Los Angeles Interviews - Page 2

Debbie Allen presents Camille A. Brown & Dancers: ink January 12th and 13th at The Wallis. ink “explores self-empowerment, Black love, brotherhood, and resilience that examines aspects of Black life that are too often appropriated, rewritten, or silenced.” I had the chance to chat with director/chor...

The 6th Act world premieres Matthew Leavitt’s SUKKOT opening January 13, 2024; at the Skylight Theatre. Joel Zwick directs the cast of Natalie Lander, Liza Seneca, Andy Robinson and Jonathan Slavin. A regular familiar face on the Los Angeles stages, Natalie carved out some time to answer a few of my...

Theatre 40’s hit immersive drama The Manor- Murder and Madness at Greystone returns for its nineteenth season at the Greystone Mansion January 18, 2024.  Martin Thompson directs the cast of Darby Hinton, Eric Keitel, Daniel Leslie, Carol Potter, Nathalie Rudolph, David Hunt Stafford, Amy Tolsky, Joh...

A new Pasadena Playhouse holiday tradition begins with the premiere of Tony nominee Sam Pinkleton and Randy Blair’s Pasadena Playhouse Holiday Spectacular running December 14th through December 23rd. Sam directs the cast of MaryAnn Hu, Lesli Margherita, George Salazar and Jason Michael Snow. I had t...

Next up at the Ahmanson, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s A Christmas Story opening December 8, 2023 (with previews beginning December 5th). Matt Lenz directs the cast of Chris Carsten, Eric Petersen, Sabrina Sloan, Shelley Regner, Kai Edga, and Henry Witcher; with ensemble members Steven-Adam Agdeppa, ...

The Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir holiday special celebrates its 20th year with PBS premiering December 12, 2023. This perennial favorite, PBS’ #1 holiday show each year, this year features guest stars Lea Salonga and Sir David Suchet performing with the 360-membered Tabernacle Choir and 110-p...

For The Record’s perennial holiday favorite Love Actually Live returned to The Wallis November 29, 2023. Commemorating the film’s 20th anniversary, Anderson Davis directs the cast of Tomasina Abate, Madison Taylor Baez, James Byous, Chris Cockrill, Audrey Cymone, Anthony Fedorov, Brayden Gleave, Gra...

Jeff Schell and The Habit’s A Very Die Hard Christmas opens December 10, 2023 at Theatre 40. Celebrating the film’s 35th anniversary, Sandro Monetti directs this musical parody with the cast of Nick Versteeg, Lauren Samuels, Jesse Merlin, Raymund King, Nick Bredosky, and Theatre 40 favorites Roslyn ...

Broadway legend Audra McDonald returns to LA Opera backed by the LA Opera Orchestra and her four-piece ensemble (led by musical director Andy Einhorn) December 2, 2023. Be prepared to experience the stunning vocals of six-time Tony winner singing her expansive Broadway and opera repertoire filling t...

A re-imagined production of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s Inherit the Wind is currently playing on the Pasadena Playhouse stage, just extended through December 3, 2023. Michael Michetti directs the cast, led by Alfred Molina & John Douglas Thompson as the battling lawyers in a trial inspired b...

InHouse Theatre’s next site-specific production Matt Schatz’ The Past, A Present Yet To Come will open December 4, 2023 at The Artisan Studios, moving over to The Ebell of Los Angeles December 11th. Tom Detrinis directs the cast of Keri Safran, Brandon Scott and Rob Welsh.  After returning from his ...

I chatted with writer Isaac Gómez about the world premiere of their new play Radical or, are you gonna miss me? at IAMA Theatre Company. The play, which tells the story of two sisters struggling to navigate a relationship despite major political differences, was inspired in part by a shocking discov...

During the Hollywood Fringe Festival this past June, I twice attended the award-winning The Collective, the first Last Call Theatre immersive production directed by Riley Cole who is also directing the group’s upcoming immersive production called The Harvest, opening this December in downtown Los An...

