Shari Barrett - Page 62

If you struggle with managing your busy schedule, making it to the gym, while you just can't say no to that giant chocolate chip cookie with your name on it, you aren't alone! Under the direction of Matthew E. Silva, WAISTWATCHERS THE MUSICAL with Book and Lyrics by Alan Jacobson and music by Vince Di Mura, takes us inside Miss Cook's Women's Gym where four women share their marital pitfalls, a "little more to love" body size issues, and their weakness for sweet treats. Their universal tales of weight loss struggle amid lives in turmoil will keep you laughing continuously, wishing it could assist you in losing a few pounds of your own during the 90 minutes of hysterics!

Celebration Theatre is a very small venue known for putting on very big musicals and doing them very well. But I have to tell you, seeing Del Shores claim the stage as his own was really a treat as he transformed himself into not only his mother but several other friends and relatives from his childhood in Texas or others he has met over the years in gay bars, banks and convenience stores in SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF A PLAY. The title, of course, riffs on Pirandello's classic title, but in this one, Shores brings to life six one-of-a-kind characters he has met in real life that haven't quite made it into one of his plays, films or TV shows. In 90 minutes, the audience heard the truth behind how he collected these eccentrics and their stories as he portrays his hilarious, off-the-rails encounters with them.

Actors Co-op Theatre Company presents the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award nominated drama A WALK IN THE WOODS, written in 1988 by playwright Lee Blessing. The witty two-hander concerns a relationship between two arms negotiators, one Russian and one American, and what happens when they step out of the war room and into the woods above Geneva, Switzerland, during a year of negotiations. Although the two eventually develop a friendly relationship, their personalities certainly differ in that the American is formal and idealistic while the Russian is easily led off topic and very pessimistic that any agreement will ever amount to any changes in the escalating arms race.

Yazmine Reza's 2009 Tony Award winning play GOD OF CARNAGE centers on two sets of parents, unknown to each other until their 11-year old sons, Benjamin and Henry, get involved in an argument in a public park because Benjamin refused to let Henry join his 'gang'. In their altercation following the snub, Henry knocked out two of Benjamin's teeth with a stick, details we learn in the opening scene taking place that night as the parents of both boys meet to discuss the matter. However, as the evening goes on, the "adults" become increasingly childish, resulting in the evening dissolving into chaos.

The third and final play, THE HAPPIEST SONG PLAYS LAST, is being presented by the Latino Theater Company, directed by Edward Torres with the heart and soul of Latino culture brought into crystal clear focus. Set to the joyful sounds of traditional Puerto Rican folk music beautifully played onstage by guitarist Nelson Gonzalez, HAPPIEST SONG chronicles a year in the life of two kindred souls as they search for love, meaning and a sense of hope in a quickly changing world. At the dawn of the Arab Spring in an ancient Jordanian town, Elliot, an Iraq War veteran (Peter Pasco), struggles to overcome the traumas of combat by taking on an entirely new and unexpected career: an action-film hero. At the same time, halfway around the world in a cozy North Philadelphia kitchen, his cousin, Yaz (Elisa Bocanegra), takes on a heroic new role of her own as the heart and soul of her crumbling community, providing hot meals and an open door for the needy.

As you relax at cocktail tables with drinks in hand, chatting amicably with others seated near you, singer Marian Frizelle, who we later learn is the director's ex, steps onto one of the two platforms in the room to entertain us with a sexy rendition of "It Was Just One of Those Things," which happens to be exactly the type of relationship action we are about to experience around us. The show then begins as actors walk around among the tables as their characters meet and get to know each other, often speaking directly to audience members who are more than welcome to answer back or give an opinion on how their hook-up chances are going. Without the fourth wall to separate the actors from the audience, everyone is the room has a chance to be in the show - so be prepared!

First of all, kudos to director James Esposito for discovering the musical DESSA ROSE, based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Sherley Anne Williams. This awe-inspiring musical received its New York premiere at Lincoln Center in 2005 and it's a wonder no other theater group has decided to produce this timely exploration about the universal need for freedom and equality. With book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty, it tells the story of a young black woman (a runaway slave) and a young white woman (an abandoned mother) beginning in the years just prior to the Civil War and continuing through their journey to acceptance in the antebellum South. The audience has the role of playing their grandchildren, to whom the elderly pair tell their story as it is presented to us.

