Cary Ginell - Page 7

The success of the awkwardly titled Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage depends primarily on whether or not you were a fan of the motion picture it was closely modeled after. It's easy to say this since the stage version is nearly identical to the film, and in many ways works better as a live production. For the uninitiated or those who steered clear of the film, Dirty Dancing was one of the most successful motion pictures of the 1980s. The low-budget film became a surprise hit, earning $214 million at the box office and becoming the first film to sell more than a million copies on home video. The soundtrack LP, featuring a combination of original songs and vintage hits from the early 1960s, sold 32 million copies and spent four months on top of the best-selling album charts. Looking at the film from today's perspective, 30 years later, one wonders why it was so big. Though many remember the film as a charming coming-of-age story, critics called it 'schmaltzy,' citing the formulaic portrayal of its stock characters spouting trite dialog.

Siena Avila is like many other 16-year-old high schoolers you know. Cheerful, friendly, enthusiastic, and just a little bit shy. But Siena has one thing that most kids her age don't have, an amazing singing ability and a natural instinct for performing everything from light opera to musical theater. We first saw her perform in the Ventura County Gilbert and Sullivan Repertoire Company's recent production of The Sorcerer this past summer. Shepherded to VCGSRC producers Rebecca and John Pillsbury, Avila has made an immediate impact on the Ventura County theater scene, most recently being double-cast with Mary Zastrow in the Thousand Oaks Repertory Company production of A Christmas Carol. We sat down with Siena last week to get to know her and find out where she's been and where she's going.

???????Calendar Girls, a 2009 play based on a hit 2003 film, is Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi's true-to-life comedy about six middle-aged women from a village in Yorkshire, England who raise money by posing nude for a calendar, in the process becoming a worldwide sensation. The women's goal was to honor one of their members' husbands, who had died from leukemia, by raising money to purchase a settee to be dedicated to his memory. The 2003 motion picture starred Helen Mirren and became a major success, grossing nearly $100 million and garnering Golden Globe nominations for Mirren and co-star Julie Walters. The play is being presented at the Santa Paula Theater Center through December 18.

Louis Baker has had a varied career in the entertainment world. As an actor, he studied under three prestigious performers: Bill Duke, Haile Gerima, and Debbie Allen. He has worked as a voiceover artist in the animation world, co-produces with his wife a family-centered web series called Faces of Offense, and has played a variety of roles on stage in shows such as Tommy, West Side Story, and The Wiz. But none of those parts are as meaningful to Louis as his current one - playing the historically-based author/orator Booker T. Washington in the Actors Repertory Theatre of Simi's production of Ragtime. The show closes this weekend, but we cornered Louis after last Sunday's performance to talk about his character in the context of the current political turmoil in America, which, unfortunately, is not that much different from what was depicted in E. L. Doctorow's famous novel.

The musical Ragtime, which plays through this Sunday, December 4, at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center, is an important work that weaves actual historical personages into the fabric of its three intersecting stories: an upper-class white family, the African American ragtime pianist Coalhouse Walker Jr., and the Latvian immigrant Tateh. Two of the historical characters in the musical had profound impacts on American political history, which have heightened relevance due to the emotionally charged 2016 election, refocusing attention on matters of race, class, and immigration. This weekend, we interviewed the actors portraying anarchist Emma Goldman and educator/orator Booker T. Washington in the show, which will be featured in advance of this weekend's final performances of this essential work of musical theater.

The idea of a woman playing the lead in Shakespeare's Hamlet is not a new one. The first female Hamlet, Elizabeth Powell, performed the role at London's Drury Lane Theatre in 1796 and by 1820, the first American 'Hamlette,' Sarah Bartley, played it at the Park Theatre in New York.

