Chad Jones’ Theater Dogs

San Francisco’s unique musical theater company, 42nd Street Moon, kicks off its 16th season with a celebration of Tony Award-winning Broadway composer Charles Strouse on Monday, June 30: You’ve Got Possibilities: Celebrating the Musicals of the 1960s and an 80th Birthday Salute to Charles Strouse.

Strouse won his Tony Awards for Bye, Bye Birdie in 1960, Applause in 1970 and Annie in 1977. Among his other shows are Golden Boy (a starring vehicle for Sammy Davis Jr.), It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman, Rags and Nick and Nora. The composer (who also wrote the theme song for “All in the Family”) will be in attendance.

In addition to commemorating his eighth decade, Strouse is also celebrating the release of his autobiography: Put on a Happy Face: A Broadway Memoir. The book and the 42nd Street Moon show are all part of a year-long tribute that includes concerts, revivals and special events around the world.

The 42nd Street Moon show at the Alcazar Theatre includes special guests Nancy Dussault, Andrea McArdle (who got her start in Strouse’s Annie), Linda Posner (credited as Leland Palmer starred in Strouse’s Applause as well as the movie All That Jazz – this marks her first stage appearance since her retirement from show business in 1977), Susan Watson (began her Broadway career in Bye, Bye Birdie), and Klea Blackhurst.

The gala begins at 5:30 p.m. with hors d’oeuvres and a silent auction. Performance follows at 7 p.m. The Alcazar is at 650 Geary St., San Francisco. Tickets are $100 ($75 of which is tax deductible). Call 415-255-8207 or visit www.42ndstmoon.org.

To keep up with everything going on in Charles Strouse’s celebratory 80th year, visit www.charlesstrouse.com.

Here’s a clip from the NY Post’s “Backstage with Michael Riedel” that includes a visit with Strouse:

Before we get started, here’s a taste of A Chorus Line with current cast member Mario Lopez and the cast on “Dancing with the Stars”

If you think you’re “uncommonly rare, very unique, peripatetic, poetic and chic” then this contest may be for you.

In preparation for the arrival of the A Chorus Line national tour at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre July 8-27, SHN/Best of Broadway is taking part in a talent competition called “Be the One.”

Head to http://auditions.achorusline.com/san-francisco and create an online audition profile (you’ll also find the rules and regulations there). Then you can show off your talents (nothing dirty) through video clips, photos or blog entries that help explain why you should “Be the One,” or in other words, why you are one singular sensation, every little step you take.

The contest is now through July 13, and once your audition is online, the public will vote on their favorites. The four men and four women who receive the most votes will win a “Be the One” prize package: two tickets to A Chorus Line, a $50 gift certificate for dinner, the new cast recording of “A Chorus Line” and a signed poster from the cast. The only thing better might be joining the famous gold-spangled kick-line at the end of the show.

The eight finalists will also be entered into the next round of competition against finalists from other cities on the Line tour, where they will fight for the national grand prize: a trip to New York City (airfare included), hotel accommodations, tickets to Broadway shows, backstage tours, show merchandise, meet-and-greets and more. (No worries about seeing A Chorus Line again because the Broadway revival that spawned this tour is closing Aug. 18 after what will have been more than 750 performances, a far cry from the original’s nearly 15 years. Even with Mario Lopez in the cast, the show can’t quite draw the crowds.)

A Chorus Line runs July 8-27 at the Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St., San Francisco. Tickets are $25-$99. Call 415-512-7770 or visit www.ticketmaster.com or www.shnsf.com. For podcasts and other backstage tidbits, visit http://shnsf.com/podcast/index.asp.

Andrea McArdle, famous for being a Broadway belter at age 12, swears she’s going to write a book. “But I need to wait for a few people to go to a happier place,” she says.

I, for one, can’t wait to read the book. If McArdle’s opening-night at the Rrazz Room on Thursday is any indication, that is going to be one entertaining autobiography. But somehow she’s got to make that story sing. Without that voice, we’d only be getting part of the story.

