Don Grigware - Page 60

Adam & Eve and Steve/written by Chandler Warren/musical composer: Wayne Moore/directed by Ronnie MarmoTheatre 68 at/NoHo Arts Center/through August 30 A humorous take on the biblical version of creation as told through the rantings of dueling Beelzebug and God is the award-winning world premiere musical Adam & Eve and Steve, a Fringe Festival winner, now onstage through the summer under the auspices of Theatre 68 at the NoHo Arts Center. The show with a cast of five and evenly directed by Ronnie Marmo turns out to be quite deliriously clever entertainment.

On Sunday June 28, actress/singer Candi Milo brought her one.of.a.kind comedic cabaret to Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal and boy, oh boy, is she funny. 'How funny?' you may query. This little lady grew up in a mental institution - well, her father ran one in their home, so she was exposed to craziness at a tender age...and on top of that, she's Italian...and a voice-over artist who does many, many cartoon voices to amazing perfection, starting with Sweetie Pie. She was also a member of 'The Mighty Carson Art Players' on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. What fabulous improvisational training! So it's no surprise that the lady knows how to get a laugh. Humor comes gushing out of her the minute she opens her mouth, and it's never forced. It's all natural and with a multitude of sarcastic asides, it works deliciously on a cabaret stage.

William Inge's Pulitzer-Prize-winning Picnic depicting a small Kansas town in 1952, its strict code of morality and the inner longings of its people to break away, is perhaps his finest. Now in a stunning production at Antaeus directed ever so lovingly by Cameron Watson and boasting a superlative ensemble - actually three alternating casts: 'Deviled Eggs', 'Stuffed Peppers' and 'Pork Chops', Picnic still holds up some 60 years later, proving the omnipotence of human fragility. My visit was with the 'Deviled Eggs'cast. The music, the clothes, the hairstyles, and the cars are distinctly 50s, but goals, motivations and emotions remain the same. For those unfamiliar with the play or the uber popular 1956 film Picnic starring William Holden and Kim Novak, let's recap the plot briefly.

As part of season 36, GMCLA (Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles) outdid themselves in the presentation of their summer show Vegas, Baby! the weekend of June 20-21 at the Alex Theatre, Glendale. It was a fun, fun production like those of yesteryear, which featured much more than just the group's singing talent. Choreographers Billy Rugh and Michelle Benton had small groups from the chorus dancing their tushes off in several scenarios including a salute to showgirls (Cy Coleman's and Dorothy Fields' 'Pretty Legs'/'Big Spender'), gambling fever ('Luck Be a Lady'), a tribute to Rocky and Vegas boxing ('Rocky Medley'), and just a plain old mischievous look at female as well as scantily clad male dancers shimmying those strip club poles ('She Works Hard for the Money').

During the crazy broohaha of the Hollywood Fringe Festival, there are plenty of loud, over.the.top noisy shows, if that suits your pleasure. Sondheim's Marry Me a Little is a quiet, gentle little 60-minute musical revue that just doesn't fit that bill. And that's totally fine by me! I prefer Sondheim anyway. In Marry Me a Little, conceived by Craig Lucas and Norman Rene, many of the songs are from the then - late 90s - unproduced Saturday Night coupled with a multitude of songs cut from hits like Company, Follies, A Little Night Music and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It's a two-person intimate show on the vast Lillian stage and as usual Janet Miller has staged the piece adeptly with lots of tender loving care.

Excessively harsh reality is at the core of most current popular dramedies as it is on television. A character cannot be rude or abrasive enough to arouse a viewer's attention or glean laughs. It's particularly characteristic of the irritating females who talk too fast, too loud and scream their shrewish lungs out. It makes me happy that I live alone; and yes, I do care and respect others and their feelings; but, being pleasant nowadays is considered boring and in drama, it will never win awards, so on with the show. In Joshua Harmon's Bad Jews currently onstage at the Geffen Playhouse there is such a character Daphna (Molly Ephraim), Hebrew for Diana, who with her two cousins Jonah (Raviv Ullman) and Liam (Ari Brand) are in New York to pay homage to their dead grandfather, their beloved Poppy, a Holocaust survivor. Daphna is referred to by Liam as a super Jew.

