15

"Mamma Mia" update:

15 shows in 11 different venues across 3 states - the Shubert Theatre formerly in Los Angeles, The Ahmanson in Los Angeles, Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles, Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Pasadena Playhouse, the Long Beach Civic Auditorium, the Cadillac Winter Garden in New York, Orange County Performing Arts Center again, the San Diego Civic Theatre, Mandalay Bay again, the Fred Kavli Theatre at the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks, the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert, Segerstrom Center for the Arts again (formerly the Orange County Performing Arts Center) and the Pantages Theatre again.

We've exhausted all of the venues in Southern California that would host the show, so we need to start venturing to Northern California and other states to add more venues to the count.

"Mamma Mia" - 14

As a followup to this blog post, we saw our fourteenth show last Saturday night (June 25) at OCPAC. OK, it's now called Segerstrom Center for the Arts, whatever. We've seen the show there before, so our "different venue" count is still at eleven. I don't think that number is going to change anytime soon since we've pretty much exhausted all the venues in the Southern California area, so adding a new venue would involve some kind of significant overnight travel.

I enjoyed this production of the show, though the mixing of the sound levels was a bit off. There were times I had a really hard time hearing Donna because her mic didn't seem to be turned up enough.

Overall, I thought the company was pretty good. The actress playing Donna seemed a bit more reserved in the first act (the song "Mamma Mia" didn't quite pop as much as I'm used to), but she really got into it in the second act. She killed both "Slipping Through My Fingers" (yep, made me cry again) and "The Winner Takes It All". I wasn't completely happy with the actress who played Sophie. She made choices in both her acting and singing that didn't work for me. She was more shrill than I would have liked. The stand-out performance though, was from Alison Ewing, who played Tanya. She was awesome.

In overhearing bits and pieces of conversations from other people, there were some who were seeing the show for the first time, after having seen the movie, so I'm glad the movie is bringing out more people to see the show.

There was a woman sitting on the other side of the husband from me, and I was amused when I heard her gasp when Sophie told Sky she didn't want to get married. She was one of those who'd seen the movie and was seeing the show for the first time, so it shouldn't have been a surprise to her that Sophie and Sky didn't actually get married, but even if it was a newbie to the whole thing, I didn't think that particular development would actually elicit a gasp from anyone.

I can't believe that it was our first time seeing the show in two years - no wonder I was going through withdrawal! Our fifteenth show is expected to be in late March/early April of next year, when the touring company is coming back to the Pantages.

"Mamma Mia" count and venue update

The "Mamma Mia" overall count is now at thirteen, at eleven different venues: the Shubert Theatre (formerly in Los Angeles), The Ahmanson (in Los Angeles), Mandalay Bay (in Las Vegas), the Pantages Theatre (in Los Angeles), Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Pasadena Playhouse, the Long Beach Civic Auditorium, the Cadillac Winter Garden (in New York), Orange County Performing Arts Center again, the San Diego Civic Theatre, Mandalay Bay (in Las Vegas) again, the Fred Kavli Theatre at the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks, and the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert.

The show is also currently playing at the Pantages again, but because we weren't terribly enamoured of the company that we saw at the McCallum, who would be the same company playing the Pantages, we decided not to go. How weird is that? But we have seen the same company before multiple times, so that in itself wasn't an issue. We wouldn't have even had the added benefit of a new venue to add to our list since we've already seen the show at the Pantages.

And even weirder than that is that while we're not seeing the show even though it's playing locally, I know five different people who did see the show during its current run at the Pantages.

I think we've actually run out of local venues now.

"Man of La Mancha" - musical review

I'd previously mentioned that we had tickets to see Reprise Theatre Company's production of "Man of La Mancha", starring Brent Spiner. We ended up with pretty good seats, fifth row on the left side aisle. Sometimes side aisle seats can present a view problem, but with the staging of the show, it really wasn't an issue.

Because of problems at dinner, we were afraid we were going to end up being late, but we arrived just a couple minutes before the show started. However, there were already people on the stage in their characters, milling around and such. I'm not sure how long they'd been out there for. Shortly thereafter, the lights dimmed, an announcement was made about turning off celphones, and the show started.

Generally speaking, I enjoyed the show. The story was interesting, and I really liked the intertwined stories of the prison, the events in the life and family of Alonso Quijana, and the adventures encountered by Don Quixote. The show was announced as running 1 hour and 50 minutes, without an intermission, but I didn't notice the time at all. I will say, though, that while I'm glad to have seen this show, the story and show themselves didn't interest me enough so that I would be inclined to see it again, unless there was someone in the show I particularly wanted to see, which was the case this time.

I thought Brent Spiner was quite good as Cervantes/Quijana/Quixote, though I'll admit that I haven't seen him in enough roles to completely divorce him out of my mind from thinking of him as Data or as Brent Spiner himself. I did like the tone with which he sang the songs - my only exposure previously was with his CD many years ago, and that was a stylized format. He was pretty powerful in singing the signature songs of the show.

