Images by Kelly Christofferson   New exclusive SacPress images by Barry Wisdom The Sacramento Theatre Company is ending its 2011-2012 season of “Mystery, Music, and Mayhem" with the return of a huge hit for STC 20-some odd years ago, the highly successful Howard Ashman-Alan Menken collaboration, “Little Shop of Horrors." It won’t be a mystery if this new STC production turns out to be its own smash hit. As for the music, Ashman’s lyrics and Menken’s music are equally infectious and the cast and band gave a wonderful performance. The two went on to do several successful and award-winning collaborations with Disney. There is lots of mayhem, mostly of the human-eating plant variety. Ashman

photographs by Barry Wisdom / Sacramento Theatre Company closes its 2011-12 season with a blast from the past, staging an all-new production of "Little Shop of Horrors," a huge hit during its 1986-87 season, that is set to play April 28 to May 20, 2012. The show, which originated more than 50 years ago as a Roger Corman film about a milquetoast florist's assistant and his blood-craving spore from outer space, has enjoyed several incarnations, from film to stage, then back to film, before last landing on television as an animated children's series. Undoubtedly influenced by the cinematic seeds planted in his subconcious by such sci-fi classics as "The Thing from Another World" (1951) and

Sacramento Theatre Company opened its 15 Cabaret production “Music of the Night: The Musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber” Thursday night to a cheering capacity crowd. The popularity of the STC Cabaret productions combined with the huge popularity of Lloyd Webber has led STC to offer a second weekend the show. Lloyd Webber, along with his original lyricist Tim Rice, turned concept album concerts into mega hit shows around the world. In his opening remarks, STC producing director Michael Laun spoke about the cast having no shortage of favorite Lloyd Webber songs to the point of being able to do another whole show. The show runs chronologically from “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

photographs by Barry Wisdom |   In a recent New York Times article about "The Phantom of the Opera" reaching the milestone of 10,000 Broadway performances, "Phantom" investor James B. Freydberg said he and his partner figured putting money into a Broadway show had to be better than dumping ducats into the stock market. Was he ever right. Since "Phantom" opened 24 years ago, the tuner has earned them some $12 million. “No one ever, ever expected this kind of wealth,” Freydberg said. “My only other investment that has performed better is my Apple stock.” Such is the magic of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose list of stage successes like "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Evita" are current

Drew Barrymore, a highly successful child actor, adult actor, director, screenwriter, producer and model, is a fourth generation member of the famous Barrymore acting family. As well known as Drew is, her popularity and success pales to that of her grandfather, John Barrymore. The Sacramento Theater Company opened the production “Barrymore” Saturday night on the Pollock Stage. The play was written by William Luce, best known for “The Belle of Amherst,” who loves to write plays featuring solo actors. The play opens with Barrymore arriving at some sort of theater space he has rented for just one night to learn his lines for a revival of Shakespeare’s “Richard III,” his most famous role. Al

New/Hot The very hot “True West” opened to critical acclaim Saturday at Capital Stage. SacPress colleague Barry Wisdom did a great, informative preview with several excellent photos that really capture the show. Grab a ringside seat to some of the funniest, most intense family squabbling ever written and performed. Tickets and More Information Opening/In Previews “Barrymore”    Sacramento Theater Company  Pollock Stage In previews, opens Saturday night. High expectations for a play from William Luce who specialized in one person plays. Luce is best known for “Belle of Amherst” his one woman show originally staring Julie Harris. Broadway veteran Gregory North stars as John Barrymore

When you "Dial M for Murder" you dial a hit. What great fun! Yes, a murder mystery can have suspense and still have laughs. The Sacramento Theatre Company has brought back a well-made play from the 1950s, later to be a Hitchcock film, and one of his best. The big star of this evening of fun and mayhem is Matt K. Miller as an aging tennis player afraid of losing his meal ticket wife. On stage Miller looks nothing like his all-American lobby photo so it’s a surprise to see him as a charming Englishman who is so manipulative and villainous. The overly naive wife, Mrs. Wendice, is played by Jackie Vanderbeck. Poor Jackie is stuck with the simpering, helpless female of the time, but makes the

