Shari Barrett - Page 34

The great genius of contemporary musical theater, creator of Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods and Company, Stephen Sondheim leads audiences on a tuneful revue of presidential assassins and would-be killers from John Wilkes Booth to John Hinckley. The performance is guided by the Proprietor (brilliantly portrayed by Will Shure) who takes you through a most unusual musical history lesson in the form of a carnival game called "Shoot the Prez - Win a Prize" during which the sounds of each era accompany riveting portrayals of history's most impassioned and deranged. Thought-provoking and darkly delightful, ASSASSINS won five Tony Awards in its first revival on Broadway and remains one of the most controversial Broadway musicals ever written.

In today's world, many are passed over for promotion, often causing jealousy and bitter reactions to the person who does advance over you. But just how far would you go to get that job you want and feel best qualified for, at least in your own mind? And what if you feel that person in the positions above you was just so vile and wrong for the job that you became convinced the world would simply be a better place if that person was dead? Would you have a moral imperative to shove that individual over to the other side? That's the question posed by the new World Premiere mystery MORAL IMPERATIVE by L.A.-based playwright Samuel Warren Joseph, now onstage at Theatre 40 through October 17.

Created and performed by Amy Snowden, Casting Confessions from La to LA is an outrageous and comical insight into her formative years in a small town in Louisiana, her move to Hollywood to become a sitcom actress but getting chewed up and spit-out in Hollywood, and her unique secret ways of finally making money to survive and rise in the OC. Amy's wild ride is full of hilarious and terrifying stories of nightmare roommates, nowhere jobs, massage parlor encounters, public transportation, and see-through underwear!

Solo shows written and performed by their authors need to be told with enough personal stage presence to be truly interesting to the audience. Such is the case in Lucy Alibar's world premiere THROW ME ON THE BURNPILE AND LIGHT ME UP in which she enthusiastically and humorously shares journal entries blending scenes of a lecherous goat, Pentecostals on the radio, disputes with a childhood freinemy, a clutter of inbred cats, phone calls from death row, Daddy's burnpile, and countless other rich ingredients into a delicious and magical stew of stories about her singular childhood in Grady County, Florida. The play is currently onstage through October 2, 2016,.at the Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre in downtown Culver City, directed by Center Theatre Group Associate Artistic Director Neel Keller.

Solo Performance Artist Bonnie Joy Sludikoff has spent the last 2 years performing her 2014 Hollywood Fringe Hit, That's What She Didn't Say: A True Story of Taboo, Redemption, and Musical Theatre. But always feeling she had blown the chance to have dozens of important, meaningful conversations over the last three years, she's back now with an even bolder approach that shows the collision of rape culture and pop culture from her very personal perspective: BACKWARDS: A COMEDY (ABOUT TRAUMA)

Art-In-Relation (A.I.R.) is an innovative production company focusing on breathing new life into lesser-known plays and musical theater. I have seen their productions at other locations throughout the city, but unfortunately the facilities and cast talent in past productions has been less than stellar. So I am very pleased to announce A.I.R. has upped its production ante with their latest production staged at the Dorie Theater in the Complex on Theater Row in Hollywood: Andrew Lippa's musical THE WILD PARTY, based on the poem by Joseph Moncure.

Playwright Robert O'Hara provides the mood-setting intro for the West Coast premiere of his comedy BARBECUE now playing at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood through October 16. And while his very off-color language is shocking at first, I guarantee it will start you laughing and prepare you for the very realistic language used throughout the play.

Like all of August Wilson's plays, this one contains more dialogue than perhaps is needed, with the first act seemingly bogged down at times as you listen to four musicians (Damon Gupton as Cutler, Glynn Turman as Toledo, Keith David as Slow Dawg, Jason Dirden as Levee) stuck in a rehearsal room as they banter about life, women, music, and a much-loved pair of new shoes. It's a shame these brilliant musicians were not allowed to share their skills in more than just one song during the show as they rocked the house. Make no mistake; this play is NOT a musical but a hard-hitting drama about the inequities of life.

The heart of the story in Wendy Graf's world premiere play PLEASE DON'T ASK ABOUT BECKET centers on a young woman's journey to self-awareness as she learns to separate herself from her identity as the twin of a young man who should have been able to achieve greatness due to his social standing and upbringing as the "star" of his close-knit Jewish family. Seen through the lens of upper middle-class privilege where a favored son is seen as perfect in every way, we are taken on the journey through his life and how his presence affects each of his family members, both uniting and dividing them as they struggle to reconcile their relationships.

As the eighth production of Little Fish Theatre's 2016 season, THE HOW AND THE WHY written by Sarah Treem, the Emmy-nominated House of Cards writer and producer, continues through September 1, 2016 on select Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8:00pm. The production is directed by Danielle Ozymandies and features Natalie Beisner and Mary Wickliffe. This powerful foursome joins forces to create a deeply intelligent and emotional examination of what it takes to succeed in a man's world and with each other, especially after secrets between them are revealed. It's a fresh and fascinating take on two women biologists - one near the end of her career, and the other whose is just beginning.

Director Gloria Gifford takes her job of inspiring upcoming stars in proper stage presentation, and above all, I must commend her for making sure each actor in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at TU Studios understood exactly what they were saying so audience members could not only understand the words but also what was being said in terms of the dialogue's meaning. It is the first production of the play in which I could get the meaning of each line, even though the words as written were foreign to modern English. Some of the actors shared with me that Gloria demanded their line presentation and stage movements make perfect sense, and the actors responded with great care.