McArdle’s short run (she concludes on Saturday) offers a little slice of heaven for the show tune enthusiast. Oh, hell, it’s pride week so let’s be frank – she’s making the show queens squeal with delight. Squeal, squeal.

Gorgeous at 44, McArdle took the stage in a tailored white pant suit and black tee. If she’s been through the wars – and she really has – she sure doesn’t look it. And her voice, which was compared to Merman in her pre-teens, still has that clarion ring, with a belt to keep the sun coming out for many tomorrows yet to come.

She gave a pretty good indication what this show would be like with her first song, a little tribute to Judy Garland with “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart.” She dipped into her own Broadway songbook next with “NYC,” a song from her star-making show, Annie. It’s a song she didn’t get to sing in the show, though she can be seen singing a bit of it in the made-for-TV movie version.

One thing that’s immediately apparent about McArdle: she’s an extraordinarily energetic performer, at ease with the crowd and herself. She’s also far from a has-been former kid star. She’s got vitality to spare with a unique voice that can find a smooth ’70s groove on “Superstar” or blast the Broadway drama on “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables.

She revs up Sondheim’s “Everybody Says Don’t” and then cools down for a sexy solo take on another Sondheim tune, “You Could Drive a Person Crazy.” Yes, she sings “Tomorrow,” a song she’s been rattling the rafters with for 28 years now, and on Thursday, she wasn’t going to go for the money notes until her pianist, the one-and-only Seth Rudetsky, intervened and said you can’t just leave the audience hanging. So they backed up and McArdle, who claimed earlier in the show to be suffering from a lengthy afternoon rehearsal, showed us why Annie, one of the last Broadway shows not to use body microphones, didn’t need no stinking amplification.

Having Rudetsky on piano guarantees several things: expert musicianship and an even more expert sense of humor. He added harmony vocals here and there (most notably on “Beauty and the Beast” from the Disney show of the same name, which McArdle starred in), but he also teases stories out of her and adds his own inimitable flair, usually in the form of hilarious facial expressions. In addition, Rudetsky provides back-up when McArdle forgets the words, as she did on “Some People.”

Even when she’s not singing, McArdle is a delight. She tells stories on herself, like spilling M&Ms all over the stage at Les Miserables and getting reported to the union for her carelessness (but the death scene was tremendous!). Some young performer challenges her and she retorts: “Hello, ever been on Broadway before you could vote? I didn’t think so.”

Comparing the experience of being in a happy-perky show like Annie to a depressing show like Les Miz, McArdle swears the death and angst is easier: “Sing, die. Sing, die. Trust me.”

Speaking of Les Miz, McArdle brought her nearly 20-year-old daughter, Alexis Kalehoff, to the stage to sing “On My Own.” Now, it might be cringe-worthy to indulge a mother’s need to share her daughter’s talents with the world. But Kalehoff is a Broadway veteran and, in fact, was in Les Miz as young Cosette at age 7, which beats her mother’s arrival on Broadway by five years. Alexis is, like her mother, a powerhouse singer and even sounds, in certain parts of her voice, like a young McArdle. I wanted the mother-daughter duo to sing together, but alas, we’ll have to wait for that number.

Leaving her audience with “Over the Rainbow,” McArdle could have performed all night and still not quite satisfied the hungry opening-night audience. They lapped up stories about Carol Channing chiding a 20something McArdle for dissing “Tomorrow” (”Poor Leslie[Uggams] is still waiting for a signature song,” Channing said) and little dropped details like the youngest orphan in the London production of Annie happened to be Catherine Zeta-Jones.

It’s all good stuff. As for the rest of it, we’ll just have to read the book.

Andrea McArdle in concert through Saturday, June 28 at the Rrazz Room in the Nikko Hotel, 222 Mason St., San Francisco. Tickets are $40 (Friday) and $42.50 (Saturday). Call 866-468-3399 or visit www.TheRrazzRoom.com for information.

Here’s McArdle performing “Maybe” from Annie on an R Family cruise.

