133 stories from vconstage.com
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…
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 ex…
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…
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 house ser…
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…
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. …
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 …
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 Unprod…
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.…
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…
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 th…
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 out…
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. With …
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 wrote …
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 other …
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 beg…
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…
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 i…
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…
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 Shakespeare…
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 Jun…
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…
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've se…
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 have been …
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 pr…
