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Interviews
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Theater Interview: STUART ZAGNIT (Now Appearing in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS Off-Broadway)
STUART NOT SO LITTLE In August of 1987, Stuart Zagnit took over the role of Seymour, the young botanist in the original production of Little Shop of Horrors at New York’s Off-Broadway Orpheum Theater. In April of 2022, he took over the role of Mushnik, the elderly owner of the floral shop where the Audrey…
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Theater Interview: NIKKI MASSOUD (Starring in “Wish You Were Here” Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons)
YOU’LL WISH YOU WERE NIKKI Wish You Were Here begins in 1978 when protests are breaking out across Iran, encroaching on a suburb where a tight-knit circle of girlfriends is getting ready for a wedding. As the revolution escalates, and the years pass, the five women try to hang onto a sense of normalcy and…
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Theater Interview: SARAH B. DENISON (Director and Writer of “The Trojan Women: A Native American Adaptation”)
INTERCONNECTEDNESS: A WAY OF SURVIVAL Recently, at Theater for the New City on the lower eastside of Manhattan, Executive Artistic Director Crystal Field and AMERINDA (American Indian Artists, Inc.) produced a Native American adaptation of the Greek tragedy The Trojan Women by Euripides. Since its inception in 1987, the mission statement of AMERINDA, as stated…
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Interview: NATASHA YVETTE WILLIAMS (Now Appearing in TINA: THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL on Broadway)
THE ART OF INHABITING A ROLE NaTasha Yvette Williams is the newest cast member at Tina: The Tina Turner Musical on Broadway, playing Zelma, Tina’s mother. A juicy, dramatic role, Zelma is abused by her husband and later learns to fight back to survive. Her newfound hardened persona extends toward her daughter and, as often…
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Theater Event: STEPHEN SONDHEIM & JAMES LAPINE (with Christine Baranski, Bernadette Peters & Mandy Patinkin)
On August 3, Christine Baranski, who was in the original off-Broadway production of Sunday In the Park with George at Playwrights Horizons, moderated an intimate digital conversation event with playwright and director James Lapine and composer Stephen Sondheim to celebrate the release of Lapine’s new book Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I created…
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TV Film: THE WAR WIDOW (UCLA Film & Television Archive)
RARE SCREENING OF TRAILBLAZING LESBIAN TELEPLAY I highly recommend you view the 1976 teleplay The War Widow online on Thursday, August 5, 2021, at 4pm PT. There will be an introduction for this free one-time live screening (register HERE) by May Hong HaDuong, director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive, the world’s largest university-held collection…
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Theater Interview: BEKAH BRUNSTETTER, Playwright of MISS LILLY GETS BONED (West Coast Premiere by Rogue Machine at Electric Lodge in Venice)
BONE CALL When a young Bekah Brunstetter set out to explore where she stood on issues like animal rights, faith, and even relationships, it was before she had ever learned to question what she wrote. No filters, just passion. Sex, faith, and violence are all part of the intricate package of connections in Miss Lilly…
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Interview: VINCE MELOCCHI (writer of world premiere ANDY WARHOL’S TOMATO at Pacific Resident Theatre)
PEELING A TOMATO If you’ve ever wondered what Andy Warhol was like as a kid, perhaps writer Vince Melocchi’s new play will give you a better understanding of the iconic artist, far beyond his eccentric persona. This curiosity became the biggest challenge for the playwright, finding the voice of a teenage Andy Warhola who was…
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Theater Preview: THE LAST FIVE YEARS (After Hours Theatre Company in West Hollywood)
A PERFECT FIT Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years is contextually brilliant: it is a two-character musical that starts at the end of a five-year relationship for the woman, Cathy, but at the beginning for the man, Jaime. Her songs go backward in time and his forward. They meet in the middle of the…
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Theater Interview: EURIAMIS LOSADA (appearing in WINK at Hollywood’s Zephyr Theatre)
LOSADA COLADA! Looking at photos of Euriamis Losada, it’s no wonder the female (and some part of the male) populace goes gaga at his looks on his muscular 6’ frame. Cuban-born and USA-raised since age six, this talented actor and singer has been performing since his teenhood in Miami, Florida. After years of singing in…
