Shari Barrett - Page 30

Those of us raised in a home where we knew dating a person of another race would never be accepted will certainly identify with the premise of EMMITT AND AVA, a modern tale of love and loss written and directed by two-time Ovation winner Dominic Hoffman as a Co-Production with Edgemar Center for the Arts in Santa Monica. The play's Los Angeles Premiere, presented by Delta Highway Productions, features Tucker Smallwood, Tom Schanley, Stephanie Schulz, and Harry Fowler as members of two families, unacquainted with one another, who suddenly find themselves forced to communicate on most intimate terms after their two children die together in a tragic car accident.

S/HE & ME chronicles the unvarnished, complex, desperate, and often hilariously wacky story of Billings' life, centering on the transition from the young Scott to the show-stopping Alexandra. She carries the story forward through story and plenty of songs, all of which represent the various life lessons she has learned along with way about herself, from learning to deal with feeling like a girl in a boy's body, falling in love at 16 with the woman who becomes her wife, to now living her life as an openly transgender woman. I learned more in this one evening's entertainment than I ever have leading any articles on the subject, especially when the fiercely flamboyant star stripped down to reveal her body as well as her soul to the audience.

THE BOOK OF MORMON, the nine-time Tony Award®-winning Best Musical, is an incredibly irreverent and hysterical musical comedy about two young Mormon missionaries who travel to Africa to preach and recruit new members to their faith. First staged in 2011, no one is safe from parody as the play satirizes various Mormon (as well as many other religious) beliefs and practices, as well as many well-known public figures. With book, lyrics, and music written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, best known for creating the animated comedy South Park, the two co-created the music with Robert Lopez, the co-composer/co-lyricist of Avenue Q and Frozen.

There has been much revealed in legal proceedings relating to what actually constitutes consent when it comes to physical entanglements that somehow go incredibly wrong, thus resulting in a rape charge. Lives can be sidetracked and careers often destroyed upon a court or jurors ruling on who was at fault in such cases, even when the evidence seems too point in both directions. So how do you decide? Such in the case in the award-winning playwright Anna Ziegler's ACTUALLY, directed by Tyne Rafaeli at the Geffen Playhouse.

The current production of DINNER WITH FRIENDS, directed by Mark Piatelli at Little Fish Theatre in San Pedro, has the audience up close and personal to the cast, so much so you may feel like a fly on the wall witnessing conversations not meant to be heard by strangers. In fact, Margulies' overall "slice of life" writing will no doubt pull you in, whether or not you have been through a marriage break-up or have known friends who have gone through the process with you as their shoulder to cry on. Ultimately, the value of true friendship can prove to be even more important than family.

JERSEY BOYS opened at the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway to critical acclaim on November 6, 2005, running 11 record-breaking years and becoming the 12th longest running show in Broadway history. The Tony, Grammy and Olivier Award-winning hit musical telling the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, is now onstage at the Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre through June 24, 2017. It is absolutely one of the best musicals I have ever experienced, and not just because their music was so much a part of my teenage years and brings back so many great memories, but for its astounding staging and the incredible cast who make the show one not to miss for musical theatre lovers of all ages!

Everyone has dreams they wish to have fulfilled during their lifetime. And as it turns out, the energy we put into fueling our passion to achieve them can take us in directions we could never have anticipated, yet become so necessary in obtaining whatever goal we have set for ourselves or influencing how others see us. Such is the case in the Broadway musical BIG FISH, a heartfelt, powerful, and truly magical musical about fathers, sons, and the stories that we use to define our identities.

The romantic dramedy HAROLD AND MAUDE incorporates elements of dark humor, centering around the exploits of a young man named Harold who is intrigued with his own death, often staging his own suicide to avoid dealing with his overbearing mother who wants nothing more than for Harold to find the 'right' woman to marry who can snap him out of his self-imposed depression and detachment from society. But of course, Harold finds his own way into the arms of romance with 79-year old Maude, a free-spirited woman who teaches 19-year old Harold about living life to its fullest, and eventually that life is the most precious gift of all, even though she has already made plans to end her own life on her own terms.

