Friday, October 21, 2011
News Around Town
La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts and Chris Isaacson will kick off Upright Cabaret’s American Icon Series’ 3rd season with Heart and Soul, starring American Idol finalist Syesha Mercado, Broadway’s Shoshana Bean, and Sylvia Maccalla, celebrating the music of Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick & Whitney Houston. Todd Schroeder directs this one night only multi-media concert event which takes place on Sunday, November 6th at 7:30 pm in the theatre’s new Cabaret Lounge* * * * *
The Coterie at The Renaissance Hollywood Hotel will present Les Misérables: Unplugged on November 3, 4, 12, and 13. Produced by Jordan Beck with original direction by J. Scott Lapp and musical direction/arrangements by Brian P. Kennedy, the cast will feature Broadway performers David Burnham, Kathy Deitch, Julie Garnyé, Adam Hunter, Richard Kinsey, James Snyder and Jessica-Snow Wilson.
* * * * *
Take it from the Top Productions and Broadway Dreams will present a Broadway Master Class workshop on Saturday, November 5, at Los Angeles Theatre Center to be taught by Broadway veterans Paul Canaan and Tyler Hanes. Participants will learn a dance combination focusing on style and storytelling, and may also perform an ‘audition’ song for feedback from Canaan and Hanes. There will also be a talkback session with cast members from the new musical Bring It On, which opens at the Ahmanson Theatre at the Music Center on November 11.
The instructors are Broadway veterans Paul Canaan (Kinky Boots, Catch Me If You Can, Legally Blonde, Miss Saigon, Thoroughly Modern Millie, La Cage Aux Folles and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), and Tyler Hanes (Oklahoma!, Urban Cowboy, The Boy From Oz, The Frogs, Sweet Charity, Hairspray, and A Chorus Line). Canaan’s passion for education in the arts inspired his company ‘Take It From The Top’ with partner Laura Bell Bundy. The workshop is $65 per person. Click here for more information.
* * * * *
West Coast Ensemble has announced that after 30 years as a membership company, it is discontinuing its membership component effective November 1. Comments Co-Artistic Directors Les Hanson and Richard Israel, “Over the past few years, it has become increasingly challenging for West Coast Ensemble Theatre to provide an artistic home for its membership. While WCE has continued to present award-winning theatre in a variety of spaces over the last several years, the membership component of the company has suffered due to the lack of a dedicated space. Without the ability to provide a true artistic base, it no longer makes sense to maintain a corps of dues-paying actors without providing them with the creative outlet that brought them to WCE in the first place. Therefore, after careful consideration and soul-searching, a decision has been made to discontinue the membership of West Coast Ensemble Theatre.
We are tremendously proud of the journey West Coast Ensemble has taken in its 30 years in Hollywood and we applaud the courageous actors and artists who have comprised our membership, served our patrons and graced our various stages over the years. We hope that this decision will not be seen as an end, but as the beginning of new opportunities for all of us. West Coast Ensemble Theatre will continue to operate as a non-membership theatre producing entity, and is actively pursuing opportunities for co-productions, as well as options for partnerships with other companies.”
For more Musicals in LA news:
Become a Fan on Facebook
Follow Musicals in LA on Twitter
Click Here to return to home page
Labels: coterie, upright cabaret, west coast ensemble
Thursday, June 16, 2011
West Coast Ensemble Brings GYPSY Back to Hollywood
 |
| Jan Sheldrick and Stephanie Wall in Gypsy Photo: Carla Barnett |
Performance update: Due to popular demand, the show has extended through July 31, 2011.
Stephen Sondheim, in his memoir “Finishing the Hat,” said that Gypsy is the show where he came of age lyrically. “It was the first chance I had to write lyrics for characters of considerable complexity… [and] Rose, was the dramatist’s dream, the self-deluded protagonist who comes to a tragic/triumphant end.”
When an audience knows more about the character than they do themselves, they wait in a kind of suspended anticipation of that inevitable point when the character will be forced to face the truth. In the case of Gypsy, Momma Rose’s moment of truth comes in a show-stopping eleven o’clock number, “Rose’s Turn.”
Jan Sheldrick is getting a chance to experience that moment of truth firsthand as she takes on the iconic role of Momma Rose in West Coast Ensemble’s production of Gypsy, now playing at the Theatre of Arts Arena Stage in Hollywood. Sheldrick hits the highs and lows of this desperately flawed character with everything she’s got and she’s terrific.
As her daughters, Stephanie Wall and Kaylie Swanson create sisters as different as two girls could possibly be – Wall as Louise, who goes on to become burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee, and Swanson as June, who would later star on Broadway and in films as June Havoc.
