Don Grigware - Page 84

Director David Lee has won 9 Emmy Awards for producing, directing and writing such TV megahits as Frasier, Cheers, Wings and The Jeffersons. He has also directed award-winning productions on stage here and in New York, such as Can Can @ the Pasadena Playhouse. In our interview, he talks about the Reprise Theatre Company, his direction of their upcoming A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, opening March 17, and other theatrical favorites.

The Antaeus Company ensemble offers a devilishly dark and venemous Cousin Bette to relish. I haven't had such fun since Nicholas Nickleby.

Legendary star Ginger Rogers is long overdue for a musical show in her honor. Overshadowed by dancing partner Fred Astaire, she was known to have said 'I did everything he did only backwards in high heels'. Thus, we have the basis for the title of this classy, snappy new musical at ICT which is an instant audience pleaser.

I loved the four gals playing the Broads - all talented - but the show needs a major overhaul. Too many jokes are tired old cliches - and singing about side effects from medications? Audiences do not find that entertaining as many experience these very problems on a daily basis. No one was laughing the night I attended, because most of it wasn't funny! And death? Who wants to be reminded that funerals are like weddings, but at least at weddings you can smell your own flowers? Also not funny, guys! Especially for the majority of the audience - over 65!

Frank D. Gilroy's Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Subject Was Roses depicts a dysfunctional family circa 1946 whose son returns from WWII... a man. The strained day-to-day relationship between the mother and father changes for the better with his return, but only briefly, as buried feelings surface inducing intensely explosive confrontations. The universal themes of love and freedom remain as clear and untarnished as they were in the 60s, and this new production comes full circle for Martin Sheen, who also costarred in the original Broadway version in 1965 as son Timmy.

On Monday, February 15 The Festival of New American Musicals' newly formed Academy for Young Professionals presented day-long master classes in vocal performance and auditioning at the Edgemar Theatre in Santa Monica. 42 high school and college students, ages 15-22, participated in this exciting new program that helps theatrically talented students prepare how to best market themselves for a very competitive musical theatre career. Casting director Michael Donovan, choreographer Joe Schenck, and musical theatre veterans Amanda McBroom and Karen Morrow presented classes from 10:00am to 3:00pm.

Actress, singer, dancer Heather Lee has been nominated for an LADCC award for her outstanding performances as all the ladies in No Way to Treat a Lady at the Colony Theatre in 2009. She is currently preparing to play Ginger Rogers' mother in Backwards in High Heels at ICT in Long Beach.

Hearing Margot Mason's (Annette Bening) brash opening words on the phone to her publisher 'F*** You!', people will either automatically turn on or turn off to Joanna Murray-Smith's The Female of the Species about the misadventures of a fictional best-selling feminist writer plagued by writer's block. This is an egomaniac who's used to getting her own way in every aspect of her life until an intruder turns her 'self-absorbed' world upside down. Farce is wildly exaggerated comedy, and as such, makes audience laugh out loud because they can see themselves onstage. The Female of the Species has enough laughter for three plays and still manages to be thought-provoking about contemporary gender misconceptions. Men and women are supposed to behave a certain way and when they don't...both are human after all, so why not ease up and view the whole issue with some humility.

Arthur Miller's talky play The Price does not quite stand up to his masterpieces All My Sons or Death of a Salesman. Focusing in on the disagreement between two brothers who come together for the first time in 16 years to sell off their father's antiques, it has its moments of tenderness and deep feeling, but is overall less moving and certainly less urgent. Theatre West offers a skillful production with some very excellent work.

When I first reviewed Bark! The Musical at the Coast Playhouse in 2004 for reviewplays, I said it was a musical 'worth yip, yip, yipeaying about. Woof, woof, woof for joy!' Well, now it's on a much bigger stage in Redondo Beach, and because of a fantastic cast and creative team this very intimate little show makes a pleasantly effective transition to its new venue.

Hard to believe, but Sweeney Todd first bowed on Broadway in late 1979 and I was in New York to witness the brilliant achievement of Sondheim, Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou and the entire creative team. MTW is presenting the masterwork for the first time and to celebrate its 30th anniversary. They may rightfully be exceedingly proud of this production, as it replicates everything that the original achieved.

Talk about quirkiness and how it can be used to its best advantage in a musical! The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is terribly funny in a rather intelligent and offbeat manner with prize worthy characterizations of lively eclectic people. It may be a tad too long like the actual spelling out of words (that are not to be believed!)opening segment - loved the audience involvement, though! Nevertheless, the unpredictability in denouement is another plus.

When I first saw Souvenir 3 years ago in Brentwood with its Broadway star Judy Kaye, I marveled at her Tony nominated performance, but did not like the play. I took a look at it again Friday at the Falcon Theatre, enjoyed the performances, but have not changed my mind. The production is first rate, but it leaves me cold and sorrowful about the true meaning of friendship.

In 1978, Thomas Babe's A Prayer for My Daughter impacted audiences who were living through the post-Vietnam syndrome. Casual use of drugs, crime and police brutality were rampant. We were in a state of moral decay. In retrospect, it has all gotten progressively worse. So, the intense drama is like holding a mirror up to nature as it'were in 2010, and Crown City Theatre has a surefire audience grabber.

Even if we've seen and heard it a million times over, the old show biz debate about devotion to stage versus film is a treat as served up in Kaufman and Ferber's Stage Door, being given a red carpet production at the Open Fist Theatre.

This is my first cabaret review for 2010, not counting the finale for LA's Next Great Stage Star 2010 held at Sterling's Upstairs @ Vitello's earlier this month on January 3. I must admit, I have yet to be disappointed @ Sterling's with the service or with the cabaret artist being showcased. Proving no exception, An Evening with Judy Norton on Sunday, January 31 was a stellar show with a true night club star.

Carousel/music by Richard Rodgers/book & lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II/directed by Michael Michetti/choreographed by Lee Martino/Reprise Theatre Company @ Freud Playhouse, UCLA/through February 7.

Camelot/book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner/music by Frederick Loewe/choreographed by Mark Esposito/directed by David Lee/Pasadena Playhouse/through February 7

Night-time TV soaps like Dynasty, Dallas, Knots Landing and more recently Dirty Sexy Money explored the universal issues of greed and infidelity and their devastating effects on the family unit. In Clyde Fitch's The City, written nearly 100 years ago, the well-to-do and highly respected political Rand family move from the suburbs of Middlebrook to New York City, experiencing a windfall of corruptions.