Julia Migenes played the part of Escalante/Aldonza, and she was really amazing. I loved her voice and her performance as well. She performed for the evening shows while another actress performed during matinees.





Lee Wilkof was also very good as Cervantes' manservant/Sancho. The entire company was actually very good, but those were the performances I specifically wanted to mention.

The show seems to have gotten very good reviews all around. Here's a particularly glowing one from Variety.

The show ends its two-week run on Sunday, March 1, 2009.

"Man of La Mancha" - Reprise Theatre Company

We'd gone to see Reprise Theatre Company's production of "Once On This Island" last year, and I'd noticed that they were doing "Man of La Mancha" this year. I've heard of the show, but admittedly, I don't really know anything about it, so I didn't really have any interest in seeing it.

And then I found out that Brent Spiner would be the lead in the show. OK, then, guess we're going.

I've been following Brent since his "Star Trek: The Next Generation" days. I think I have the CD of the original Broadway recording of "Sunday in the Park with George", which Brent was in, and which Mandy Patinkin was in as well, but I've never listened to it - I really need to listen to that CD. I've seen Brent in a couple things since Next Generation went off the air (including the short-lived television show "Threshold") but for the most part, I haven't known what he's been up to. "Man of La Mancha" is being performed on the UCLA campus, same as "Once On This Island", so I figured it would be cool to see Brent in a live show.

Some people might not know that Brent can sing, but I also have his CD entitled "Ol' Yellow Eyes Is Back", which I rather like. But on a side note, did you see what a used copy of that CD is going for? I could sell my copy and get THAT much money? Wow! Yeah, not gonna happen.

So, tickets to the show were purchased, and we're going to see it at the end of the month. I'd been following Wil Wheaton on Twitter, and then LeVar Burton showed up, and then LeVar got Brent to sign up for Twitter. Wow, how cool is that? Brent's actually been quite funny on Twitter - I forgot what a wicked and dry sense of humour he has. Brent's been a little quiet on Twitter lately because he's in rehearsals for the show, so he's a little busy.

I got an email from Reprise today since I'm on their mailing list, and lo and behold, they're advertising the show.






There's also a link to a video about the show, which includes interviews with the show's director and other show personnel. There's also a bit of footage of rehearsals, but unfortunately, no interview with Brent.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the show.




And speaking of looking forward to seeing shows, Reprise had announced last year that they'd be putting on a production of "Chess", which sounded interesting to me for various reasons. I had a note to myself that tickets would be going on sale later this month and that the show itself would be in May. Well, as I browsed around the Reprise site tonight, I noticed they're doing "The Fantasticks", which I've heard of but don't know anything about. And I noticed tickets were going on sale the same time as for "Chess". And then I saw the blurb at the bottom.





Well, ok then. Guess I can cross that off my list. I hope the "Tarzan" debacle didn't have anything to do with this show not being put on. Yeah, I know, it didn't, but I was supposed to have been seeing "Tarzan" next week in San Jose. *sigh*

"Tarzan" in San Jose in February 2009 - EPIC FAIL

So I've known since the beginning of the year that I will be going to San Jose in February of 2009 to see the revamped stage version of "Tarzan". I've had it on a post-it in my calendar to check monthly to see when single tickets will go on sale. Finally, the magical date was published - December 4, 2008. OK, great. Then, additional details were published - ticket sales start at 12:01 AM on December 4, 2008. OK, that means I have to stay up until midnight on Wednesday night to buy tickets. Fine.

So I talked to the husband about when would be the best time for us to go and first, second and third choices of show dates so that I could look for the best seats available.

At about 11:30pm Wednesday night, I went to the tickets page of American Musical Theatre of San Jose to make sure I had the right page up on my browser when tickets went on sale. I'd gone earlier in the week just to check it out, and it had all the right links for the "Tarzan" show. This time, I was confused because on the "buy tickets now" page, there was no listing for "Tarzan". Hmmm, that's odd.




I browsed around to their schedule, and they still had the information for "Tarzan" listed on the "on our stage" section.




OK. But that's still odd. So I had remembered that when I'd gone to the tickets page earlier in the week, it had sent me to Ticketmaster, so since I knew Ticketmaster was selling the tickets, I went there and did a search for "Tarzan". What I found was not what I expected to find.




The show was supposed to play in South Carolina and Atlanta before coming to San Jose, and all the South Carolina and Atlanta shows were listed as cancelled. Whiskey.Tango.Foxtrot. This was still before midnight, so the San Jose dates were still listed as going on sale at 12:01 AM on December 4, 2008. OK, so I clicked on one of those links. That would usually take you to the purchase page which would say that tickets aren't yet on sale, but it would have the show information and sale date up. Instead of going to that page, though, the link took me back to a page on American Musical Theatre's site that said there was no further information. Not good.

So I went to Google and looked for news. And boy, did I find news.