And how here’s Rudetsky deconstructing McArdle’s voice circa Jerry’s Girls in 1984.

Variety reports that Andrew Lippa’s musical version of The Addams Family is moving full steam ahead.

In a closed reading in August, Gomez will be played by Nathan Lane (not often you think of Lane in a role once inhabited — onscreen — by Raul Julia) and Morticia will be played by Bebe Neuwirth. How perfect is that? From Lilith Crane to Velma Kelly to Morticia Addams. Seems logical to me.

The book is by the Jersey Boys boys Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman, and direction and design comes from Improbable Theatre founders Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch (Shockheaded Peter, which Bay Area audiences saw at American Conservatory Theater).

Variety says the show is aiming for the 2009-10 season.

Here’s that catchy “Addams Family” TV theme:

I share the above photo not because I have a huge ego and want the world to know I had a few quality moments with Dame Julie Andrews, one of my favorite people on the planet. Wait – that’s exactly what I wanted by sharing the photo, which was taken at a stem cell research benefit in San Francisco that Andrews spoke at.

The first movie I ever saw was Mary Poppins (actually the very first movie I “saw” as a babe in arms was when my parents, in their VW bug took me to a drive-in showing of Barbarella, and apparently I cried all the way through and they left early). Andrews as the practically perfect nanny made quite an impression on my 4-year-old brain, and from then on, my world revolved around Julie Andrews, who had a TV variety show on then (this was the early ’70s), and then my mom and grandma took me to see The Sound of Music. Well, that was it. I’ve been a Banks-VonTrapp child in her charge ever since.

I reveal these personal details as a form of memoir and to introduce my thoughts on Andrews’ memoir Home: A Memoir of My Early Years (Hyperion, $26.95). The book takes us from her childhood in Walton-on-Thames, her career in the dying days of vaudeville as a child performer with a freakishly adult operatic range, and then on to New York and her Broadway stints in The Boyfriend, My Fair Lady and Camelot.

The book ends right as Andrews and her infant daughter are heading for Hollywood, the open arms of Walt Disney and the filming of Mary Poppins.

One thing you notice right away about the book is Andrews’ distinctive voice. You can hear her crisp pronunciation in every sentence. It’s also clear that she’s a writer – no surprise to those of us who have enjoyed her children’s books such as The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles and the more recent The Great American Mousical.

That said, there’s still an element of distance between Andrews and the reader. She’s happy to tell us a few things – even unpleasant things from her childhood (like a stepfather who had designs on his pretty stepdaughter and the revelation that she was a product of a one-night stand) – but she won’t tell us everything. Andrews reveals just enough to protect her privacy, and that’s respectable (though not as juicy as some folks might want).

The closest the book comes to scandal is Andrews’ revelation that during the run of Camelot, Richard Burton made advances toward her, which she basically laughed off, and then he became cold and distant – even onstage, which seems highly unprofessional, even for a Welshman. Eventually he got over himself and reverted back to the warm and wonderful (if slightly sozzled) co-star Andrews adored.

One of the book’s nicest surprises is the deep friendship Andrews and her husband, Tony Walton (an esteemed Broadway designer), developed with T.H. White, the author of The Once and Future King, the source material for Camelot. Tim, as Andrews called him, comes across as quite a character, especially when he tricks Andrews and Walton into buying a little house on his home island of Alderney.

Andrews admits that her account of My Fair Lady’s birth isn’t as thorough as Alan Jay Lerner’s On the Street Where You Live or Moss Hart’s Act One (one of the best theater books ever), but it’s fascinating to hear about it from her perspective as a young performer who feels she’s in way over her head.

My favorite passage in the book about what the theater means to Andrews. Here’s a taste:

Once in a while I experience an emotion onstage that is so gut-wrenching, so heart-stopping, that I could weep with gratitude and joy. The feeling catches and magnifies so rapidly that it threatens to engulf me.
It starts as a bass note, resonating deep in my system. Literally. It’s like the warmest, lowest sound from a contrabass. There is a sudden thrill of connection and an awareness of size – the theater itself, more the height of the great stage housing behind and above me, where history has been absorbed, where darkness contains mystery and meaning.

