Shari Barrett - Page 28

Since 2003, Hologram USA has delivered more than 700 successful projects, making groundbreaking strides in how people experience live events and communicate with each other using dynamic, cutting edge Holographic 3D technology. Their holographic experiences allow audience members to sit in a theater and feel as if they are attending a live three-dimensional concert or nightclub performance right in front of their eyes. Sounds too incredible, right? That's what I thought until I attended their latest creation, Billie Holiday Alive! at the new Hologram USA Theater in Hollywood

Led by Director/Musical Director/Costume Designer Anne Gesling, along with Choreographer Lauren Blair, the Y.E.S. musical production for November/December 2017 was A WINTER'S TALE, and I can tell you these two talented women worked miracles with a cast of 39 young performers already at the triple-threat status. As a former secondary teacher, I can honestly say that I have never seen such a talented group of young performers work together as the members of this group do, with not one of them breaking the fourth wall or character, all the while keeping their accents authentic with their harmonious singing always in tune and dancing perfectly in step and always presented with enthusiastic joy.

Thanks to director Gloria Gifford, who retains Shakespeare's text while augmenting the proceedings with a contemporary and very soulful song score in the current production at Grey Studios in NoHo, the overall addition of the much-needed modern sensibility through music makes the complicated plot easily understood, even while adding in moments of sheer levity. Just imagine Anthony and his troops starting off the show by lining up and singing Super Freak by Rick James, as their way to describe Cleopatra and you get the idea.

ASHES TO ASHES centers on liberal Sara (Lena Bouton) and right-winger Jefferson (Kevin Young), ex-spouses who are polar opposites about everything except their love and devotion for their two, newly deceased, filthy-rich best friends. Trapped by the time-constraints of their friends' will, the two are forced to spend the next 16 days, 21 hours and 32 minutes together, scattering their friends' ashes across Europe under the direction of pre-arranged tour guides who meet the duo as they arrive at each of their destinations. The places visited where ashes are to be left trace a journey of the heart from their friends' lives, and the feuding duo soon realize the steps in a relationship that test true love may soon re-ignite the passion between them.

PACIFIC OVERTURES with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by John Weidman, with additional material by Hugh Wheeler had its Broadway premiere in 1976 and was presented in Kabuki style, with men playing women's parts and set changes made in full view of the audience by people dressed in black. It opened to mixed reviews and closed after six months, despite being nominated for 10 Tony Awards. Given the unusual casting and production demands, there is good reason why this remains one of the least-performed Sondheim musicals. So it's no wonder it has been 19 years since the musical has been presented in Los Angeles.

THE ULTIMATE CHRISTMAS SHOW (Abridged) by Reed Martin & Austin Tichenor, directed by Perry Shields with a knowing wink at all the holiday craziness now rampant in the world. Adding to his own stressfully creative holiday season, the production features two casts performing on alternate dates with Kenyon Meleney, Jimmy Duong, and Matt Garber making up the all-male cast; and Alison Mattiza, Amanda Webb, and Cindy Shields in the all-female cast. So not only is their comic timing absolutely essential throughout the show, along with more costume changes than I can count and continuous choreography, each of Perry's two casts rehearsed separately in half the usual rehearsal time! And if casting is 99% of the success of a show, kudos to Perry for his casting perfection!

No doubt most of us have fond memories of our senior year in high school, with our Senior Prom being one of the many highlights of that year. Nostalgia for that year fuels the happy story of four friends in THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES, a 1999 musical comedy with a book by Roger Bean that has gone on to be presented in countless productions all over the world, including the current one being presented at Crown City Theatre in NoHo through February 25, 2018, directed and choreographed to bring back starlight memories by Robert Marra with musical direction by William A. Reilly.

One of the most current topics in the media now concerns transgender people being able to live the life they envision for themselves without prejudice or scorn aimed at them. After all, no doubt you have seen public restrooms now labeled to allow anyone access to them, be that person either physically or dressed as either gender, or perhaps a mix of both. Amid a breaking wave of transgender stories in popular culture (Transparent, Boy Meets Girl, and Orange is the New Black), Olivier Award winner Jon Brittain has created ROTTERDAM, a groundbreaking play, with deeply relatable characters that are flawed and often hilarious or heartbreaking as they struggle to be truthful about their identities.

Unlike other plays with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's beloved detective at its center, SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CASE OF THE JERSEY LILY written by Katie Forgette, includes bits and pieces of reality in the mix of characters. The famous actress Lillie Langtry is the focus of Holmes' investigation, which also includes the participation of arch villain Professor Moriarty as well as Oscar Wilde, the famous Victorian playwright, who epigrams, as well as a fragment of a scene from The Importance of Being Earnest, give color and freshness to this thriller comedy. And in the hands of skilled director Jules Aaron, whose direction allows his actors to convey each character so thoroughly, you will be drawn into their plight and scheming while hoping everything works out in the end.

On Saturday, November 18, 2017, I attended the world premiere operatic, four-site adaptation of WAR OF THE WORLDS, adapted and directed by Yuval Sharon, with music by Annie Gosfield, co-produced by The Industry and NOW Art. The production was based on the original radio play by Howard Koch, which when performed by Orson Welles terrified the nation into believing Martians had landed in New Jersey. Performed in unison within the Disney Concert Hall and at three refurbished air raid siren sites in the nearby downtown LA area, from where news bulletin reports were acted out and reported in, the entire experience was both breathtaking and mind-blowing and certainly one I will never forget.