Actress Amy Madigan will direct Neil Koenigsberg's play Off the King's Road later this month at the Odyssey. A production of the play in New York last season was critically acclaimed, including a New York Times critic's pick. In our conversation Madigan talks about the play, her cast and her association with the playwright. 

In its series Broadway @ the Broad, which began in October 2013 with Patti Lupone, Sutton Foster was the latest star to grace the stage, featuring Seth Rudetsky as pianist and host. The event took place Sunday June 14 at 5pm and 8pm, and Foster proved a real trouper. On her recent honeymoon in Italy she contracted laryngitis and her voice has been down ever since. It took some quick maneuvering to adjust the program to her vocal capability, but with Seth Rudetsky on board as accompanist, all went well, and the packed house was overjoyed with what Foster had to offer.

If you have a hankering for romance and you love the old-fashioned musicals of a by-gone era, Waterfall is a perfect fit. Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire have created a beautiful glimpse of passionate love that develops amidst the turmoil of divergent cultures, east and west before WWII. Currently onstage at the Pasadena Playhouse, Waterfall is sumptuously breathtaking with an extraordinary director and ensemble.

The Bad Seed, she has worked on stage, in film and on television to great acclaim for over 60 years. Now she is onstage once more in a hilarious world premiere dark comedy Miserable with an Ocean View playing Saturdays only at the Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks. She recently sat down to chat about the play and about highlights of her long career.

Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical has finally arrived at the Ahmanson Theatre, and it is a sumptuous treat for the eyes, ears and mind. Imagination runs amok in choreography, staging and in reproducing a feast of visual pleasures via ultra riveting set pieces - with scrabble-like words and phrases jutting out on all sides - and vibrant costumes. And to get a bevy of child actors to essay these little 'maggots' in such a dynamically professional manner for two and a half hours is no minor feat. It's like the song claims: it's a 'miracle!'

Dysfunctional families provide delicious humor for stage and film, because most everyone can identify with one or more of the characters. And if they plan a mercy killing? The irreverent humor quadruples. In Howard Skora's new world premiere comedy Miserable with an Ocean View, we come face to face with a Jewish family on Long Island - a mother, who is wheelchair-bound and dying, two sons - one gay and one super macho straight - and one daughter, a horrible interior designer whose long-term marriage is on the rocks. Now for a limited run through July 18 at the Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks, Miserable is laugh.out.loud funny with fluid direction from Jim Fall and a marvelous cast headed by Patty McCormack as grandma Rhoda.

No surprise that the little musical comedy with a big bang, Murder for Two by Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair took off-Broadway by storm in 2013! Described as 'a musical comedy with a dash of Agatha Christie', it actually defies classification. Yes, it has music and a murder mystery plot and is screamingly funny, but it's a whole lot more. Only two performers provide as much or more entertainment than a big over-produced, full cast Broadway show. It covers a lot of ground in 100 minutes and with Jeff Blumenkrantz playing a bevy of suspects, both male and female, Brett Ryback essaying officer Marcus Moskowitz, who is determined to be promoted to detective by the end of the play - both of whom play the piano with a feverish passion - and guided by director Scott Schwartz's super-fast pace and frenetic staging, it's like a colossal roller coaster ride that while barreling along could at any second lose control, but never does. Now onstage at the Geffen Playhouse, audiences will be thrilled and bedazzled through August 2.

