist Raleigh Brummett had left for New York to pursue his career, leaving his school teacher wife May behind in the rural town of Corbin, Kentucky. Hutton's trilogy about the Brummetts, a family struggling to stay together amid everyday challenges, concludes with the third and final chapter, Gulf View Drive, which plays through Sunday at the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura.

There are three new events being unveiled at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center Thursday evening: Lit Live, a new local production company, And Lightning Struck, a new play written by the eminent local actor and producer Robert Weibezahl, and a new director, 21-year-old Austin Robert Miller. The show plays for only four performances this weekend. We spoke with Weibezahl and Miller about their new creation, a play about creation itself, the subject being the story behind the writing of one of the most famous novels in English literature, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.