Everyone knows that the director is the person responsible for the look and content of a musical or play, but once the cast has been selected, sets and props are delivered, and all the technical elements are in place, who puts it all together? The week prior to a show's opening is called 'Tech Week,' a four or five-day period during which all the elements of a production are assembled on stage for the first time. Tech Week marks the transition period between the rehearsal stage and the performance stage of a production. Once the show is underway, it is the job of the stage manager to supervise, coordinate, and maintain all of the sundry elements that make up a production, from lighting, sound, and sets to costume changes, blocking, and all the performers' backstage activity. As we found out, it takes a particular kind of person to become a stage manager. He or she has to be detail oriented, disciplined, unflappable, and resourceful. Kimberly Kiley, who is currently serving as stage manager for the Actors' Repertory Theatre of Simi's production of Ragtime, has all of these attributes and more. We visited her before a performance last weekend and were introduced to the new staging area at the theater where Kiley is stationed during a show.

Before Mamma Mia!, before The Marvelous Wonderettes, and before Jersey Boys, there was Return to the Forbidden Planet, an Off-Broadway space farce that was one of the first musicals to incorporate pop hits into its score. A spoof of the 1956 cult sci-fi film, Forbidden Planet, Bob Carlton's musical utilizes the language and general storyline of William Shakespeare's The Tempest in relating the adventures of an interstellar space ship, which is drawn to a mysterious planet by a mad scientist and his beauteous daughter. The show is being staged at the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura in a colorful, lively production directed and choreographed by Kirby Ward.

The title of All My Sons, Arthur Miller's riveting play of guilt, heartbreak, and tragedy, refers to 21 young World War II combat pilots, who were needlessly killed when cracked cylinder heads were unknowingly installed in their airplanes. The blame for this lays at the feet of Joe Keller, a successful manufacturer who decided that since there was so much pressure on him to produce much needed airplane parts, that he decided to push the faulty heads through, instructing his factory manager, Steve Deever, to paint over the cracks and ship them out anyway. But Joe allowed Steve to accept the blame after the tragedies and is now languishing in prison while Joe has gotten off scot-free.

If you have the opportunity to see Cabrillo Music Theatre's splendid production of Evita this weekend, you will no doubt be drawn to the electrifying performances by its stars, Cassandra Murphy, as Eva Peron, and Marc Ginsburg, as Che (profiled in our October 4 story - http://vconstage.com/marc-baron-ginsburg-talks-about-playing-che-in-cabrillos-new-production-of-evita/ ). But there is another, younger, performer who we predict will be a big star, whether it is on the stage, in films, or on television. Her name is Isa Briones. Isa, who is just 17, is a high school senior who comes out of the ensemble to play the part of Argentinean dictator Juan Peron's unnamed mistress, who gets shooed out of the president's palace by Eva and sings the lament, 'Another Suitcase in Another Hall.' It is one of the most quietly exquisite moments in the entire musical. Prior to playing in Evita, Isa was astonishing in Pico Playhouse's production of Next to Normal, in which she played the part of confused teen Natalie Goodman. We had a chance to visit with Isa, and found out that not only is she no novice in the world of performing, she has a perceptive and mature perspective on performing and working within a character in a musical. VCOS: Isa, when I looked at your website and checked out your credits, I was stunned by all the things you've done and that you are still only seventeen. It helps when your parents are in show business, too, doesn't it?

For years I have been saying that the best kept secret in Ventura County theater is the Ventura County Gilbert & Sullivan Repertoire Company. Celebrating its 10th season this year, the VCGSRC is currently going through its second cycle of the eleven operettas in the canon produced by the venerable English composing team of lyricist/librettist W. S. Gilbert and composer Sir Arthur Sullivan. Its production of The Sorcerer, now playing at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts, was the first complete G&S opera, first performed in 1877. It's a marvelous production for the Halloween season, beautifully sung and acted, with a typically witty G&S story, albeit with a serious undercurrent.

In Cabrillo Music Theatre's new production of Evita, the role of Che, the narrator figure based on Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, is played by Marc Baron Ginsburg. A Philadelphia native, Ginsburg has enjoyed a varied career on both coasts prior to coming to Cabrillo. His favorite roles include Aaron (First Date,) Lord Farquaad (Shrek), Lawrence Jameson (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels), and Quixote/Cervantes (Man of La Mancha), among many others. He also played Fagin in Cameron Mackintosh's First National Tour of Oliver! Marc and his wife Liza, who is also a performer, are recent parents of a son, Phoenix, who was born in June. We talked to Marc about his career and his approach to the key role he is playing in Evita.

