Ellen Dostal - Page 7

Celebrate Earth Day and Shakespeare's Birthday by taking a road trip up to Yosemite National Park for a unique presentation that celebrates both on April 22 & 23.

It used to be true that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But not anymore. For the next five weeks, LA audiences will get a taste of Sin City right here in our own backyard, thanks to Spiegelworld's in-your-face adult-only production, ABSINTHE LA.

There's not a chance in hell that an audience member could fail to be engaged in Not Man Apart Physical Theatre Ensemble's latest new work, PARADISE LOST: RECLAIMING DESTINY. The company has found a tantalizing niche with its athletically rich dance, movement & sensory exploration of stories that literally leap off the stage into the stratosphere. This latest production pushes that unique concept to new heights as it invokes the mighty forces of good and evil in a struggle of epic proportions.

If Dorothy in THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ had run away from home and found this traveling circus instead of Professor Marvel and his crystal ball, she might never have gotten swept up in a twister and landed in Munchkinland. Instead, she might have become part of a new family, the kind that traveled the dust bowl in the early part of the twentieth century and instilled a sense of wonder in every child who was lucky enough to hear that the circus was coming to town.

Pulling double duty as both playwright and star, Dan Castellaneta portrays Oscar Levant in his latest new work, FOR PIANO AND HARPO. Levant was a concert pianist, and contemporary of George Gershwin, whose genius gave him entree into the glittering worlds of classical music, Broadway, and Hollywood but whose private demons ultimately undermined his career. The play explores Levant's addictions and mental health issues while committed to a Mt. Sinai psych ward in 1956, on the Jack Paar Show in 1962, and during an extended stay at the home of his friend, Harpo Marx, in 1935.

Heads up singers - want to win tickets to see Fun Home at the Ahmanson? Center Theatre Group is holding a cool choir competition in conjunction with the upcoming national tour of Fun Home, which begins performances at the Ahmanson Theatre on February 21st!

Jason Robert Brown's THE LAST FIVE YEARS is the kind of musical you often find produced in small theaters and black boxes. Written for a cast of two, it can be done very simply without much in the way of a set or props making it a popular choice for those with a limited budget or other technical constraints.

Love transcends the limitations of language in Casa 0101's charming production of Disney's ALADDIN Dual Language Edition/Edicion De Lenguaje Dual and that uplifting message is a takeaway that never loses its luster. The simple story of Aladdin (Daniel Martinez) and his magic lamp overcoming the villainous Jafar (Omar Mata), with the help of a jovial Genie (Lewis Powell III) and his loyal pet monkey (Sebastian Gonzalez), has become a family favorite thanks to the popularity of Disney's 1992 animated film.

Composer Christopher Reiner serves up a sixty-minute set of original songs and prose selections at ZJU Theatre Group that demonstrates the unique range of programming found at Zombie Joe's North Hollywood establishment. The company's niche is live horror and they have gained tremendous popularity with productions like their URBAN DEATH series and other renegade theatre pieces that deliver a purposely disquieting 'underground' take on the world. But ZJU also produces a wide variety of other theatrical offerings including Shakespeare, musicals, and even family theatre under its Limecat banner.

Not since 1950 have audiences in L.A. been able to see a live professional performance of Kurt Weill's musical masterpiece LOST IN THE STARS. That changes this month when the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, led by Music Director Jeffrey Kahane, presents a brand new production in partnership with CAP UCLA. Set during the era of South African apartheid, the devastating tale of a black minister whose son accidentally kills a white neighbor's son explores racial inequalities and the courage it takes to forgive when faced with an impossible moral dilemma.

When MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG opened on Broadway in 1981, no one anticipated that it would be a flop. With a score by Stephen Sondheim and direction by Hal Prince, it should have been the next success in a series of highly successful collaborations by the two kings of musical theatre, following such game changers as COMPANY, FOLLIES, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, PACIFIC OVERTURES, and SWEENEY TODD

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 partnership between the Library Foundation, the Los Angeles Public Library, and Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC and will not only offer a look at his incredible legacy worldwide but show how Shakespeare's impact was felt here in California.

Don LaFontaine was one of the most prolific voice actors in the movie industry for more years than I can even remember, until his death in 2008. You may not know his name but you've certainly heard his deep bass voice and famous catch phrase, 'In a world…' in hundreds of movie trailers during his more than forty-year career. Were he alive today and recording the movie trailer for TORUK - THE FIRST FLIGHT, that signature 'in a world…' would be the perfect beginning to describe what Cirque du Soleil has created in this stunning yet atypical foray into acro-musical storytelling.

Rubicon Theatre Company lands a winner with its latest musical comedy RETURN TO THE FORBIDDEN PLANET by Bob Carlton. The silly sci-fi confection is two hours of deliciously kitschy fun accompanied by a rock and roll score that blasts out more than twenty hits from the '50s and '60s and a dynamite cast that spews planetary puns and classical text faster than the speed of light.

24th Street Theatre takes on the Brothers Grimm in its latest world premiere Hansel & Gretel Bluegrass by Bryan Davidson, but forget the fairy tale you think you know. This is no sanitized version of the story. The original, written in 1812, was a cautionary tale, bleak in its portrayal of a time when it was commonplace for impoverished families to abandon their children for lack of food and resources. The thought was that they would somehow find a way to survive and maybe even be better off on their own. It's a heartbreaking decision for any parent to make and, unfortunately, one that families in dire circumstances around the world still face today.

Back in 2008, the creators of Unbound Productions - Jonathan Josephson, Paul Millet, and Jeff G. Rack - bet that audiences were ready for something different. That's when the trio began to explore adapting classical literature to create a new kind of immersive theatre no one had seen before. You know them better as the guys who produce Wicked Lit. 

I love a good prequel, especially when a contemporary playwright decides to take on the back story of a hallowed play by the likes of William Shakespeare. I mean, come on. Daring to tread on that playing field takes some guts because you know before you begin that audiences are going to have high expectations of your work. They also know where you need to end your story in order for Shakespeare's to begin so getting there must be highly inventive and worthy of its foregone conclusion.

The Blank Theatre opens its 26th season with a new work written and directed by founding artistic director Daniel Henning that explores one of the most controversial events in U.S. history - the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. THE TRAGEDY OF JFK (as told by Wm. Shakespeare) is the result of several decades of research during which time Henning has come to be recognized as an authority on the subject. That, combined with his other great obsession - live theatre - meant it was only a matter of time before LA audiences would see a stage play based on his work.

Overtone Industries, a celebrated force in the evolution of contemporary music theatre and experimental opera, will share the next phase of its epic new multidisciplinary production, ICELAND, in concert form, at the Ford Theatres' stunning, newly renovated amphitheatre in Los Angeles on Friday, October 7, 2016 at 8:30pm.

Frances Seymour Fonda, actor Henry Fonda's second wife, was only 32 years old when the theater she commissioned architect Arthur W. Hawes to build opened in December of 1940. Originally known as the Westwood Theater, it was designed to be a performance space for live productions and for a short time it did fulfill that mission. Across town, movie musicals like Busby Berkeley's Strike Up the Band and Down Argentine Way were becoming box office hits as Tinseltown capitalized on the popularity of established young stars such as Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney and soon-to-be stars like pin-up girl Betty Grable and Carmen Miranda.