Thousand Oaks Interviews - Page 2

In 5-Star Theatricals' production of 'The Music Man,' Antonia Vivino and Adam Winer take on the roles of River City teens Zaneeta Shinn (the mayor's 'oldest girl') and Tommy Djilas (the 'wild kid from the wrong side of town'). We interviewed them about their characters' back story and the energetic ...

In Part 2 of our interview with Adam Pascal, Adam talks about two traumatic Broadway experiences: going on with 'Rent' right after the sudden death of Jonathan Larson and having to do 'Aida' two days after the 9/11 tragedies....

Broadway star Adam Pascal (the original Roger Davis in 'Rent') comes to Thousand Oaks to play flim-flam man Harold Hill in 5-Star Theatrical's new production of 'The Music Man,' which opens Oct. 18 at the Fred Kavli Theatre. Cary Ginell interviews Pascal about his approach to the show, which he has ...

Mariah Tobin and Dakota Heer play Corie and Paul Bratter, two newlyweds who are moving into a fifth floor Manhattan walkup, only to find the apartment has no furniture, no bathtub, and a gaping hole in the skylight. And it's February. Neil Simon's 1966 classic never had better players in Tobin and H...

Actress Anna Kotula reprises her sold-out performance as Emily Dickinson in William Luce's 'The Belle of Amherst' in a new production staged on August 31 at the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura. The show features a champagne reception in which Dickinson's famous 'black cake' recipe will be served ...

Patrick Ortiz, who plays Bernardo in 5-Star Theatricals' production of 'West Side Story,' comes into the show with experience, having played Chino in the Broadway revival and a Shark gang member on the national tour....

Girl-next-door makes good! Calabasas High School graduate Sami Staitman, who is entering her sophomore year as a musical theatre student at Pace University in New York, has already landed her first Off-Broadway starring role in the theatre-themed musical, 'The Green Book,' which opens September 27. ...

An interview with director Larry Raben, who is utilizing new choreography (Karl Warden), ethnic-accurate casting, and a more athletic approach to the look of 'West Side Story' to bring it into the 21st century. 60 years after its debut, the Bernstein/Sondheim classic still packs relevant punch in to...

Pacific Festival Ballet of Thousand Oaks will be premiering its new ballet version of Camelot, the original 'Game of Thrones' in two performances on May 18 at the Fred Kavli Theatre in the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. Directed and choreographed by Kim Maselli and featuring new music by Eric Allam...

In McCoy Rigby Entertainment's production of '1776,' director Glenn Casale utilizes a mixture of young and veteran performers. In the show, seasoned actors like James Barbour (Edward Rutledge) and Peter Van Norden (Benjamin Franklin) co-star with young newcomers like Jordan Schneider (Lyman Hall) an...

How does a busy soprano balance career, family, motherhood, and art? If that soprano is Julie Makerov, it's all about scheduling and planning ahead of time. Makerov, who will be appearing as one of four soloists with LA's Verdi Chorus this weekend at First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica, sa...

5-Star Theatricals' new artistic director Patrick Cassidy talks more about his vision for the future regarding the company's forthcoming seasons of musicals....

Newly appointed artistic director Patrick Cassidy, son of Shirley Jones and the late Jack Cassidy, puts a lifetime of theatrical experience to work as he begins his first season helming 5-Star Theatricals' musical theatre program in Thousand Oaks....

An inventive costume, makeup, and wig design highlights Moorpark College's production of 'Clue: The Musical,' playing through August 5 at the school's black box theatre....

Disney's Classic Film and subsequent Broadway Musical are not easy to recreate and to do justice to as well, both to the animated film version and the original stage production. Five Star Theatricals has opened this past weekend at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza/Kavli Theatre with a most lavish,...

For the first time in 22 years, Susan Egan takes to the stage in her pioneering role as Belle in 'Beauty and the Beast.' 5-Star Theatricals' production (July 20-29) is being directed by Yvette Lawrence, who took over the role of Belle after Egan vacated it in Los Angeles over two decades ago. We spo...

An interview with mental health professionals Erik Sternad and Joelle Vessels of Interface Children & Family Services and Panic! Productions co-executive director Paul Panico about the mental illness displayed in its recent production of 'Next to Normal.'...

Mazie Rudolph knows where Diana Goodman is coming from in Tom Kitt & Brian Yorkey's Pulitzer Prize Winning musical 'Next to Normal.' In this revealing interview, Rudolph and director Fred Helsel talk about mental illness and Mazie's own journey into rediscovering her own traumas from the past....

Alan Waserman plays Shakespeare super-villain Iago in Playhouse 101's production of 'Othello.'...