You've seen them. Gaudy costumes worn by Hollywood and Broadway stars, preserved and on display in museums and galleries. It's a great way to witness first-hand the trappings of the pretend, magical worlds brought to us on celluloid, television, and the live stage. But when you see those famous outfits, hanging stiffly on mannequins, you get the sense something is missing. It's as if they were embalmed mummies from ancient Egypt, beautiful but lifeless. That's what makes a show like Hollywood Revisited, which played Sunday afternoon at the Oxnard Civic Auditorium, so valuable and different as a unique piece of show business entertainment.

His day job is as associate justice of the Second District, Division Six of the California Courts of Appeal, but Steve Perren's passion for the stage has seen him appear in a variety of shows in Ventura County over the years. He played founding father Roger Sherman in Cabrillo Music Theatre's 2012 production of 1776 and has also appeared in numerous operettas staged by the Ventura County Gilbert and Sullivan Repertoire Company. In Panic! Productions' Parade, currently playing at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts, Perren is ideally suited for the part of Judge Leonard S. Roan, who presides over the trial of accused child murderer Leo Frank. Parade deals with the real-life arrest and trial of Frank (played by Joshua Finkel), a Georgia factory superintendent who was accused of murdering 13-year-old factory worker Mary Phagan in 1913. We sat down with Steve during a break in rehearsals for the show, and talked about his unique perspective as an actor who also shares the occupation of the character he portrays.

Last Sunday, we ventured into Los Angeles to see two Ventura County theater alumni in a production of Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey's Next to Normal, the Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical that is being staged at the Pico Playhouse. Michelle Lane and Harrison Meloeny were both in Cabrillo Music Theatre's 2015 production of Mary Poppins and have reunited to appear in this highly acclaimed production.

Occasionally we venture out of the sanctity of Ventura County to see how some of our locally raised theatricians are faring in their acting careers. Today we visit with Harrison Meloeny and Michelle Lane, two performers familiar to Cabrillo Music Theatre audiences (both were in Mary Poppins last year) about a fabulous opportunity to appear in the Pico Playhouse's new production of the Tony Award-winning smash, Next to Normal, in which Michelle will play Diana and Harrison will play Gabe. The show opens August 19 and plays through September 25.

Today we meet Katherine Bottoms, a young actress who we hope you will be able to see on stage some day before fame and fortune takes her away from us. Katherine was born in Palm Springs but has lived in Santa Barbara most of her life. Her father and three uncles were actors so it was only natural that Katherine would become one as well. She performed in musical theater at Santa Barbara High School and was attending Santa Barbara City College when she decided acting was what she was going to do with her life. While in high school, she got a manager and was driving to auditions in Los Angeles so often, she was missing class, so she put off her career until later. Now, at 23, she feels she is ready, and has been making solid appearances in a number of local productions. Her life has been a procession of one show after another ('my longest break was maybe a month'), with her latest being the ARTS production of Peter and the Starcatcher (see our review in this week's Simi Valley Acorn). In the show, she plays Molly, a wide-eyed, independent 13-year-old girl who embarks on an adventure with her father to deliver a trunk of magic star dust to a far-off island. Katherine's bubbly personality and infectious giggle make it easy to accept her as a teenager, but this is only one aspect of her versatility as an actress.

Last week we spoke with Fearless Shakespeare director Joseph Fuqua, dramaturg Jonathan Drahos, and Musical Theatre Intensive director Brian McDonald about their production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Today we continue our interview with Brian and Joseph about the forthcoming production of In the Heights, which opens this Sunday, August 5 at the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura.

One important and valuable aspect of Cabrillo Music Theatre's long tenure in Ventura County is its devotion to casting talented young local performers in as many of its productions as it can. Cabrillo's casts are usually laden with a mix of professional Equity lead performers, local and regional talent from Southern California (and sometimes elsewhere), but especially home-grown youngsters. We spoke with two of the latter during a rehearsal session recently, Lyrissa Leininger, 16, and Michael Kennedy, 19, who have already gotten their feet wet (an appropriate pre-requisite for The Little Mermaid!) in a number of Cabrillo productions.