I had thought that the revamped version of "Tarzan" was being done by Disney, but from what I've read now, it looks like the property was licensed by Disney to outside vendors, and the financing for the show was shared among Atlanta's Theater of the Arts, American Musical Theatre of San Jose, and Dallas Summer Musicals, which was supposed to have gotten the show after its run in San Jose.

Somehow or other, the show didn't materialize. Monies were advanced from the San Jose and Dallas groups to the Atlanta group, but the Atlanta group seems to have unilaterally decided to shutter the show. Oh, sure, they're claiming that the show has been "postponed indefinitely", but that's like saying it's being put on "hiatus". The CEO for the San Jose group is claiming that the Atlanta group used the advances to pay for other underperforming productions, and if that's true, I can't imagine a theatre group doing that sort of thing. But if you're in a partnership with two other groups, how do you fire all the actors and show personnel without even consulting your partners, without letting them know that you've even considered taking the move of firing everyone, without going to them as soon as you knew something was wrong?

So I'm sad that I won't be seeing "Tarzan" after all. But I'm really sad about the further fallout from all this. With the loss of "Tarzan", the American Musical Theatre of San Jose is closing down.

This information from the article is what's most striking to me.

Tarzan was the tent pole for American Musical Theatre's season. By losing it, Miller said, his theatre lost its $225,000 down payment, $800,000 in advance ticket sales, and a projected $500,000-$600,000 in additional ticket sales.

Tickets for the show have already been available to subscribers, which is what I presume "advance ticket sales" means, and the "additional ticket sales" would be people like me who were waiting for single tickets to go on sale. A hit of more than $1.5 million would be hard for any organization, but for a smaller theatre company, that's devastating. And to me, it's all the more difficult to absorb because a partner theatre company is at fault.

Here's a story about how Atlanta's actions directly contributed to the demise of the American Musical Theatre.

Here's another article about American Musical Theatre's closing, but this article says they're filing Chapter 7, not Chapter 11 as the other articles say.

I love theatre, so to hear that a 73 year old theatre group is going out of business is sad indeed. American Musical Theater has posted a statement about the closure on their website. In case it's taken down in the future, I'm duplicating it below.

Dear Friends,

It's with a heavy heart that we inform you of the demise of American Musical Theatre of San Jose. We are sorry we were not able to talk to all of you personally but time does not permit us to at this time. It has truly been an honor and pleasure to work with all of you and we sincerely hope our paths cross again soon.

On behalf of all of us here at AMTSJ...warmest regards,

Michael Miller
CEO & Executive Producer




American Musical Theater of San Jose Ceases Operations, Effective Immediately

The American Musical Theatre of San Jose today announced that it is ceasing business operations, effective immediately. The theatre's upcoming productions of Tarzan and 42nd Street have been cancelled although the touring production of Chicago will be performing as scheduled, all tickets will be honored. We are currently in communication with the producers of Avenue Q, to achieve the same result as Chicago.

"We received a telephone call a few days ago from our co-producer for Tarzan, which was the Theater of the Stars in Atlanta, Georgia basically telling us that they used the funds that we had paid them towards the production for other things," said Michael Miller, CEO and Executive Producer of AMTSJ. "In essence, they cancelled the show without giving us any warning, and we discovered that the funds we had paid for Tarzan were spent on another production of theirs, which lost a significant amount of money," Miller continued.

Added Robert Nazarenus, AMTSJ's Chief Financial officer: "The cancellation of Tarzan meant nearly a two million dollar loss to us. The disappearance of the six figures that we paid to Atlanta's Theater of the Stars in good faith coupled with the huge loss of revenues we anticipated from Tarzan was just too much to overcome, particularly in these economic times." Nazarenus went on to say "Despite the harsh economic times, we were operating prudently, and had a solid strategic plan in place. We have always found a way to succeed, with quality productions, patron loyalty, and community support. This season was no different. But, when you in essence lose nearly two million dollars, it is impossible to recover. What makes this even more frustrating is the fact that this is caused by the wanton actions of another theater company."

AMTSJ's local attorneys, coupled with strong legal representation hired in Atlanta, are pursuing aggressive action against Atlanta's Theater of the Stars. Miller and Nazarenus indicate that they will pursue AMTSJ's claim to its successful conclusion. "We are devastated for this community, our staff, and most of all for our loyal patrons," Miller said. "It is especially frustrating because of how hard we have worked, how sound our plan going forward has been, and because of the history and heritage of the American Musical Theatre of San Jose. This is a sad moment for all of us. We will aggressively pursue our claim against the Theater of the Stars to recover whatever money we can to pay the City of San Jose, our vendors and our loyal patrons for their good faith investment in AMTSJ."

What a loss to the people of San Jose and anyone who has gone or has been considering going to a show there.

"Facing East" - a play by Carol Lynn Pearson

We attended a marvelous production of "Once on this Island" put on by International City Theatre in Long Beach a few years back, so we're on their mailing list. The brochure for their new season arrived a couple days ago, and in browsing the selections, I came across a play called "Facing East" by Carol Lynn Pearson. Here's what the description of the play in the brochure says.