The play Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind, which was written in Germany in the late 19th century was censored for a time due to its frank portrayal of masturbation, abortion, homosexuality, rape, child abuse and suicide. Exposing the rocky sexual coming of age of a group of teenagers, its helter-skelter but life-affirming journey is again explored in the 2006 Tony Award winning musical of the same name Spring Awakening through folk based and alternative rock, and boasts some expertly staged storytelling, singing, choreography and exuberant performances at the Wallis Annenberg through June 7 only. This is a brief return of Deaf West's critically-acclaimed production from last fall 2014 directed by Michael Arden.

There's a fascinating mix of familiar and not- so-familiar plays and musicals that will grace Los Angeles stages this summer. LA editors Don Grigware, Ellen Dostal, Shari Barrett and Gil Kaan have chosen their favorites in the list below. Enjoy!

On Saturday May 23 actor/singer Bill A. Jones, known to thousands of cheering fans as Rod Remington of Fox TV's Glee, brought his one-man show Frank, Bobby & Me to the E-Spot Lounge at Vitello's in Studio City. This man is not only handsome with an affable charm onstage, but can truly sing these old standards with a smooth delivery and the fine easy-going style that they deserve. The packed SRO crowd would surely agree. Backed by three stellar musicians, musical director Paul McDonald at the keys, Steve Pemberton on drums and Kurt Smith on bass - known as Paul McDonald the A Players - for 90 minutes the 'joint was really jumpin' '.

When Violet first premiered off-Broadway in 1997, it created a stir winning two prizes for Best Musical but didn't make waves until 2014 when it transferred to Broadway in an all new production starring Sutton Foster. It heartfully tells the story of a disfigured girl from Spruce Pine, North Carolina Violet Karl who makes a journey to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the hopes of being physically transformed by a faith healer. An accident occurred when she was a teen - a blade that her father was using cut her face, leaving an ugly scar - and Violet always blamed her father proclaiming that he did not want her to be pretty. She would have no male prospects and be forced to stay on to live with him on their small farm. The scar runs deep - 'it reaches to your heart' new acquaintances tell her, so the journey to find a brand new 'glamorized' look means everything to Violet who will sacrifice just about anything to have it all.

Explain briefly about the musical.  Murder for Two is a two person murder mystery, where one guy plays the wanna-be detective, and the other guy plays all the suspects, and the both play the piano. How did it get started? If I remember correctly, you first started off-Broadway, ran a while and then returned after a brief absence due to overwhelming popularity? That's correct. We began at Second Stage Uptown, had an extended, sold-out run, and then transferred after a brief hiatus to New World Stages for a commercial run. All told, the show ran about a year in New York, before hitting the road in a tour.

It is refreshing in this day and age to see an attempt to create a new musical. With few exceptions, it appears to be a dying art. If not, we would not be witnessing a raft of old steady revivals on Broadway, off-Broadway and in regional venues across the globe. Doug Haverty and Adryan Russ, no strangers to successful musical ventures, have taken the topic of love and have created Love Again, a bold effort at showing the intermingling of different aspects of love with a semi-large cast. Under the steady hand of Kay Cole all manage to shine in one form or another and a lot of it works delightfully. There's much potential with some more work and readjustments to the book. Many of the songs are quite lovely, and love, in all of its shades and colors, is always a treat to experience. Love Again has its niche at Group rep in NoHo through June 28.

On Sunday May 17 at Catalina Jazz Club renowned actress/singer Michele Lee made her Los Angeles cabaret debut. Why has it taken this long? She takes her one-woman show Catch the Light on the road regularly and recently played 54 Below in NYC, but has never played a club in her hometown of LA. Well, it's high time, and the packed house agreed as the four-piece orchestra played the Beatles' 'Michelle, my belle...' as Lee was introduced to thunderous applause. She made her way through the audience singing the powerhouse 'Feeling Good', and with a combination of incredible drive and energy, an uber strong vocal style and sheer sauciness and personal sass, Lee's conquest of the room was guaranteed. Looking fabulous in black satin and sequins, she next essayed 'Nobody Does It Like Me' from her Broadway hit Seesaw. In the show she playe