The recent women's march and #MeToo Movement have suddenly made Alan Ball's comic-serio play 'Five Women Wearing the Same Dress' even more relevant than it was in 1993 when it made its debut. Read about how Brian Robert Harris came to direct the show at the Camarillo Skyway Playhouse....

An interview with director Timothy Reese, who discusses the process of a first read-through of 'Heathers: The Musical' - which opens January 5 at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts in Thousand Oaks....

A talk with the actors who portray the Klingon equivalents of Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present in Lit Live's West Coast premiere of 'A Klingon Christmas Carol,' playing at Santa Susana High School in Simi Valley beginning December 14....

Producer Kaelia Winterstein talks about Lit Live's West Coast premiere of the new play 'A Klingon Christmas Carol,' which makes its debut December 14 at Santa Susana High School in Simi Valley....

Jukebox musical featuring Elvis Presley catalog is refreshing, funny, and has some of the most energetic, stellar choreography of the year....

Newcomer Miyuki Miyagi was stunning in her SoCal debut in 'Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris' and is now making her first appearance with 5 Star Theatricals with 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.' The Brooklyn transplant is an impressive singer and actress and if her pa...

The first stage production of THE PRINCE OF EGYPT, based on the Dreamworks animated feature, will premiere next month at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley....

Versatile actor Will Shupe moonlights as a set designer. Some of his secrets are revealed in this fascinating interview....

Choreographer Becky Castells talks with VC On Stage about working with children and eleven-year-old dance whiz Marcello Silva in the Actors' Repertory Theatre of Simi's production of 'Billy Elliot The Musical'...

Any time a high school theater department takes on a Stephen Sondheim musical, the intensity level cranks up a notch. So when drama teacher Joseph Donia took on Into the Woods, which the school last did in 2008, he needed some extra expertise behind the scenes to deal with Sondheim's uniquely diffic...

Director Aileen-Marie Scott discusses directing techniques and the 2012 Off-Broadway musical, 'Dogfight,' about a special relationship that develops on the eve of the Vietnam War....

Last month I went to a private showcase of music from the musical Hamilton. The showcase was organized by pianist/arranger/singer Justin Ramos, former director of vocal music at Newbury Park High School who is now living in New York. For his cast, Ramos utilized some of the more talented singers he ...

There are three new events being unveiled at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center Thursday evening: Lit Live, a new local production company, And Lightning Struck, a new play written by the eminent local actor and producer Robert Weibezahl, and a new director, 21-year-old Austin Robert Miller. The s...

Siena Avila is like many other 16-year-old high schoolers you know. Cheerful, friendly, enthusiastic, and just a little bit shy. But Siena has one thing that most kids her age don't have, an amazing singing ability and a natural instinct for performing everything from light opera to musical theate...

Louis Baker has had a varied career in the entertainment world. As an actor, he studied under three prestigious performers: Bill Duke, Haile Gerima, and Debbie Allen. He has worked as a voiceover artist in the animation world, co-produces with his wife a family-centered web series called Faces of Of...

The musical Ragtime, which plays through this Sunday, December 4, at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center, is an important work that weaves actual historical personages into the fabric of its three intersecting stories: an upper-class white family, the African American ragtime pianist Coalhouse Walk...

The idea of a woman playing the lead in Shakespeare's Hamlet is not a new one. The first female Hamlet, Elizabeth Powell, performed the role at London's Drury Lane Theatre in 1796 and by 1820, the first American 'Hamlette,' Sarah Bartley, played it at the Park Theatre in New York....

Everyone knows that the director is the person responsible for the look and content of a musical or play, but once the cast has been selected, sets and props are delivered, and all the technical elements are in place, who puts it all together? The week prior to a show's opening is called 'Tech Wee...

Something may be rotten in the state of Denmark but, in Los Angeles, Shakespeare lovers will find all the joy that they can wish when the Library Foundation of Los Angeles opens its newest exhibit: American's Shakespeare: The Bard Goes West on November 17 at the Central Library. The show is a partne...

If you have the opportunity to see Cabrillo Music Theatre's splendid production of Evita this weekend, you will no doubt be drawn to the electrifying performances by its stars, Cassandra Murphy, as Eva Peron, and Marc Ginsburg, as Che (profiled in our October 4 story - http://vconstage.com/marc-ba...

For years I have been saying that the best kept secret in Ventura County theater is the Ventura County Gilbert & Sullivan Repertoire Company. Celebrating its 10th season this year, the VCGSRC is currently going through its second cycle of the eleven operettas in the canon produced by the venerable...