Results tagged “Los Angeles” from Blogway Baby

The Daly Show, written and directed by Ben Shelton and shot by Anthony C. Kuhnz, stars film and tv star Tim Daly, and his son, Sam Daly.And thank goodness for that, because, after all, we could all use a little less douche! I've seen both episodes and can't wait for more!

The latest episode I saw, entitled "Fathers and Sons" was written by John Whedon (Joss Whedon's grandfather!) and guest starred an extremely young Bob Balaban (Waiting For Guffman, A Mighty Wind, Seinfeld) with lots of hair as an angry young highschooler "Grady" who doesn't get a long well with his father (played by William Schallert)and mother (played by Anne Morgan Guilbert, the actress who played Millie on The Dick Van Dyke Show; John Whedon also wrote for that show).

I also caught a very young Ed Begley Jr. in the "Alice in Blunderland" episode.

I can't wait for more "guest star goodness"!

I believe!

Last weekend I went to Santa Ana, California to see Shanna Palmer starring as Peter Pan in 3-D Theatricals' PETER PAN at the OC Pavillion.

PETER PAN, a musical production of the play by Sir James Barrie, has lyrics by Carolyn Leigh, Music by Moose Charlap, additional lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and additional music by Julie Styne.

3-D Theatricals is the newest professional theatre company in the Southern California area, and has made the OC Pavillion its new home with a full season of musicals.

I've seen the Mary Martin version on television many times of course, and I also saw an outdoor production in Carmel a few years back, so I was expecting more of the same. Not so!

This production of PETER PAN is exciting, fresh and totally endearing. Shanna is amazing! She was was born to play Peter. She is totally believable as a young boy, and her physicality is amazing - she is at once both graceful and powerful. She is funny, touching, and full of excitement! She's an amazing singer, dancer, actress and flyer (the new quadruple threat!). And boy, is there a lot of flying, swooshing and dancing mid-air! Just glorious.

The whole cast is fabulous; Gregory North as Captain Hook/Mr. Darling and Alyssa Kennedy as Tiger Lily were two of my favorites.

The OC Pavillion is a cool theatre. They took an old bank building and transformed it into an arts building complete with theatre, recording studio, dance studio and restaurant. The band (which was terrific) was split in two and was located up in box seating on either side of the stage. The theatre seats about 500, is highly raked with one row of banquettes in front. We had amazing seats in a banquette which seated all four of us. And we could bring our drinks in with us!

I also got to see Patti Colombo's fabulously exciting choreography! Her choreography breathed new life into a story and a show that I am very familiar with, and once again took my breath away! Here is a picture of the Ugg-A-Wugg dance number:

Anthony Fedorov will be performing at COCKTAIL NUTS on Monday September 28 at ACT Theatre.

Anthony is starring as Joseph in The 5th Avenue Theatre's upcoming production of JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT.

Oh, and he was also a runner up on a little-known show called American Idol!

I hate to disappoint his fans, but he won't be wearing his JOSEPH loincloth at COCKTAIL NUTS...

Here's the 411 on Anthony from The 5th Avenue Theatre website:

Born in Yalta, Ukraine, Fedorov came to America at the age of 9 and eventually settled with his family in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. While still a toddler Fedorov had to undergo an emergency tracheotomy because of complications from a birth defect and doctors predicted he would lose all ability to speak. But after a miraculous recovery, Fedorov regained the use of his voice and soon developed a passion for singing. Throughout his teens he could be found shuttling between Pennsylvania and New York City, singing whenever and wherever he had the opportunity.

Following his success on American Idol the 24 year old singer has gone on to a variety of music, television, and theatre projects including being a contestant on Celebrity Fear Factor, serving as a guest judge on MTV’s Little Talent Show as well as appearances on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Live with Regis and Kelly, and The Tony Danza Show. He recently made his New York stage debut as “The Boy” in the current Off-Broadway revival of The Fantasticks and earlier this summer he starred in Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma’s production of Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

His dynamic rendition of “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” on American Idol garnered acclaim from the show’s judges who compared him favorably to Clay Aiken.

TIckets are going fast, so buy yours now!

Here's the 411 on COCKTAIL NUTS with your host Rich Gray:

For an unforgettable evening of music, comedy, gourmet snacks and cocktails, come join our host Rich Gray as he celebrates "Landing The Gig" with:

Anthony Fedorov (from The 5th Avenue Theatre's upcoming JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT, and AMERICAN IDOL)

Anne Allgood (from ACT Theatre's upcoming ROCK 'N' ROLL)

Jessica Skerritt (from Village Theatre's upcoming CHASING NICOLETTE)

The NightClub Gentlemen (the "almost" Rat Packers)

Also featuring appearances by Bill Robison and Myrna Conn

Tickets for this incredible night of entertainment are only $35.00 which includes complimentary gourmet snacks. And there will be a cash bar featuring an original COCKTAIL NUTS cocktail -- all cocktail and food service is by VESSEL, our neighborhood nightspot that Esquire magazine calls one of the “Best Bars in America.”

