Shari Barrett - Page 47

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF was always the playwright's favorite among all his plays. Theatre Palisades is presenting the original version of the script as written by Tennessee Williams before Eli Kazan, who was already hired to direct both Broadway and the film version, forced him to re-write the script to conform to the mores in McCarthy era 1955. This compelling original version has been professionally produced only two times, in 1958 in London and in 1974 on Broadway with Elizabeth Ashley, Keir Dullea and Fred Gwynne.

Chalk Repertory Theatre has created a very intimate way to experience the show, setting it in the backhouse of a Beverlywood area home transforming it into May's 1980s hotel room as she attempts to untangle herself from Eddie on the night their hearts reach their breaking points. With only 20 audience members at each performance, you can't help but be drawn into the story and characters since you are sitting in the hotel room with them, watching them run in and out of the room, slamming doors, hiding in the bathroom, drinking, and of course wrestling on the floor right at your feet.

Queer Classics re-imagines one of the most popular comedic plays ever written - Oscar Wilde's THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST by presenting the four lovers in the story as dashing gay men. Director Casey Kringlen brings this sassy comedy to the Hollywood Fringe Festival, mining hysterical new meaning into many of the classic play's lines about society and manners.

THE BEST OF CRAIGSLIST started in 2012 as a comedic web series on Funny or Die starring John Pick. In early 2013, after taking the video characters live for a couple of solo performances, Pick designed a rotating ensemble-based performance using real Craigslist posts as source material. Any of us who have placed Craigslist ads to try and sell something, trade something, find a roommate, or follow up on a chance meeting will surely laugh their way through the one hour performance.

The World Premiere of ROCK & ROLL'S GREATEST LOVERS, with music by Anzu Lawson and Joerg Stoeffel, book and lyrics by Anzu Lawson, tells the Romeo and Juliet story of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, two rebels from opposite ends of the world who stood together in the name of LOVE only to face every kind of hate and tribulation. The 60 minute production of selected songs from the play is directed by Nell Teare, presented at the Lillian Theater during the 2014 Hollywood Fringe Festival.

Is it the role or the actor that lives on through history? In DRAMATIS PERSONAE Kristopher Lee Bicknell gives a tour-de-force performance starting out as a modern actor dressed in stage blacks, going through his warm-up exercises to great classical music as the audience is seated. The actor brings both a genuine respect and a passionate portrayal to a series of selected pieces, both deeply dramatic and side-splittingly funny. The result is a revelation for audiences, a bravura performance of surprising wit, subtlety, passion, and heartbreaking vulnerability by Bicknell.

Jo March really thinks she could be the voice of her generation….or at least, a voice of a generation in WOMEN, the record-breaking hit from #Serials @ The Flea Theater, fresh off its sold out run in NYC, which is now at The Hollywood Fringe Festival, directed by Stephanie Ward. This fast-paced comedy is a mash up of Louisa May Alcott's classic, 'Little Women' and HBO's critically acclaimed 'Girls' delivering a smartly crafted and hilarious 55 minute show.

Mariah Bonner strikes quite a figure as the narrator of these 5 short plays by The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP). Encouraging the audience to post on social media about the show, many in the audience were more than happy to oblige! Each of the 5 plays poses questions about sexual orientation, attraction, and how social media has affected our relationships. Each story is simple in the telling, but deep in human interaction.

Organized disorder and unintended hilarity. Dropped lines and missed entrances. Forgotten props and late sound effects. Certainly those of us ever involved with producing, directing, or being in a play know how the combination of all these things can lead to a flop. Lucky for the cast of DROP DEAD at the NoHo Arts Center, the combination of these disasters leads to hysteria and a hit comedy!

Thanks to Carole Eglash-Kosoff's World Premiere production of her play THE HUMAN SPIRIT at the Odyssey Theatre directed with insight and compassion by Donald Squires, I now have a much clearer understanding of the horrible decisions made by white Europeans leading to apartheid against native black Africans, even those who had fought during World War II and were treated as second class citizens once they returned home.

