Musicals in LA

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Photo Flash: First Look at the cast of SPAMILTON in Rehearsals

Can’t get tickets to Hamilton? Head on over to the Kirk Douglas Theatre for Spamilton, Gerard Alessandrini’s outrageous parody musical almost as popular as the original it spoofs. The show runs November 5 – December 31 and tickets for the west coast premiere are on sale now at www.CenterTheatreGroup.org.

The cast includes Glenn Bassett, Susanne Blakeslee, Dedrick A. Bonner, Becca Brown, John Devereaux, Wilkie Ferguson III, William Cooper Howell, Elijah Reyes and Zakiya Young, with choreography by Gerry McIntyre, music supervision and arrangements by Fred Barton, music direction by James Lent, set and props design by Glenn Bassett, costume design by Dustin Cross, lighting design by Karyn D. Lawrence and sound design by Adam Phalen. Here’s a look at the cast in rehearsal. Don’t miss the fun!

L-R: Cast members Dedrick A. Bonner, William Cooper Howell, John Devereaux,
Elijah Reyes, Wilkie Ferguson III and Zakiya Young.
All photos by Craig Schwartz

William Cooper Howell

Wilkie Ferguson III

Zakiya Young

John Devereaux

Glenn Bassett

Dedrick A. Bonner

Elijah Reyes

L-R: Dedrick A. Bonner, Glenn Bassett, William Cooper Howell, Zakiya Young,
Elijah Reyes, John Devereaux and Wilkie Ferguson III.

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Labels: center theatre group, kirk douglas theatre

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Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Review: Immortalizing a Star in CAGNEY THE MUSICAL

The Cast of Cagney the Musical. Photos by Carol Rosegg from the NY production

When you think of James Cagney, one of two images comes to mind: the tough guy or the tapper. The public couldn’t get enough of his bad guy persona in films like The Public Enemy, G-Men, and White Heat but, for musical theatre lovers, nothing tops his performance as George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. It was a match made in heaven when he was cast in the role. Both were Irish entertainers who came up through Vaudeville and were proud to be Americans. Both stood up for their principles and helped those in need, even when it wasn’t fashionable.

Now, Cagney’s life and career are immortalized in a dynamic new bio-musical directed by Bill Castellino playing at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood. The show has been in development for about the last 15 years and, in this current version, just concluded a successful 14-month run Off Broadway. It isn’t surprising. The painstaking work of writing and rewriting, and putting it up in front of different audiences in many places has resulted in a song-and-dance-packed traditional musical theatre production that is a fitting tribute to Cagney’s legacy.

In real life, Cagney was a man with a heart, and the tough guy image was not how he wanted to be remembered. Bookwriter Peter Colley gives us a surprising level of insight into his character as he chronicles Cagney’s (Robert Creighton) rise to fame, including his relationships with the tyrannical Jack Warner (an excellent Bruce Sabath), his brother Bill (Josh Walden), his mother (Danette Holden), and the woman who would eventually become his wife, Willie Vernon (Ellen Z. Wright).

These scenes show us the heart of the man and they cover enough territory to give us an accurate picture but one in particular is a hard sell today. Shoving a grapefruit in a woman’s face for laughs in his breakout 1931 film The Public Enemy gave credence to the idea that it was okay for men to mistreat women, and it was a little disturbing to see it enacted in the musical given today’s prevalence of violence against women in the news. It is a pivotal part of Cagney’s story and was handled as tastefully as it could be but I still cringed.

L-R: Robert Creighton and Jeremy Benton

The joy of the show, and where it really becomes something special, is in its dazzling production numbers. The stylish dance scenes and extended tap choreography by Joshua Bergasse (particularly in the Cohan numbers and a duet for Creighton and Jeremy Benton who plays Bob Hope) are the pièce de résistance. Creighton is as charming as he is fast on his feet, a ball of energy with a lovable smile and an earthy edge who has an endearing way of connecting with the audience. His supporting cast matches his energy every step-ball-change of the way.

The score consists of three different song styles. Those written by Cohan – “Grand Old Flag,” the “USO Medley” and “Yankee Doodle Dandy – are high energy patriotic tap extravaganzas. Those by Creighton take a more sentimental turn as Cagney finds himself “Crazy ‘Bout You,” “Falling in Love,” and pondering “How Will I Be Remembered.” And the rest, by Christopher McGovern, are constructed using creative and interesting devices that musical lovers will really get into.

“Black and White,” the opening number, is a take on the black and white movies of Cagney’s day that returns with a startling twist in the second act. In the writers’ room, he gives Bergasse the opportunity to choreograph a stellar pair of songs – “Warner at Work” and “Cagney at Work” that utilize seated tapping, intricately timed rhythms, and another twist that ties them together for a fantastic result.

Musical director Gerald Sternbach’s 5-piece band upstage of the action packs a lot of sound in their few instruments and also helps visually fill in the space that James Morgan’s traveling scenic design doesn’t. Michael A. Megliola’s lighting also effectively adds dimension in the studio sequences and realistic scenes but the overall look of the stage flattens out during dance numbers. That’s also where Martha Bromelmeier’s costumes look cheap in comparison to the otherwise well-done collection of period looks.