WHEN

Monday September 28, 2009

Door: 7pm for cocktails and complimentary gourmet snacks

Show: 8pm to 10pm

WHERE

ACT Theatre

Bullitt Cabaret

Union and 7th, downtown Seattle

TICKETS

For tickets, call the ACT box office at (206) 292-7676 or visit the COCKTAIL NUTS ticket page at acttheatre.org

  

Now this is why I miss New York!

The Astaire Awards, presented by Ava Astaire in tribute to her Father and Aunt, will be held this year on June 1^st at 7:30pm in The Haft Auditorium at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.

Wow. What a night! Alan Cumming will host the evening, with Liza Minnelli presenting Stanley Donen with The Douglas Watt 2009 Lifetime Acheivement Award, Georfffrey Rush presenting The Best Choreography in Film Award and Bebe Neuwirth presenting the Best Male Dancer Award!

Here are the nominees from Broadwayworld.com:

BEST BROADWAY CHOREOGRAPHER NOMINEES:

9 to 5: Andy Blankenbuehler

Hair: Karole Armitage

Billy Elliot: Peter Darling

Guys and Dolls: Sergio Trujillo

Pal Joey: Graciela Daniele


BEST FILM CHOREOGRAPHER NOMINEES:

Mamma Mia: Anthony Van Laast

Slumdog Millionaire: Longines Fernandes

Center Stage Turn It Up: Aakomon "AJ" Jones

Make It Happen: Tracy Phillips

Fados: Patrick De Bana and Pedro Gomes

High School Musical 3: Kenny Ortega

Were the World Mine: Todd Underwood



BEST FEMALE DANCER NOMINEES: 

West Side Story: Karen Olivo

Rock Of Ages: Angel Reed, Katherine Tokarz, Savannah Wise

Guys and Dolls: Kearran Giovanni

You're Welcome America. A Final Night with George W Bush: Pia Glenn



BEST MALE DANCER NOMINEES:

Billy Elliot - role of Billy: David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish

Billy Elliot - role of Michael: David Bologna, Frank Dolce

White Christmas: Jeffry Denman

Pal Joey: Matthew Risch



The Astaire Awards, established 26 years ago by the Anglo-American Contemporary Dance Foundation, recognize outstanding achievement in dance on Broadway each season. The awards were established with the cooperation of Fred Astaire to honor him and his sister, Adele, who starred with her brother in 10 Broadway musicals between 1917 and 1931. In 2008 the Awards were expanded to include dance in choreography for film as this was the métier that brought Fred Astaire to international fame and a permanent slot on every list of the top movie stars of the century.



In addition to the Awards Ceremony, the show will include some of the best live Broadway and Hollywood dance numbers! Holy Top Hat Batman! Not only that, but a friend of mine and extremely talented playwright, Randall David Cook, is writing the show (you know, the stuff that is said between numbers and awards, and creating the order of events!) So that means I am one degree of separation from Liza...just sayin’!

i have a sudden urge to put on my tap shoes!

According to this article in Playbill, The Drowsy Chaperone is headed for LA!

I remember when I saw The Drowsy Chaperone at Theatre Passe Muraille in 1999 as part of the Toronto Fringe Festival. I've only seen it once, but I still remember how much I loved the book and the clever story-telling device. Specifically, the narrator puts on an old record and then the action unfolds, representing what's on the record. This created many comical situations where he put on the wrong record and a whole new bunch of characters came onto the stage before he realized his mistake.

I don't remember being especially impressed by the songs, but I only saw it once and that was a while ago so I'd be willing to listen again. After all, they must have made some changes before the full production at Toronto's Winter Garden Theatre. I also heard it had a successful showcase last fall at NAMT's producer festival, and I'm guessing that's probably how it got picked up for L.A.

Break a leg Drowsy!

From Playbill:

The Drowsy Chaperone (Nov. 8-Dec. 24): The American debut of this musical with music by Greg Morrison, lyrics by Lisa Lambert and a book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar is being billed as a "pre-Broadway engagement." The musical-within-a-musical finds the biggest fan of musical theatre presenting his favorite 1928 Gable and Stein show featuring a plotline that finds a Broadway starlet who wants to give up show business to marry. Her scheming producer enlists a chaperone, a dizzy chorine, the Latin lover and a couple of gangsters to keep her from the debonair groom.

The work played to sold out crowds at the 1999 Toronto Fringe Theatre Festival then transferred to a full production at Toronto's Winter Garden Theatre.

