Thursday, October 26, 2023
As the earliest Broadway musical ever to feature children playing major roles, Oliver! usually bristles with youthful excitement. But despite being marketed as a family-oriented musical, Oli…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 12:11PMSunday, September 24, 2023
The Distinguished Speaker Series kicked off its 28th season with a rare appearance by actress, producer, author, and children’s health advocate Goldie Hawn. Over the years we have seen an …
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 06:49PMFriday, August 4, 2023
Staged readings are an emotional time for a writer of a play or musical. It marks the first time a creation moves from the two dimensions of the written word to the three dimensions of a liv…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 07:23PMMonday, July 17, 2023
In Douglas Carter Beane’s 2013 revamping of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic musical version of the “Cinderella” fairy tale, apparently, the magical transformation of a ragamuffin h…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 08:32PMWednesday, March 29, 2023
An unprovoked assault on a Black motorist. An unwanted infant buried alive in a garden. Vengeful vigilantes burning down firehouses. A vapid starlet seeks tabloid publicity through the sensa…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 11:32AMWednesday, March 8, 2023
The classic 1964 musical Fiddler On the Roof arrives in Thousand Oaks on Thursday, March 9 and prior to opening we had a chat with Mary Beth Webber, who plays the part of Yente in the show. …
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 11:43AMMonday, February 27, 2023
On Sunday, March 5, the Conejo Players Theatre will be presenting a staged reading of The Nameless Star, a 1942 play written by Romanian playwright Mihail Sebastian about a chance encounter …
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 12:34PMMonday, January 30, 2023
The title of Lucas Hnath’s 2013 play is unwieldy. In fact, if it weren’t in italics, we weren’t sure whether it was a play title or a press release description. A Public Reading of an …
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 01:34PMMonday, December 12, 2022
Long before Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys put the pop into pop musicals, a tuneful score by songsmiths Burt Bacharach and Hal David was inserted into a stage adaptation of Billy Wilder and I.A.…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 06:16PMSaturday, October 15, 2022
Halloween is once again upon us and with that, you can expect another visit from the creepy, kooky, and ooky Addams clan, in the 2010 Broadway musical The Addams Family. 5-Star Theatricals u…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 11:19PMSunday, July 3, 2022
When we first saw Jonalyn Saxer, it was 2010. Jonalyn was an eighteen-year-old senior, playing Maria von Trapp in Oak Park High School’s performance of The Sound of Music. In my review in …
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 01:20PMWednesday, June 29, 2022
Summer is here and what better way to spend the week of the Fourth with a production of The Music Man, Meredith Willson’s tribute to small-town America in the early twentieth century. An o…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 10:31AMSunday, April 3, 2022
If you were a five-year-old girl going to see her first musical, Agoura High School’s recent semester-ending production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella would be the one to see. W…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 05:22PMFriday, March 25, 2022
America was a different place in 1949 when Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific made its debut. World War II was still fresh in the minds of audiences but Oscar Hammerstein II, who wrot…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 08:11PMMonday, March 21, 2022
American Theatre Guild’s current national tour of South Pacific brings Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most successful musical to Thousand Oaks, a show whose score boasts more hits than any ot…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 02:42PMTuesday, March 15, 2022
In the 2013 Tony Awards, the big winner was “Kinky Boots,” a musical version of a 2005 film whose plot told of a failing shoe factory in Northampton, England that was rejuvenated when it…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 06:04PMMonday, February 28, 2022
The life and writings of Emily Dickinson, one of America’s most treasured poets, comes vividly to life in the Elite Theatre Company’s production of The Belle of Amherst by William Luce…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 01:26PMMonday, February 21, 2022
On February 24, American Theatre Guild’s production of Jersey Boys makes a single appearance in Thousand Oaks at the Fred Kavli Theater. COVID forced the canceling of the show twice, first…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 04:40PMFriday, February 18, 2022
Gerard Alessandrini (Creator, Writer & Director) is a Special Tony Award winner for Excellence in the Theatre. He created, wrote, and directed all 25 editions of Forbidden Broadway in…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 05:27PMWednesday, February 9, 2022
It’s always nice when we see a show that has never been performed in Ventura County so we were looking forward to seeing 5-Star Theatricals’ Something Rotten!, the 2015 sendup of Shakesp…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 03:36PMMonday, February 7, 2022
With the worst of the pandemic hopefully in the rear view mirror, Young Artists Ensemble is back in action with another stellar introduction to children’s theatre. Joseph Robinette’s The…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 01:50PMMonday, December 6, 2021
When producers of country music decided to try and appeal to pop audiences sixty years ago, the main recipient of this shift to a more accessible sound was Patsy Cline, a rough-and-tumble, t…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 12:10PMSaturday, December 4, 2021
It’s one of the most common themes found in Broadway musicals: a culturally stagnating town is rejuvenated when an outsider arrives on the scene, affecting everyone in the process. You’v…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 01:57PMWednesday, November 17, 2021
After watching Conejo Players’ production of “Baby,” which plays through November 21 at the company’s newly reopened theatre in Thousand Oaks, a better title for the musical might ha…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 11:25PMMonday, November 1, 2021
If you’ve ever worked in an office, you might be familiar with experiencing the panic of running late for an important meeting for which you are designated to play a key role. That is the …
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 01:23PMWednesday, October 20, 2021
To show you how little importance the plot for the jukebox musical Mamma Mia! is, the printed program lists no scenes from the show, only an alphabetical checklist of the 22 songs inserted i…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 02:36PMSunday, October 17, 2021
In 5-Star Theatricals’ current production o Mamma Mia! the role of Sam Carmichael is played by veteran soap opera star Eric Martsolf. Although he’s known to his fans mainly for the roles…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 07:19PMSunday, October 3, 2021
On October 15, 5-Star Theatricals becomes the next theatre company to emerge from its COVID-induced hibernation with its production of the feel-good musical, Mamma Mia! Playing the central r…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 02:15PMThursday, August 5, 2021
Of all elements of society hit by the pandemic, the one that got hit the hardest was the performing arts. Many theatre companies were forced to close their doors while those that managed to …
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 09:48AMSunday, August 1, 2021
Welcome back, regional theatre! For the past 16 months, we’ve been sporadically seeing a variety of virtual and drive-in plays, musicals, and revues, but it’s great to get back to live, …
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 03:26PMTuesday, December 29, 2020
It’s time once again for the annual “Vee-Cee” Awards, in which we honor some of the most memorable performances on Ventura County stages over the course of the past year. Because of th…
SOURCE: vconstage.com at 02:34PM 