You will fall in love with these girls, I’m warning you. Swanson is a perky, blonde ingénue who will fool you into thinking she’s all smiles until you see a flash of the rage that June is hiding underneath, and Wall will just plain break your heart. Her “Little Lamb,” sung quietly to her stuffed animals, is simple and sweetly innocent and watching her dance behind Tulsa (a charming Eric Alan Smith) during “All I Need is the Girl” proves that the eyes really are windows to the soul. You’ll see in hers the yearning of a young girl aching to be seen, and knowing that disappointment is only moments away makes it even more poignant for us watching her.
Their younger selves are Kaleigh Ryan as Baby June, a smaller, spunkier, baton-twirling ball of energy in blonde curls, and Caitlin Williams as Young Louise, who I wanted to scoop up and say don’t worry, it will all be okay. The connection between the older and younger versions of Louise is very moving and director Richard Israel uses it to create some incredibly powerful moments. I don’t want to spoil any of them so that’s all I will say, but they added so much to the subtext. He has a way of bringing out all the layers underneath, and in a show like this, if you strip away all the showbiz of the story, it really is all about these people and who they are to each other, who they want to be, and who they can never be.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the relationship between Rose and Herbie (Michael Matthys), two people who can’t quite seem to end up on the same page. Matthys has a likeable, everyman quality that works so beautifully for Herbie, especially when paired with the fast-talking, take-no-prisoners Sheldrick…and he’s got a great singing voice too! Those who know him from his many dramatic roles around town are in for a treat.
Larry Lederman and Tony Pandolfo (one very funny guy) are nicely featured in a variety of roles and you’ll get a kick out of Sara Stuckey as the gimmick-laden stripper, Tessie Tura. Stuckey has mastered the fine arts of tassel-twirling and talcum powder, and uses them both to good advantage in Act II.
Costumes by Zale Morris are spot-on and special mention goes to Anthony Gagliardi for the fantastic wigs. Put them up on Stephen Gifford’s great road-weary set, add Johanna Kent’s fine musical direction, and polish it off with John Todd’s inventive choreography, and you’ve got a Gypsy that is quite moving.
West Coast Ensemble’s pared down version of Gypsy is a timely choice for 2011, especially with the recent passing of book writer Arthur Laurents and all the talk of a new Gypsy film in the works.
It's a story that never grows old; the desire to become a star. And whether you never get fame for yourself, like Rose, or you stumble into it because there is no other choice, like Louise, it always lies in wait for an opportunity. Richard Israel and company have taken their opportunity to make this ragtag Gypsy completely, and quite effectively, their own.
For tickets and more information go to http://www.westcoastensemble.org/.
Gypsy
Book by Arthur Laurents
Music by Jule Stein
Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Suggested by the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee
Directed by Richard Israel
For more Musicals in LA news:
Become a Fan on Facebook
Follow Musicals in LA on Twitter
Click Here to return to home page
Labels: west coast ensemble
Monday, May 9, 2011
Richard Israel on Directing a Stripped Down Version of GYPSY
While Broadway has had several notable productions of the musical Gypsy, with star turns by Ethel Merman, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters, and Patti LuPone, I was surprised to find that Los Angeles has not seen a major production of it since the original national tour in 1961. At the time, Merman recreated her performance for the tour which played the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera (now run by Broadway/L.A. at The Pantages).
I later learned, however, that in 1974 Angela Lansbury and company played the now defunct Shubert Theatre for ten weeks in the pre-Broadway tryout of Gypsy (thanks to Richard Sabellico who was a member of that cast!)
I later learned, however, that in 1974 Angela Lansbury and company played the now defunct Shubert Theatre for ten weeks in the pre-Broadway tryout of Gypsy (thanks to Richard Sabellico who was a member of that cast!)
Written by three of musical theatre’s most beloved artists, Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim, and Arthur Laurents, whom we recently lost at age 93, it is the rags to riches story of Gypsy Rose Lee, the most famous stripper in Burlesque history, and her singularly driven stage mother, Rose.
On May 13th, West Coast Ensemble and director Richard Israel will open a much-anticipated intimate staging of Gypsy that will run through July 3rd at the Theatre of Arts Arena Stage in Hollywood. Before he disappeared into tech rehearsals we sat down and talked about the production.What made you decide to do a big musical like Gypsy but in an intimate setting?
We did a production of Three Tall Women as our last show in 2009 and Jan Sheldrick was really remarkable in it. I was watching her work and I had the thought, she could do Gypsy. We actually have a Mama Rose. Now cut to 2011. We were looking at doing our next musical and that was the first one that bubbled up. Nobody’s ever done it small that I know of. Nobody does it big because it’s too expensive to do big. Nobody does it.