It only seems appropriate that the Canadian Sex in the City would be based in L.A., which not many people know is actually Canada's second largest city. That's right, more Canadians live in L.A. than any other city except Toronto. And I can almost guarantee that most people in Toronto wish they were living in L.A. -- especially right now.

The article in Wednesday'sGlobe and Mail profiles "a scantily clad Brigitte Bako", a Canadian actress who spent a dozen years trying to break into the big time acting scene in L.A., but after some early successes ended up in soft-core porn. Well, at least she got lots of exposure on CityTV, so all her friends would get to see her acting...

From the article:

In G-Spot, Bako plays Gigi, a one-time acting prodigy whose roles in acclaimed films seemed destined to make her a star. Like the fictional version of herself, Bako started out on a roll, boarding a Voyageur bus, at age 19, from Montreal to New York, where her first, small movie role was in Woody Allen's 1989 New York Stories (her segment was directed by Martin Scorsese).

From there, Bako landed other decent parts in films such as One Good Cop (starring Michael Keaton). But then her luck turned. In the mid-1990s, her mother died. Her boyfriend dumped her and she was in a car accident that left her in traction for several months. She lost roles in four major studio pictures, including Don Juan DeMarco with Johnny Depp and The Mask of Zorro with Antonio Banderas.

When she got back on her feet, she opted to take a part in the soft-porn TV show, Red Shoe Diaries -- from which point she started aggressively accumulating material for the G-Spot scripts. "Red Shoe Diaries became this cult hit, and then basically every script I got after that I was naked by page four."

Her career then became an ever-growing repertoire of late-night B-movies, with titles such as Paranoia, Sweet Revenge and Wrong Number. Bako recalls she almost jumped on the Voyageur bus back to Montreal.

But at dinner parties, she kept her friends in stitches, recounting tales of her career lows. "They told me to write it down. So I did. I ended up with 10 scripts. I'd never written a thing in my life before," says Bako, most recently in HBO's The Mind of the Married Man.

Then Lantos heard through the entertainment grapevine that the actress, whom he'd met a few years earlier when she was in the feature I Love a Man in Uniform, had written some pretty funny stuff.

"He called me and said, 'Bako, I hear you wrote something,' " she says, adopting a strong Eastern European accent. "I said, 'Yup.' He says, 'I'm heading to the cottage and I want to read it.' I had four scripts at the time so I mailed them. At the end of his cottage vacation, he said, 'Well, Bako, you can write.' And so it started."

Gigi's co-stars are Stella, played by Heather Hanson (The Chris Isaak Show); Francesca, played by Kristin Lehman (Judging Amy); and Roxy, played by Kimberly Huie (Deep Impact). All are Canadians, now living in Los Angeles, who were repatriated to do G-Spot, which filmed for six gruelling weeks last summer.

"Every girl on this show is single," adds Bako. "I made sure of that. I wasn't going to hire anyone who had a better love life than me."

Featuring a blonde, a brunette, a raven-haired character and a redhead, Bako calls the cast a "Revlon ad in the making" and agrees the comparisons to Sex and the City are inevitable, if a tad old.

"Sex and the City is the grande dame. They started it all. But basically, any show that now comes along and talks about womanhood, sexuality or penises is going to be compared to it.

"What we have in common is that we all have vaginas. That's about it. We can't afford the shoes they wear. Our show is multiracial, multicultural, we're mostly unemployed and we can't get laid.

"We're celibacy in the suburb. That's what we are."

The Los Angeles Reprise! Broadway's Best series, which presents classic musicals in a semi-staged concert setting, will offer mountings of On the Town, City of Angels and Zorba next season.

Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green's On the Town will kick off the new season at Reprise! at the UCLA Freud Playhouse. Previews begin Sept. 20 with an official opening Sept. 21. The musical love letter to Manhattan will run through Oct. 5.

Cy Coleman's City of Angels will follow. The detective-themed musical, which features music by the late Coleman, lyrics by David Zippel and a book by Larry Gelbart, will begin previews Jan. 24, 2006, and open Jan. 25, 2006. Featuring such songs as "You're Nothing Without Me" and "You Can Always Count on Me," City of Angels will play through Feb. 5.

The Reprise! season is set to conclude with Kander and Ebb's Zorba. The life-affirming musical will preview May 2, open May 3 and run through May 14, 2006.

The Reprise! series is currently presenting Stephen Schwartz's Pippin through Feb. 6. The production, featuring direction by Gordon Hunt, musical direction by Gerald Sternbach and choreography by Dan Mojica, stars Michael Arden as Pippin with Sam Harris (Leading Player), Jean Louisa Kelly (Catherine), Luba Mason (Fastrada), Mimi Hines (Berthe), Graham Phillips, Conrad John Schuck and Abe Sylvia. The current Reprise! season will conclude with Applause (May 10-22).