Reading her book made me adore Andrews even more – if that’s even possible. Now I’m anxious for the next volumes. I envision the second book concentrating on the ’60s, from Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music up through Darling Lili. This would, of course, take us through her divorce and her marriage to Blake Edwards. Volume 3 would deal with her TV work, her taking a break to concentrate on family, her reemergence in 10 and SOB and Victor/Victoria, her return to Broadway and the loss of her singing voice.

There’s still so much to tell. I hope she’s busy writing.

Here’s a treat: Carol Burnett, a great chum of Julie Andrews’, recalls her 1962 Carnegie Hall concert with Andrews and their spoof of The Sound of Music.

The girls meet the dogs on MTV’s “Legally Blonde the Musical: The Search for Elle Woods.”
Photo courtesy of MTV.

It’s Week 4 on MTV’s “Legally Blonde the Musical: The Search for Elle Woods,” and we started with eight girls and ended with six. By the end of this recap I’ll tell you who got dumped, so consider this a spoiler alert and stop reading now if you don’t want this less-than-earth-shattering news.

This week it’s all about bitches – not the girls – the dogs. In the musical (as in the Reese Witherspoon movie that inspired it), Elle Woods’ best friend is Bruiser, a little Chihuahua. So our contestants, under the tutelage of dog trainer Bill Berloni, learn how to interact with their four-legged co-stars. The best that can be said for this segment is this: at least the dogs are cute.

The winner of the dog “challenge” (seriously, the language of reality TV is nonsensical) is Autumn, who with pal Celina, is awarded quality time with Richard H. Blake, who plays Elle’s boyfriend, Warner, in the musical. This is the exact same pattern as all the previous episodes, and it’s BOOOOring.

Then comes the audition: the girls perform the number “Serious” opposite Blake. Rhiannon (who is charming when she isn’t slack-jawed), Lauren and Emma kick some serious butt. The episode’s only real drama came from Emma’s diagnosis of bronchitis. She proved what a trouper is as she performed her best-ever audition while sick as a dog. Now there’s some reality that has something to do with actual theater reality.

After last week’s snark fest, Cassie S. (right) was cruising for a bruising. After getting called out by her roommates for throwing them under the bus in front of the judges, poor little whiny Cassie admitted she doesn’t “do” girls. She doesn’t have girlfriends and doesn’t know how to talk to them. Poor thing. [SPOILER ALERT #2] She so deserved to be kicked off – not just because she’s a brat but because she would have been a terrible Elle Woods.

The surprise of the episode is that they ousted two girls instead of one, which meant San Francisco native Celina – much too alt-sexy to be Elle Woods – was booted as well.

The preview for next week’s episode looks juicy and tear filled. Check out music coach Seth Rudetsky’s video blog – it’s a hoot.

Here are the girls’ full performances of “Serious.”

For previous weeks recaps: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3

Tony Award-winning Minneapolis-based theater company Theatre de la Jeune Lune will cease to exist as we know it. And those of us in the Bay Area know it thanks to Jeune Lune’s frequent collaborations with Berkeley Repertory Theatre. The company was just here with its gorgeous production of Figaro, and now comes news that there will be “a planned significant reduction in artistic and administrative staff, effective July 31, 2008.” That last comes from the letter posted online by Jeune Lune board president Bruce Neary.

Artistic director Dominque Serrand (in the photo above, a scene from Figaro, which Serrand directed as well) also posted a letter explaining that for its first 14 years, Jeune Lune was an itinerant company, then, in 1992, the company purchased and renovated a warehouse space, creating their own theater. Here’s what Serrand had to say about that:

…we are faced with an excruciating decision. With the organization burdened by mounting and unmanageable debt, the Board of Directors has voted to put Jeune Lune’s home up for sale. After much soul searching and extensive fundraising and debt management efforts, we have determined it to be the only prudent and fiscally responsible choice. What has been acclaimed, as one of the most striking and unique theatre spaces in the country will go dark. It is a huge loss, a loss for us, for all of the artists who work with us, for our audience and for the community at large, both locally and nationally.

