Cary Ginell - Page 2

Christopher J. Thume blows the roof off the building with a bravura performance as drag queen Lola in 'Kinky Boots,' the 2013 Tony Award winning musical.

Anna Kotula reprises her one-woman show as poet Emily Dickinson in 'The Belle of Amherst,' playing from March 3 - 13 at the Elite Theatre Company in Oxnard

Matt Faucher has a knack for playing Nicks. After performing on Broadway and on the national tour of 'Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,' Matt is now doing the same thing with a different Nick - the Four Seasons' Nick Massi. Cary Ginell does an exclusive interview with Matt about this unique and important show, which plays for one night in Thousand Oaks on Thursday, February 24.

Read a behind-the-scenes look at Broadway's master parodist, Gerard Alessandrini, who dismembers 'Hamilton' with his 2016 spoof 'Spamilton.' The show plays at the Scherr Forum in Thousand Oaks from March 1 - 6. 'I laughed my brains out!' said Lin-Manuel Miranda when he saw this show. You will too.

It's always nice when we see a show that has never been performed in Ventura County so we were looking forward to seeing 5-Star Theatricals' Something Rotten!, the 2015 sendup of Shakespeare that answers the question: 'What if Shakespeare had a rival?' As you will read in our upcoming review in The Acorn, we were not disappointed. Something Rotten! is a riotous romp with a twisted premise, as brother Nick and Nigel Bottom attempt to upstage (literally) theatre superstar Willie Shakespeare with their next production: the first musical. Due to the faulty efforts of a befuddled Nostradamus, the Bottom Brothers set out to produce their musical, titled Omelette. Recently, we visited with two stars from 5-Star's production: Justin Michael Wilcox, who plays Nick Bottom, and Aleks Pevec, who plays the strutting Shakespeare.

'Always...Patsy Cline' brings to life Cline's rich catalog of songs, impeccably portrayed by Michele McRae, with Kathleen Silverman as her friend, Houston housewife Louise Seger.

See what our critic thought of the national tour of 'The Band's Visit' - an inspiring musical about the healing power of music and its ability to show common ground between two historically opposing cultures. The show stars Janet Dacal as the vulnerable cafe owner Dina and Sasson Gabay as Tewfiq, the orchestra leader who has been traumatized by a past tragedy.

5-Star Theatricals returns to the stage with a new production of its postponed musical 'Mamma Mia!' starring Kim Huber and Eric Martsolf.

Of all elements of society hit by the pandemic, the one that got hit the hardest was the performing arts. Many theatre companies were forced to close their doors while those that managed to survive were crippled by 16 months of inactivity and decimated budgets. Young Artists Ensemble has not only been a growth culture for local talent for 40 years, it has never shied away from a challenge and while other companies were subsisting on shows with small casts, YAE was determined to stage the Student Edition of 'Les Miserables,' the larger-than-life 1985 Broadway masterpiece, for its annual teen summer musical.

John Guerra's new play brings Thornton Wilder's 'Our Town' up to date with its sensitive portrayal of two families - one white and one Latino - in modern-day Fillmore, California.

Four Frenetic Feminists Fight Fate In France - Lauren Gunderson's hilarious black comedy groups four French Revolutionaries on their way to the guillotine.

Director David Krassner brings a deep theatrical resume to his new role as drama director at Agoura High School, which is currently staging 'Rent,' which made its debut nearly a quarter century ago.

Margaret Edson's Pulitzer-Price winning play 'Wit' focusers on Dr. Vivian Bearing, a 50-year-old professor of English who is dying from ovarian cancer. The play examines the dispassionate way cancer patients are treated, with Sindy McKay-Swerdlove delivering a startling and emotional performance as Dr. Bearing.

A typical mismatched wedding between a Jewish bride and a Catholic groom gets turned on its ear when a shocking revelation stuns the wedding party. This unfairly neglected 2015 musical gets new life with a winning performance (in a staged reading) by Musical Theatre Guild at the Alex Theater in Glendale.

Theater veteran Gilles Chiasson, who performed in the original New York Theatre Workshop, Off-Broadway, and Broadway productions of 'Rent' now is in charge of the Performing Arts Education Centers at Agoura and Calabasas High Schools. We talked to him about his experiencing performing in New York with legendary producer Jonathan Larson, in anticipation of Agoura High's upcoming performance of the musical.

Kennedy Caughell gives a heartfelt performance as Carole King in 'Beautiful,' an otherwise flawed musical that does to King's career what most Broadway musicals do to the subjects of jukebox musicals. The musical element of the show, however, overcomes its many deficiencies to result in an overall enjoyable production.

An exclusive interview with Kennedy Caughell, a stunning multi-talented redhead who is currently starring as Carole King in the national touring musical, 'Beautiful: The Carole King Musical' in Thousand Oaks at the Fred Kavli Theatre.

'Shirley Valentine' features Anna Kotula in a one-woman show about a middle-aged Liverpool housewife who seeks a change in her life, and does so in drastic fashion, leaving her husband and home to cavort on a beach in Greece. The result is a reaffirmation of life, one that empowers women and those lamenting the absence of passion in their lives - a timely and wonderful journey to help inaugurate the centennial of the passage of the 19th amendment.

In a 'Twilight Zone' type premise, two people who had a promising romantic relationship years before but cut it off before it could get started encounter their younger selves and try to warn them of the regret they would feel years later. The play is set in the framework of James Joyce's classic novel 'Ulysses,' with Chandra Bond playing an Irish tour guide and Trent Trachtenberg a reluctant tourist she draws into the group. Charming, wistful, and sad, 'Bloomsday' tugs at the heartstrings in all of us who have regretted the 'road not taken.'

American Theatre Guild's national tour of 'Finding Neverland' is a marvel of imaginative production values, excellent acting, and quirky-jerky choreography, making this 'making of Peter Pan' fantasy a joy from start to finish.