A Noise Within opens its new Pasadena home with a Twelfth Night set in pre-revolutionary Cuba. And Latino Theater Company moves to LATC’s largest venue with Evelina Fernandez’s Hope, set a few years later as the Cuban missile crisis was terrifying everyone, including a Mexican American family in Phoenix. Expect lots of snappy costumes in Twelfth Night and soulful singing in Hope. Also, Art Manke comments on A Noise Within’s big moment. READ MORE
Dancing With the Devil in Odyssey’s Way to Heaven
by Mark Kinsey Stephenson | October 31, 2011
Norbert Weisser and Bruce Katzman, respectively, play the Commandant of a Nazi prison camp and the Jewish “mayor” of the camp, who collaborate on an elaborate charade in order to deceive a Red Cross inspector, in Juan Mayorga’s Way to Heaven. Weisser, who was born in Germany the year after the war ended, and Katzman talk about their roles and the audience responses. READ MORE
Have You Seen Alice?
by Jacqueline Wright | October 31, 2011
Alice, a character created by Jacqueline Wright for her new play Have You Seen Alice?, might prefer to remain anonymous, but Wright describes why she won’t let that happen. The play opens later this week at Theatre of NOTE. READ MORE
Jim J. Bullock Finds Comfort in Hairspray
by Tom Provenzano | October 28, 2011
Jim J. Bullock auditioned to replace Harvey Fierstein as Edna Turnblad in Broadway’s Hairspray, but he wasn’t ready for it yet. After earning his stripes in several smaller roles in the show, he now feels he has reached his Edna moment. He’s playing the Baltimore mom in Musical Theatre West’s staging in Long Beach. READ MORE
The Phases of Balancing the Moon
by Patricia Lamkin | October 28, 2011
Do the serious parts of your play get all the laughs? No problem — change the main character. That’s what Patricia Lamkin did while writing Balancing the Moon, now opening at Zombie Joe’s. READ MORE
LA STAGE INSIDER
by Julio Martinez | October 27, 2011
Music Theatre International (MRI) brings tuners to your iPhone and Salome Jens portrays Hadassah co-founder Henrietta Szold. Street rock tuner, The Playground, returns to LA while Idol finalist Syesha Mercado joins Upright Cabaret. Set design master John Iacovelli discusses craft and INSIDER peruses checkered history of the Music Box theater on Hollywood Blvd., aka the Henry Fonda Theatre, aka… READ MORE
Selznick Uses Smoke and Mirrors and Magic to Heal
by Amy Tofte | October 27, 2011
Albie Selznick took up magic as a boy, finding solace in it after his father’s death. Then he gradually left it behind in his professional pursuits, becoming a co-founder of The Mums and a well-regarded LA stage and TV actor. But now he returns to it in Smoke and Mirrors, at the Santa Monica Playhouse. READ MORE
Cornerstone’s Hunger Cycle Plants Creative Seeds
by Rachel Fain | October 27, 2011
Cornerstone Theater’s next big cycle will include nine plays on hunger and food-related subjects over the next five years. But first, the public is invited to two weeks of appetizers under the Creative Seeds title, Nov. 7-20. It’s a festival of panels, roundtables, and small performances that will help the playwrights and other ensemble members prepare for the upcoming productions. Besides the main article about the events, here’s a close-up look at one of the participants, farmer/performer Nikiko Masumoto. READ MORE
A Noise Within Opens Its New Home Within Pasadena
by Steve Julian | October 26, 2011
A Noise Within finally moves into its long-awaited new home in east Pasadena, with a Twelfth Night opening Saturday. Artistic directors Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott show off their new digs, which offer 283 seats in a mid-century building that once housed a pharmaceutical firm. A couple donors to the $13.5 million capital campaign talk about why they contributed. READ MORE
Come Fly With John Selya, Sinatra, and Tharp
by Jessica Koslow | October 25, 2011
As Twyla Tharp’s Come Fly With Me arrives at the Pantages, Twyla Tharp resident director John Selya discusses the heartfelt break dancing he’ll be doing, the long-running romance between Tharp’s choreography and Sinatra’s recordings and why Tharp doesn’t take her dancers through a Sinatra boot camp. READ MORE
A Day Drinker Takes Voice Lessons
by Maile Flanagan | October 25, 2011
Maile Flanagan is a commuter within Tannersville — shuttling between performances of two Justin Tanner plays, Voice Lessons at the Whitefire and Day Drinkers at the Odyssey, plus an occasional excursion by the Voice Lessons cast into the Central Valley. That is, when she’s not voicing a screaming ninja on her day job. READ MORE
Tales From the WWII Home Front: Peace, Sons, Robber, Plus 9 Circles
by Don Shirley | October 24, 2011
Two revivals of plays from 1947, both of them about how civilians behaved on the home front during World War II, offer distinctive twists. Antaeus’ revival of Noel Coward’s Peace in Our Time adds songs and deletes characters, while the Matrix version of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons is cast multiculturally. Meanwhile, The Robber Bridegroom has a ’40s connection too, while 9 Circles is about a different kind of war — and Dante. READ MORE