If the show was to set its sights on Broadway, it would need to scale up the production design accordingly. As it is, the musical already succeeds in its loving tribute to a great entertainer and will put a smile on your face as you leave the theater.

Robert Creighton (center) and the cast

Bruce Sabath as Jack Warner

A final note to the out-of-town producer. When you’re producing a show in LA, you might want to rethink saying LA isn’t a theatre town while hitting up the audience for investors in an exceedingly long curtain speech that should have been done at the after party instead of on stage following the performance. Rather than being cute, all you accomplish is alienating your audience.

CAGNEY THE MUSICAL
October 5 – 29, 2017
El Portal Theatre
5269 Lankershim Blvd
North Hollywood, CA 91601
Tickets: ElPortalTheatre.com
For more about the show: www.cagneythemusical.com

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Sunday, October 8, 2017

Review: There's a Sucker Born Every Minute for CAPTAIN GREEDY'S CARNIVAL

Dora Kiss, Will Thomas McFadden, Adam Bennett, Bob Turton and Paulette Zubata.
All photos by Ashley Randall

The title of the show tells you everything you need to know about The Actors’ Gang’s latest production: Captain Greedy’s Carnival, A Musical Nightmare. From it, you expect to see a circus-style entertainment with a dishonest ringleader, musical numbers, and no happy ending. That’s exactly what you get.

Billed as a musical satire, it presents the glorification of greed and corruption in a twisted capitalist society where the rich get richer and the regular guy gets screwed (sound familiar?) through the lens of a carnival sideshow, which is itself the epitome of exploitation. In fact, the disclaimer at the bottom of the program even states, “Entry to Captain Greedy’s Carnival is at your own risk. The customer getting screwed is not our problem.” And the captain means it.

For the next two hours and twenty minutes, he shows us all the ways the little guy gets fleeced, often by his own stupidity. There is no subtle symbolism here. The troupe’s sharp point of view blasts from every pore in the Gang’s broad presentational style of storytelling.

Bob Turton and Will McFadden

Essentially, the show is a series of sketches loosely written around 23 songs and a reprise that tell the story of a family who gets played for suckers. The Wheel of Random Taxation, Home-buying Shell Game, Budget Cut Burlesque, and Foreclosure Arcade are a few of the mash-ups the cast tackles in what feels more like an enhanced musical revue than a book musical.

Program notes by the playwright (Jack Pinter) say the songs and concept came first with the book following, which explains the episodic nature of the piece. It isn’t always easy to create a compelling arc when you write a plot to connect existing songs and that’s the case here. It was workshopped with the company before this world premiere but, even after its developmental phase, it feels like a work in progress.

Missing is the precision that has made past Actors’ Gang productions so effective. Instead, scenes are sloppily executed, choreography is haphazard, and actors repeatedly mumble or flub their lines. The whole thing ends up feeling like a class exercise still finding its beats. The second time I saw the same ensemble member break character, grin, and roll her eyes at her own mistakes I realized the actors were either under-rehearsed, unfocused, or having an off night. Whichever the case, it didn’t serve the piece.

And while the show is topical and timely, it also beats its subject to death without offering the audience a way out. It isn’t required to, but the Gang is preaching to the choir here. We know we’re being taken advantage of by the government and big business so there is a level of satisfaction missing from the experience when it pokes fun at the expense of the very people watching it.

The musical is most successful in its satire and in well thought out characters like Bob Turton’s Pee-Wee Herman-esque big Talker and pontificating Professor Freemarket. Will McFadden, who also directs and is one of the Gang’s biggest assets, is on stage for almost the entirety of the show as the charismatic Captain Greedy, but a relatively quiet audience the night I attended seemed to thwart even his attempts to engage them.

Bob Turton, Paulette Zubata and the cast

Roger Eno’s score consists mainly of song ditties sung in unison, although I could distinguish parts in the finale. None are particularly memorable after the final curtain however the ideas in them hit home. Lyrics with bad prosody (when the emphasis is on the wrong syllable) however, are inexcusable, and this show has a lot of them.

The writers could easily edit out 6-8 of the songs, trim the running time to under two hours and produce it in one act. Moving the intermission carnival fun and games in the lobby to before the show (even if you needed to delay the curtain) would help ramp up the energy of the audience, especially on a low energy night like this one.

But what Captain Greedy’s Carnival lacks in polish it makes up for in passion. McFadden’s closing speech is as blunt as they come, driving the message home that if you let yourself be distracted by the song and dance, you deserve what you get.

The threadbare trappings of the production design by McFadden, Pinter, and Jason Lovett give the production a salty air. Projections by Cihan Sahin are shown on the surrounding circus tent backdrop to punch up the show’s point of view. Bosco Flanagan’s lighting gives the carnival the glaring edge it needs to feel just seedy enough, as do Christie Harms’ costumes.

Paulette Zubata and Dora Kiss

CAPTAIN GREEDY’S CARNIVAL
September 30 – Saturday, November 11, 2017
The Actors’ Gang
9070 Venice Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232
Thursday Evenings – “Pay What You Can”
Tickets: 310-838-4264 or www.theactorsgang.com