My love of things Disney is no secret, so imagine what a thrill it was to get a chance to talk with Disney songwriter Richard M. Sherman about his long-running rift with songwriting partner and brother Robert B. Sherman and about the just-released documentary about their lives and careers, The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story, [...]
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A jolly holiday with the Sherman Brothers
Posted by Chad Jones on 23 May 09 - 1 Comment
Warm and fuzzy: `Working for the Mouse’ evolves
Archived in the category: Disney, Disneyland, Impact Theatre, Kent Nicholson, Trevor Allen, local theater, playwrights
Posted by Chad Jones on 14 Apr 09 - 1 Comment
A man of character, Trevor Allen decided to put his character life behind him.
Having detailed what it’s really like to work as a costumed character in Disneyland in his popular solo show Working for the Mouse, Allen made a conscious decision to focus on his burgeoning career as a playwright. Mouse, under the direction of [...]
GrooveLily’s Milburn, Vigoda tune up a new musical `Story’
Posted by Chad Jones on 02 Dec 08 - 1 Comment
Husband-and-wife team Brendan Milburn and Valerie Vigoda follow up the success of Striking 12 with a new two-person musical, Long Story Short, a TheatreWorks production now at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto.
The last time we got into the GrooveLily groove was about four years ago when TheatreWorks produced the group’s terrific holiday show/concert, [...]
Review: `Stephen Schwartz and Friends’
Archived in the category: Alan Menken, Broadway, Broadway by the Bay, Debbie Gravitte, Disney, Liz Callaway, Scott Coulter, Stephen Schwartz, local theater, musicals, theater review
Posted by Chad Jones on 08 Nov 08 - 4 Comments
Out of the ruins and rubbleOut of the smokeOut of our night of struggleCan we see a ray of hope?One pale thin ray reaching for the dayWe can build a beautiful cityYes, we can; Yes, we can …
Friday night at the San Mateo Performing Arts Center, Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz diverged from his set list [...]
High School Musical 3: Senior moments
Archived in the category: Chucky Klapow, Corbin Bleu, Disney, Grease 2, High School Musical, Kenny Ortega, Vanessa Hudgens, Zac Efron, movie musicals
Posted by Chad Jones on 29 Oct 08 - 2 Comments
Perhaps it’s a sign that I’m old and have bad taste, but Disney’s High School Musical 3: Senior Year kept reminding of my favorite bad movie musical of all time: Grease 2.
You’ve got a story that goes nowhere, a primary romantic couple that hits a few road blocks but ends up together, a cap-tossing graduation [...]
`Rocky Horror’ time warps again, Living Word lives, Mickey skates
Archived in the category: Disney, Living Word, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Ray of Light Theatre, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Youth Speaks, theater news
Posted by Chad Jones on 17 Oct 08 - 0 Comments
It’s a Bay Area autumn weekend. The weather is gorgeous and you should be out in the world enjoying various entertainments. And entertainments are never more varied than they are in the Bay Area.
HORRORS! IT’S ROCKY!
Just in time for revving up Halloween spirits, Ray of Light Theatre opens The Rocky Horror Show tonight (Friday, Oct. [...]
Disney hatches a `High School Musical’ flop
Posted by Chad Jones on 18 Aug 08 - 1 Comment
The Walt Disney Company never has handled success very well. Surprisingly, abundance of imagination can lead to a hit, then absence of imagination can kill it dead.
Look no further than the “High School Musical” franchise. What started out as a cheap little TV movie one-off has turned into a pop culture behemoth, spawning a hugely [...]
Robots in love: WALL-E meets `Dolly’
Archived in the category: Disney, Jerry Herman, Michael Crawford, Pixar, Thornton Wilder, WALL-E, movie musicals, movies, musicals
Posted by Chad Jones on 09 Jul 08 - 2 Comments
Not only is Pixar’s WALL-E an extraordinary movie – it’s also, in its strange way, a paean to musical theater.
You just don’t head into a computer-animated film set in the 2100s to feature tunes by the great Jerry Herman, but that’s exactly what you get. WALL-E is about a soulful little robot, one of the [...]
Ramping up to the Tony Awards
Archived in the category: A Chorus Line, Broadway, Disney, In the Heights, Laurie Metcalf, Mario Lopez, Mel Brooks, Passing Strange, Patrick Stewart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, South Pacific, Steppenwolf Theatre, The Little Mermaid, The View, Tony Awards, Tracy Letts, Whoopi Goldberg, Xanadu, Young Frankenstein, awards, musicals, plays, theater news
Posted by Chad Jones on 11 Jun 08 - 1 Comment
This Sunday, the Tony Awards will be handed out.
Here’s what you need to know (and get busy organizing your Tony party — we’ve got to get those dismal ratings out of the basement so CBS will continue broadcasting the darn things).
For the first time, there will be pre-ceremony Tony Concert chock full of juicy musical [...]
Tours, tours everywhere
Archived in the category: Broadway, David Hyde Pierce, Disney, Kander and Ebb, Rent, musicals, theater news
Posted by Chad Jones on 22 May 08 - 2 Comments
We still don’t know what’s in store for the new SHN/Best of Broadway season (announcement to be made soon). But news out of New York is that there are all kinds of tours heading out on the road that may or may not be coming San Francisco way.
One of those tours is Disney’s Mary Poppins. [...]