I have always been a great fan of Vincent Van Gogh's paintings, so much so that I have traveled to the French countryside around the city of Arles to visit several locations featured in his paintings. While driving through the fields on a rainy afternoon, it was easy to imagine the famed painter sitting with his easel, frantically painting while the light was still good. While Van Gogh's critics labeled his work madness, it has gone on to become some of the most popular in French Impressionism. But the great artist's story is so much more than that of the misunderstood artist who cut off his own ear.

The World Premiere of ONE WAY TICKET TO OREGON written by BC Caldwell, produced by BC Caldwell and Jeremy Aldridge, and directed by JJ Mayes as an Equity Approved Showcase production at the Promenade Playhouse in Santa Monica, runs November 17 through December 17, 2017 on Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 2pm, with no performances scheduled over Thanksgiving weekend. Featured in the cast (in alphabetical order) are Cash Beery, BC Caldwell, Cydney Wayne Davis, Dennis Delsing*, Matt McVay, Robert Paterno*, Anderson Piller, Rebecca Radock*, Ruth Silveira*, Bryan Staggers* and Melvin Ward.

No doubt, each of us has those out-of-kilter family members everyone makes fun of for their quirks and strange behaviors when the family gets together for the holidays. After all, don't we all laugh at movies, TV shows and plays designed to make fun of those types of people to make us realize we are not alone in our trying times with our own families? Such is the case in Steve Franco's timely holiday comedy IN-LAWS, OUTLAWS AND OTHER PEOPLE (that Should Be Shot), being presented by Theatre Palisades and brilliantly directed by Ria Parody Erlich so that each bad habit of the strange Douglas family is brought to life thoroughly by her 15 talented actors each and every moment they are onstage, whether speaking or not. Running through December 10, this dysFUNctional family holiday comedy will leave you quite merry with laughter!

When playwright Tania Wisbar was growing up as a girl in America, her mother shared little about her past in wartime Germany, other than Tania came from a very well-placed and highly respected film family. With her parents divorced, there was not much else Tania knew about her family history, at least not until 1999 when a German professor visiting the U.S. brought Wisbar a 60-year-old document he had discovered in a Harvard University archive. In the 86-page manuscript, Wisbar's mother, Eva Kroy Wisbar, who was Jewish, detailed her forbidden marriage to a German film director as the Nazis were coming to power. The manuscript held answers to many of the questions the playwright's mother never answered before her 1984 death. Fifteen years later, that document inspired Wisbar's play, THE RED DRESS, its World Premiere now at the Odyssey Theatre through November 19.

With his unique combination of an Austrian father ( my name ) and Colombian mother ( my hair ) who raised him in Ecuador ( my accent ), as well as his incredibly animated face which he knows how to use to maximum dramatic effect during each and every trick, Siegfried is a true wonder to behold. During the evening, he shares that magic is based on a deception that creates an illusion, which did little to explain his amazing prowess with cards, especially when using one deck in plain sight after several audience members shuffle the deck - or predicting which card would be found in the sealed envelope hanging above his head before we even arrived. His type of magic definitely appeals to the emotions with elements of mystery and surprise thrown in to create gasps of wonder throughout his two-hour show.

ONE WAY TICKET TO OREGON takes place in Alexandria, Louisiana during the very hot and humid summer of 2010. At its core are two life-long friends, June Collins, an older no nonsense African American woman with an intuitive understanding of people, and Leigh Anne Rainey, a fiery and opinionated older southern belle living in an aging house that has been home to her family for over 150 years. When Leigh Anne receives the diagnosis that her cancer has returned and spread to her pancreas, she's forced to confront her mortality and how it will affect her son Bobby, who relies on her stability, his unstable wife Eve, and her young grandson Duke, who has autism. With help from her friend June, Leigh explores her limited options, including the use of medical marijuana to curb her symptoms, and learns about doctors in Oregon who can legally help her to die with dignity,' an emotional struggle taking place all too often around the world today.

NEW YORK WATER, a comedy written by Sam Bobrick and directed by Howard Teichman, is being produced by Bill Froggatt and Howard Teichman for West Coast Jewish Theatre at the Pico Playhouse in West LA through December 17, 2017. The title refers to the quality of New York tap water for drinking: It's usually delicious, if you can get past the fact that rusty pipes sometimes impart to it an odd hue. The same applies to modern romantic involvements which start out great then change as you really get to know one another better or decide to travel in different directions.

First produced in the mid-1980s, John Patrick Shanley's THE DREAMER EXAMINES HIS PILLOW holds interest as an early work by the multi-award-winning playwright who went on to win the Pulitzer for DOUBT and an Oscar for MOONSTRUCK. His early play offers musings about life, sex, death and relationships, directed by Mark Blanchard at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre.

TURN ME LOOSE explores the influential life of 1960s comic genius Dick Gregory, the first Black stand-up to make white audiences laugh at the absurdity of bigotry. The play reveals how the power of activism enticed Gregory from one of the most successful show business careers of the postwar era into a life of sacrifice and danger alongside Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers and other Civil Rights leaders. And I can tell you, when Joe Morton describes the tragic murder of Evans, his anger and tears seem to flow from his soul.

The plot unfolds during a public presentation during which The Librarian recounts an impressive amount of Lovely Evidences he accumulated during his worldwide search for answers about the person who returned a long-overdue book, truly a most whirlwind journey that occupied his every waking minute. His obsessive search causes the loss of his long-held and beloved employment as he researches for what he considers to be one of the great mysteries of humanity. Director Steven Robman perfectly paces the show to keep you on the edge of your seat as you ponder just what the gathered evidence seems to prove.