The global tour of The Very Hungry Caterpillar Holiday Show! finally makes its Los Angeles debut at the El Portal Theatre November 25, 2023 (playing through January 21, 2024). Based on Eric Carle’s children’s books, show creator Jonathan Rockefeller directs the cast of Paula Moore, Becki Park, Sean ...

Next up for the Center Theatre Group, TheaterWorksUSA’s Dog Man: The Musical opening November 21, 2023 at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Jen Wineman directs and choreographs this adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s worldwide best-selling book series Dog Man: The Musical. Kevin Del Aguila, who wrote the book and l...

Matt Chait’s A Family Business world premieres November 17, 2023, at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre (with previews November 15th and 16th). Brian Shnipper directs the cast of Eric Stanton Betts, Alli Brown, Michelle Jasso, Lindsay G. Merrithew, Bruce Nozick and Julie Pearl. I had the chance to throw o...

Next up at the Getty Villa Theater Lab, Guelan Varela-Luarca and Chay Yew’s The House of Baluyot: A Filipino Oresteia for two performances only November 18th and 19th. Guelan and Chay also direct this work-in-progress with the cast of Ramon de Ocampo, Tess Lina, Zandi De Jesus, Reggie Lee, Andres Pa...

Zachary Reeve Davidson is the Founding Artistic Director of Coin & Ghost, the group presenting Mama Mama Can’t You See, an explosive new play about human connection and the mythology of war written by ex-Marine Stan Mayer and Cecilia Fairchild. Davidson is directing and choreographing, opening Novem...

The 25th Anniversary North American Tour of MAMMA MIA! makes its Los Angeles stop at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre beginning November 14, 2023. Reprising her role of Donna Sheridan, Christine Sherrill leads the cast of 30. Phyllida Lloyd directs and Anthony Van Laast choregraphs this three-week lim...

The musical workshop of The Manager world premieres at The Bourbon Room November 13th and 14th. The real-life story of the six degrees of separation between Elvis, Colonel Tom Parker, Ricky Nelson and Louis Jay Pearlman is told through the original songs by Ben Susskind. Steve Josephson directs the ...

The smash jukebox tribute Scissorhands - A Musical Tribute returns with an all-new, immersive staging opening December 1, 2023, at The Bourbon Room (with previews starting November 24th). This hilarious parody of the 1990 classic film Edward Scissorhands features their unique take on such pop hits a...

Collaborative Artists Bloc & Support Black Theatre will West Coast premiere Nikkole Salter’s Lines in the Dust November 4, 2023 at the Matrix Theatre. Desean K. Terry directs the cast of Kelly Jenrette, Erica Tazel and Tony Pasqualini, with Kelly and Erica playing the dual roles of Beverly and Denit...

The West Coast premiere of Howard L. Craft’s Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green begins November 12, 2023, at the Fountain Theatre. Joseph Megel directs this one-man outing starring J. Alphonse Nicholson. J. Alphonse made some time out of his rehearsals to answer a few of my queries....

The Group Rep inaugurates their 51st anniversary season with Kander & Ebb’s 70, Girls, 70 opening November 10, 2023, at their Lonny Chapman Theatre. Bruce Kimmel directs the cast of Cynthia Bryant, Regan Carrington, Kay Cole, Fay DeWitt, and more. Barbara, who shares the role of Ida with Suzy, sat d...

The final production of East West Players’ 57th Season, the Tony Award winning musical Spring Awakening opens October 29, 2023 (with previews already begun). Former EWP Artistic Director Tim Dang directs the cast of Mia Sempertegui, Thomas K. Winter, Marcus Phillips, Madison Grepo, Tamlyn Tomita, Da...

Each Halloween Season, many horror and science fiction offerings hit our stages. This year, David P. Johnson is bringing his Sally Spectre: The Musical back to Theatre West weekends through October 29. A combination horror and morality play, it centers around the ghost of a 5-year-old girl trying to...

Akram Khan Dance Company world premieres its Jungle Book reimagined at The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage October 26, 2023. Akram Khan Dance Company member Jan Mikaela Villanueva found some time from their performances in Ottawa, Canada to answer a few of my queries....

