133 stories by "Cary Ginell"
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…
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 he'…
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…
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 …
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, in-p…
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 the COVI…
In The Revolutionists, Lauren Gunderson's 2017 black comedy about four (in)famous women of the French Revolution, comedy meets tragedy in a fictionalized what-if? premise that brings to mind…
It's hard to believe, but 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center, one of the prime community theaters in Ventura County. In 1995, the center's first producti…
An interview with David Krassner, director of Agoura High School's current production of Rent. Krassner uses his experience as an actor on Broadway and in national tours to guide young actor…
Can a play about cancer be uplifting? That's the question posed by Margaret Edson in her Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Wit, currently showing at the Elite Theatre Company in Oxnard. The play …
Occasionally, Broadway audiences miss the target. Such is the case with It Shoulda Been You, a musical that somehow lasted less than five months before slinking off into tours and community …
On Wednesday, February 26, Agoura High School's drama department, under the direction of David Krassner, will be staging the high school production of Rent, Jonathan Larson's groundbreaking …
The appeal of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, which arrived in Thousand Oaks on February 13 for a four-day run, can be summed up by the comments of an elderly couple leaving the Fred Kav…
Beautiful, the musical that chronicles the life of singer/songwriter Carole King, comes to the Conejo Valley for the first time in American Theatre Guild's national tour. Many performers hav…
The sudden death of Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant on Sunday cast a pall over not just Southern California basketball fans, but people around the world who admired Bryant for his devoti…
Steven Dietz's play, Bloomsday, which made its debut at the Elite Theatre Company in Oxnard January 17, is a Twilight Zone-like story that mixes past and present, using James Joyce's novel U…
In Finding Neverland, reality is blurred by imagination as J. M. Barrie, the creator of the characters and the original play version of Peter Pan, struggles with writer's block as he tries t…
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. As I explain each y…
For sheer timeless comedy, there are few plays better than The Man Who Came To Dinner, Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's hilarious love letter to owlish American theater critic Alexander Woo…
Toward the end of Meredith Willson's The Music Man, traveling salesman Harold Hill tells Marian Paroo, "For the first time in my life, my foot got caught in the door." A few weeks ago, 5-Sta…
Bandstand is a musical that most people are not familiar with, but should be. Its plot deals with a group of musicians who come back to the U.S. after serving in World War II and finding it …
Good news for theater fans! Rubicon Theatre Company's current production of Big River has been extended until November 17. Its success is due in part to Beverly and Kirby Ward's evocative…
Bringing a show as expansive as Big River to the small stage of the Rubicon Theatre Company was a daunting prospect, but Kirby and Beverly Ward thrive on such problems and ended up producing…
There is one word that best describes the motivation of the two main characters in the 1985 musical Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The word is "freedom." Both Huckleberry Fin…
In this first of three features on the Rubicon Theatre Company's production of Big River, co-producers/directors Beverly and Kirby Ward discuss their vision for bringing the Tony Award-winni…
