Lloyd Cooper

In the staging of 13 at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center, the kids are more-than-allright; occasionally a little rough around the edges, but so is this musical. Frequent Panic helmer Barry Pearl, music director Lloyd Cooper and a rocking company of 19 give this heartfelt ode to self-discovery both the sizzle and friskiness it deserves.

Panic Productions, Born to Perform Studio and BarCinBoo Productions are teaming up to bring Ventura County a NEW Teen Summer Musical experience!  13 is a hilarious, coming-of-age musical about discovering that “cool” is sometimes where we least expect it.

Panic Productions, Born to Perform Studio and BarCinBoo Productions are teaming up to bring Ventura County a NEW Teen Summer Musical experience!  

Panic! Productions, along with Born To Perform Studios and BarCinBoo Productions, Inc. have announced that Barry Pearl will once again direct their late summer teen musical 13, this time at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center. This will be Pearl's third time working with Panic! Productions and also his third time directing the musical on the West Coast. I decided to speak with Barry about his connection to the teen musical and what inspired him to direct it for the third time, as well as how it may differ from his previous incarnations.

Panic! Productions, Born To Perform Studio and BarCinBoo Productions announce the addition of acclaimed choreographer Michelle Elkin and multiple award winning musical director Lloyd Cooper will join the team, along with Barry Pearl, of the popular teen musical 13.  

On Wednesday, March 22nd, I sat down to watch my first production of EVITA, ever, at the Century II Concert Hall. Grimly aware of my myriad prejudices, chief among them being the fact that I had listened to the original Broadway cast recording with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin ad infinitum ad nauseum since its eagerly awaited release back in 1979. It was the second rock musical concept piece written by Webber and Rice, and was directed by Harold Prince, and garnered 11 Tony nominations. The show has lived in my head all these years, every minute choreographed and staged. Since I was a poor working actor back in Buffalo, NY, I knew I was never going to get to NYC to see this show unless some fairy godmother intervened. Which was sadly not the case. Since I was a working class girl in a working class town, cutting my musical theatre teeth in the Meatloaf era (late 70s, early 80s), I liked my musicals with a certain amount of grit and truth, and have bemoaned the sanitization of my favorites, including Grease. It was with these heavy expectations and much trepidation that I sat down to watch Evita.

Eva Peron enthralled a nation and enchanted the world. Her story unfolds in Evita, the Tony Award-winning Best Musical, a high-flying theatrical experience adored the world over. The national tour of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's groundbreaking musical comes to the Harris Center for five performances, capturing the rise and fall of one of the world's most glamorous first ladies.

Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's blockbuster hit musical Evita celebrates the 40th anniversary of its 1979 Broadway debut. Staged by Andy Ferrara with musical direction by Lloyd Cooper, the tour brings together talent from around the country to perform one of the best-known musicals in history.The McCallum Theatre presents the 2019 touring production of Evita, with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, for three performances - Wednesday, February 27, at 8:00pm, and Thursday, February 28, at 2:00pm and 8:00pm.

'Evita' is a hybrid rock & opera musical interpretation of the life journey of actress turned 'spiritual leader of Argentina' Eva Peron (Yael Reich). Her saturation of power, extraordinary wealth, and status grows heavier. Bringing with it heartache and self-discovery.

Eva Peron enthralled a nation and enchanted the world. Her story unfolds in Evita, the Tony Award-winning Best Musical, a high-flying theatrical experience adored the world over. The national tour of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's groundbreaking musical comes to the Harris Center for five performances, capturing the rise and fall of one of the world's most glamorous first ladies.

Laurel and Hardy must be smiling in the comedy Valhalla. Cabrillo Music Theatre's near-perfect production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which opened last night at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza's Scherr Forum, brings back the classic, broad humor from vaudeville, performed by an inspired cast of crazies who not only aren't afraid of anything going wrong, but are probably HOPING for mishaps that would destroy any other show. This is, of course, because Forum is one of those shows where spontaneity and the unexpected is almost as obligatory as Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart's uproarious script and Stephen Sondheim's witty lyrics.

