Thousand Oaks Interviews - Page 3

For the past seven years, composer Christopher Hoag has conjured up battle scenes, storms, romance, and adventure with his music for Kingsmen Shakespeare Company's annual summer festival. If you've seen one of their productions, you know how beautifully his rich orchestral scores enhance Shakespeare...

In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical about community and family in a Dominican-American neighborhood in New York City, has a multi-layered meaning for its talented cast. The production, which is currently being presented at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center, features veteran television ac...

Playing a character is hard enough for many actors and actresses who are starting out in musical theater, but The Drowsy Chaperone throws its performers a curve because of the complicated nature of the show. A cloistered record collector, the character known only as Man in Chair, shares his favori...

Last night's opening of Cabrillo Music Theatre's Children of Eden was every bit as enchanting and magical as anticipated. After the debacle of Theater League's Ragtime, in which two synthesizer players were hidden back stage, out of sight of the audience, it was a pleasure to hear a sumptuous orch...

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was originally a short story penned in 1953 by Dorothy M. Johnson (1905 - 1984), who wrote numerous articles and stories with Western themes. In 1962, Valance was adapted for motion pictures in a blockbuster film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, James...

It's not often when a person is able to develop their own stage show about their idol, but for the past four years, actor/singer Scott Dreier has done that very thing, when, in 2011, he started paying tribute to former actress/singer Doris Day. Dreier has toured all over the U.S. with Doris and Me...

I haven't posted a story yet this year because I've been busy. For the past two weeks, I've been immersed in learning the flute part to the score of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which concludes a brief four-day, five-show run this afternoon at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts. Spelli...

December 12 marks the centennial of Frank Sinatra's birth, which makes the arrival of Sandy Hackett's Rat Pack Christmas, which plays for one performance this Saturday at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, all the more special. Since 2009, Hackett, son of the late comedian Buddy Hackett, and his ...

Like many Ventura County performers, Autumn Bodily has a long career in local theater. She started as a teenager in 1986 with Young Artists Ensemble in one of their earliest productions. Autumn made her Conejo Players debut in 1989 in Annie before getting married at 22 and moving around the state. S...

One of the most talented musicians to join the Ventura County musical theater scene in the past few years has been Cassie Nickols. Most audiences haven't seen Cassie before because she has spent most of her time behind the scenes, working first as a rehearsal pianist and then as assistant musical di...

For an actor, Renee Marino has lived a charmed life. This Friday, the 'Jersey Girl' will be appearing in Cabrillo Music Theatre's production of Damn Yankees, in the part of Lola, the Devil's vixen whose job is to charm baseball phenom Joe Hardy into cheating on his wife. Renee is a director's dream....

On October 2, Camarillo Skyway Playhouse debuts its production of Nine. Based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film, 8 1/2, the musical version, which features a score by Maury Yeston, tells the story of Guido Contini, a film director approaching his 40th birthday who undergoes a midlife ...

Nicole Parker stars opposite Justin Kirk in the west coast premiere of THESE PAPER BULLETS! A Modish Ripoff of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing at Geffen Playhouse this month. Written by Rolin Jones (Weeds, Friday Night Lights, Boardwalk Empire) with songs by Green Day frontman Billie Jo...

Idina Menzel will perform in Toronto this Wednesday at the Sony Centre as part of her 2015 world tour. Menzel is of course best known for her work in WICKED and FROZEN, and also recently concluded a Broadway run in her star vehicle IF/THEN, which she will take on tour this fall....

Beginning this Saturday, the Elite Theatre Company's South Stage will be presenting Zero Hour, a one-man play about legendary actor Zero Mostel. The project is near and dear to the heart of actor John Medeiros, who has tried to get it produced for almost 5 years. Medeiros has performed in two roles ...

An interview with choreographer John Charron, who is working on the upcoming Cabrillo Music Theatre production of 'Oklahoma!'...

Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa will be hosting Platinum Award-winning singer-songwriter and Tony Award®-nominated actress Ann Hampton Callaway for a series of cabaret concerts celebrating the music of living legend---and her personal musical heroine---Barbra Streisand. The intimate sho...

Terra C. MacLeod was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec. Her experience in the performing arts started when she was four years old, when she began taking ballet lessons. She got her theater arts degree at AMDA (American Musical and Dramatic Academy), after which started getting roles such as Cassie...