Photographs by Barry Wisdom | Sacramento Theatre Company veterans Matt K. Miller ("A Christmas Carol") and Jackie Vanderbeck ("The Belle of Amherst") lead an ensemble cast in STC's production of playwright Frederick Knott's "Dial 'M' for Murder," opening at 8 p.m. March 3, 2012. Famously filmed by master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock, "Dial 'M' for Murder" concerns British ex-tennis pro Tony Wendice (Miller), whose neglected wife's (Vanderbeck) past dalliance with an American writer (Barry Hubbard) leads to the plotting of the perfect crime – or does it? Also starring are Gary Alan as Inspector Hubbard, and Scott Divine as Wendice's accomplice Captain Lesgate. Greg Alexander directs. T

Sacramento Theatre Company associate producer Michael Laun shakes up the STC Cabaret format with some good surprises. SacPress community contributor writer/photographer Barry Wisdom has a great preview of the latest show. Changes included the type of theme. Many previous shows have centered around specific composers. “Make Em Laugh” which runs for a short four show run this weekend on the STC Cabaret Stage, is centered around the title subject. It is a collection of songs, many of which are very well known songs by extremely well known composers from timeless shows. Many of the songs are also from “who wrote that”? Great song, but “what show”? Never heard of it. And it all works well tog

Remember when musical theater was called musical comedy? True, dramatic plot turns have consistenly been essential elements in most of the Great White Way's all-singing, all-dancing productions. From the issue of racial discrimination explored in Jerome Kern's landmark "Show Boat" (1927) to the gritty realities of abortion, rape and suicide facing teenagers in Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater's "Spring Awakening" (2007), musicals often have featured some measure of conflict. Maybe it's the rose-colored opera glasses audiences tend to slip on when looking back, but some still bemoan Broadway's shift away from happy-go-lucky book musicals in which the most-serious issue was the question of wh

Ah, the child actor. So much competition, so much drive, so many stage mothers and many others, as we shall see, pushing. Oh, and then having to survive the bad reviews. But when a child actor makes it big, there is lots of money and other perks to go around. They say for a child actor to succeed, they and everyone supporting them need to be ruthless. But ruthless to the point of killing a rival? For the lead role in the third-grade play? The center of attention in “Ruthless! The Musical” which is just ending its first week of sold-out and nearly sold-out shows at the Sacramento Theatre Company’s Pollock Stage is Tina Denmark. Right behind Tina is Sylvia St. Croix, child talent represent

Performer photos by Barry Wisdom "How Long Has This Been Going On?-A Tribute to George and Ira Gershwin" opened the fifth season of cabaret at Sacramento Theatre Company Thursday evening to an enthusiastic audience. Although the Gershwin's music goes back to the 1930s and George died tragically in 1937 at the age of 38 the music they created endures as some of the best examples of the Great American Songbook. Ira Gershwin went on to compose with several other lyricists living to the age of 87. STC producing director, Michael Laun who created the cabaret series, enlisted Jerry Lee ("Musical of Musicals the Musical!!," "Frankenstein"-recently closed at STC) one of Sacramento's best youn

“Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks” by Richard Alfieri opened Saturday in Sacramento Theatre Company’s smaller Pollock Theatre. Lily Harrison, a senior retiree living in a high rise view condo in St. Petersburg, Florida books a series of dance lessons from the Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks company. Very quickly, Lily demonstrates how uptight and rigid she has become. Enter Michael Minetti, the young man that the dance lesson company has sent to give Lily lessons at her condo. Michael’s problem is that he is extremely poor at self-censoring and blurts out whatever he is thinking. Naturally, Lily and Michael start off on the wrong foot (pun intended) at the first dance lesson and succeeding