It might just be the funniest musical ever written! A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM makes its Civic Arts Plaza debut! This hilarious mixture of slapstick, farce, mistaken identity, music and dance has to be seen live to be believed! The winner of six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, A FUNNY THING HAPPENED... has enjoyed two successful Broadway revivals, and has showcased generations of comic actors from Zero Mostel and Phil Silvers to Nathan Lane and Whoopi Goldberg. Cabrillo Music Theatre's brand-new production opens on Friday, January 29th, 2016 playing until Sunday, February 14th, at the 396-seat Scherr Forum at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, located at 2100 Thousand Oaks Boulevard in Thousand Oaks.

In the opening scene of the Rubicon Theatre Company's production of My Fair Lady, buskers in London's Covent Garden, where Cockney Eliza Doolittle works as a flower girl, are rewarded with tuppence given to them by members of the audience. It is this kind of intimacy, an initial breaking of the fourth wall, that helps make Rubicon's current production an enchanting, warm-hearted interpretation of one of Broadway's most beloved musicals.

The director and designers behind Rubicon Theatre Company's acclaimed environmental productions ofFiddler on the Roof and Man of La Mancha have reunited on the two-piano chamber version of the legendary Lerner and Loewe's classic My Fair Lady. Based on George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, the musical tells the story of Professor Henry Higgins, an arrogant and attractive phonetician who makes a wager that he can transform a 'deliciously low' Cockney flower-seller (Eliza Doolittle) into an elegant lady by teaching her to speak more beautifully. The magnificent score includes 'I Could Have Danced All Night,' 'On the Street Where You Live,' 'Wouldn't It Be Loverly,' and 'I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face.' For Rubicon's production, Director James O'Neil returns to the source material to explore the Shavian themes of class struggle, social reform and women's rights.

Kritzerland At Sterling's Upstairs at The Federal followed its successful formula of monthly themed cabarets with The Birthday Boys: The Songs of Stephen Sondheim & Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Kritzerland at Sterling's Upstairs at The Federal presents 'THE BIRTHDAY BOYS: THE SONGS OF STEPHEN SONDHEIM & ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER' on Sunday, March 8, 2015 at 7:00 PM.

Cabrillo Music Theatre brings its yearly Holiday Show for the troops to the Civic Arts Plaza for the first time, with CABRILLO'S 2014 HOLIDAY FAMILY CELEBRATION! For years, Cabrillo has been putting on a specially-prepared variety show exclusively for the troops and their families, at the Naval Base Ventura County. This year, Cabrillo will transfer this memorable performance to the Scherr Forum tonight, December 13th, the evening following the show for the troops.

Cabrillo Music Theatre brings its yearly Holiday Show for the troops to the Civic Arts Plaza for the first time, with CABRILLO'S 2014 HOLIDAY FAMILY CELEBRATION! For years, Cabrillo has been putting on a specially-prepared variety show exclusively for the troops and their families, at the Naval Base Ventura County. This year, Cabrillo will transfer this memorable performance to the Scherr Forum on December 13th, the evening following the show for the troops.

Before Beatle-Mania, before Bieber Fever, there was the first, the original...Conrad Birdie! America's rock 'n' roll heart-throb drives the teen girls bonkers as Cabrillo Music Theatre brings back the nostalgic, Tony-winning family-friendly Broadway Musical, BYE BYE BIRDIE. BYE BYE BIRDIE opens today, July 18th, 2014, playing until Sunday, July 27th, and features an added mid-week matinee on July 23rd, at the 1,800-seat Kavli Theatre at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, located at 2100 Thousand Oaks Boulevard in Thousand Oaks. BYE BYE BIRDIE takes us on a trip to the small town of Sweet Apple, Ohio, where the nation's most popular rock-and-roll singer, Conrad Birdie, arrives to give his biggest fan one last kiss to the Fan Club's President, Kim MacAfee, before going into the army - and on the Ed Sullivan Show, of course! At the same time, his manager, Albert Peterson, must deal with his frustrated secretary/girlfriend, Rose Alvarez, while handling his overbearing mother. Meanwhile, Mr. MacAfee fumes while Conrad Birdie takes over his bed, his house, his daughter, and his life! A town full of colorful characters, including crazed teenagers, a jealous boyfriend, a squeaky secretary, and a banquet-room-full of wild-eyed Shriners make for a rollicking, irreverent good time that the entire family will enjoy. BYE BYE BIRDIE features classic songs like 'Put On A Happy Face,' 'The Telephone Hour,' 'Kids,' and 'A Lot of Livin' To Do,' plus dances to rival the best of Broadway.

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.