Shari Barrett - Page 30

After working in the Warner Brothers Manhattan office mailroom, Playwright Neil Simon got his first big break as a staff writer on Sid Caesar's celebrated television series 'Your Show of Shows,' a live 90-minute variety show starring comedy legends Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca that ran from 1950 to 1954. The writing staff had a staggering talent pool that included; Mel Tolkin (All in the Family), Carl Reiner (Dick Van Dyke Show, The Jerk), Mel Brooks (Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Space Balls), Michael Stewart (Bye Bye Birdie, Hello Dolly!), Joseph Stein (Fiddler on the Roof), Lucille Kallen (worked on Broadway), Danny Simon (The Carol Burnett Show, Diff'rent Strokes) and his brother Neil Simon (The Odd Couple, Murder by Death). As a way of sharing his own experience working as the 'new kid' learning the ropes from the other, more experienced writers, Neil Simon wrote the outrageous comedy LAUGHTER ON THE 23rd FLOOR, now brilliantly staged at Little Fish Theatre in San Pedro through May 20.

During the 2015 Hollywood Fringe Festival, I discovered the all-female theatre troupe Broads' Word Ensemble when my love of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shew and being a fan of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy led me to the group's first production, Fifty Shades of Shrew. After being exquisitely entertained by the show, I vowed to follow the group in their future endeavors, whether at Fringe or not. So when I heard about their current production of The Lady Was a Gentleman, a screwball comedy of seduction, mistaken identity, and all the fun you can get away with when you're famous, I was more than ready to see what this inspirational group of women were presenting as a pure theatrical confection. And delicious it was!

Culver City residents Jeannine and Jack Stehlin are celebrating the 21st anniversary season of their New American Theatre production company by presenting MACBETH: REVISITED, directed by and starring Jack Stehlin in the title role with choreography and sound design by John Farmanesh-Bocca. Last year, this team of two brilliant production designers brought the award-winning Tempest Redux to the Odyssey Theatre, with mind-blowing choreography enabling the classic tale to resonant with modern audiences. Their great skill working together is again gracing a local stage at Sacred Fools on Hollywood's Theatre Row, featuring a gender-bending cast of company members who tell Shakespeare's tale of power, greed, and the blood-thirst for ambition - all in a roughly 95-minute theatrical journey.

GOOD PEOPLE centers on life in South Boston, a working-class neighborhood on hard times, which is no joke for single mother Margaret Walsh. Fired from her job, facing eviction and with nowhere to turn, she and her grown, disabled daughter, represent a large portion of today's society. Will she get a break from her young manager at the Dollar Store or the landlady with a craft business selling googly-eyed rabbits, or the man from her past, now a successful doctor, who left town at a crucial moment long ago? With cutting humor and amazing realism, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsey-Abaire creates a loving portrait of his hometown and a relatable story of socioeconomic struggle.

'Failure: A Love Story' chronicles the lives, loves and deaths of the three Fail sisters (June Carryl, Margaret Katch, and Nicole Shalhoub) and the one man with the double moniker Mortimer Mortimer (Kurt Quinn) who fell in love with each of them but not at the same time. Set against the backdrop of 1920s Chicago, this touching, whimsical tale explores the impermanence of life and the permanence of love, especially among devoted family members. The 'failure' in the title refers to poor Mortimer's inability to ever marry any of the three sisters after falling in love with them, as the untimely deaths of the three sisters happen before any marriages can take place.

Since I left the theater last Sunday, I have been singing 'Camptown Races' (sometimes referred to as 'Camptown Ladies'), a comic song written by Stephen Foster, known as the father of American music who was considered the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century. Appropriately, the song was published in 1850 in Foster's Plantation Melodies, making it the perfect theme song for PURE CONFIDENCE, a play set in the high-stakes world of Civil War-era horse racing. This surprisingly funny and daring story takes a look at the complexity of race relations, love and dignity in the second half of the nineteenth century. Against a vivid backdrop of fast horses, gritty racetracks and high-stakes betting, it's an extraordinary tale of human triumphs and failings.

