Shari Barrett - Page 22

Those of us who can remember the tumultuous 1960s will certainly see moments of our own lives in the World Premiere of A 60's TRILOGY by Tommy Carter which connects race relations and the Vietnam War to present day. And on this 50th Anniversary of the Tet Offensive and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F. Kennedy, this first project between USVAA Vets Repertory and Revenant Stage (formerly The Elephant Theatre), directed by David Fofi, is sure to add fire to the flame of social revolution in the air today.

Most of the MARTIANS text is taken from Ray's own words from interviews and books he's written on the art of writing, as well as adaptations of his Martian stories The Strawberry Window, The Blue Bottle, The Messiah and Night Call, Collect. Adapted with and directed by Jeff G. Rack, Mount personifies Bradbury to a tee as, acting as our guide to mankind's next great adventure to the planet Mars, allowing us to get to know the mind and heart of the great writer who believes that humanity can only survive by carrying our culture out into the Universe. In fact, one of Bradbury's favorite films was Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 'Going to the stars, taking your culture with you, and living forever! That's what it's all about!' Bradbury said. That's the theme explored in MARTIANS: AN EVENING WITH RAY BRADBURY.

Here's your first look at staged photos from Bucket List Theatre's production of SILENCE! THE MUSICAL, a bawdy, raunchy tribute to the iconic movie "The Silence of the Lambs." This hilarious musical parody returns Los Angeles for the first time following its highly acclaimed 2012 run at The Hayworth Theatre where it won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award - Musical Score (2012). Original Los Angeles cast member Jesse Merlin stars as Dr. Hannibal Lecter along with Amanda Conlon as Clarice Starling, and a multi-talented cast featured in these photos who will provide a silly and suspenseful salute to the film.

SHE LOVES ME, the 1963 Broadway musical with book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock, and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, was based on Miklos Laszlo's 1937 play, Parfumerie, a warm, gentle comedy that follows the tangled dating life of perfume shop employee Georg Horvath whose dating life goes awry when he discovers that the stranger he has fallen in love with through a secret correspondence is none other than Amalia Balash, a co-worker with whom he constantly bickers. This universal tale about mistaken identity and romantic love went on to become the inspiration for the classic films The Shop Around the Corner, In the Good Ole Summertime, and Nora Ephron's 1998 box office hit You've Got Mail in which Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan took their secret romance online through emails.

When Della and her Goddaughter Jen have a truthful heart-to-heart about making the decision whether or not the wedding cake will be baked at Della's Sweets, even though you may need a Kleenex, listen closely to the truthful honesty with which the lines are delivered by these two actresses dedicated to showing audiences that neither side is right nor wrong, just diametrically opposed and correct to each of them. And I am not revealing whether or not Della bakes the cake or even attends the wedding as the truth is revealed during the final moments of the play when THE CAKE proves that love is always the key ingredient in life.

Like a comet that burns far too brightly to last, Janis Joplin exploded onto the music scene in 1967 and, almost overnight, became the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll. Davies carries on and mimics the unmistakable raspy voice filled with raw emotion and tinged with Southern Comfort to a tee, her stage presence making it easy to see what made Joplin a must-see headliner from Monterey to Woodstock and beyond even to this day, so many years after her too-soon passing at the age of 27. After listening to Davies' sharing of Janis' life, it is easy to think the rock legend died from not only from drugs and alcohol but from her lonely co-dependent longing for a man to share her life, equaling her love of the spotlight and adoration received from a live audience, which she could never find. Davies' renditions of Joplin favorites, including “Summertime,” “Piece of My Heart,” “Cry Baby,” and “Me and Bobby McGee” among others, ignite the stage and audiences alike with a passion no man in her life could ever match.

Have you ever wished for one more chance to say something to someone who has passed away suddenly? What if there was an organization that could arrange for messages to be delivered to those who have died by pairing you up with someone terminally ill who agrees to deliver that message once they have passed on? Would you do it? And what if it was extraordinarily expensive with no way of knowing if your message was ever received? That is the simple magical premise of THE UNTRANSLATABLE SECRETS OF NIKKI CORONA, a new play written by Obie Award-winning playwright Jose Rivera, premiering at the Geffen Playhouse through October 7.

