January 2015 - The Orange Curtain Review

January 25, 2015 | fullerton, Maverick Theatre, Review, Theater, Uncategorized Like Comments Off on A Few Good Men & Plenty Of Good Actors : A Few Good Men @ The Maverick Theatre in Fullerton – Review |

A Few Good Men & Plenty Of Good Actors : A Few Good Men @ The Maverick Theatre in Fullerton – Review

Photo Courtesy: The Maverick Theatre

Written by Alina Mae Wilson

A Few Good Men is a famous film that can be described as iconic. An underdog team of lawyers goes against the big boys in a stressful search for what is right, what is wrong, and what is ultimately the truth (insert famous quote here). But before it was a movie with A-list actors hamming it up to honey-baked levels, then-bartender Aaron Sorkin scribbled onto cocktail napkins what would become the play A Few Good Men. It quickly made its way up the theatre ranks to the Broadway stage, proving itself invaluable to all parties concerned. The history of this play alone makes tackling the script an ambitious endeavor in and of itself. In the case of the Maverick Theater, that ambition was rewarded with a well-acted and well-staged performance. Continue Reading

January 22, 2015 | Review, Santa Ana, Theater, Uncategorized Like Comments (1) |

Moon Over Buffalo @ Attic Theatre in Santa Ana – Review

Written by Alina Mae Wilson

Nicole Gerardi (Eileen) Courtesy: Attic Theatre Floyd Harden

Don’t let the fanciful title fool you. Moon Over Buffalo is not a tragic and love-ridden romance piece. It’s a comedic narrative focusing mainly on former stars George and Charlotte Hay. George and Charlotte are a striking couple working as the stars in their touring company currently stationed in Buffalo, New York. Amid a vast argument, their daughter Rosalind arrives at the theatre to introduce them to her new fiancé, while at the same time, the famous film director Frank Capra calls to announce his plans to view one of their shows. The jokes and, ultimately, the play’s plot centered on the bickering and confusion brought on by these events. Continue Reading

January 19, 2015 | Musical, The Chance Theater, Uncategorized Like Comments (2) |

Interview with Marshall Pailet Director of LOCH NESS A New Musical @ Chance Theatre in Anaheim

Shot & Edited by Patrick Chavis

Hosted by Kyle Games

Interview with Marshall Pailet Director of LOCH Ness a musical about the Loch Ness monster playing at the Chance Theatre in Anaheim January 30, 2015 — March 1, 2015
http://chancetheater.com/production/loch-ness-a-new-musical/

January 14, 2015 | Costa Mesa, Review, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Uncategorized Like Comments Off on Dixie’s Tupperware Party @ Segerstrom Center of the Arts in Costa Mesa – Review |

Dixie’s Tupperware Party @ Segerstrom Center of the Arts in Costa Mesa – Review

Written by Alina Mae Wilson

Before the show started, Dixie moved around in the house, mingling with the audience members, taking photographs, and joking. Once the show began, she showered the audience with many coarse jokes. Her deep Southern drawl and constant references to her everyday life (both growing up and modern-day) lent themselves to the idea that her humor was not explicitly geared towards me but more towards women nearing, experiencing, or past middle age. She brought various audience members up onstage and made jokes about sex, marriage, sex after marriage or lack thereof, and more sex. The audience, composed of married-or-were-once-married-women, cracked up. But after awhile, I found most of the jokes dull and predictable. Continue Reading

January 13, 2015 | Review, South Coast Repertory, Theater, Uncategorized Like Comments Off on The Whipping Man @ South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa – Review |

The Whipping Man @ South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa – Review

Adam Haas Hunter, Charlie Robinson and Jarrod M. Smith in South

Adam Haas Hunter, Charlie Robinson and Jarrod M. Smith Photo Courtesy: South Coast Rep.

Written by Scott Keister

At the time of the Civil War there were approximately 25,000 Jews living in the eleven states that seceded from the union. Many of these were slave owners, and several thousand actually fought on the side of the Confederacy. In this play, The Whipping Man, currently running at South Coast Rep, playwright Matthew Lopez explores the irony of how a race of people, the Jews, who struggled mightily to escape slavery, became a people who themselves owned and sold slaves. He digs the irony a little deeper by making two of his characters in the play black slaves who also follow the Jewish faith. The parallels of the Jews and the black slaves are layered on pretty deeply in what is occasionally an intriguing clash of characters—two former black slaves and a white man, all from the same household in Richmond, Virginia, gathered together in the final days of the Civil War—but is too often a mere polemic that goes nowhere. Continue Reading