Ruth and Alex McCormick are an upstanding Mormon couple reeling from the suicide or their excommunicated son. Stuck between their faith and their new reality, they try to come to terms with their own inner demons and the love they lost.

Yeah, that's going to be a rollicking good time at the theatre, isn't it? The description was interesting enough to me that I think we're going to try to see it when it's on next June/July.

In searching around for more information, I did come across something even more interesting. The description of the play on ICT's website is similar to what's on the brochure, but it contains a few extra tidbits about the plot of the play.

The Southern California premiere of Pearson's eloquent and multifaceted play about the challenging intersections of faith and family, diversity and love. Ruth and Alex McCormick are an upstanding Mormon couple reeling from the suicide of their excommunicated homosexual son. But when they meet their dead son's partner for the first time, they must come to terms with their own inner demons and the love they lost.

I'm wondering if the difference in the two descriptions was just by happenstance or if there was a concerted effort to leave off information in the brochure that the son was gay or that the parents would have interaction with their son's lover.

I would think those two additional elements would make it even more of a laugh riot.

Not.

I'll have to keep tabs on when tickets go on sale for this show. It's a relatively small theatre, very intimate, so the performance should be incredible.

Here's a website with information about a performance of the play last year, and here's the official website of the author. Her background, history and life experiences are really interesting, so I might be picking up a few of her books as well.

"Walking with Dinosaurs - The Live Experience" - spoiler show review

A couple months ago, the husband and I had a conversation that went something like this:

him: Do you want to go see dinosaurs?
me: Dinosaurs? Real dinosaurs?
him: Yeah, sort of.
me:

He then explained that he'd seen some show on PBS about a live dinosaur show where they use what are basically human-controlled giant puppets with animatronic features, and the show was touring and would be coming around L.A. Hmmm, ok, I like dinosaurs, not really sure what to expect, but it sounded cool.

So last night, we saw "Walking with Dinosaurs - The Live Experience" at the Staples Center. (BTW, on the website, if you move the cursor around, the eye will follow you. Cool and disturbing at the same time.)

Oh.my.goodness. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this.


The husband and I arrived at about the same time after work, and we made our way to our level. We had about half an hour until the show started, and neither of us had stopped for food, so we decided to get something from one of the concession stands. I decided on the deluxe nachos, and the husband got the California Pizza Kitchen BBQ chicken salad. They have a number of restaurants and other concession stands at the Staples Center. Later in the evening, I ran across another concession stand that had some pretty good sounding sandwiches. I wish I'd seen that first. Among other things, they had a reuben sandwich, but they spelled it wrong.

After getting our food, we made our way to our section, and someone helped us to our seats. As we were walking, I was looking at some particular seats and thought to myself how cool it would be to sit there. Well, our seats ended up in the same row, just a section over. The seats were just perfect. Given the scope of the show, you don't have to be very close, and if you're higher up, you'd actually get a better view of the dinosaurs. We were just about in the middle. This page has the seating chart for the Staples Center. The fourth chart down has the end stage concert seating, which is about how the show was set up. We were at the very top of section 5, in what is actually disabled seating. It had a perfect view since there was no one in front of us, and even if we were to stand up, we wouldn't be blocking anyone's view behind us since we were just in front of the walkway. Also, we had individual fold-up chairs as opposed to the connected seating in the normal seats, so we had a lot more room and range of motion. Our seats were $36 at face value, but the husband got them through a broker because they didn't have good seats left that he wanted, so he ended up paying about $58 each for them. Since Ticketmaster charges exhorbitant "convenience fees", the amount he paid for the tickets wasn't much more than that anyway, and the price was completely worth it. We sat one section over from where one of the show cameras was situated. The husband said that he'd read on the website that there was a concerted attempt to have some relatively inexpensive seats available since they figured families would want to come.

We sat down to have our dinner, and the husband really liked his salad, and I liked my nachos, although I mostly ended up eating the chicken and other toppings and not as much of the chips because the show started before I finished, and I didn't feel like eating anymore. We also spent a little bit of time talking to the people sitting next to us.

The show has a narrator of sorts, a paleontologist who basically takes us on a time-travel journey back to the time of dinosaurs. He talks about the different periods that dinosaurs existed, and dinosaurs from those time periods come out. Some just kind of march around, and some actually interact with each other. There are also representations of plants and flowers and trees which are pretty cool, and some of the dinosaurs "graze" among them. There is a lot of use of lighting and fog to create different effects as well. They also had two side screens so that show cameras situated throughout the arena could get close-ups of things, making it easier for everyone to see. They also had a screen in the middle where images were projected, and for some of the animals, it made a terrific backdrop. The paleontologist has some pretty funny lines, and he's got lots of useful information as well, but I'll admit that there were times I barely listened to him because I was just in awe of the creatures I was seeing. At first, I was a little distracted because the dinosaurs have a support under them, and they walk with a sort of "T" underneath them, but once I got over that they were needed to make the dinosaurs move, I didn't really notice them anymore.