And this isn’t going to be a big lavish version with all the glitz and tits.
No, well, there are going to be tits. (He laughs) It’s tits but no glitz, and I feel like that’s right for the show because even though it’s a big classic show biz musical, the only time it goes to a place of glitz and glamour is at the very end when Gypsy is stripping at Minsky’s. Everything up until then is pretty tragic.
Is that why you’re billing the show as “Gypsy…stripped?”
When I initially conceived the show I wanted a ghost light and a brick wall and a curtain, and that is predominantly what we are using, however, we are costuming the cast for real because I don’t want it to look like a workshop. It is set in the early 1920s and ‘30s and I wanted everyone to look like their clothes are too small for them and worn at the elbows and probably just need to be thrown away.I spoke to Rick Starr, our local expert on all things musical theatre, and he was excited about your concept because that’s the way they did the run thrus in 1959 with Ethel Merman – brick wall, ghost light, no costumes, but a few props. The set was still being built. His dad was in the orchestra and he used to say that Ethel would have her dinner break with the musicians between the matinee and evening performances because she couldn’t stand the actors. Instead she would come down and curse with the musicians!
That sounds about right.
This is the first time you’re producing a show in this theatre. How is it working in a new space?
It’s remarkable. When I was shopping around for a theatre I looked at the Arena and it’s like it was built for this show. It’s this gorgeous space that was built as an adjunct to the Egyptian Theatre. It was originally a 150 seat movie theatre that they eventually took down to 99 seats, and it’s got a big, big stage – as big as the Colony.
Who is designing your set?
It’s the usual suspects for us. Stephen Gifford is doing the set. Lisa Katz is doing lights. Rebecca Kessin is doing sound and Zale Morris is doing costumes…and they’re all great.
And your choreographer?
John Todd. He did Merrily We Roll Along with me and I love working with him. When you look at him you just feel better about the world, and it’s not that he’s just easy to work with, because that doesn’t do him justice.
You’ve also worked with Johanna Kent, your musical director, on many, many shows.
Johanna is the best musical director with actors that I’ve ever encountered in my life. She speaks actor and she’s very, very exacting about what she wants the music to be but she doesn’t make actors feel like six year olds. And she gets the storytelling.
That’s important because this story is really about making something out of nothing at a time when people literally had nothing.
To my eye it’s The Grapes of Wrath. These are people who are doing what they can to survive cause times is hard. Every day is a struggle. Mama has made a choice on behalf of the family…we’re going to be in show business and we’re going to be in a form of show business that is on its way out. Now, she didn’t know it was a dying form of show business when she chose it. She says, “I was born too early and started too late,” and it’s true. The problem is she latched onto vaudeville just as talkies came in. The musical starts in the early twenties, when vaudeville was still a very vibrant form of entertainment but it didn’t take long for it to get supplanted by film. Forms of entertainment can very, very quickly become marginalized. It’s a little bit like the record industry, as we know it today, will not be with us in ten years.
That’s an interesting observation. Vaudeville was really unique at the time, wasn’t it?
It was basically a catchall. It would be a dog act and a juggling act and somebody singing, maybe a hoofer. It was really just a bill of these very disparate acts. The problem was once film came in it was tough to get people to spend four bucks for vaudeville when they could spend a quarter for a short. And in vaudeville you never knew what you were getting. Some acts were great and some were awful. It’s a really fine line. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure and one man’s entertainment is another man’s filth. It was the advent of film and vaudeville was beginning to descend into burlesque, and what had been a very, very firm line became very nebulous.
Isn’t it interesting how it became an ‘accidental success’ for the other daughter. It’s funny how many times in entertainment that actually does happen.
Absolutely. It was completely accidental and also not an accident at all. Louise happened to be at the right place at the right time. She built a better mousetrap.
Kind of like reality TV.
A little. No pun intended; she was the survivor of burlesque in that she found a new way of doing it. She never fully stripped. She never showed her boobs. That was amazing for burlesque.
And then there is Rose. Every belter on the planet wants to sing her songs yet people sometimes only think of Gypsy as a star vehicle.
The show has become so tied to the personality of who is playing Mama Rose and it is one million times more than that. I don’t think people automatically think of nuance when they think of Gypsy, and when they see this production I think they will see that this actually is a show of great nuance. Arthur Laurents has written the single most genius book of a musical ever. Doing it the way that we’re doing it, in an intimate setting where everything is small, allows us to discover all those wonderful moments.