The 46th Kritzerland show on Sunday, June 1 featured one of the most influential female lyricists of all time, the great Dorothy Fields. In a time when Tin Pan Alley was almost exclusively a male-dominated club, Dorothy Fields rose to the top, first writing hit after hit with Jimmy McHugh, and later becoming one of the first female lyricists on Broadway and in film. Fields created some of the cleverest and most beautiful lyrics ever written, and was a master of the craft who forged the way for so many other talented female lyricists. There was no one like Dorothy Fields.

With performances through June 21 in Los Angeles, the two-act story ballet LA SYLPHIDE will be paired with George Balanchine's romantic SERENADE at four of Los Angeles Ballet's home venues: UCLA's Royce Hall, The Alex Theatre in Glendale, Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, and Valley Performing Arts Center in Northridge. Los Angeles Ballet will be touring out of California for the first time, presenting the same production in Seattle, Washington on June 27, 2014, at McCaw Hall at Seattle Center.

MUCKRAKERS is a searing examination of modern journalism in an age when nothing seems to be worth keeping private anymore. In the play, the two characters caught up in the political espionage drama are Mira, a young female activist who brings Stephen, a famous and slightly older British political journalist, home to her Brooklyn apartment to spend the night. But as they start to expose each others secrets, personal and political desires collide, testing the limits of privacy in the modern world.

The San Pedro Theatre Club presents CABARET, a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, with music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The production is directed by Drew Fitzsimmons and Victoria Miller, who also choreographed, with music directed by Leslie Sharp. The intimate 78-seat theater allows the actors to interact with the audience on several occasions, making it really feel as if we are inside the small German cabaret rather than watching a show about it.

The Spare Change Series presents 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' Hollywood's new charitybased play reading series, The Spare Change Series, will be presenting their very first production on Monday, June 2, 2014 at 7pm at the Art of Acting Studio, located at 1017 N. Orange Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90038.

Theatre Palisades is presenting Tennessee Williams' original script of CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF opening June 6. Since this script is rarely produced and differs from the well-known movie version featuring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman, I decided to speak with the show's director, Michael-Anthony Nozzi, for more information about the production, the first time the original script is being presented in Los Angeles.

AGAINST THE WALL was started as a workshop back in 1986, based on playwright Charlie Mount's experiences performing in the basements and on the stages of New York's comedy clubs as a stand-up and magician, working alongside other newcomers like Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, and Ray Romano. Presented as part of a series called Writers In Rep, in which playwrights from Theatre West's Writers' Unit have developed plays for full production, the current engagement marks its World Premiere as a completed, fully-produced work at Theatre West.. It's both romantic and very funny.

Not Man Apart Physical Theatre Ensemble opens its 2014 season with a Los Angeles premiere of AJAX IN IRAQ by award-winning playwright Ellen Mclaughlin, directed and choreographed by NMA artistic director John Farmanesh-Bocca. The play intertwines the important and timely issue of sexual abuse against women in the military with the parable of the great warrior Ajax, which is said to be one of the first and oldest stories to openly portray the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Highly theatrical in style, HOLDING THE MAN runs the gamut from absurdism to magical realism (including unique puppets designed by Alex "Jurgen" Ferguson) to naturalism to farce to deep drama. It is a celebration of love that speaks across generations, sexual preference and culture. It will grab your attention from the start and take you along for the roller coaster ride of your theatrical life.

DiPrieto's play is affectionately written and deftly sketches the growing attraction between two lonely seniors, Ralph and Carol, providing some nicely observed character comedy. Perry Shields' deft direction keeps the action moving at a fast clip, with all four actors perfectly cast. Ralph's cute flirtations with Carol will warm your heart and drive women to the nearest dog park, hoping someone just like him will be there waiting.