Shari Barrett - Page 3

Los Angeles-based Blue13 Dance Company has been performing internationally for over 20 years, with their highly energetic modern dance style inspired by a variety of art forms native to the Indian subcontinent. On May 12-13, Blue 13 will be presenting a selection of five dances at The Wallis in Beverly Hills. I decided to speak with Blue 13's Artistic director, Achinta S. McDaniel (pictured) about her vision for these selections, especially how she plans to invite the audience to participate immersively and plans to address the current hot topics of invisible disability and addiction.

In his inimitable artistic style, actor and concert pianist Hershey Felder continues to bring the lives and music of famous composers, including Debussy, Beethoven, Berlin, Bernstein, Gershwin, Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff, to stages around the world. When I heard he was bringing his final performances of George Gershwin Alone to The Wallis in Beverly Hills this April, I decided to speak with him about the decision to retire his popular production and what his vision for the future holds.

Michelle Elkin made her professional debut at the age of 8 in the movie musical Annie. Since then, her resume includes working in numerous film, television, commercial, and theater projects as a dancer and choreographer. After recently choreographing the teen musical 13 at Simi Valley Cultural Center, Michelle is returning to the venue as co-director (with Barry Pearl) and choreographer of Footloose: The Musical with book by Dean Pitchford and Walter Bobbie, music by Tom Snow and lyrics by Dean Pitchford and Kenny Loggins, running April 22 – May 14, 2023. I decided to speak with her since about the production as well as some of the iconic shows on which she has previously worked.

Tony Award winning actor and Second City alum Paul Sand is proving yet again that you are never too old to follow your dreams in the entertainment world. His resume includes being a Tony and two-time Drama Desk Award-winning actor, writer and director who has been working in film, television, and theatre for over 60 years. And now at the age of 91, he is excited to be directing the world premiere of The Pilot Who Crashed the Party, his off-beat homage to drawing room comedies of the ’30s, this time set in his beloved Santa Monica Mountains. I wondered what his secrets might be to having such an extraordinary lifetime of work and still be writing and directing at 91. So I decided to speak with him to find out!

John Farmanesh-Bocca is a multi-award-winning physical theatre director, the Founding Artistic Director of both Not Man Apart - Physical Theatre Ensemble (2005-2015) and Shakespeare Santa Monica (2003-2014). Now he has shifted gears to go on a search for America by directing the sensual, passionate, and delightfully funny Pulitzer Prize winning play Picnic by William Inge, with his version featuring an entirely Black American cast. I decided to speak with him about his vision for presenting the quintessentially American play and the unique challenges faced while shifting gears from physical movement to character development.

For seventeen years, the teaching artists of the Actors’ Gang Prison Project have been creating transformational opportunities for incarcerated men and women. Their latest workshop production, (Im)migrants of the State, is performed by an ensemble of their alumni with over 240 years of combined incarceration who have found their way to freedom and now want to share their stories with audiences. I decided to speak with its co-directors, Jeremie Loncka, who also serves as the Director of Programs for the Actors’ Gang’s Prison Project, and ensemble member Rich Loya, about their vision for the project and how it came into being with the two of them at the helm.

As a fan of Shakespeare and immersive theatre productions, I was intrigued when I heard that The Shakespeare Center LA and After Hours Theatre Company were set to present the premiere of The Tempest: An Immersive Experience, a fully reimagined audience-participation performance based on William Shakespeare's tale of family members caught up in a storm and shipwrecked on an isolated Mediterranean island. So I decided to speak with the production's director Ben Donenberg, Shakespeare Center LA Artistic Director, Graham Wetterhahn, the Producing Artistic Director at After Hours Theatre Company, and Sara Beil one of the producers for After Hours who created the immersive design, about their vision for an immersive way to include audience members in the experience of Shakespeare's tempestuous play.

The soon-to-open production of the Neil Simon musical Little Me at Manhattan Beach Community Church Theater (MBCC), the longest running theater in the South Bay since 1956, is directed by Paula Kelley with choreography by Angela Asch. Originally scheduled to open in the Spring of 2020, I decided to speak with the director about the production’s three-year delay and how she envisions presenting a musical full of comic vignettes featuring such a large cast, especially since it was written specifically for Sid Caesar to play multiple roles as all the heroine’s husbands and lovers.

Back in 2015, I caught a solo performance play Mutant Olive, created and performed by Mitch Hara. I decided to speak with him about his revamped play, Mutant Olive 2.0, soon to begin performance at the Hudson Theatre in Hollywood, to ask about the new show, it’s title, and what’s been going on during the 8 years since Mutant Olive in its original form premiered.

BroadwayWorld spoke with Kari Hayter, a professional director and educator based in Southern California, who is directing tick, tick… BOOM! for International City Theatre in Long Beach, running February 17 through March 5, on her vision for the production and how its themes speak to not only artists but everyone reaching to achieve their dreams.