When traveling between floors on an elevator, how often do you look around and react to strangers, wondering who they are or what they do for a living? And if you guess, what percentage of the time will you be wrong? Such is the challenge presented by the hit 2010 Hollywood Fringe Festival play ELEVATOR, written and directed by award-winning filmmaker and playwright Michael Leoni, based on the original short film Someplace In Between (an Official Selection of the 2009 LA Shorts Film Festival). The play originally premiered at the Hudson theaters during the first annual Hollywood Fringe Festival. After a wildly successful run, the smash hit expanded to the Hudson Mainstage Theatre and then the Macha Theater, receiving 11 nominations including 'Best New Work' from Broadway World as well as 'Critic's Choice' and 'Best Bet' from the Los Angeles Times. Now is your chance to catch it at The Coast Playhouse in West Hollywood through April 30.

We are still laughing, days after seeing the West Coast premiere of THE LEGEND OF GEORGIA McBRIDE at the Geffen Playhouse. The play with fantastic and ultra-flamboyant musical numbers will keep you laughing from beginning to end, centered on 'a wildly joyous story of empathy, of inclusivity, of community, of the potential for art to build bridges,' according to the Geffen's Artistic Director Randall Arney. Along with Mr. Arney, I send kudos to the six collaborators who have shepherded the play in its journey before arriving at the Geffen: playwright Matthew Lopez, director Mike Donahue, choreographer Paul McGill, cast member Matt McGrath, set designer Donyale Werle and sound designer Jill BC Du Boff so that L.A. audiences have a chance to celebrate the glory that stems from watching the best drag queen show since KINKY BOOTS.

Santa Monica Playhouse presents the funny, touching, and just a little bit racy, world premiere comedy, Albert James Kallis's A DeLUSIONAL Affair which will make you question everything you ever thought you knew about love, marriage, fantasy and reality, leaving you with a new perspective on it all. The play centers around a married couple celebrating their 25th Anniversary, with a husband eager to celebrate with his wife while she is so engrossed writing a book that she cannot be bothered to pay much attention to him, other than on the fantasy pages of her book. But what happens when that fantasy becomes reality?

Torn from today's headlines, what do you do when your enemy may be smarter than you? William Mastrosimone's gripping drama CAW'S-PAW is set in a warehouse near the U.S. capital where a terrorist who has wreaked madness and destruction on America is about to use a news reporter to exploit just one more valuable hostage – the world's supply of clean water. Reflecting both current issues of the destruction of clean drinking water in such places as Flint, MI, as well as climate change, this play will get you thinking about how the media tends to promote violence when words fail to gets opposing sides talking to each other, and will get you thinking about what it takes for a good cause go bad.

A wave of new plays addressing social unrest are now hitting the stages of Los Angeles theaters. Last weekend I saw Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan's BUILDING THE WALL at Fountain Theatre, the first in a series of productions set to take place at theaters across the U.S. as part of a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. Written as a reaction to the dawn of the Trump presidency, Schenkkan offers a direct response to his immigration policies, revealing how those policies might lead to a terrifying, seemingly inconceivable, yet inevitable conclusion.

No doubt those of us who survived protesting the Vietnam War in the mid-60s will remember CHEECH AND CHONG, the comedy duo featuring two very different L.A. street kids who bucked the rules and openly smoked and promoted the use of marijuana at a time when doing so guaranteed a stint in jail. As one member of that comedy duo, Cheech Marin came of age at an interesting time in America, starting out as a South Central L.A. street kid raised on 36th and San Pedro in the heart of the most violent area of our city, a place where by age 7 he had seen two homicides on his front lawn. But he was smart and destined to get off the mean streets and make a name for himself.

Lili Marlene is the name of the famous German love song that was popular during World War II. The title of the play is in homage to the song, featuring one of the most famous versions sung in 1944 by Marlena Deitrich whose portrait hangs in the show's cabaret. We are told early in the musical that the fictional main character, Rosie Penn, was 'rescued by Marlena Deitrich' who acted as a mentor of sorts and made the young Rosie promise to sing Lili Marlene in her act. That request will ultimately prove to be the very thing that may save Rosie from the camps.