Grammy® Award-nominated and multi-platinum R&B/pop recording artist and film/TV actress Deborah Cox is starring as Rachel Marron in the first U.S. National tour of the hit musical THE BODYGUARD during its Los Angeles premiere at Hollywood Pantages Theatre through May 21, 2017. Ms. Cox is not only one of the most incredible singers I have ever seen onstage, her renditions of the many hit songs performed by Whitney Houston in Lawrence Kasdan's 1992 Oscar nominated Warner Bros. film, sound even better than the originals! In fact, in 2000, Cox collaborated with Houston to record the duet "Same Script Different Cast" for Houston's Greatest Hits CD, setting the precedent culminating with this production.

After working in the Warner Brothers Manhattan office mailroom, Playwright Neil Simon got his first big break as a staff writer on Sid Caesar's celebrated television series 'Your Show of Shows,' a live 90-minute variety show starring comedy legends Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca that ran from 1950 to 1954. The writing staff had a staggering talent pool that included; Mel Tolkin (All in the Family), Carl Reiner (Dick Van Dyke Show, The Jerk), Mel Brooks (Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Space Balls), Michael Stewart (Bye Bye Birdie, Hello Dolly!), Joseph Stein (Fiddler on the Roof), Lucille Kallen (worked on Broadway), Danny Simon (The Carol Burnett Show, Diff'rent Strokes) and his brother Neil Simon (The Odd Couple, Murder by Death). As a way of sharing his own experience working as the 'new kid' learning the ropes from the other, more experienced writers, Neil Simon wrote the outrageous comedy LAUGHTER ON THE 23rd FLOOR, now brilliantly staged at Little Fish Theatre in San Pedro through May 20.

During the 2015 Hollywood Fringe Festival, I discovered the all-female theatre troupe Broads' Word Ensemble when my love of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shew and being a fan of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy led me to the group's first production, Fifty Shades of Shrew. After being exquisitely entertained by the show, I vowed to follow the group in their future endeavors, whether at Fringe or not. So when I heard about their current production of The Lady Was a Gentleman, a screwball comedy of seduction, mistaken identity, and all the fun you can get away with when you're famous, I was more than ready to see what this inspirational group of women were presenting as a pure theatrical confection. And delicious it was!

Culver City residents Jeannine and Jack Stehlin are celebrating the 21st anniversary season of their New American Theatre production company by presenting MACBETH: REVISITED, directed by and starring Jack Stehlin in the title role with choreography and sound design by John Farmanesh-Bocca. Last year, this team of two brilliant production designers brought the award-winning Tempest Redux to the Odyssey Theatre, with mind-blowing choreography enabling the classic tale to resonant with modern audiences. Their great skill working together is again gracing a local stage at Sacred Fools on Hollywood's Theatre Row, featuring a gender-bending cast of company members who tell Shakespeare's tale of power, greed, and the blood-thirst for ambition - all in a roughly 95-minute theatrical journey.

GOOD PEOPLE centers on life in South Boston, a working-class neighborhood on hard times, which is no joke for single mother Margaret Walsh. Fired from her job, facing eviction and with nowhere to turn, she and her grown, disabled daughter, represent a large portion of today's society. Will she get a break from her young manager at the Dollar Store or the landlady with a craft business selling googly-eyed rabbits, or the man from her past, now a successful doctor, who left town at a crucial moment long ago? With cutting humor and amazing realism, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsey-Abaire creates a loving portrait of his hometown and a relatable story of socioeconomic struggle.

'Failure: A Love Story' chronicles the lives, loves and deaths of the three Fail sisters (June Carryl, Margaret Katch, and Nicole Shalhoub) and the one man with the double moniker Mortimer Mortimer (Kurt Quinn) who fell in love with each of them but not at the same time. Set against the backdrop of 1920s Chicago, this touching, whimsical tale explores the impermanence of life and the permanence of love, especially among devoted family members. The 'failure' in the title refers to poor Mortimer's inability to ever marry any of the three sisters after falling in love with them, as the untimely deaths of the three sisters happen before any marriages can take place.

