John Lamb News

Max & Louie Productions has opened its 10th season with the St. Louis premier of the one-woman show Love, Linda at The Marcelle. Debby Lennon, a member of the St. Louis Symphony Chorus for 31 seasons, plays the elegant Linda Lee Thomas (aka Mrs. Cole Porter), whose devotion to her husband drove much of his career. She, a wealthy divorcee, begins by telling how she mistook a piano-playing Porter for the “hired help” at a wedding reception and invited him to entertain at a dinner party soon after. Despite the blunder, Porter showed up to play and their partnership blossomed.

It's the last week to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Sacramento Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

There's just two weeks left to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Sacramento Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

There's just two weeks left to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Sacramento Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

There's just one month left to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Sacramento Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

There's just one month left to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Sacramento Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Nominations were reader-submitted and now our readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

Kurt Weill's 'Lost in the Stars' brings a moving tale of South Africa to the Union Avenue Stage.

Insight Theatre is an equity theatre in its 11th season, and Artistic Director Maggie Ryan says she has wanted to produce The Importance of Being Earnest for years. 'I delight in the language of this play,' she says of the classic farce. It's a 'trivial comedy for serious people,' which showcases playwright Oscar Wilde's intellectual genius. This is quite simply a brilliant play for smart audiences that stands the test of time. It overflows with hilarious double entendre and euphemisms aplenty, and if you've never indulged yourself in seeing it, make plans now to do so, as we can all delight in this spectacular performance, directed by Ed Reggi.

Insight Theatre Company proudly presents their production of 'The Importance of Being Earnest, A TrivialComedy for Serious People'.

It's 1968 and Judy Garland is about to make her comeback… again. In a London hotel room, with both her new young fiance and her adoring accompanist, Garland struggles to get "beyond the rainbow" with her signature cocktail of talent, tenacity and razor sharp wit. Featuring some of Garland's most memorable songs, this savagely funny play-with-music offers unique insight into the inner conflict that inspired and consumed one of the most beloved figures of our time.

Chelsea Marcantel is not an air guitarist. Nor is she a part of an air guitar shredding family. She found the world through a former boyfriend she met in Chicago. "I thought...this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard." The relationship did not work out, however, Marcantel found herself going down a "Youtube Wormhole" of air guitar performances. And after watching the acclaimed documentary Air Guitar Nation, she began writing a play about the world of imaginary soloing.

Insight Theatre Company opens its 11th season with a comedy/drama written by Joe DiPietro and directed by Alan Knoll.  The Last Romance is about an opera-loving American in his 70s who once auditioned for the Met.  Currently widowed, he meets an attractive woman named Carol while living with his sister Rose.  This humorous and tender play will leave audiences of all ages with the idea that it is never too late to feel alive!  Stars Joneal Joplin, Maggie Ryan, Tommy Nolan. 

Sacramento Theatre Company is a regional treasure, unique in the fact that they support and develop local talent. Each season they produce an original work by an area artist. Their 2017-18 season theme of Fate, Fantasy and Forgiveness currently features a play by Sacramento native Ryan Patrick Nill entitled Kings of America.

The Union Avenue Opera is so good at fulfilling our expectations - our expectations of really fine traditional opera. But once in a while they enjoy surprising us, jerking us out of that normal path. For instance, with 'Trouble in Tahiti' several years ago the orchestra was a jazz trio. Now this splendid little company surprises us again with a lovely production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1945 Broadway classic, Carousel. It's the familiar story of a young mill-worker who makes the tragic mistake of falling in love with a rough but beautiful carnival barker.

Union Avenue Opera mounts a delightful production of 'Albert Herring,' Benjamin Britten's only comic opera.

A quintessential celebration of love in all its gorgeous simplicity and heartbreaking complexities. Beloved by theatergoers for 50 years, The Fantasticks is a musical allegory about the romance of a young couple, Matt and Luisa, who find their relationship tested by their meddling fathers and a bandit narrator known as El Gallo. Little do these love-birds know, however, that their fathers are actually good friends who've hatched a plan - with the help of a mystical roving side-show and it's equally mysterious ring master - to get these two lovers down the aisle!

Several years ago the Steppenwolf Theatre Company's touring production of AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY touched down at the Fox Theatre and I was blown away by it. I think it spoiled me with its massive set and terrific ensemble. So, when regional theatre companies began staging playwright Tracy Letts' work, I have to admit I was a bit skeptical. But recently I saw the St. Louis Actors' Studio's presentation. Again, I thought this was a work that couldn't be scaled down to fit into the confines of a black box theatre. But, I was wrong. They've done an exceptional job with this production. The acting is superb, and somehow they've managed to parlay the intimacy into something that makes the play seem even more powerful. I think this is must-see theatre, and I urge you to check out this amazing production.

A macabre musical tells the tale of Sweeney Todd, an unjustly exiled barber, who returns to London seeking vengeance.

 Junie B. Jones is Not a Crook by Allison Gregory marks the latest theatrical adaptation of Barbara Park's best-selling series. 

Playwright Lanie Robertson's alternately harrowing and exhilarating work, LADY DAY AT EMERSON'S BAR & GRILL, is an intriguing take on Billie Holiday's final performance in 1959. Holiday was a jazz singer who could captivate an audience with her unique vocal style, which combined elements of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith, two performers she idolized growing up. She had a storied career and tumultuous life that was further undone by drug and alcohol addictions that would leave her dead from heart failure and cirrhosis of the liver. But, her legacy is undeniable, and this play allows us to see her talent, as well as the demons that haunted her. Max & Louie Productions is presenting a superlative production of this work which is smartly crafted and brilliantly performed.