Comprised of 10 short plays in 2 acts about the follies and foibles of love and lovers, LOVE ALLWAYS addresses the subjects of love and romance which have long provided great source material for comedy, created from the pens of two proven masters of American comedy. With busy careers in film, television and Broadway, Taylor and Bologna have defied the Hollywood odds with a marriage that's lasted 51 years (so far). And no doubt, many of the relationship stories shared must be of a very personal nature to them, or perhaps some of their closest friends!

Balanchine choreographed 425 works over the course of 60-plus years, and his works are considered masterpieces and performed by ballet companies all over the world. So you can image how thrilled I was to find out Los Angeles Ballet was going to present BALANCHINE: MASTER OF THE DANCE as their final selection of their 2016/2017 season. In it, three of his most outstanding ballet choreographies are presented: Divertimento No. 15 featuring music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Prodigal Son with music by Sergei Prokofiev; and Who Cares? with music by George Gershwin, adapted and orchestrated by Hershy Kay.

Theatre 40 is a well-known for presenting superb and very professional World Premiere productions in the Reuben Cordova Theatre on the campus of Beverly Hills High School. Their winning streak continues with APRIL, MAY & JUNE written by Gary Goldstein and directed by Terri Hanauer which continues through April 16, 2017. In it, we meet April, May and June, fortyish sisters all born a year apart. They're Jewish by birth but temperamentally so different, which becomes all the more apparent as they gather in their family home to pack up what is left of their mother's belongings to give to Good Will and discover a hidden family secret among her belongings.

Directed by Filter Theatre's Sean Holmes, with music and sound by Tom Haines and Ross Hughes, TWELFTH NIGHT is a ferocious reimaging of Shakespeare's classic comedy where nothing onstage is hidden and everything is revealed, from cables, costumes, props and more. Six actors, together with two musicians (Alan Pagan & Ross Hughes), perform all the various roles, often interacting directly with the audience as they run up the aisles or take seats next to surprised audience members, several of whom are called up onstage to participate in the show's outrageous antics. And be prepared to enjoy and pass along large boxes of delivery pizza when prompted to do so by the cast.

Have you ever felt the presence of someone in a room where you are sitting? How about when you are in an ICU waiting room with a loved one just beyond the door, hanging onto life by a thread? Have you ever experienced that person in the waiting room with you, clearing their mind of regrets as they wait in limbo before passing to the other side? Such is the premise of GOD'S WAITING ROOM, a World Premiere play written by Robert Austin Rossi and directed by David Fofi, produced by The Elephant Theatre Company at the Matrix Theatre through April 4.

EDWARD ALBEE'S AT HOME AT THE ZOO combines Albee's groundbreaking 1959 short play The Zoo Story with his acclaimed prequel Homelife, written in 2004. Together these short plays tell a more complete story of publishing executive Peter, his wife Ann, and Jerry, the volatile stranger Peter meets in the park. The production marks the first major Albee production in Los Angeles since the 2016 passing of the legendary American Playwright, with Coy Middlebrook directing a cast that includes deaf and hearing actors working in perfect unison.

As a way to celebrate International Women's Day this year, I attended the World Premiere of Ngozi Anyanwu's new play GOOD GRIEF at Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre. The production is directed by Patricia McGregor, with Anyanwu performing as the lead character, Nkechi. This is the first of Anyanwu's plays to receive a full professional production with great techniical credits including an impressive movable set designed by Stephanie Kerley Schwartz, costumes designed by Karen Perry, lighting designed by Pablo Santiago, with sound design by Adam Phalen. The cast features, in alphabetical order, Dayo Ade, Wade Allain-Marcus, Ngozi Anyanwu, Marcus Henderson, Omoze Idehenre, Carla Renata and Mark Jude Sullivan.