Broadway Sacramento blew the roof of the Community Center Theater with another highly popular musical built around music by individuals or groups who greatly changed popular music in the last half of the 20th century. “Million $ Quartet” revolves around Sam Phillips (an excelent Christopher Ryan Grant) — owner, record product and just about everything else at Memphis-based label Sun Records — and his four most famous discoveries Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Jonny Cash, and Elvis Presley.  The show gives us insight to how Phillips, through his artists, bridged racial, social, economic, and other divides to create music that endures and influences music a half century later. The scene i

Broadway Sacramento continues its 2011-2012 season’s emphasis on highly popular musicals featuring pop music of the last half of the twentieth century.  Last night’s opening of the national tour of “Mamma Mia,” now in its second year, features the excellent staging of more than 20 ABBA songs, tied together by the premise of the wedding of a girl in her early 20s at her mother’s taverna on a small Greek Isle.   “Mamma Mia” is all about the music.  The music that Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, along with Stig Anderson, created for the mega hit group ABBA, which joined Andersson and Ulvaeus with Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Faltskog, their respective spouses at the time.  It is not sur

The latest Broadway Sacramento show “Rain: A Tribute to The Beatles” opened to a nearly sold out house at the Sacramento Community Theater Tuesday evening. “Rain: A Tribute to The Beatles” opens with archival film of the Beatles’ first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” projected on two large screens flanking the stage. As the curtain rises, the band breaks into a set of the earliest Beatles music. The audience breaks into screams. This is followed by a set of more early music timed to the Beatles’ Aug. 15, 1965, Shea Stadium concert. The two large screens, plus a much larger screen at the back of the stage, and some props and lighting effects set the scene very well. It is still inte

Travel back through time with Broadway Sacramento's Rain, a Beatles tribute show that began as an offshoot of the Broadway production of Beatlemania. Rain ran on Broadway for 300 shows and 8 preview performances at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in New York City and has also been a hugely successful national tour for years. Together longer than the Beatles, Rain has mastered every song, gesture and nuance of the legendary foursome, delivering a totally live, note-for-note performance. This multi-media show begins by taking us away to a time when four young men stepped on stage at the Ed Sullivan show and changed music as we knew it. Rain chronicles the journey America took with the Beatles,

“Shrek the Musical” kicked off the Broadway Sacramento 2011-2012 season with a Technicolor extravaganza. Based on the characters and story of the book “Shrek!” by William Steig, DreamWorks adapted the book into its blockbuster hit animated movie ”Shrek” in 2001. With a cast of major film actors voicing the characters the movie became the first of a major film and product franchise. DreamWorks expanded that franchise into their first foray into live productions with the opening of “Shrek the Musical” on Broadway in December 2008. After a very successful run on Broadway “Shrek the Musical” went on a US national tour and a London West End production with continuing changes to the production

Shows brought to you by the Disney organization and Cameron Macintosh come with high expectations. Fortunately for Sacramento musical theater lovers, the Broadway Sacramento production of "Mary Poppins" that opened last Thursday more than meets those expectations. Disney's first hit version of "Mary Poppins" was the 1964 film with major star turns by Julie Andrews as the title character and Dick Van Dyke as Bert. Disney had obtained the rights to the series of "Mary Poppins" stories by Australian author P.L. Travers. The first book was published in 1934, the last in 1991, five years before the author’s death. The movie also introduced the songs of brothers Richard M. and Robert B. Sherma

“The Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein” opened at the Community Theater Wednesday evening as part of the Broadway Sacramento Series.  “ Young Frankenstein” is the second movie Mel Brooks has turned into a Broadway musical. The first was “The Producers,” made from an earlier Brooks film (1968). The incredible success of “The Producers” on Broadway influenced Brooks to adapt the far more popular “Young Frankenstein” (1974) for the Broadway stage. Brooks wrote the original screenplay with Gene Wilder, who starred in the film. Brooks brought together all the major creative workers of “The Producers” to work on “Young Frankenstein.” Thomas Meehan wrote the book with Brooks. Brooks again w

The tour of the Broadway show “9 to 5: The Musical” rolled into the Community Center Theater Wednesday evening as the latest offering of Broadway Sacramento. “9 to 5 the Musical” is a positive example of the trend of turning popular movies and television into Broadway shows. Opening night’s audience responded enthusiastically to the rollicking upbeat musical with a positive story. “9 to 5” began as a theatrical movie in 1980. The film was most famous for casting popular country singer Dolly Parton, veteran actress Jane Fonda and veteran comedian/actress Lily Tomlin. The movie was directed by Colin Higgins of “Harold and Maude” fame. Higgins and Patricia Resnick wrote the screenplay from t