It was seriously an incredible show. It was amazing to see the movements of the creatures and to hear their "voices". Mom and child brachiosauruses (the ones I still think of as brontasauruses) were amazing to see together - I know this sounds stupid, but they about brought me to tears. From our vantage point, we were about eye-to-eye with them - which gives you some idea of how huge they were. You don't actually really appreciate their size until you see them with the paleontologist - and you realize just how much they tower over him.


This picture from the website shows the brachs, and you can also see some of what the set looks like.


The flying bird (not a pteradactyl) was a little disappointing, I thought, but then, I just wanted it to really fly. I didn't think it was quite as impressive because you could actually see that it was being suspended by wires, so the illusion that it was real was harder to believe. It was pretty cool, though, because the backdrop had images of soaring over water and cliffs and stuff, and when the front camera captured the bird in front of the backdrop, the images shown on the side screens gave the illusion of the soaring bird. I did think this segment went on a bit too long though.


The flying reptile as pictured on the website.


Loved, loved, *loved* the three-pack of raptors. They've been my favorite dinosaur since I saw "Jurassic Park". They were just awesome. (Because you can see the human legs that operate the raptor legs, the illusion of their reality is a little harder to maintain.) They had a segment where they were looking out into the audience and planning their coordinated attack! They also had a segment that was kind of icky, even though I knew it was entirely not real. They had a dead dinosaur on stage that the raptors were eating. Ewwww. But raptors are still cool.


Two raptors and their meal.


But of course, the star of the show was the T-Rex. Baby T-Rex got caught and cornered by two other dinosaurs, and mom T-Rex came to the rescue. Her roar was incredible, and as she was staring out into the audience, it was terrifying. And amazing. There was also one bit that was really funny that involved mama T-rex and the paleontologist, but it was scary too. And there was a wonderful moment with mom and baby.


From the website, this is mama T-rex. Yep, she really does have a big head and tiny little arms.


Here's a promotional video of the show where you can see the dinosaurs in action.




And here's another that shows a bit more footage.




They asked that people not take video of the show, but you know they have no real control over that. Here's video of the mama T-rex section of the show.




Baby T-rex made an appearance on the Regis and Kelly show.




The show runs for about 45 minutes, then there's a 20 minute intermission, then it runs for about another 45 minutes.

There were *tons* of kids there, and they seemed to love it. You could hear their reactions when the different dinosaurs came out. But I think adults were just as blown away by the show. I know this one was. They had an earlier start time to the show than most shows - 7pm - and I expect that was partly because they knew kids would be attending and didn't want to keep them out too late.


I HIGHLY recommend going to the show - it's still touring the U.S.

"Once On This Island" - musical review

I had previously mentioned that the Reprise Theatre Company was going to be putting on a production of "Once On This Island", and I was able to get tickets for the show, so the husband and I went last night. After having dinner in nearby Westwood Village, we headed to the theatre where the show was being performed.

Reprise apparently has a number of locations where they put on their performances, and this particular production was being held at the Freud Playhouse on the UCLA Campus. The directions on Reprise's website made it easy to find the location of the nearby parking structure ($9 for parking) and the theatre itself. As we approached the front of the theatre, we saw a friend who had separately gotten a ticket for the show. As we compared seats, we were happily surprised to discover that she was in the row right in front of us, and her seat ended up being right in front of mine.

Our seats were in the fourth row, to the right of the stage, so we had a terrific view.

Overall, I really enjoyed the show. The staging was a little bit more elaborate than the production we'd seen previously by International City Theatre in Long Beach, but it wasn't more elaborate by much. There was a proscenium of sorts that would be used periodically, and there was a scaffold that was used a few times. All of the actors were dressed in white. All of the actors were just terrific, with great singing and fabulous dancing. I've previously said that I'd really like to see a full-scale production of this show, but I've now changed my mind. Sure, nice sets are pretty, but this show is really about the power of the performances, how the events that transpire during the course of the show can bring joy and laughter to you but can also reduce you to tears. However, I really enjoyed the shadow staging when the story was told of how the Grande Hommes came to be. The previous production did have an intermission, but this production did not, and I actually preferred not having it since it is just then one continuous story, and it's not overly long in any case.

The only aspect of the show that I didn't particularly like was the wraparound story. An orphan girl is having a coronation ceremony, and as part of the ceremony, the company tells her the story of Ti Moune, so the entire production is performed as if for her. Throughout much of the play, she is sitting and watching just like everyone else, though she does join in parts, and the end of the show itself is her coronation. That wasn't in the production I'd seen previously, and it's not on the CD of the Broadway cast recording, so I'm not sure if it comes from some other source material for the show or if it's an original creation. I didn't care for much of the show being directed to the girl rather than the audience, but I didn't dislike it enough to affect how much I loved the show overall.