He goes on to describe the company’s last 30 years as “amazing” and says they never “sought nor desired to be an institution.” Rather, Jeune Lune attempted to exist in a playground in which to ” gather with other adventurous souls and create the unimaginable.”

Here’s more from Serrand:

The theatrical experience is an event truly of the moment — immediate, fleeting and ephemeral. Yet in the space of that moment something takes place that is transformative to the human spirit and remains indelible in our memory — the stuff that dreams are made of, the stuff we carry with us forever. We hope you will treasure well the memory of Jeune Lune.

For information visit www.jeunelune.org

As a critic at the Oakland Tribune and its sister newspapers, one of my greatest pleasures was instituting a teen theater critic internship, and it was my luck to launch the program with Leslie Ribovich, who was then a senior at Albany High School. For much of her final year in high school, she would accompany me to shows and write her own reviews, which than ran in the newspaper or online (or both).

Well, Leslie has finished her freshman year at a prestigious New York college, and while she’s home this summer, I asked and she graciously accepted my offer to be a Theater Dogs guest critic. It is my pleasure to present her work. (For my review of the show, click here.) She remains an astute observer and a wonderful writer.

Aurora’s Busy World Provokes Thought of Biblical Proportions

By Leslie Ribovich

You could label The Busy World is Hushed, currently at Aurora Theatre Company, as a political play with a strong message about the Episcopal Church’s relationship with homosexuality, but the designation would be misleading. Yes, the characters grapple with God and predestination, and yes, two of them are homosexual, in a church no less, but playwright Keith Bunin presents the issues far too complexly to take sides.

In a political play, you look for the point of view. In this play, it’s fragmented. We see three different points of view and wonder with whom the playwright agrees.

Is it Hannah (Anne Darragh) who has the first and last line of the play (often an indicator of point of view)? Hannah is an Episcopalian minister and seminary professor who is amazed by the idea that an infant could be the most powerful being, but also refers to “doe-faced Jesus-freaks from the Midwest.”

Or Brandt (Chad Deverman), an excellent writer with a dying father who is unqualified for the job of synthesizing Hannah’s research on an unearthed gospel into writing?

What about Thomas (an incredibly charismatic James Wagner), Hannah’s son named for the apostle, who heard gospels instead of bedtime stories and believes his mother is, “fully informed and yet swallows her own Kool Aid”?

What if all three of them say things that make a lot of sense? And then say things that we couldn’t disagree with more?

We don’t walk away from this play knowing what political stance the playwright is taking. That makes good political theatre because these issues aren’t black and white. Religious affiliation and belief in God address a fundamental part of human existence. The play thrives in sticky territory that must be dealt with gracefully and honestly, which Bunin and director Robin Stanton do.

Without a political or religious agenda laid out for us, the audience must think about the issues. And what’s theatre good for if it doesn’t make you think at least a little?

Bunin’s play is also satisfying dramatically. Hannah hires Brandt despite his inadequacies, (a move that more scatter-brained professor types could benefit from following). His religious views are in flux: the Bible was the first piece of writing that he “truly and consciously loved” and yet he questions whether religion is a desperate attempt to make death more bearable. He tells Hannah upfront that as a gay man, he feels at best queasy when faced with the church’s attitude toward homosexuality.

Thomas enters the scene covered in animal blood and “dried crap” immediately after Hannah explains that she despises stained glass because it epitomizes the self-important nonsense of Christianity and makes a mockery of motherhood (one of Bunin’s many clever juxtapositions). Thomas is happy when he notices Brandt “looking his way.”

So we’ve got two characters hard at work on Hannah’s book and the mysterious history therein; a romantic relationship with too many psychological and practical barriers to produce anything less than one big fight; and a mother/ son relationship with expectations of biblical proportions.

