Rick Batalla News

Troubadour Theater Company is celebrating its 29th season with DURAN DURANTONY & CLEOPATRA this summer.

The award-winning Troubadour Theater Company has been doing their beloved annual Christmas mashup shows for decades, with loyal fans who return year after year. The closest thing I can compare it to is live performances I have seen of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

TROUBADOUR THEATER COMPANY is celebrating its 28th season by asking the question, “Why Don’t We Do It In The Snow?” with their latest world premiere musical comedy event, WHITE (ALBUM) CHRISTMAS, musical direction by Ryan Whyman, and adapted, & directed by Matt Walker. Check out the production photos here! 

Bundle up! TROUBADOUR THEATER COMPANY is celebrating its 28th season by asking the question, “Why Don't We Do It In The Snow?” with their latest world premiere musical comedy event, WHITE (ALBUM) CHRISTMAS, musical direction by Ryan Whyman, and adapted, & directed by Matt Walker. 

Serving up a stage adaptation of DIE HARD featuring the music of Heart, the Troubies have once again given L.A. theatergoers a plum of a yuletide gift to unwrap and savor.

TROUBADOUR THEATER COMPANY is celebrating its 20th Anniversary season by blowing up the holidays with their latest world premiere musical comedy event, DIE HEART, musical direction by Ryan Whyman and adapted, choreographed & directed by Matt Walker.

Producer/creator Jim Dooley reprises The Revue, his modern musical parody at The Bourbon Room September 17, 2022. In this edition, Rick Batalla takes over the directing reins from Matt Walker with the cast of Katie DeShan, Tiffany Daniels, Isaac Robinson-Smith and Philip McNiven. I had the chance to throw out a few questions to Katie on her history with The Revue and the Troubies.

On September 17th, THE REVUE returns with a Special Cabaret Edition featuring All-New Songs based on favorite movies turned into musicals, including: Top Gun, Caddyshack, The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, Men in Black, The Princess Bride, There's Something About Mary, Pulp Fiction, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and many more.   The new edition will also feature a live band performing in the style of “Rock of Ages”. 

The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle has announced the nominees for theatrical excellence for 2020 and 2021. This year's awards have been combined due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Suppose you took a really good movie – or a crowd-pleaser - and you loaded it down with bad music. Or maybe not with atrocious music, but wrong-headed ditties. Or maybe you assigned the wrong composer for this particular cinematic genre.

Emmy-winning composer Jim Dooley teams up with Troubies’ founder Matt Walker to world premiere the ‘dynamic plot-concepted’ The Revue at the Colony Theater opening March 17, 2022. Matt directs the cast of himself with Rick Batalla, Katie DeShan, Tiffany Daniels, Isaac Robinson-Smith and Travis Leland. Jim carved some time from rehearsals to explain his novel dynamic plot concept and chat on some highlights of his varied career.

“THE REVUE”, a revolutionary new parody of cinema and theater classics that pokes fun at the very fact that “Not everything should be a musical,” will hit the famed Colony Theatre in Burbank, CA on March 17, 2021.   

“THE REVUE”, a revolutionary new parody of cinema and theater classics that pokes fun at the very fact that “Not everything should be a musical,” will hit the famed Colony Theatre in Burbank, CA on March 17, 2021.  

This spring, pandemic-fatigued audiences will return to the theater with a heightened appetite for farce, satire and whimsy.  

This Spring, pandemic-fatigued audiences will return to the theater with a heightened appetite for farce, satire and whimsy. 'THE REVUE', a revolutionary new parody of cinema and theater classics that pokes fun at the very fact that 'Not everything should be a musical,' will hit the famed Colony Theater in Burbank, CA on March 17, 2021.

The Troubies’ Holidaze show SANTA CLAUS IS COMIN’ TO MOTOWN will open at the Garry Marshall Theatre November 23, 2021. Troubies’ artistic director Matt Walker directs the talented cast of veteran Troubies with some Noubies. A hilarious mainstay of many a Troubie production Rick Batalla took some time from his daily antics to fill me in on some behind-the-scenes of his history with the Troubadour Theater Company.

Upnext Productions’ of Jonathan Larson’s TICK, TICK… BOOM! will open November 21st at The Atlas Space at Thymele Arts. Clint Foley directs the cast of Isaac Robinson-Smith, Mandie Hittleman and Christopher Fishburne. Isaac opened up to me about his history with Upnext Productions and his thriving career.

During the opening number, the Troubadour Theatre Company, affectionately known to all as the Troubies, comment how thrilled the troupe, and the audience by extension, is to have returned to live theatre. The audience responded with glorious applause, and both the occasion and the Troubies deserve that adulation. The Troubies, who have rocked Los Angeles for the last 25 years, are one of the most creative teams in the city. Their imagination and gumption has entertained with parodies of classical works infused with a musical motif such as Alice In One-Hit Wonderland, Much ADoobie Brothers About Nothing, and A Charlie James Brown Christmas. Their latest, Lizastrata, based on both the Greek Aristophanes comedy Lysistrata and the songs made popular by Liza Minnelli, could have been a dazzler, but with a gossamer plot, too many recycled jokes, and a venue ill-equipped to allow the cast to sing with heft, the latest production is uninspired.

TROUBADOUR THEATER COMPANY continues its 25th Silver anniversary season (bringing Los Angeles audiences a quarter century of mayhem!), with their 18th annual holiday offering, A CHRISTMAS Carole King, with musical direction by Derrick Finely choreography by Matt Walker, Suzanne Jolie Narbonne and Luis 'L.T.' Martinez, and adapted & directed by Matt Walker. A CHRISTMAS Carole King will preview on Saturday, December 7 at 4pm & 8pm; Sunday, December 8 at 4pm; Thursday, December 12 at 8pm; and will open on Friday, December 13 at 8pm and perform through Sunday, December 22 at 4pm at the El Portal Theatre, 5269 Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood.

The Troubies continues its 25th Silver anniversary season (bringing Los Angeles audiences a quarter century of mayhem!), with their 18th annual holiday offering of A CHRISTMAS CAROLE KING adapted & directed by Matt Walker with musical direction by Derrick Finely, in which the soulful sounds of songstress Carole King are combined with one of the most enduring stories of our time, and the result is 'So Far Away' from what you'd expect! The nine cast members who play a multitude of characters and change costumes more frequently than seems humanly possible, are (in alphabetical order): Rick Batalla, Chelle Denton, Beth Kennedy, Janelle Lillian, Luis a?oeL.T.a?? Martinez, Mike Sulprizio, Cloie Wyatt Taylor, Matt Walker and David C. Wright. And you could not ask for a more talented, off-the-wall group of entertainers to bring this holiday laugh fest back every December to appreciative local audiences!