I've loved this show since the first time I listened to the CD of the Broadway cast recording, and I was thrilled when I had the chance to see it the first time. Being able to see it again this time just cements what I'd been thinking - this is my second favorite musical theatre show, a position that used to be held by "The Phantom of the Opera". If you know me or have read my blog at all, you probably won't have trouble figuring out what my favorite musical theatre show is.

The production runs through next Sunday, September 14, and seats may still be available for some shows.


Our next visit to a Reprise production will hopefully be "Chess", with single tickets going on sale on February 24, 2009.

Fred Kavli Theatre at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza - venue review

I have previously talked about my fascination with the Broadway musical "Mamma Mia". The running joke has now been that we have to see the show in as many different venues as possible, but we're running out of places locally. I think we've been everywhere in Los Angeles and Orange County where it could possibly play, and we've even gone down to San Diego, so when we found out that the touring company would be coming to Thousand Oaks, we decided that was next on the list.

The show was performed at the Fred Kavli Theatre at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. I hadn't known what the theatre seating looked like, so I was surprised upon entering the theatre to see that it wasn't very big. It wasn't as deep as many of the theatres I'm used to but was rather more shallow, like the theatres we'd been to in New York, so that even if you're towards the back of the theatre (which we were - row Q near the control booth), you still had a good view. The theatre does have a mezzanine and a balcony, both of which started further back than I expected.

Generally, I thought it was a very nice theatre. One downside that we didn't encounter because of the row we were in but people in almost all of the other rows would have is that like the Orange County Performing Arts Center, it's just one big section, with aisles only on the end seats, so if your seat is anywhere in the middle, you have to step past a whole lot of people to get to and from your seat.

All in all, I was very satisfied with our visit, and though because of the distance, it's not somewhere we'd go to on a regular basis, I could certainly see going again if they had a show I wanted to see badly enough.

The Civic Arts Center is conveniently located in that there are a number of places nearby to have dinner before or after a show, with the added benefit that you can comfortably walk between the restaurant and the venue.


As for the show itself, we did enjoy it, but it was probably my least favorite cast overall. According to the playbill, many were newcomers to the show, and I wasn't necessarily happy with how some of them performed. In particular, the actress who played the lead of Donna didn't really quite have the voice to pull it off. There are a few songs where Donna has to hit and carry a number of fairly strong notes, and on many of those points, the actress pitched it differently so she didn't have to. In particular, on "The Winner Takes It All", she didn't carry the song like she should have, only hitting the longer, stronger notes on the last verse rather than throughout the entire song. She also made some interpretation choices in the character that I didn't care for. "Sophie" was a very good singer, but she also had some characterizations that I didn't like. "Sam" was quite good overall and had a great voice for his solos and duets. "Tanya" was a bit more non-descript than I'm used to, and "Rosie" bothered me for reasons I can't really explain. "Harry" was good, though a quite different type than I'm used to for that character, but he did have a few blocking changes that I liked. I really enjoyed "Bill", who brought more humour to the role than I've seen from previous actors.


BTW, the "Mamma Mia" count is now at an even dozen: the Shubert Theatre (formerly in Los Angeles), The Ahmanson (in Los Angeles), Mandalay Bay (in Las Vegas), the Pantages Theatre (in Los Angeles), Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Pasadena Playhouse, the Long Beach Civic Auditorium, the Cadillac Winter Garden (in New York), Orange County Performing Arts Center again, the San Diego Civic Theatre, Mandalay Bay (in Las Vegas) again and the Fred Kavli Theatre at the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks.

The show will be at the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert in March of 2009, so we may be going to that to add yet another venue to our list. We were at that theatre earlier this year to see Mandy Patinkin and Patti Lupone in concert together, and I liked the venue quite a bit.

Reprise Theatre Company

I'd never heard of this theatre company before, but an announcement they made last week certainly caught my attention. Jason Alexander (who I *have* heard of - OK, I actually saw him in "The Producers" too) is Reprise's new artistic director, and he recently announced the lineup of the 2008-09 season. The show that got my attention was "Once On This Island". A friend had given me the CD of the original Broadway cast recording of the show a number of years ago after I had mentioned how much I liked "Anastasia" and the songs in the movie - Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens wrote the songs for the movie as well as the Broadway versions of both "Once On This Island" and "Ragtime". Well, once I heard the CD, I was in love with the show - but what chance would I get to see it?

A couple of years ago, I found out that International City Theatre in Long Beach was putting on a production of the show, so we decided to go, and the friend who gave me the CD ended up being able to go as well. It was a very minimalist production, no big sets or fancy scenery, even given the setting of the story, but it was really about the performers, and it was a terrific show.

So you can imagine how happy I am that Reprise will also be putting on the show. I'm not sure how elaborate the production would be (I'd love to see a full-scale production of the show with amazing sets and all. It's the kind of show I can definitely see Disney putting on, though they might prefer to change the ending of the story.), but I don't really care. Even if it's like the ICT production, I'll be glad to see it.

