Shari Barrett - Page 47

Kentwood Players will present 'Sordid Lives' by Del Shores from tonight, July 11 to August 16, 2014 for a six-week run on Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm with Sunday matinees at 2pm at the Westchester Playhouse, located at 8301 Hindry Avenue, Westchester, CA 90045. The production is directed by Kirk Larson and produced by Lori Marple-Pereslete and Virginia Mekkelson by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc.

This black comedy about white trash centers on a colorful family from a small Texas town who must come to grips with the accidental death of the elderly family matriarch during her clandestine meeting in a seedy motel room with a much younger, married neighbor. The woman's family must deal with their own demons while preparing for what could be an embarrassing funeral. This play is filled with adult situations and language

Fans of sketch comedy TV shows such as The Red Skeleton Show, the Jackie Gleason Show and the Carol Burnett show will certainly recognize the many farcical vaudeville comedy bits in MAMA WON'T FLY, written by three of the most produced playwrights in America, Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten, and directed by James Rice at Little Fish Theatre in San Pedro.

Back by popular demand after sold-out houses last summer, Chalk Repertory Theatre, the Los Angeles-based production company that is a leader "in the growing conversation about the shape of immersive theatre," will re-mount Oscar Wilde's LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN at UCLA's William Andrews Clark Memorial Library in in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles this summer for 5 performances.

Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill, Chief Sitting Bull, and Frank Butler will appear in Haven Academy of the Arts production of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, a musical with lyrics and music by Irving Berlin and a book by Dorothy Fields and her brother Herbert Fields. The family-friendly musical presents a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley (1860-1926), a sharpshooter who starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and her romance with sharpshooter Frank Butler.

The MaD JaCKRaTS in 'Makin' a Movie' Improvisation is the first in an ongoing monthly series on the third Sunday of each month. From show to show, you will meet some outrageous characters, both new and recurring. You get to throw them into any situation with your suggestions. It's guaranteed to be a unique and entertaining experience each time!!!

Bialystock and Bloom! Those names should strike terror and hysteria in anyone familiar with Mel Brooks' classic cult comedy film. Now as a big Broadway musical, THE PRODUCERS once again sets the standard for modern, outrageous, in-your-face humor. The 2001 Tony Award Winning Best Musical based on Brooks' 1968 film of the same name, has been wowing audiences around the world, and now at the Morgan Wixson Theater in Santa Monica through August 2, 2014.

Kentwood Players, the community theater group based at the Westchester Playhouse, was founded in December 1949 by Jan and Arky Marcom. At the end of each season, all Kentwood Players members in good standing who have seen all six shows vote by secret ballot and then the group presents their annual Marcom Masque Awards to the winners in each category at an entertainment-filled awards ceremony, held June 28, 2014 for the 2013-2014 season..

Wilson Milam directs the West Coast premiere of DATES AND NUTS, a romantic comedy by Gary Lennon ("Orange is the New Black" and "Justified"), about Brooklyn animal rights activist Eve who has just been dumped by her fiance - for a man. Angry at the male species, she becomes increasingly frantic as she searches for love in the dating jungle of New York City. Will she ever find the man of her dreams? Can she learn to keep her mouth shut and not scare all of them away?

Highlighted with brilliant acting, writing and directing, the world premiere comedy MEET & GREET is bound to be one of the biggest hits at this year's Fringe. The premise is we are in a casting office in the San Fernando Valley, present day. Four actresses have been called in for one part during pilot season, and each one appears to be at the end of her acting rope and really needs the job.

Your GPS tells you how to get where you're going, but what if it could tell you more? Such is the inventive premise of THE NAVIGATOR, enjoying its West Coast premiere during Fringe. Written by Eddie Antar and directed by Leslie Kincaid Burby for Burning Clown Productions, this show was nominated for 2 Drama Desk Awards and 8 New York Innovative Theatre Awards, all well deserved.

As a huge fan of The Twilight Zone TV show, I enjoyed seeing the different mash-ups of episodes as well as being able to catch references to many other episodes (ie: Willoughby, Hitchhiker, To Serve Man Diner). It was also fun to see clips from many original episodes played on a large TV monitor on the set. Very clever editing on all of these.

AFTERLOVE: LOVE LIFE IN THE AFTERLIFE, written by and performed by Ron Hanks and Betsy Reisz is one of the most brilliant and inventive shows I have seen at this year's Hollywood Fringe Festival. In the dating pool of the afterlife, there are a LOT of choices, and this show presents 8 couples of public figures across time and space as they attempt to create new and continued love with each other in Heaven.

SORDID LIVES, a black comedy about white trash, centers on a colorful family from a small Texas town who must come to grips with the accidental death of the elderly family matriarch during her clandestine meeting in a seedy motel room with a much younger, married neighbor. The woman's family must deal with their own demons while preparing for what could be an embarrassing funeral. This play is filled with adult situations and language.

The Los Angeles premiere of THE BROTHERS SIZE at the Fountain Theatre, directed by Shirley Jo Finney, is an exuberantly theatrical drama that weaves together the pulsing rhythms of the bayou with African Yoruba mythology to create a stylized story of love and heartache. What makes the play even more appealing than the skill of the actors is they always speak their stage directions, which invites the audience to remember they are in a theater and the story being told is for them.

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF was always the playwright's favorite among all his plays. Theatre Palisades is presenting the original version of the script as written by Tennessee Williams before Eli Kazan, who was already hired to direct both Broadway and the film version, forced him to re-write the script to conform to the mores in McCarthy era 1955. This compelling original version has been professionally produced only two times, in 1958 in London and in 1974 on Broadway with Elizabeth Ashley, Keir Dullea and Fred Gwynne.

Chalk Repertory Theatre has created a very intimate way to experience the show, setting it in the backhouse of a Beverlywood area home transforming it into May's 1980s hotel room as she attempts to untangle herself from Eddie on the night their hearts reach their breaking points. With only 20 audience members at each performance, you can't help but be drawn into the story and characters since you are sitting in the hotel room with them, watching them run in and out of the room, slamming doors, hiding in the bathroom, drinking, and of course wrestling on the floor right at your feet.

Queer Classics re-imagines one of the most popular comedic plays ever written - Oscar Wilde's THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST by presenting the four lovers in the story as dashing gay men. Director Casey Kringlen brings this sassy comedy to the Hollywood Fringe Festival, mining hysterical new meaning into many of the classic play's lines about society and manners.

THE BEST OF CRAIGSLIST started in 2012 as a comedic web series on Funny or Die starring John Pick. In early 2013, after taking the video characters live for a couple of solo performances, Pick designed a rotating ensemble-based performance using real Craigslist posts as source material. Any of us who have placed Craigslist ads to try and sell something, trade something, find a roommate, or follow up on a chance meeting will surely laugh their way through the one hour performance.

The World Premiere of ROCK & ROLL'S GREATEST LOVERS, with music by Anzu Lawson and Joerg Stoeffel, book and lyrics by Anzu Lawson, tells the Romeo and Juliet story of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, two rebels from opposite ends of the world who stood together in the name of LOVE only to face every kind of hate and tribulation. The 60 minute production of selected songs from the play is directed by Nell Teare, presented at the Lillian Theater during the 2014 Hollywood Fringe Festival.