Cock Tales: Shame on Me! the new and very personal play from Debra Ehrhardt, the award-winning solo artist and writer of the internationally acclaimed Jamaica Farewell, is a remarkably honest tale about how her repressed and very religious childhood was challenged by her discovery of boys' bodies before she was in her teens. Her 80-minute show is based on Ms. Ehrhardt's colorful history of a lifetime of encounters with a world full of testosterone-fueled gentlemen--and not-so-gentle-men- that has given her plenty of 'source material' from which to create a memorable evening of theater. From her early years as a young girl raised in a religious family, through her sexual awakening as a young adult, she takes us on a bumpy ride over a funny, sexy and emotionally rocky road. I guarantee you will laugh along with her and nod in recognition of our common sexual experiences while fighting with the shame and guilt her experimentation caused her psyche.

Kentwood Players presents WAIT UNTIL DARK, a suspenseful thriller by Frederick Knott, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher, opening Friday, September 9 through Saturday, October 15 on Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm and Sundays at 2:00pm at the Westchester Playhouse, located at 8301 Hindry Avenue in Westchester, CA 90045. The production is directed by Kathy Dershimer and produced by Jenny Boone by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc. Featured in the cast in alphabetical order are Samantha Barrios, Stanley Brown, Ty Budde, Harold Dershimer, Brian Roach, and Ixchel Valiente.

Melanie MacQueen directs actors of Theatre 40 in a staged reading of A Phoenix Too Frequent, written by Christopher Fry in 1946. This event is part of Classics in the Courtyard, a 20-year-old series presented in the inner courtyard of historic Greystone Estate in Beverly Hills. The cast includes Jennifer Laks, Jonathan Medina and LeeAnn Rowe.

The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts presents the critically-acclaimed Hershey Felder as Leonard Bernstein in MAESTRO from August 10 - 28. Felder channels the great composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, drawing audiences deeply into the maestro's fascinating life filled with tragedy, triumph, and extraordinary music. The Wallis' production marks the final West Coast engagement prior to a highly-anticipated transfer to New York City's 59E59 Theaters from August 31 - October 16, 2016. A Special One-Night-Only Audience Sing-Along will take place on August 22.

What makes the current production at the Ruskin Group Theatre in Santa Monica so special is its Tony Award winning director Lita Gaithers Owens cast Tony Award nominee Starletta DuPois as Lena "Mama" Younger. DuPois has a long history with A RAISIN IN THE SUN having first been cast as Beneatha, then became known for her role as Ruth in the acclaimed American Playhouse film version, and now Mama. "A true gift at this point in my career is having experienced the life of this play through three extraordinary women characters that the playwright created," DuPois shared. In fact, her emotional and physical understanding of the role so central to the play was thrilling to experience as her entire physical presence totally embodied Mama right down to every moment of her joys, heartbreak, anger, and love for her children, as if DuPois was channeling Mama from her very soul.

Written by one of Poland's foremost contemporary playwrights, THE SUITCASE at first seems to be nothing more than a fluff piece with things such as balloons being popped and silly songs being sung. But it will surprise you when the story takes hold with the rather comical singing Narrator (Jeff Alan-Lee) and Jackleen (Claire Kaplan) sharing the tale of Franswa Jackoh (Vincent Catellanos) who, while in the process of figuring out his life, wanders into a cafe and meets The Poet (Sigute Miller) who in turn guides him to a Holocaust Museum to seek the truth. There he meets a rather miserable Tour Guide (Alexandra Freeman) who begrudgingly points out a suitcase retrieved from one of the German "work camps." Her tune changes when Jackoh realizes the name on the case is that of his own father from whom he was separated during the Holocaust.

Culver City Public Theatre opened its 2016 summer season on Saturday, July 16, for 6 weekends of free theatre in Carlson Park, with two plays, 'Frog Tails' at noon, and 'As You Like It' at 2:00, every Saturday and Sunday through August 21. Carlson Park is the perfect seeing at transforming it into the Forest of Arden for Shakespeare's lighthearted pastoral comedy. Audience members can relax in the shade throughout the play, enjoying the warm temperature and delightful ocean breeze.

As a former high school teacher who started an alternative program for students who had dropped out, I participated in counselling troubled teens in learning how to deal with challenging circumstances in their lives, be it with parents, siblings, friends, or the desire to find love and respect from that special someone. It's especially difficult when a teen is also dealing with emotional or physical disorders or abuse. And what happens to a foster teen when she ages out of the system? What happens to an adolescent boy with Asperger's when he falls in love? What happens to a Straight-A student who is being sexually molested? In Leda Siskind's world premiere play ALL MY DISTANCES ARE FAR we meet all these characters and others as they confide to the psychotherapist who sees them at their urban high school.

Climbing the corporate ladder has always been easy for some and difficult for others. In 1961, HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING explained the secrets of success included luck, charm, connections and a willingness to use those things to personal advantage. Fans of the TV show Mad Men will certainly feel right at home in the early 60's world of the advertising business complete with pastel dresses and flip style hairdos for the hard-working office girls designed by Donna Fritsche using styles straight out of a 1961 fashion magazine, as well as the brightly colored desks and set pieces designed by Sean Gray and Naomi Kasahara. Watch in amazement as J. Pierrepont Finch's meteoric rise from lowly window washer to high-powered executive happens just by following the steps presented in a business self-help book. If only it were really that easy…