Since I left the theater last Sunday, I have been singing 'Camptown Races' (sometimes referred to as 'Camptown Ladies'), a comic song written by Stephen Foster, known as the father of American music who was considered the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century. Appropriately, the song was published in 1850 in Foster's Plantation Melodies, making it the perfect theme song for PURE CONFIDENCE, a play set in the high-stakes world of Civil War-era horse racing. This surprisingly funny and daring story takes a look at the complexity of race relations, love and dignity in the second half of the nineteenth century. Against a vivid backdrop of fast horses, gritty racetracks and high-stakes betting, it's an extraordinary tale of human triumphs and failings.

When traveling between floors on an elevator, how often do you look around and react to strangers, wondering who they are or what they do for a living? And if you guess, what percentage of the time will you be wrong? Such is the challenge presented by the hit 2010 Hollywood Fringe Festival play ELEVATOR, written and directed by award-winning filmmaker and playwright Michael Leoni, based on the original short film Someplace In Between (an Official Selection of the 2009 LA Shorts Film Festival). The play originally premiered at the Hudson theaters during the first annual Hollywood Fringe Festival. After a wildly successful run, the smash hit expanded to the Hudson Mainstage Theatre and then the Macha Theater, receiving 11 nominations including 'Best New Work' from Broadway World as well as 'Critic's Choice' and 'Best Bet' from the Los Angeles Times. Now is your chance to catch it at The Coast Playhouse in West Hollywood through April 30.

We are still laughing, days after seeing the West Coast premiere of THE LEGEND OF GEORGIA McBRIDE at the Geffen Playhouse. The play with fantastic and ultra-flamboyant musical numbers will keep you laughing from beginning to end, centered on 'a wildly joyous story of empathy, of inclusivity, of community, of the potential for art to build bridges,' according to the Geffen's Artistic Director Randall Arney. Along with Mr. Arney, I send kudos to the six collaborators who have shepherded the play in its journey before arriving at the Geffen: playwright Matthew Lopez, director Mike Donahue, choreographer Paul McGill, cast member Matt McGrath, set designer Donyale Werle and sound designer Jill BC Du Boff so that L.A. audiences have a chance to celebrate the glory that stems from watching the best drag queen show since KINKY BOOTS.

Santa Monica Playhouse presents the funny, touching, and just a little bit racy, world premiere comedy, Albert James Kallis's A DeLUSIONAL Affair which will make you question everything you ever thought you knew about love, marriage, fantasy and reality, leaving you with a new perspective on it all. The play centers around a married couple celebrating their 25th Anniversary, with a husband eager to celebrate with his wife while she is so engrossed writing a book that she cannot be bothered to pay much attention to him, other than on the fantasy pages of her book. But what happens when that fantasy becomes reality?

Torn from today's headlines, what do you do when your enemy may be smarter than you? William Mastrosimone's gripping drama CAW'S-PAW is set in a warehouse near the U.S. capital where a terrorist who has wreaked madness and destruction on America is about to use a news reporter to exploit just one more valuable hostage – the world's supply of clean water. Reflecting both current issues of the destruction of clean drinking water in such places as Flint, MI, as well as climate change, this play will get you thinking about how the media tends to promote violence when words fail to gets opposing sides talking to each other, and will get you thinking about what it takes for a good cause go bad.

A wave of new plays addressing social unrest are now hitting the stages of Los Angeles theaters. Last weekend I saw Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan's BUILDING THE WALL at Fountain Theatre, the first in a series of productions set to take place at theaters across the U.S. as part of a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. Written as a reaction to the dawn of the Trump presidency, Schenkkan offers a direct response to his immigration policies, revealing how those policies might lead to a terrifying, seemingly inconceivable, yet inevitable conclusion.