It sounds like a Gypsy nobody knows.
I hope so. And the thing is we’re not setting out to do a Gypsy nobody knows. We’re setting out to interpret the script and not rely on Mama Rose to come in and knock it out of the park. It’s usually built around the star marching out there in her sensible shoes and barking out a song, and yes, we are going to deliver on that. But I feel like there are peaks and valleys leading up to that, and there’s an honesty to the story that I don’t know that I’ve always seen.
What do you think would have happened if Mama had lived at a different time in history?
That’s a great question and there are a couple of what ifs that go along with that. If she would have been what she could have been, she would have been the star. She would have made the choices for herself instead of living them through her daughters. People like her, if they stay out of their way, are unstoppable.
Do you think she was ever afraid?
I think in the 3AM of her soul she had tons of fears but when she did what she was doing, she was intrepid. She did not understand the meaning of the word ‘no’ and that’s not just a catch phrase. It didn’t register with her. It was about the single minded pursuit of a dream and for her to have accomplished what she did was pretty amazing.
Who will be playing the daughters?
Stephanie Wall is playing older Louise and she is phenomenal. I feel like this is one of those situations where people are going to say, oh my god, who is she? Older June is Kailey Swanson, who will end up doing a very long run of Legally Blonde at some point. She’s that girl, and a really good actress. And then the babies are Caitlin Williams as young Louise, who is utterly heartbreaking, and Kaleigh Ryan as Baby June, who came in and had the routine down at the audition. She came in with her batons, sang “Let Me Entertain You,” twirled the batons, did the split and we said, “Okay, that’s our Baby June.”
What do you hope to accomplish with this production of Gypsy?
I feel like our job as theatre people is to somehow make you different on some level when you walk out than when you walked in. I really feel like this is a show where that’s going to happen, and I think that typically you don’t think of Gypsy as a show that’s going to change you.
And after this, what other shows are on your wish list to direct?
I’m doing Falsettos in the fall and I’m super excited about that. It’s for a new 99-seat theatre called the 3rd Street Theatre and it’s a gorgeous space. Lani Shipman started the theatre and this is their inaugural production. Other shows I’d like to do…The second that they release Grey Gardens for small theatre I need to get my hands on it. I love that show. Violet is also on my list. I directed a reading of it for Musical Theatre Guild and that was one of those shows where I said, my life is different now. I’d also love to do My Favorite Year. It’s another great show that nobody ever does and it's also huge, but it would be great to do it here in L.A.
West Coast Ensemble’s production of Gypsy will run May 13 – July 3, 2011 at the Theatre of Arts Arena Stage in Hollywood, 1625 N. Las Palmas Avenue, Hollywood, CA 90028. For tickets and more information go to http://www.westcoastensemble.org/.
For more Musicals in LA news:
Become a Fan on Facebook Follow Musicals in LA on Twitter
Labels: west coast ensemble
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
West Coast Ensemble's GYPSY ... Stripped
Everything’s coming up roses at West Coast Ensemble as the mother of all great musicals hits the boards in the intimate setting of the Theatre of Arts Arena Stage. West Coast Ensemble’s Gypsy will transport you to a time of tawdry glamour as a faded, ragged Vaudeville loses its reign to the seedy, titillating pleasure of the Burlesque house and a driven show biz mother stops at nothing to make her daughter a star.
Gypsy, directed by Richard Israel, with musical direction by Johanna Kent and choreography by John Todd, will open May 13, 2011 at the Theatre of Arts Arena Stage in Hollywood. The show is produced by Brook Carlson and the production team includes set design by Stephen Gifford, lighting design by Lisa D. Katz, costume design by Vicky Conrad and sound design by Rebecca Kessin. Suzanne Doss is assistant director.
The cast of Gypsy features Ashley Adler, LJ Benet, Kelly Jean Clair, Quintan Craig, Glory Curda, Major Curda, Saylor Curda, Amy Lawrence, Larry Lederman, Michael Matthys, Dan Pacheco, Tony Pandolfo, Kaleigh Ryan, Zack Salas, Katie Scarlett, Jessica Schatz, Jan Sheldrick, Eric Allen Smith, Sara J. Stuckey, Kailey Swanson, Stephanie Wall, and Caitlin Williams.
The West Coast Ensemble production will take place at the Theatre of Arts Arena Stage, 1625 N. Las Palmas Avenue in Hollywood. For more information go to http://www.westcoastensemble.org/.
For more Musicals in LA news:
Become a Fan on Facebook
Follow Musicals in LA on Twitter
Click Here to return to home page
Labels: west coast ensemble