The other show on Reprise's 2008-09 season that interests me is "Chess". I'm intrigued because it was a collaboration between the two men from ABBA (responsible for "Mamma Mia", one of my favorite shows) and Tim Rice which actually pre-dates "Mamma Mia". I'm going to have to track down the original Broadway cast CD to have a listen. I'm amused at the hit song that apparently came out of that show.

warning for the Ides of March - beware a man not of woman born

I discovered a couple of years ago that New York isn't all that far away. Yeah, yeah, I know, they now have these nifty newfangled devices called aeroplanes that can take you to distant places a lot faster than cars can. But generally speaking, New York isn't really a weekend getaway kind of place, at least not from the Left Coast. It takes a little more planning and a little more time and things like taking days off work. In 2006, I was lamenting the fact that I was on the Left Coast and the new musical "Tarzan" was playing on the Right Coast, and who knows how long it would take to make it out here. (Turns out the answer is 3 years.) And then I decided that there was no reason I had to wait for it to come to me - I could go to it, and that was the impetus for our week-long stay in New York in May 2006. Well, I wish it was as easy to make a quick trip out there this May, as another Broadway show is calling to me, though this one is not a musical and nowhere near as light as "Tarzan". The Lyceum Theatre on Broadway will be hosting a limited spring run of The Scottish Play with Patrick Stewart in the title role. The production ran on the West End of London last fall, with Patrick being nominated for an Olivier for his performance. The production has been playing a six-week run to sold-out audiences at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and will continue there through March 22, where it will then move to the Lyceum for performances from March 29 to May 24. I'm sure tickets for its Broadway run will be in high demand, but wow, how awesome would that be to see Patrick.

My most memorable theatre experience actually involves that very same play. Years ago, I went to London on a week-long tour arranged by a local theatre group, and as part of the tour, not surprisingly, we saw a number of different plays and musicals. While we were based in London, we made day trips to Bath (with a stop at Stonehenge, and yes, that was incredible) and to Stratford. Our time in Stratford included a behind-the-scenes tour of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, including looking out at the seats while standing on the stage. That was really cool. In addition, we would be seeing a performance that night. I had been disappointed when I had originally found out that we were just missing Kenneth Branagh in "Hamlet", but I was excited to find out that instead, we would be seeing Derek Jacobi as the title role in The Scottish Play. Because of a mishap where two of us were given a ticket to the same seat, I ended up not sitting towards the back of the balcony as had been originally planned, but instead, I sat about in the 8th or 10 row on the aisle. The theatre wasn't that big so even the balcony seat would have been ok, but from my new seat, I had a complete and great view of Derek. And he was utterly incredible, moreso because he was performing Shakespeare live right in front of me from a not-very-far distance, even moreso because it was at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford with all its history for goodness sake. I can't even explain how excited I was on the bus ride back to London after the show.

I'd already had a respect and appreciation for Derek prior to that, but after seeing him, both grew immensely. As much as I've liked him in various movies that I've seen, my favorite performance of his that I didn't see live in person was from "Frasier". He played a horrible Shakespearean actor - and pulling that off convincingly is much harder than one might expect. His comedic timing was excellent and his performance would have been good even if you didn't know who he was, but knowing his background and talent, his performance was even more amazing. Yeah, I know, I'm gushing, but I'm in good company - he actually won an Emmy for Best Performance by a Guest Actor in a Comedy for that performance. He was even better than Patrick Stewart was in the film "Jeffrey", and I loved both the movie and Patrick's performance in that.

So we come full circle back to Patrick and me not being able to see him this time around. I did have the good fortune of having seen Patrick perform his one-man show of "A Christmas Carol" early in its run, pre-Broadway, when he performed it at Caltech's Beckman Auditorium. For various reasons, I had gotten pretty bored of that story, but his show really reminded me of how good a book it is. It was pretty incredible to see Patrick (I was in something like the 5th row, so yeah, good vantage point) performing every single role by himself and dancing on the stage and weeping and everything. Tour-de-force pretty much describes it exactly. After the show, I happened to notice that some of his Next Generation co-stars were in the audience. I think there were at least three of them there, but the only one I remember is Brent Spiner.

Patrick performing Shakespeare on Broadway. And I can't be there. *sigh*

Do you know the way to San Jose?

Well, I do, and not just because I was there for almost 24 hours last year. But, I'll be heading back to San Jose in February of 2009. According to this Playbill article, a revised version of the Broadway musical "Tarzan" will be making its way to the American Musical Theatre of San Jose at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts next February.

"Tarzan" originally played on Broadway for a little over a year in 2006/2007. I am a huge Phil Collins fan in general, and I also happened to love the animated Disney film of "Tarzan", so when I heard about the musical, I eventually decided that I wasn't going to wait for it to make the rounds - New York wasn't that far away and there was no reason I couldn't go there. So I went.




I saw the show twice, once from the orchestra and once from the balcony. From what I knew of the show and its staging and from having seen "The Lion King" from both the orchestra and balcony, I knew that the experience was different from each of those two vantage points. It wasn't like I could see "Tarzan" any time I wanted to and seeing something once wasn't going to be enough for me to remember as much as I wanted to, so I decided to go twice to see it from different locations.