Herman's Hermits featuring lead singer Peter Noone formed in Manchester in 1964 and then took the world by storm during the Beatles-inspired British Invasion era. The group's success continues internationally, with the group touring to entertain not only fans from the 1960s but their children and grandchildren as well. So when I heard Herman's Hermits was set to appear at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills on January 27, I decided to speak with Peter about the group's beginning and how life on the road has kept the band going for so many years.

The DAY AFTER DAY musical shares the dramatic personal life story of Doris Day through her music, including many of her hit songs: Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, Sentimental Journey, Secret Love, It’s Magic, A Guy is a Guy, and Que Sera Sera. Since her popularity turned Doris Day into America’s Sweetheart in the days before the ever-present internet and cell phones, were you ever as curious as I was as to who the real Doris Day was after the cameras stopped rolling? And what does it take to bring such a beloved and well-known icon to the stage? I decided to speak with Deborah Robin about her devotion to the star and the role to find out.

Anzu Lawson is gearing up to debut her second one-woman show, The Rub, inspired by her 30-minute single camera comedy pilot about her life as a stand-up comic who secretly pays her bills by being every Asian mother's worst nightmare... a masseuse. I first met Anzu when she was performing as Yoko Ono during the 2014 Hollywood Fringe Festival, a role she inhabits with her entire body, heart and soul. So it makes perfect sense that The Rub debuts on Yoko Ono’s 90th birthday on Saturday, February 18 at 8pm as part of Whitefire Theatre's Solofest 2023. Here's my interview with her about the show.

ArtsUP! LA is presenting the world premiere of Volun-Tears, a powerful play by Korean War Veteran Lester Probst, based on the true experiences of women who have suffered sexual harassment and sexual abuse while serving in the United States Armed Forces, performed by U.S. Veterans. I decided to speak with Lester Probst on what inspired him to write the play and what message he hopes to instill in audience members to start the road to achieving equality within the ranks of our military, especially for women.

The Actors' Gang is excited to present their family friendly holiday show, Shambles, an unbridled concoction of seasonal charm and sassy cunning all rolled up in a cirque-infused panto, blurring the lines between audience and performers. When I read that this immersive experience will drop theater goers into a 60's NASA holiday party complete with alien abductions, ugly Christmas sweaters, and free-flowing champagne offered as theatergoers meander through curated rooms of wonder, I knew I had to speak with the production's creator and director, Cirque du Soleil's Stefan Haves about his vision to bring such fun family fare to the stage.

Jim Leonard has published eight plays, including The Diviners, And They Dance Real Slow in Jackson, and Battle Hymn, with his theatrical honors including the Outer Critics Circle Award, an Ovation Award, the Dramatists Guild Award, and an LA Weekly Award for best play.

John Mabey's three-person play A Complicated Hope centers around Marie and her daughter Rose Marie who are left adrift after their husband and father, Michael, passes away. But it's how he leaves that alters the lives of the family forever, especially after they meet Arnie, Michael's boyfriend. Mirroring the erratic path of grief itself, A Complicated Hope flashes between the moments in time that changed them all, exploring the challenges of both finding a family of choice and letting yourself be found. Earlier this year, Kentwood Players presented a reading of Mabey's play in which Shawn Lefty Plunkett portrayed the role of Arnie. I was curious to find out what led to his decision to produce the fully-staged West Coast premiere of A Complicated Hope as well as take on the role of Arnie again.

As an early holiday present for opera lovers, On November 12 and 13, the Verdi Chorus’ 39th season culminates with a Verdi Puccini Fest for two performances only at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica. Under the direction of Founding Artistic Director Anne Marie Ketchum, who promises the program will include “some of the most exciting moments from two of the greatest operatic composers who ever lived,” I decided to speak with her on its inception, creation, and what makes the Verdi Chorus such a special part of our city.

A serial killer's backstory always seems to fascinate people more so than that of their prey. But what is it about these vicious murderers that inspires works of art being written about them? That question popped into my head when I heard about the West Coast premiere of Cyndy A. Marion's play Broken Story, which was inspired by the murder of writer Susan Berman and her close relationship with serial killer Robert Durst. I knew I wanted to find out what inspired Cyndy to create the play and how she conducted her research.

Tony Award winning playwrights Edward Albee and Harold Pinter, who have left indelible marks in world theatre, both give voice to the outlandish and amusing behavior of humans in many of their dark comedies. Pacific Resident Theatre is offering a retrospective of two of their early one acts in tandem, both first produced in 1960. Albee's Fam and Yam, set in an upper Eastside penthouse, examines an encounter between two unnamed playwrights, one famous, one not, offering Albee's biting wit and incisive satire at its best. In Pinter's The Dumb Waiter, two working-class hitmen wait in a basement for their next assignment. I decided to speak with Pacific Resident Theatre's Artistic Director, Marilyn Fox, about the production.