It ended too soon is all I can say. I could have kept dancing for hours to the music being celebrated from the stage in MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET, now being presented by 3-D Theatricals in Redondo Beach and Cerritos. For those like me who have always been a fan of wild child Jerry Lee Lewis and the sexy performance style of Elvis Presley, or the music of the man in black Johnny Cash or rock and roll pioneer Carl Perkins, get your tickets ASAP for an evening of theatre you will never forget as you act like a fly on the wall as you experience one night that changed rock and roll forever.

Quiara Alegria Hudes is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who wrote the book for the Broadway musical "In the Heights," which received the 2008 Tony Award for Best Musical, a Tony nomination for Best Book of a Musical and was a 2009 Pulitzer Prize finalist. Her Pulitzer-nominated and winning trilogy of plays known as the "Elliot Trilogy" are now being presented concurrently, giving Los Angeles theatre audiences a rare opportunity to immerse themselves in this exciting playwright's work. ELLIOT, A SOLDIER'S FUGUE, the first in her trilogy of Elliot plays, is being produced by Center Theatre Group at the Kirk Douglas Theatre at the same time they are presenting the second play in the trilogy, Hudes' Pulitzer-winning WATER BY THE SPOONFUL at the Mark Taper Forum. The Latino Theater Company will present the final installment of the trilogy with their production of THE HAPPIEST SONG PLAYS LAST at the Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC) opening later this month.

Now playing at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, the 80-minute play IRONBOUND by award-winning playwright Martyna Majok recounts the hard luck life of Polish immigrant Darja and the men she chooses to have in it. Moving between 2014, 1992, and 2006 - but not necessarily in that order - this wry drama points out that sometimes survival is the only measure of success. No doubt the title of her play, though set at a bus stop a quarter of a mile from Elizabeth, NJ, makes sense since that blue-collar town is just like where Darja works in a nearby noisy paper factory and as a maid for a wealthy married woman, and yet still suffers through poverty, abusive husbands who drink too much, single motherhood, and then an adult son who steals her car and abandons her with no way to get to work other than the bus, which of course is always late.

SISTER ACT is a feel-good musical comedy smash hit based on the 1992 film that has audiences ready to rejoice! Featuring original music by Tony® and 8-time Oscar® winner Alan Menken (Disney's Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast, Newsies, Enchanted), dazzling dance routines and songs inspired by Motown, soul and disco, SISTER ACT qualifies as the funniest and funkiest musical around. Lately this popular musical has been performed at many theaters in the greater Los Angeles area, each one brilliant in its own right. But I have to say I have never seen one more perfectly cast than the current production at the Simi Valley Cultural Center with the amazingly talented Elizabeth Adabale as Deloris Van Cartier, a disco diva whose life takes a surprising turn when she witnesses a murder and then goes into hiding in a convent!

When Danny, son of an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic rabbi, injures the more traditionally Orthodox Reuven during a baseball game between their rival yeshivas, their two universes collide and a unique friendship is born. "This powerful story shows how essential it is to consider the views of those who are different from us," says director Levy. "It's an antidote to the toxicity of our times. Potok beautifully depicts what it means to bridge chasms - between modernity and tradition, the secular and the sacred, Zionism and Hasidism, adolescence and adulthood, friendship and family, fathers and sons, the head and the heart, and the struggle to choose for ourselves, to fight for what we believe in and who we want to be."

Like Andy Warhol, another well-known, towheaded, Avant Garde artist who pushed the boundaries of his art form, Klaus Kinski was one of the most celebrated and controversial actors in the history of world cinema. The reckless abandon with which he approached both life and art left him tortured, demonized and worshiped by scores of his fans. And since the German actor died in November 1991, there is no way to speak with him now about what motivated him and why he felt so tortured throughout his life. The project first germinated when writer/actor Andrew Perez lined up interviews with Phyllis Winter (a very close friend during the last 10 years of Kinski's life in Lagunitas, CA) and her daughter Sara to learn more about the temperamental artist. He then worked hand in hand with director Eric G. Johnson to interview the two women which led to the creation of a theatrical tribute to the outspoken artist entitled THE SECOND COMING OF KLAUS KINSKI, a hit at the 2017 Hollywood Fringe Festival which is now enjoying an open-ended encore run on Thursday nights at Studio C on Hollywood's Theatre Row.