Generally, I liked the show. There were a few elements that I wasn't crazy about and one particular element that I thought was pretty stupid and completely unworthy of being in a professional production much less on Broadway proper. However, there were other elements that I really liked and a couple specific things that really just blew me away. I was very impressed with Josh Strickland, who played Tarzan, and Jenn Gambatese, who played Jane. I liked some of the new songs written for the show and some not so much, but the love ballad, "For the First Time", was incredible. I've still got my notes from having seen the shows, but I could never figure out a proper way to organize all my comments. Maybe someday, I'll be able to fashion a coherent review out of them.




In any case, I'm interested in seeing the show again, and San Jose is only a short Southwest hop away. I might be going to see the show twice again, depending on the configuration of the theatre. I figure I'll decide when tickets become available. I'm interested in seeing what elements they're going to change as well as to see what new people will be like in the show.

"Mamma Mia"

I can't wait for July 18, 2008. What's happening that day? Am I excited because it's the day after Disneyland's 53rd birthday? Nope. Am I just looking forward to the 29th Friday of 2008? Nope. July 18, 2008 is the release date for the film version of the stage musical "Mamma Mia".

I've been a fan of the show for a long time. The first time I saw the show was at the now non-existent Shubert Theatre in Los Angeles, and I loved it. I'm a huge fan of Abba anyway, so the fact that their music was used as the basis for the show was a good start anyway (especially since the two men from Abba were involved in the creation of the show). But after seeing the show, I loved the fact that they did actually create a real story, one that stands alone even if you don't know the songs beforehand. During a young woman's wedding preparations, she decides that she wants to know who her biological father is, and since there are three possibilities, she invites them all to her wedding, hoping to find out who her real father is before the wedding, much to her independent mother's surprise and dismay when the three men show up. And the energy behind the songs really draws you in as well.

We have now seen the show 10 times in 9 different locales: the Shubert Theatre (formerly in Los Angeles), The Ahmanson (in Los Angeles), Mandalay Bay (in Las Vegas), the Pantages Theatre (in Los Angeles), Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Pasadena Playhouse, the Long Beach Civic Auditorium, the Cadillac Winter Garden (in New York), Orange County Performing Arts Center again, and the San Diego Civic Theatre. Some productions have been better than others, but I don't think any of them have been bad. I think my overall favorites have been the original show at the Shubert, the company that we saw in Las Vegas (who had an absolutely fabulous Tanya) and the company that we saw in New York, where every single main cast member was just incredible. (And that was before we found out during the intermission that one of the things they liked to sing during rehearsal as practice was "Once on This Island", which I also love, but I digress.)

When I first heard that they were going to make a movie of the show, I was concerned. You never know how the adaptation is going to work. I was happy to hear that the Abba guys were involved in the movie itself, but having the creator involved doesn't always guarantee that the film will be good. Heck, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber was involved in the making of the film for "The Phantom of the Opera", and he allowed them to hire a guy in the title role who wasn't that great a singer, *and* he let them destroy the "All I Ask of You" sequence.

And then I heard about the first castings. The lead role of the mother, Donna, was going to be played by Meryl Streep. Now, I know she's been nominated a billion times for Oscars, and I was pretty much kind of over her. However, she was amazing in "The Devil Wears Prada" with her completely understated portrayal of the shark boss, so I was at least feeling favorably towards her again. She's not who I would have envisioned as Donna, but I was willing to withhold judgement. And I also heard that Pierce Brosnan was cast as Sam, one of the potential fathers, and I thought that had serious potential. And then I heard about the rest of the cast as the information became available. Colin Firth as Harry Bright is going to be a complete riot, Stellan Skarsgard (who most people might know as Bill Turner, Will Turner's father in "Pirates of the Caribbean") as Bill (hmmm, yet another Bill...) will be interesting to see, Julie Walters as Rosie is dead on, and the most inspired casting is Christine Baranski as Tanya. The bride-to-be is being portrayed by Amanda Seyfried, who I don't know but who apparently is known for her role in "Mean Girls". After seeing the casting choices, I was much more optimistic about the film.

Well, I just saw the trailer over the weekend, and I can't wait for this film. The trailer looks amazing, and it looks like they really did the show justice. The stage production is fairly low key as far as sets are concerned - "The Phantom of the Opera" it's not, so having that transformed into a full-length feature film could be problematic. The setting looks great though, and I've heard the title song, and I'm presuming the lead is being sung by Meryl Streep since it's her character's song, and it sounds great too. I'm pretty sure the movie soundtrack is going to be released before the film, but I'm going to try really hard to wait until after I've seen the film before I get the soundtrack because I don't want to hear all the new versions of the songs before seeing the movie itself.

The trailer for the film is available online. Go to the official website, enter the site, and if the trailer doesn't start automatically, just click on the "trailer" link.

Merry Christmas!

"How can I resist you."