The heat is raised on the drama in certain scenes, even visually at the end of Act 1 when light designer Kurt Landisman goes for a Godlike, transcendent quality. The effect highlights the production’s melodramatic elements more than creates a religious metaphor, but it certainly excites you for Act 2.

The set has elegant stained glass windows for Hannah to deconstruct, boxes of Thomas’ deceased father’s things, and enough piles of books that when Brandt comments, how innovative to have a library without shelves, we laugh.

A large window overlooks a slightly out-of-focus, black-and-white photograph of New York’s upper west side. Set designer Eric E. Sinkkonen’s choice might indicate that the discussions in the playing space are timeless; they are somewhat removed from the outside world. The text takes a while to identify where they are geographically, and we might in fact like to know less about the city outside the church. When Bunin mentions “The Strand” and “NYU,” we wonder if the characters aren’t believable enough to live in the more ambiguous, slightly out-of-focus world that Sinkkonen creates.

This is political theater where the specific represents the big picture, or at least gets us wondering about it. After all, the big picture is nothing if we don’t understand how it affects people we know or can relate to. In The Busy World is Hushed, we do.

The actors are all fabulous – they’ve figured out the emotional nuances of their characters to a tee. I must say: after a year in New York, Bay Area theatre still tops my list. Even a show like this that shouldn’t necessarily be the-best-thing-I’ve-seen-all-year, feels so much more organic than anything I saw in New York. Kudos to the Aurora for creating risky, thought-provoking theatre.

For information about The Busy World is Hushed visit www.auroratheatre.org

Opened June 21, 2008 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts

The cast of TheatreWorks’ Snapshots creates scenes from the life of a married couple set to recycled Stephen Schwartz songs. Photos by David Allen

Stephen Schwartz songbook turns into Snapshots revue
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The idea of a musical revue was green before we even knew what green meant. Revues reuse and recycle, just as all good citizens should do.

We’ve had standard-issue revues along the lines of A Grand Night for Singing (Rodgers and Hammerstein), Jerry’s Girls (Jerry Herman), Cole! (Cole Porter),
Side by Side by Sondheim (Stephen Sondheim) in which shiny, happy people (usually too shiny and too happy for my taste) tap their troubles away with seemingly endless medleys clever twists on songs by great composers that we know and love.

Then there’s the jukebox musical (hello, Mamma Mia!), which recycles old songs (usually pop songs not written expressly for the theater) and shoehorns them into some semblance of a story, however awkward.

And then there’s Snapshots, the long-gestating revue of songs by Stephen Schwartz, the composer of Godspell, Pippin and Wicked to name a few of his better-known shows. This is a revue with jukebox aspirations, which is to say, songs from Schwartz’s shows from the last 30 years are forced into the service of an all-new story.

Conceived by Michael Scheman and David Stern, the show has been re-worked and refined right up through its most recent incarnation from Mountain View’s TheatreWorks. Schwartz and Stern (who gets final credit for the book) have been involved in this latest production, and the results are surprisingly good. IN theory, a cobbled together show like this shouldn’t work – it sounds unappealing.

But under director Robert Kelley’s care, there’s a real show here. Not everything works as Schwartz’s re-configured songs attempt to tell the story of how the marriage of Sue (Beth DeVries) and Dan (Ray Wills) has come to the breaking point, but some of the songs work beautifully, and some genuine feeling comes bubbling up.

Spun out in the attic (cluttered, useful set by Joe Ragey) of Sue and Dan’s Connecticut home, the story of the marriage is triggered by snapshots dating back to childhood when Dan, just after losing his mother, moves to the neighborhood and meets Sue, the woman who will be the love of his life.

In childhood the couple is played by Brian Crum and Courtney Stokes, and in the college to middle years by Michael Marcotte and Molly Bell. Everyone helps out by playing various other characters – lovers, friends, children (Crum even dons cheerleader drag) — to fill out the story.