Looking for entertainment suitable for all ages to end 2010 or kick off 2011? Look no further than the Sacramento Community Center Theater and Broadway Sacramento’s holiday show “Cirque Dreams Holidaze.” From the moment the curtain goes up to the last bow, “Cirque Dreams Holidaze” is a nonstop spectacle of costumes, set design and a large variety of performances occurring center stage. These performances include balancing, tumbling, illusion, aerobatics, skip roping and much more. The performers are among the best in the world at what they do. For the older generation, think of the best acts from “The Ed Sullivan Show,” down to the spinning plates. One of the first acts is a group of

Lectures California Lectures.MICHELE NORRIS In conversation with Pamela Wu Wednesday, October 6, 2010 Crest Theatre | 7:30 p.m. Michele Norris hosts NPR’s All Things Considered, public radio’s longest-running national program. Before joining NPR in 2002, Norris worked as a reporter for ABC News, a position in which she garnered both an Emmy Award and a Peabody Award for her coverage of 9/11. Norris has reported extensively on issues of inner city poverty, race and education for The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. Her powerful Washington Post series on the drug trade's impact on young children was published along with essays by Nelson Mandela and Gabriel

Individual tickets for Broadway Sacramento's presentations of CIRQUE DREAMS HOLIDAZE (December 29, 2010-January 2, 2011), 9 TO 5  (March 9-20, 2011) and YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN  (April 13-24, 2011) go on sale Monday, September 20 at 10 a.m. at the Wells Fargo Pavilion Box Office, 1419 H Street, Sacramento, (916) 557-1999, the Community Center Theater Box Office, 1301 L Street, Sacramento, (916) 808-5181 or Tickets.com, (800) 225-2277. The largest performing arts event in the Capital Region, Broadway Sacramento is presented by California Musical Theatre and sponsored by Wells Fargo.    These shows join Burn the Floor (September 29-October 10, 2010) and  In the Heights  (November 3-14, 2010) wh

Step into the Wells Fargo Pavilion and be transported back to Springfield High School’s 1958 Senior Prom, “Marvelous Dreams.” The evening’s entertainment was supposed to be provided by The Crooning Crabcakes. Alas, Crabcakes lead singer and preacher’s son Billy Ray was caught smoking behind the school. So as not to set a bad example, the principle has canceled their show. The Marvelous Wonderettes are brought in as a last-minute substitution. The Marvelous Wonderettes are Cindy Lou Huffington, Missy Miller, Betty Jean “B.J.” Reynolds and Suzy Simpeon. They are all Springfield High School’s (Go Chipmunks) Song Leaders. For the next couple of hours, we learn about the Wonderettes’ relati

Let's just say that you bought tickets to your favorite musical but had to sit in the back because those were the only seats available for a wheelchair user. Or you're a woman who needed to use the bathroom at intermission, but the lines were so long you had to miss the first 10 minutes of the second act. If you've been to the Community Center Theatre since it opened in 1974, you could have experienced a problem of this sort, said Convention Center Manager Judy Goldbar. Luckily, those are two major issues that a proposed $40 million renovation seeks to address. The theater, run by the Sacramento Convention Center, hosts a number of local and touring productions, including Broadway Sacrame

"Chicago: The Musical" is returning to Sacramento for an 11-day run starting tomorrow. The world-renowned musical is the sixth-longest running production in Broadway history and was adapted into a movie in 2002, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. This is the fourth time the musical will be in Sacramento. It will be performed at the Community Center Theatre as part of the California Musical Theatre's Broadway Sacramento series. "Our goal is to bring Broadway to Sacramento," said California Musical Theatre executive producer Richard Lewis. "'Chicago' represents prime Broadway theatre." The musical takes place in 1920s Chicago and tells the story of two women who try to become

Sex. It's controversial today, and it has been for more than a century. That's why Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play, Spring Awakening, which has strong sexual themes and language, was not produced in the playwright's native Germany until 1906. It opened to English audiences for the first time in New York in 1917, and closed after one performance. Times have changed. The winner of eight 2007 Tony awards including "best musical" and a 2008 Grammy for "Best Musical Show Album opens Wednesday as part of California Musical Theatre's Broadway Sacramento season. Well, sort of. Spring Awakening was not offered as part of the season subscription package, because the theater's executive producer, Richar

One of the longest-running Broadway shows in history, "The Lion King" started another long Sacramento run Friday night at the Community Center Theatre. This is the touring production's second run here, a five-week stay that is already nearly sold-out. Friday night's show made it clear why this is an all-time favorite. From the very start, "The Lion King" captivates, the proverbial for-kids-of-all-ages show. Director Julie Taymor's dazzling backgrounds of the African savannah translate beautifully from the source material - Disney's animated feature film - and the costumes of various animals are breathtaking in their resourcefulness and versatility. Particularly amazing are the two giraffe