Their 2023/2024 season opens on October 28, 2023, with A Beatles Celebration featuring the Classical Mystery Tour band who will celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the first Beatles U.S. tour in 1964 as well as the Beatlemania they inspired. I spoke with the group's president Kelly Ruggirello about th...

Up next at The Geffen Playhouse, Samuel Baum’s The Engagement Party West Coast premieres October 12, 2023 (with previews already in progress). Darko Tresnjak directs the cast of: Richard Bekins, Bella Heathcote, Brian Lee Huynh, Mark Jacobson, Wendie Malick, Brian Patrick Murphy, Jonah Platt and Lau...

Roger Q. Mason will present a live reading of Hide and Hide as part of the 2023 LAX Festival October 20, 2023, at the L.A. Dance Project. Jessica Hanna directs the two-hander with August Gray Gall and Amielynn Abellera. ...

Oracle reader and Feng Shui consultant Vicki Iskandar will be presenting her just released The Chinese Five Elements Oracle at Vitello’s Velvet Martini Lounge as part of their Tarot Week, October 22, 2023....

To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Verdi Chorus, the group’s Music Director and Founding Artistic Director Anne Marie Ketchum, pianist/vocal coach Victoria Kirsch, and actor Linda Kelsey created This, and My Heart, A Portrait of Emily Dickinson and Her Worlds Through Text and Song, to be prese...

Last year’s Garry Marshall Theatre production of Cindy & The Disco Ball returns reincarnated as Cindy & The Disco Ball: The Musical opening October 7, 2023. Both Joseph Leo Bwarie and Christine Lakin reprise their co-directorial roles of this retro retelling of the classic Cinderella story. Christin...

The North American tour of Hadestown returns to the Ahmanson Theatre for a limited 16 performances starting October 3, 2023. Rachel Chavkin directs the cast of Amaya Braganza, Lana Gordon, Will Mann, Matthew Patrick Quinn, J. Antonio Rodriguez, Marla Louissaint, Lizzie Markson, Hannah Schreer, Sevon...

La Cage, an immersive variety show inspired by the La Cage Aux Folles nightclub (which opened in 1981 on La Cienega Blvd) will launch the Hollywood Roosevelt’s iconic Cinegrill Theatre October 5, 2023, and then run every Friday through January 19, 2024. Original La Cage member Tommi Rose steps into ...

Eli Bauman’s 44 - THE unOFFICIAL, unSANCTIONED OBAMA MUSICAL re-opens October 13, 2023 at The Bourbon Room (with previews beginning October 11th). Eli himself directs his reimagined satire of the Obama campaign with the cast led by T.J. Wilkins as Barack and Shanice as Michelle , with Kevin Bailey, ...

Michael Kearns presents his 16th Solo Show It Must Be Him: A Genderful Musical Memoir as part of CIRCA: Queer Histories Festival October 11, 2023 at the LGBT Center’s Davidson/Valenti Theatre. Long-time collaborator Ryland Shelton directs Michael. Michael graciously agreed to this, our fourth interv...

James G. Hirsch & Robert A. Papazian’s Love Among the Ruins begins its limited engagement at the El Portal Theatre October 8, 2023 (with previews starting October 6th). Michael Arabian directs the stellar cast of JoBeth Williams and Peter Strauss. After decades in successful careers in television, L...

In her tribute cabaret/theater act, Ms. Tucker Will See You Now, Los Angeles native Laural Meade shares her admiration of Jazz great Sophie Tucker by performing her rollicking songs, bawdy stories, and dirty jokes at the historic Gardenia Supper Club in Hollywood. It’s your chance to travel back to ...

Aaron Poser’s Life Sucks. will have its Los Angeles premiere, September 30,2023 at The Broadwater Main Stage (with previews beginning September 24th). Barry Heins directs this reimagining of Anton Chekhov's classic play, Uncle Vanya with the cast of: John Ross Bowie, Anne Gee Byrd, Olivia Castanho, ...