Anyone who has had a loving dog as their companion will certainly understand the glory of waking up next to the best friend you could possibly ever have. No doubt among those people are the men who created BARK! The Musical, composer David Troy Francis; book by Mark Winkler and Gavin Geoffrey Dillard, with lyrics by Gavin Geoffrey Dillard, Mark Winkler, Robert Schlock, Jonathan Heath and Danny Lukic, when they created such a fabulous, episodic song fest to the glory of dog, musically communicated from six very different types of pooches as each awaits a happy reunion with their master at the end of the day.

Any teenage girl enrolled in any secondary school around the world can tell you how they were tormented or teased by other girls for some reason, be it their weight, height, hair, or lack of the latest hip clothing to wear. Based only on physical appearance, little regard was paid by the most popular Queen Bee to the real circumstances of others' lives which prevented others from living up to her unrealistic expectations of those she was willing to call 'friends' in her inner circle. I can certainly remember being excluded from the more popular groups of friends in high school, not only for my weight but for my lack of interest in boys and obsession with The Beatles. Think back and I bet you can remember similar experiences you lived through or how you made fun of others you perceived as not being worthy of your inner circle friendship.

CRE Outreach is pleased to present THE BOYS NEXT DOOR by Tom Griffin, a comedy-drama centering on a caring social worker who supervises four disabled men (portrayed by actors with disabilities) living together in an apartment while learning to face their daily challenges together. We all fight with filters and obstacles in our lives, but the actors and characters in this production face challenges steeper than most. It is the experience and living truth of the actors that will fill these disabled characters' stories with physical and emotional authenticity.

It has often been said that the work-a-day world is made up of blood, sweat and tears. Perhaps that is most true for blue collar workers who find themselves laboring with their hands, especially in factories where those on the line are required to stand for hours on end doing repetitive work with little hope of any real recognition or promotion into management. Such is the case of the characters in Center Theatre Group's production of SWEAT, the 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Lynn Nottage, now at the Mark Taper Forum through October 7, 2018.

Struggling to pay the rent, Adam (Brian Patrick Roach) has put up a sign offering "Psychic Readings $25" to save himself from being thrown out on the street. And even though he has never had any psychic abilities nor done any type of reading before, several interesting characters show up, each offering decorating tips before paying the fee, expecting to find out something about themselves. From the beginning, it was pretty clear to me that the visitors would turn out to be characters being born in Adam's laptop, very stereotypical of the types of people they were playing. But it was easy to play along and watch the story in his mind play out onstage.

For those too young to remember the vaudevillian style lounge shows popular in the 50s and 60s in Las Vegas, where an iconic and often talented performer in their own right hosted other acts to keep gamblers entertained as they visited the lounge bar for a drink, looked for a companion for the night, or needed time to recover from a huge loss at the tables, you can now experience a little bit of old Vegas, right here in Hollywood. And I can tell you, I don't remember laughing as hard as I did the night I attended THE TONY MARTINI VARIETY HOUR at Three Clubs Cocktail Lounge, rumored to be the exact same place where Frank Sinatra would hang out with his assorted Rat Pack buddies, friends, and lovers during their own Las Vegas heyday. And that vibe still exists in the room where those great entertainers wowed the crowds so many years ago.

Subtitled 'A Light Comedy About Dark Jews,' we meet Bubby as she prepares a much-too-salty matzo ball soup for Rosh Hashana dinner in a period-perfect kitchen as the center piece of a realistic two-story set designed by Joel Daavid in anticipation of her entire family gathering to celebrate the holiday. Even her son and grandson will be there, a special evening (she hopes) as the two have not spoken to each other in years. But after continuously forgetting to bring home the chicken for dinner, Joey's alcoholic father David finally shows up at the table, causing alliances to be challenged and hopefully, new beginnings to be forged. And leave it to Zayda to show up at just the right moments to forward the story and add his own insights into his family's history and character. Oy vey!

