Empire is an original musical about those who bravely embodied the American spirit during the dark days of the Great Depression by building what was then the tallest structure in the world, the Empire State Building. When the roaring 20’s collapsed into the reeling 30’s, these industrialists, laborers and their families mortgaged all that was safe and reasonable for the dream of leaving their mark on New York City and the world. Taken from the website
Jan. 22 – Feb. 14, 2016
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
–Henry David Thoreau
Written by Daniella Litvak
The stock market crashed, and with it came high unemployment rates and uncertain futures for people all over the world. Despite how depressing (yes, dreadful pun intended) this all was, people refused to give up on themselves. They were going to make their dreams come true. For many New Yorkers at the time, that meant having to construct the world’s tallest building.
Caleb Shaw and Katharine McDonough are featured in the musical “EMPIRE” – directed and choreographed by Marcia Milgrom Photo Courtesy : MICHAEL LAMONT
While the people building the Chrysler Building and 40 Wall Street are also competing in “the race to the sky,” Empire The Musical (“Empire”) is rooting for the all-star team former New York Governor Al Smith and John Raskob have assembled to raise the one hundred story Al Smith Building. First, there is Frankie Petersen. She is Smith’s right hand man, so she solves all the problems. Mike Shaw is the project’s brilliant, young architect. Rounding out the team is the ensemble of construction workers who are going to build the skyscraper. Included among them are crew leader Ethan O’Dowd and newbies Bill Johnson and Bucky. Continue Reading
Written by Patrick Chavis
Steel Magnolias sounds like the perfect name for either a Guns N’ Roses cover band or a post-punk, feminist rock group. It turns out to be neither (at least I don’t think so). Steel Magnolias is mainly known for the 1989 film with the all-star cast: Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, Sally Field, and more. I could continue because this movie was pumped with as much talent as Ocean’s 11. Before it hit the big screen, Steel Magnolias was a successful play because of its unique take on women, southern life, and death. Newport Theatre Arts Center’s talented cast gracefully pulls you into their southern Louisiana world. There’s no acting here, just six unique women baring their souls on stage. On the surface, it’s a show about a sad event that changes these women’s lives in a beauty parlor. Once you go deeper, the show is about a bunch of Chatty Cathys that love to bicker about anything and everything and have the strength to do it.
Yara Wilde (Shelby)
The play is set in a shop in Chinquapin, Louisiana, and centers around a lot of different conversations that occur while the women are getting their hair done. The dialogue in this play is funny but not over the top. It’s the everyday humor that pops out at you, and you can’t help but chuckle a little bit. The things that make this show enjoyable are the relationships between the characters and how each one of them interacts with one another. This play is truly an actor’s piece. Just fifteen minutes in, you already have a good idea of where the plot is going, and you know it will be sad. Still, that inevitable sadness takes a backseat to the often funny and whimsical conversations and gossip the characters have. Continue Reading
or Laguna Playhouse might cost too much for many OC residents, but a night at STAGES Theatre in Fullerton or Modjeska Playhouse in Lake Forest is quite affordable. But money is really only half the answer. The other half is the general public’s perception of theatre. That’s right, the general public. Your co-worker, your yoga instructor, your apartment complex manager, and so on – all those people who don’t plunk down $20 or $40 to see the new Amy Herzog play or a rendition of Into the Woods (like you would do) — how do they perceive theatre? I was once one of them, so I’ll tell you how many of them perceive it. Boring. They see “theatre” as boring. When most people think “ theatre”, they think of a stodgy, static art form telling old or innocuous stories – stories that have little or nothing to do with life in 2015. 
Written by Mike Martin
It’s never easy to review what is essentially educational theater, but I tip my hat to the La Habra High School Theater Guild for opening themselves to criticism on their latest production, The Plummer Project.
First, let me say that this production is incredibly ambitious. The LHHS company has produced an interactive theater experience inside the grand old Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton and put the hoary old space to as good a use as anything
I’ve seen there in years. They are producing three separate shows running for approximately an hour each. Any given patron can only see two of these tracks on a given night (one before and one after intermission) with the story lines determined by a random distribution of wristbands. Each story winds its way through the interior and grounds of the auditorium and occasionally splits off into even smaller vignettes as audience members are singled out for one on one interactions away from the main group. This makes for a theater experience that can differ wildly from one viewer to the next. Continue Reading
shot & edited by Patrick Chavis
Love Letters, the classic two-person play by A.R. Gurney (The Cocktail Hour, The Dining Room) is a unique and imaginative theatre piece, comprised of letters exchanged over a lifetime between two people who grew up together, went their separate ways, but continued to share confidences. As the actors read the letters aloud, what is created is an evocative, touching, frequently funny but always telling pair of character studies in which what is implied is as revealing and meaningful as what is actually written down. Taken from website
Jan 22 – Feb 13 2016