THE PRICE by Arthur Miller premiered on Broadway in 1968 and was nominated for two Tony Awards, for Best Play and Best Scenic Design. It is a timeless piece regarding the choices we make and the consequences we eventually face. It is about family dynamics, the price of furniture and the price of one's decisions, taking place in a soon to be demolished family house where two brothers, estranged for decades, meet together to dispose of their late parents' property. The resulting confrontation leads them to examine the events and qualities of their very different lives and the price each of them has had to pay to have the lives they now lead.

Back in the late 60s, groups of people would meet up at an agreed-upon place to attend a "happening," defined as a partly improvised or spontaneous piece of theatrical or other artistic performance, typically involving audience participation. This description is exactly how I would describe what is taking place at the Pasadena Playhouse through February 25, 2018, with Gilbert and Sullivan's PIRATES OF PENZANCE as reimagined by the Chicago-based Hypocrites acting troupe who turns the classic on its head, surprising audiences with a raucous 80-minute beach party that blends the original operetta with modern day attire, a central stage area from which the tossing of beach balls is encouraged, kiddie wading pools are available for seats, and lots of audience participation is expected during every moment the 10 energetic actor-musicians are in the house.

Ken Ludwig is a two-time Olivier Award-winning playwright whose work is performed throughout the world in more than thirty countries and over twenty languages. He has written twenty-five plays and musicals, with six Broadway productions and seven in London's West End. I learned about his incredible way with comedic farce when I saw his first Broadway play, Lend Me A Tenor, which won two Tony Awards and was called 'one of the classic comedies of the 20th century" by The Washington Post. So when I heard the Morgan-Wixson Theatre in Santa Monica was presenting Ludwig's MOON OVER BUFFALO, one of his other comedic farces I had never seen before, I knew I was in for a treat watching all the missed communications, mistaken identities, secrets, and lies collide hilariously backstage. And I was not disappointed.

Every January I look forward to attending THE MANOR by Katherine Bates, presented by Theatre 40 inside the historic Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills where the story upon which it is based actually took place. Now celebrating its 16th year, the annual production has become a Los Angeles/Beverly Hills institution with several performances selling out even before tickets go on sale to the public. Its popularity, no doubt, is due to the talented actors, costumed to time-period perfection, who make up the cast of characters about the oil-rich Doheny family, as well as the chance to be inside the grand and glorious architectural landmark in which the events of 89 years ago actually took place, performed in two acts taking place 10 years apart.

INTO THE WOODS may be one of the most popular musicals for those skilled in the art of presenting musical theater comedy. So much so that when Cupcake Studios held auditions for the 17 character roles in the show, over 1,000 people submitted online and in person to be in the show at the North Hollywood theater location. So it is no wonder each and every person in the show creates magic when they take the stage! Kudos to Michael Pettenato, the group's Artistic Director who directs and produces this musical extravaganza, for selecting the best of the best to bring such excellence in all aspects of the production.

Have you and your partner ever thought how nice it would be to go back and have a conversation with your younger selves that might be able to change the course of your lives together? No doubt playwright Jerry Mayer, whose plays deal with the 'ups, downs and sideways' of male/female relationships, must have wondered the same thing and created the comedy A LOVE AFFAIR to address the idea of one couple, at two different stages of their marriage, meeting in the midst of relationship upheaval when selling their family home and sorting through years of marriage mementos. Witty sexual innuendos abound as the business of aging is handled with great humor and understanding from both the youthful and more mature viewpoints.

By now, we all know that new laws have been enacted which allow the first born, whether male or female, of the reigning heir to the British monarchy to be named that person's successor. This new move to equality of the sexes when it comes to being named the crown was perhaps initially started by Katherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of King Henry VIII, who he made Queen Regent when he went off to war (allowing her to rule in his place). Parr then took it upon herself to have his daughters Mary and Elizabeth (Bess) added to the line of succession should their younger half-brother and heir apparent, Edward, die without any legal heirs to assume the crown. That move led to advancing their status as women of royal privilege as more than just a piece of property to be used as a bargaining chip for royal alliances through marriage.