Paul Wong News

Three dazzling new opera productions are at the core of the inaugural Vancouver Opera Festival, April 28 to May 13, 2017. Full-scale productions of Giuseppe Verdi's late-career masterpiece Otello, featuring powerful tenor Clifton Forbis in the title role, and Jake Heggie's modern classic Dead Man Walking, with charismatic bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch as Joseph De Rocher, will be presented in the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

As the topic of guns in society becomes more and more prominent during the upcoming election season, Stephen Sondheim's controversial 1990 Off-Broadway and off-beat musical Assassins has increased in its relevancy. Rarely staged today, Assassins is an event that commands attention, and last week, we traveled to the Pico Playhouse in Los Angeles to see their version of the show, which also featured several performers familiar to Ventura County audiences.

Assassins/book by John Weidman; music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim/presented by Red Blanket Productions with Punk Monkey Productions at the Pico Playhouse/directed by Dan Fishbach/thru September 27 A word or two before I start this review. In the film Judgement at Nuremberg, Spencer Tracy who plays the judge of the tribunals, states emphatically at the end that in the light of today's changing values, condoning these actions may seem logical, but it is not - or never is - right. Assassination is murder pure and simple. I will never condone it, even though I may understand the circumstances. I may laugh and enjoy Assassins and weigh the killers' motivations, but I will never accept them.

Red Blanket Productions presents the multi-Tony Award-winning musical ASSASSINS with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by John Weidman based on an idea by Charles Gilbert, Jr. directed by Dan Fishbach, music direction by Anthony Lucca, and choreography by Lili Fuller. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast onstage below!

Red Blanket Productions presents the multi-Tony Award-winning musical Assassins with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by John Weidman based on an idea by Charles Gilbert, Jr. directed by Dan Fishbach, music direction by Anthony Lucca, and choreography by Lili Fuller.

On August 21 Red Blanket Productions will present a rare revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Assassins at the Pico Playhouse in West LA. Director Dan Fishbach and actor Zachary Lutsky, who plays assassin John Hinckley, recently took time out of their busy schedules to talk about the show. It is particularly relevant this year as we recollect the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's assassination by John Wilkes Booth in 1865. BIOS:

Red Blanket Productions presents the multi-Tony Award-winning musical Assassins with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by John Weidman based on an idea by Charles Gilbert, Jr. directed by Dan Fishbach, choreography by Lili Fuller, with live orchestral quartet conducted by music director Anthony Lucca.

Red Blanket Productions presents the multi-Tony Award-winning musical Assassins with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by John Weidman based on an idea by Charles Gilbert, Jr. directed by Dan Fishbach, music direction by Anthony Lucca, and choreography by Lili Fuller.

Musical Theatre Guild, the winner of the Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Margaret Harford Award for sustained excellence in the theatre, will continue their 2014-2015 season with the 1955 cult classic THE GOLDEN APPLE. The one-night-only concert will take place at the Moss Theatre at New Roads School in Santa Monica on Sunday, February 8, 2015 at 7:00 pm.

Panic! Productions welcomes in the season with special fund-raising performances of The Panic! Holiday Radio Hourfeaturing Norman Corwin's classic radio play, The Plot to Overthrow Christmas, and a Cavalcade of great holiday hits. Performances are tonight, December 6 and tomorrow, December 7, 19 and 20 at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts in Thousand Oaks.

Panic! Productions welcomes in the season with special fund-raising performances of The Panic! Holiday Radio Hourfeaturing Norman Corwin's classic radio play, The Plot to Overthrow Christmas, and a Cavalcade of great holiday hits. Performances are December 6 and 7, 19 and 20 at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts in Thousand Oaks.

Following spectacular performances at Upstairs at Vitello's, The Catalina Jazz Club and the El Caballero Country Club, Fraser Entertainment Group is back at Vitello's for a third round, welcoming a whole new cast of singers from Broadway, television and film for AN EVENING OF CLASSIC BROADWAY, on Monday August 25.

Following spectacular performances at Upstairs at Vitello's , The Catalina Jazz Club and the El Caballero Country Club, Fraser Entertainment Group is back at Vitello's for a third round, welcoming a whole new cast of singers from Broadway, television and film for AN EVENING OF CLASSIC BROADWAY.

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Kansas City Ballet today announced key appointments to the Company's Board of Directors and senior staff, according to Jeffrey Bentley, Executive Director.

Civic leaders and a star-studded cast will perform a one-night- only reading of "8, The Play," with Public Theatre of Southern California, with license from the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) and Broadway Impact. "8, The Play," chronicles the historic trial in the federal constitutional challenge to California's Proposition 8, written by Academy Award-winning screenwriter and AFER Founding Board Member Dustin Lance Black. The performance will take place at 8 p.m. tonight, September 21st at The Ernest Borgnine Theater, located at 855 Elm Avenue in downtown Long Beach.

Civic leaders and a star-studded cast will perform a one-night- only reading of "8, The Play," with Public Theatre of Southern California, with license from the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) and Broadway Impact. "8, The Play," chronicles the historic trial in the federal constitutional challenge to California's Proposition 8, written by Academy Award-winning screenwriter and AFER Founding Board Member Dustin Lance Black. The performance will take place at 8 p.m. on Friday, September 21st at The Ernest Borgnine Theater, located at 855 Elm Avenue in downtown Long Beach.