One goal of any revue is to give audiences a concentrated sense of a composer’s life work. We should leave with a sense of who Stephen Schwartz is and what his musical palette has to offer. The overarching impression of Schwartz that comes through here is one of someone straddling two worlds: the pop-infused Broadway of the ’70s and ’80s (which can’t help sounding a little dated) and a more timeless musical theater sound.

Songs from Pippin and The Magic Show, for instance, even in new arrangements by Steve Orich (and under the musical direction of William Liberatore and his quartet), are strongly anchored in a hippie-ish pop, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s just very specific, while songs like “Popular” (from Wicked) and “In Whatever Time We Have” (from Children of Eden) still have Schwartz’s strong pop sensibility but connect to a bigger musical theater sound that helps them work better in this new context.

The best re-worked song is “Meadowlark” from The Baker’s Wife. Usually performed as a diva’s showstopper, the song in the context of Snapshots is performed by the three women in gorgeous harmony who are approaching the song from different places in their lives. It works so well, in fact, you wish the rest of the show could match its intensity.

Though there’s some emotional connection to the beleaguered married couple at the center of the story, our attachment to the individuals is lopsided. The woman, Sue, is far more interesting, and it’s hard to see what she ever saw in Dan and why she pined for him for so many years. The women get all the interesting songs, and as a result, the character of Dan doesn’t amount to much. In fact, one key moment, when Dan finally stops seeing Sue as a pal and recognizes his love for her simply happens – no defining moment, no song, nothing.

In the end, you have to wonder if all the futzing and fussing with old songs is really worth it in the telling of a new story. Wouldn’t a new Stephen Schwartz musical be more exciting than something recycled? Snapshots is perfectly enjoyable, well performed and staged, but it can’t help leave its audience wondering what lyrically and musically interesting things Schwartz still has to offer.

Snapshots continues through July 13 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View. Tickets are $26-$64. Call 650-903-6000 or visit www.theatreworks.org.

To keep up with Stephen Schwartz visit his Web site: www.stephenschwartz.com

Continues through July 26 at the Campbell Theatre, Martinez

Michael Scott Wells and Alexandra Creighton scare off Candarian demons in Evil Dead: The Musical, a Willows Theatre production at the Campbell Theatre in Martinez. Photos courtesy of Willows Theater.

Singing and bleeding in horror musical
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Adding the words “the musical” to a title is, in some cases, automatically funny. ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore: The Musical. Mein Kampf: The Musical. Spider-Man: The Musical. (Don’t laugh – that last one is real and coming to Broadway soon.)

So already, Evil Dead: The Musical has a leg up in the laugh department, albeit a dismembered, bloody leg.

Sam Raimi’s early ’80s gore fest splattered across movie and video screens through much of the decade, lending it cult status, spawning two sequels and making a sort-of star of Bruce Campbell and a budding blockbuster director of Raimi (who would go on to direct the Spider-Man franchise).

Whenever the word “cult” is attached to a movie, the musical stage version can’t be far behind. About two years ago, a group of Canadian kids – George Reinblatt (book, lyrics, music), Christopher Bond (music and additional lyrics), Frank Cipolla (music), Melissa Morris (music) and Rob Daleman (music) – decided to camp up the already campy comedy-horror film and turn it into an all-singing, all-dancing zombie fest. The show was a hit in Toronto, had a run off-Broadway and is now back in Toronto.

The musical finally makes it to the Bay Area courtesy of the Willows Theatre Company, who’s producing it in their Campbell Theatre, which is a spiffy cabaret-style space in downtown Martinez. The ironic thing is that years ago, this is the kind of outrageous, sensational show that people would come see in the big, bad city. But now these kinds of shows tend to spring up in the suburbs, and city folk have to make the trek.

Now to the review. In the immortal words of Ash, the hero of Evil Dead: “Yo, she-bitch. Let’s go.”

To read the complete review, click here.

Evil Dead: The Musical continues through July 26 at the Campbell Theatre, 636 Ward St., Martinez. Tickets are $30 for the splatter zone, $25 regular. Call 925-798-1300 or visit www.willowstheatre.org for information.