New Helvetia Theatre ends its three-weekend run of Michael John Lachiusa’s off-Broadway show “Little Fish” this weekend. While Lachiusa is known for two Broadway shows, "Marie Christine" and "The Wild Party," he has written several smaller-scale off-Broadway shows. Most of these have a reputation of being very serious. “Little Fish” is one of his lighter works and was suggested from the short stories of Deborah Eisenburg.   “Little Fish” is New York City-centric. It is the setting of the play, and some of the interactions of the characters can be described as very “New York.” The play itself is part of a genre of musicals, many by Lachiusa, that are specifically written for off-Broadway w

Sacramento Theatre Company opened its 2011-2012 season this weekend with one of the most classic horror stories ever told, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. While Shelley’s work is well known and countless screen and stage adaptations have been made of the story the one being told here is from little different angle. The play is by a prolific playwright Tim Kelly who wrote dramatizations to several Mary Shelley stories as well as stories of other writers. All the basic elements are here. The brilliant young scientist who literally stitches together a creature out of graveyard spare parts. The creature who then escapes and wreaks havoc all over the countryside. There is the doctor’s best friend

Sigmund Freud, the creator of psychoanalysis, held many controversial views and theories. His staunch atheism is one of the strongest and most controversial. The great English writer C. S. Lewis, best known for “The Chronicles of Narnia,” also a staunch atheist as a young man, embraced Christianity as a professor at Oxford. Much credit for his conversion is given to long conversations with “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” author J. R. R. Tolkien. Award-winning playwright Mark St. Germain’s current off-Broadway hit “Freud’s Last Session” imagines a conversation between the two brilliant men very near the end of Freud’s life, while Lewis is a young Oxford professor and little-known

On sporadic Sundays an audience gathers in the cosy Geary Theater in Midtown for an evening of songs performed by some of Sacramento’s best actor/singers at a cabaret event known as Graham-A-Rama, named after its’ founder and musical director Graham Sobelman. In June Graham-A-Rama did something different. They devoted a weekend to three performances of William Finn’s one act musical play “In Trousers” in concert. “In Trousers” which Finn wrote the book, lyrics and music is the first of what became trilogy of three one act plays. Finn joined with James Lapine to create two more one act plays “March of the Falsettos” and “Falsettoland.” The second two shows were combined to create a two act

Bob lived a strange life right from the beginning. Abandoned by his birth mother in the restroom of a White Castle in Louisville Kentucky, and adopted by the employee who found him, they wander across the U.S. living out of her beige Chevy Malibu for the next 12 years and then she dies. On his own, Bob lives for the next 12 years behind the restrooms at an interstate rest area, and that is only the beginning. Bob is the central character in Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s same-titled play that opened Sunday on the B Street Theater Mainstage. To say that Nachtrieb has written a very imaginative play is an understatement. As the story follows Bob from birth to his senior years, characters connected

Sacramento Steampunk Society welcomed the opening of "Sherlock Holmes The Final Adventure" at Sacramento Theatre Company last week.    The Urban Dictionary defines: "Steampunk is a subgenre of speculative fiction, usually set in an anachronistic Victorian or quasi-Victorian alternate history setting. It could be described by the slogan "What the past would look like if the future had happened sooner." It includes fiction with science fiction, fantasy or horror themes." In keeping with the Victorian era setting of "Sherlock Holmes" the Steampunk Society were dressed in all their Victorian Science Fiction finery.   They stayed after the show for the opening night party for all to admire t

There are certain characteristics that most everyone identifies with Sherlock Holmes from the original books by Arthur Conan Doyle, film portrayal or countless theatrical productions for over a century. After all the character has been around for a long time. Doyle first created the character in 1881 along with Dr. Watson. The first play featuring the characters was written by Doyle and a popular American actor William Gillette. The play premiered in 1899. Gillette introduced several things identified with Sherlock Holmes including the bent briar pipe, magnifying glass and syringe. The film carer of the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson is nearly as long as cinema itself. The