Amanda Callas is an award winning filmmaker, writer, performer, and producer. Her films have played and won awards in Vienna, Lisbon, Belfast, Iran, Scotland, Mexico, Australia, Bolivia, Capri, Palm Beach, and Los Angeles.
Amanda has done science writing for NASA, reconstructed Egyptian papyri, worked as a sushi chef, and played a nervous elf bride on a TV sitcom.
Amanda studied for her masters in Classics at the University of Cambridge, UK. She runs an independent children's and YA publisher, Little Owl House. These days she is always cooking, writing, taking photos, or most often, reading and exploring the world with her adventure loving, daredevil munchkins.
Amanda lives in Los Angeles with ever-growing stacks of books, and her sweet, rambunctious family of artists.
Favorite Show:
One of my favorite shows of all time is Turandot by Puccini, with an incredible staging by British artist David Hockney. I love it how it is dipped in acid color and beautiful, surreal scene-scapes, with of course, that lavish, sublime music.The Dapper Dans barbershop quartet at Disneyland are another childhood perennial favorite. I could listen to them all day.Favorite Stories:
- Review: THE RAINMAKER at Laguna Playhouse - Gorgeous, luminous staging and pitch-perfect performances, the transcendent joy and restorative optimism of this production made me feel uplifted for weeks.
- Review: 70, GIRLS, 70 at Lonny Chapman Theatre - A great undiscovered, underrated musical that deserves its place in the pantheon, celebrating mischievous and delightful septuagenarian in New York City. The performances were utterly delightful, and I left the theatre humming great songs that are STILL stuck in my head.
- Review: ON BROADWAY at Smothers Theatre in Malibu - Absolute of embarrassment of riches with four stupendously talented Broadway singers, some of the most extreme talent I've ever seen concentrated in one place at one time. It was glorious. Unforgettable music, at one of my absolute favorite venues in Los Angeles, the Smothers Theatre, on the beautiful, secluded Pepperdine campus in Malibu.
- Review: SANTASIA – A HOLIDAY COMEDY at Whitefire Theatre - Off the rails indie holiday show was wildly entertaining, one of the funniest things I've ever seen, with real heart. Delicious cider and free cookies in the lobby. AND, I got to meet the Yeti. It doesn't get better than that.
- Review: BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA at Odyssey Theatre -
Review: THE ANGEL NEXT DOOR at Laguna Playhouse
October 26, 2023
October 26, 2023
The Angel Next Door is a glittering, effervescent hit romantic comedy by Paul Slade Smith at the historic Laguna Playhouse. It’s an elegant, sweet-dry glass of champagne, bubbling over with non-stop laughs, merriment, glamor, and high-spirited hijinks. It’s hard to think of more fun you could have at the theatre right now, or really, more fun anywhere.
Review: BEFOK (OR THE DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO IMPRESS IÑÁRRITU) at Odyssey Theatre
October 22, 2023
October 22, 2023
Gutsy and gonzo, this wild ride runs through November 5th at Odyssey Theatre
Review: BABY FOOT at Rogue Machine, The Henry Murray Stage At The Matrix Theatre
October 18, 2023
October 18, 2023
Sexy, gritty, funny, and adult, this recovery drama is a triumph for Rogue Machine playing through November 20
Review: OLIVER! at Kavli Theatre At The Bank Of America Performing Arts Center
October 16, 2023
October 16, 2023
Don't miss this delightful, gorgeously produced classic musical running through October 22nd
Review: ON BROADWAY at Smothers Theatre
October 14, 2023
October 14, 2023
With a fresh lineup of new musical tunes and favorite classics, it’s pretty much the perfect Broadway concert show. I’m still humming “Popular” from Wicked and “Razzle Dazzle” from Chicago nonstop, floating in a giddy haze of joy-soaked musical elation.
Review: BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA at Odyssey Theatre
October 15, 2023
October 15, 2023
Birds of North America Is a brilliantly well produced drama with a quiet, luminous, elegiac quality, at the Odyssey Theatre in West Los Angeles. With exquisite subtlety and sensitivity in the writing by award-winning playwright Anna Ouyang Moench, it chronicles the relationship of a father and daughter over the course of roughly a decade.
Review: THE RAINMAKER at Laguna Playhouse
September 29, 2023
September 29, 2023
Run, don’t walk, to the Laguna Playhouse’s production of the classic 1954 hit play The Rainmaker. I absolutely love this show. It's impossible to leave the theater after watching The Rainmaker without feeling lifted up by its transcendent joy and restorative optimism.
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