After last Sunday's matinee performance of Jack Lemmon Returns, we met his son Chris Lemmon in the green room at the Rubicon Theatre Company to talk about the show, his father, and his memories of growing up with a legend. This is the first of a two-part article....

What if Shakespeare's Macbeth wasn't the end of the story? It's intriguing, isn't it; to consider a world in which Lady Macbeth might have survived, for she would most certainly not have gone quietly into the night. Playwright David Greig thought so too and, beginning March 27th, LA Shakespeare love...

The biggest challenge to directing this production of Carrie is our environmental staging which is at once intimate and epic - putting the actors and very complicated special effects only feet away from audience members. It's rather like creating a two hour 'close-up' magic trick - you can't hit any...

FRAWLEY BECKER is a published book and short story author and a published and three-time prize-winning playwright. A man of many talents, he was a State Department Entertainment Director for military bases outside Paris during the Cold War, founded the first African-American theatre company within t...

Last week we introduced you to Emily Lopez, soon to be playing Carrie in the revival of CARRIE THE MUSICAL at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. Today we meet Misty Cotton, the other powerhouse actor who will be leading the cast as the mother of all mothers, Margaret White. A day off from re...

In the final episode of Shakespeare Uncovered - Series II, Joseph Fiennes takes a look at Shakespeare's most often performed play, Romeo and Juliet, and the relevance it has in our world today. It is the story of two teenagers whose deep, profound love heals a deeply pathetic hatred between warring ...

Next on Shakespeare Uncovered, Kim Cattrall goes back 2000 years to explore the epic love story between a Roman General and an Egyptian Queen, two of the most powerful people in the world. She says theirs was an almost sadistic love affair and although she has played Cleopatra twice, she still has q...

Recently, choreographer Dana Solimando took on the monumental task of choreographing Billy Elliot The Musical for La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. The production opened to sold out crowds over the weekend and will run through February 8th. Here Dana talks about making the steps her own and...

Actor Charles Edwards, known for his roles in Batman Returns and Downton Abbey, will appear in Blithe Spirit with Angela Lansbury at the Ahmanson opening December 14. In our conversation he talks about the play, working with Miss Lansbury and other highlights of his career so far....

Actor Michael Arden, who has played Broadway and sung on a European tour with Barbra Streisand, is currently blowing audiences away at La Jolla Playhouse as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, playing through December 14....

Jeff Skowron is a chameleon. The versatile actor has appeared on Southern California stages playing everything from Thenardier in Les Miserables at La Mirada Theatre to Leo Bloom in The Producers at 3-D Theatricals -- roles for which he is currently nominated for an Ovation Award -- to The Baker in ...

Proving that Shakespeare is for all ages and all people, Westridge School in Pasadena is getting ready to open an all-female 1990's grunge-inspired production of Hamlet, starring Madeleine Russell in the title role. Anyone who has ever worked on the play, and particularly on that role, will tell you...

Writer/director Sean Abley has wisely chosen this troupe of talented actors to be his Bitches. All women characters (performed over-the-top by males in men's clothing) sharply deliver some snappy one-liners with some delicious drag queen bulls-eyed intensities....

Joanne Mosconi's new play You Love That I'm Not Your Wife is set to open at the Avery Schreiber Playhouse in NoHo September 12. Blake Boyd is one of the leading actors in the play. Tell me about the play from the actor's standpoint and about the character you play. I play Tony Ciccarelli, an e...

By Steve Peterson How did you first get involved in theatre and acting? I first got involved with a small part in a community theatre in Medford, Oregon as a child and had the usual school plays and debate teams. I was fairly shy as a kid and my voice would rise when I was nervous, so I took ...

Prolifically talented director Glenn Casale's pursuits in the LA theatre community are immeasurable and should not go unnoticed. He took time out from an ultra busy schedule to talk about his post as artistic director of Music Circus in Sacramento - which is presenting its last offering for the curr...

Chris Isaacson Presents has announced a one-night-only concert event at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre on Saturday, August 16 at 8pm. Broadway Under the Stars will star Tony Award-winner Jennifer Holliday (Dreamgirls) and will also feature (in alphabetical order) Obba Babatunde (Dreamgirls), Erich...

Chris Isaacson Presents has announced a one-night-only concert event at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre on Saturday, August 16 at 8pm. Broadway Under the Stars will star Tony Award-winner Jennifer Holliday (Dreamgirls) and will also feature (in alphabetical order) Obba Babatunde (Dreamgirls), Erich...