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Review: FRAN LEBOWITZ (CAP UCLA’s Words & Ideas Series at the Theatre at the Ace Hotel)
A THOROUGHLY METROPOLITAN LIFE A worshipful cult greeted Fran Lebowitz at the Theatre at the Ace Hotel in downtown L.A. on September 30. She seemed incredibly pleased but not at all surprised, quipping, “I feel like Donald Trump at a Ku Klux Klan rally.” The Center for the Performing Arts at UCLA (CAP UCLA) presented…
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Theater Interview: CLINTON LEUPP (MISS COCO PERU: THE TAMING OF THE TENSION)
SHE WHO CAN’T BE TAMED Clinton Leupp may not aspire to self-help guru status, but his upcoming appearance as Miss Coco Peru in The Taming of the Tension is driven by a definite sense of mission. “I want to unify people,†he says. “We can’t truly get together as human beings until we understand how…
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TV/DVD Feature and Interview: MHZ NETWORKS
A BOON TO AMERICAN AUDIENCES “To learn another language is to learn another culture; And to learn another’s culture is to be a world-citizen.” Anonymous For those who have been clamoring for foreign-language television shows without paying a small fortune on specialized cable, MHz Networks has been a major godsend (MHz does indeed stand for…
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Interview: JUDY COLLINS (on tour and A Love Letter to Stephen Sondheim CD release)
THIS PRETTY WOMAN IS A WONDER She was just nominated for a Grammy for the folk album Silver Skies Blue (a collaboration with singer-songwriter Ari Hest); last year, she headlined a PBS special A Love Letter to Stephen Sondheim, and is releasing a CD this week with extra material not on the special; she’s currently…
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Theater Interview: RONNIE BURKETT (“The Daisy Theatre” presented by CAP UCLA at Ivy Substation)
HE’S GOT THE WORLD ON A STRING Last year, I saw an incredible theatrical production’”a puppet show no less’”that will stick with me for the rest of my life. Written, produced, designed, built, and performed by internationally renowned Canadian puppeteer Ronnie Burkett, Penny Plain was a touching, poignant, humorous, dark, and surprisingly heartbreaking look at…
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Interview: ERIC LANGE (starring in the world premiere of Donald Margulies’ THE COUNTRY HOUSE)
AN ACTOR WITH A NORMAL HEART I met Eric Lange in 1996 when I was producing The Normal Heart. I’ll never forget that charming, at-ease magnetism he had walking into the audition room, and I knew at once he had to be in the play. Unfortunately, his two roles encompassed about 15 minutes of stage…
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San Diego Theater Interview and Preview: NO PLACE LIKE HOME (Circle Circle dot dot in Ocean Beach)
COME HOME TO THE THEATER Statistics vary, but there were approximately 700,000 homeless Americans in 2013. While the government reports that figures are less drastic since the 2007 economic downturn, it remains one of the most prevalent social issues of our time. We may witness homelessness, but for many it is difficult to truly empathize…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview and Interviews: AN AMERICAN SOLDIER’S TALE / A FIDDLER’S TALE (Long Beach Opera)
GET SOME TALE In 1918, Igor Stravinsky and Swiss writer Ferdinand Ramuz wrote L’Histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) a short theatrical work meant to be “read, played, and danced” while accompanied by a septet. Based on a Russian folk tale, the libretto relates the parable of a soldier who trades his fiddle to the…
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Los Angeles Dance Interview: HEIDI DUCKLER (Artistic Director and founder of Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre)
HEIDI DUCKLER OFFERS AN OASIS FROM CONVENTIONAL DANCE Well before her college-years dance training, Heidi Duckler danced as early as she could walk. “I’ve always been dancing,” she tells Stage and Cinema. “I went to Reed College. I went to Europe. I finally finished at the University of Oregon with a B.S. in Dance because…
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Dance Interview: SAVION GLOVER (Tap Dancer and Choreographer of STePz)
THE MAN BEHIND THE STEPZ As part of an international tour, Savion Glover’s newest work STePz arrives at the Valley Performing Arts Center in Northridge this Friday, March 7. This two-act entertainment, which consists of several individual tap numbers, features Glover and four other dancers: Robyn Watson, Ayodele Casel, Sarah Savelli (a.k.a. the 3CW, or…
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