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to re-invent yourself and completely start over as someone else? Perhaps, like me, you spent a lot of time in another country, speaking another language and watching yourself become more like the citizens who live there, totally comfortable in your new skin and personality. It's a journey of self-discovery and re-invention during which your true inner self is allowed out for perhaps the first time, one in which you can create a more fully free persona and spirit to guide you through the transition. Perhaps the easiest way to let such a thing happen to you occurs when you move to another place where no one knows your name or past, allowing you to live fully in the present and create an entirely new future for yourself as the person you always wanted to be. Such is the tale written and performed by Corinne Shor in I AM SOPHIE.

SILENCE! The Musical is an award-winning, unauthorized parody of the hit movie 'The Silence of the Lambs' with Music & Lyrics by Jon Kaplan & Al Kaplan, Book by Hunter Bell, presented by Bucket List Theatre from October 11 to November 3, 2018 at the Let Live Theatre (at The Actors Company) in Hollywood, directed and choreographed by Amanda Conlon with musical direction by Edgar Cardoso, presented under the auspices of the Actors' Equity Association Los Angeles Self-Produced Project Code. Featured in the cast are Jesse Merlin (Dr. Hannibal Lecter), Amanda Conlon (Clarice Starling), Nick Dothee (Buffalo Bill), Sherry Mandujano (Catherine Martin), Brian Dyer (Jack Crawford), Kevin Michael Moran (Dr. Chilton), Courtney Bruce (Ardelia, Lamb), Philip McBride (Papa Starling, Lamb), Suzanne Slade (Senator Martin, Lamb), Jesse Gavin (Stone Rockbrockmanrock, Lamb), Jeff LaGreca (Bimmel, Lamb), Michael C. Silva (Miggs, Lamb), Patrick Pizzolorusso (Jack Crawford understudy).

This satirical musical hoedown about living the American Dream tells the tale of what happens when the town gets convinced by the new Preacher as their "For Profit Prophet" and the son of a reality TV producer from Hollywood, Peter Martinez (Jamie Daniels), that the way to its salvation, fame and fortune is through being the subject of a new "Reality TV" show so the Preacher can raise funds to build a new "Mega-Church" in town to spread the gospel and bring more citizens into his flock. After all, he claims, "If they believe 'The Bachelor' is real, they'll believe anything."

In the wake of recent #MeToo headline events redefining gender roles (particularly for women) and issues of consent, PIZZA MAN by Darlene Craviotto, which debuted in 1982, seems timelier than ever. While statistics are only quoted once in the play with Newsweek saying 'a rape is committed every 7 seconds,' the United States Department of Justice research claims about 20 million out of 112 million women (18.0%) in the United States have been raped during their lifetime, with only 16% of all rapes reported to law enforcement. No doubt these rapes were committed almost exclusively by men. But is it possible for a woman to rape a man? Such is the question asked during PIZZA MAN.

Climbing the corporate ladder has always been easy for some and difficult for others. This somewhat-dated story, given how the 'Me Too' movement has changed the male-female office environment these days, follows the rise of J. Pierrepont Finch, who uses a little handbook called 'How To Succeed In Business' to climb the corporate ladder from lowly window washer to high-powered executive, tackling such familiar but potent dangers as the company 'Yes' men, backstabbing co-workers who want to succeed by causing you to fail, sexy secretaries looking for love and marriage, high-level executives who use their power to seduce sexy secretaries in private offices and at office parties, office-wide caffeine addiction, and, of course, true love.

Playwright Henry Ong admits that when he stumbled upon Tirso de Molina's "La celosa de si misma" (Jealous of Herself) during the Playwrights' Arena (PA) for the Golden Tongues series to introduce audiences to the treasures of the Golden Age of Spanish theater between 1590 to 1681, a PA-partnership with UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, he discovered an ingenious tale of deceit and deception with fascinating characters and relentless wit. The tale of self-image, identity, and the idea of physical perfection as hoisted upon us in the media immediately presented Ong with the opportunity to set his modern adaptation THE BLADE OF JEALOUSY in Los Angeles, a place where so many of us become dissatisfied with what nature has given us and how the media says we should look causes people to continually crave and seek to attain idealized versions of our physical selves in order to gain love.