Shari Barrett News

For seventeen years, the teaching artists of the Actors’ Gang Prison Project have been creating transformational opportunities for incarcerated men and women. Their latest workshop production, (Im)migrants of the State, is performed by an ensemble of their alumni with over 240 years of combined incarceration who have found their way to freedom and now want to share their stories with audiences. I decided to speak with its co-directors, Jeremie Loncka, who also serves as the Director of Programs for the Actors’ Gang’s Prison Project, and ensemble member Rich Loya, about their vision for the project and how it came into being with the two of them at the helm.

The soon-to-open production of the Neil Simon musical Little Me at Manhattan Beach Community Church Theater (MBCC), the longest running theater in the South Bay since 1956, is directed by Paula Kelley with choreography by Angela Asch. Originally scheduled to open in the Spring of 2020, I decided to speak with the director about the production’s three-year delay and how she envisions presenting a musical full of comic vignettes featuring such a large cast, especially since it was written specifically for Sid Caesar to play multiple roles as all the heroine’s husbands and lovers.

Top stories: Sweeney Todd officially began previews on Broadway this weekend, the 2023 Obie Awards will be held tonight, and more! Read more about these and other top stories here!

Back in 2015, I caught a solo performance play Mutant Olive, created and performed by Mitch Hara. I decided to speak with him about his revamped play, Mutant Olive 2.0, soon to begin performance at the Hudson Theatre in Hollywood, to ask about the new show, it’s title, and what’s been going on during the 8 years since Mutant Olive in its original form premiered.

BroadwayWorld spoke with Kari Hayter, a professional director and educator based in Southern California, who is directing tick, tick… BOOM! for International City Theatre in Long Beach, running February 17 through March 5, on her vision for the production and how its themes speak to not only artists but everyone reaching to achieve their dreams.

Herman's Hermits featuring lead singer Peter Noone formed in Manchester in 1964 and then took the world by storm during the Beatles-inspired British Invasion era. The group's success continues internationally, with the group touring to entertain not only fans from the 1960s but their children and grandchildren as well. So when I heard Herman's Hermits was set to appear at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills on January 27, I decided to speak with Peter about the group's beginning and how life on the road has kept the band going for so many years.

The DAY AFTER DAY musical shares the dramatic personal life story of Doris Day through her music, including many of her hit songs: Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, Sentimental Journey, Secret Love, It’s Magic, A Guy is a Guy, and Que Sera Sera. Since her popularity turned Doris Day into America’s Sweetheart in the days before the ever-present internet and cell phones, were you ever as curious as I was as to who the real Doris Day was after the cameras stopped rolling? And what does it take to bring such a beloved and well-known icon to the stage? I decided to speak with Deborah Robin about her devotion to the star and the role to find out.

Anzu Lawson is gearing up to debut her second one-woman show, The Rub, inspired by her 30-minute single camera comedy pilot about her life as a stand-up comic who secretly pays her bills by being every Asian mother's worst nightmare... a masseuse. I first met Anzu when she was performing as Yoko Ono during the 2014 Hollywood Fringe Festival, a role she inhabits with her entire body, heart and soul. So it makes perfect sense that The Rub debuts on Yoko Ono’s 90th birthday on Saturday, February 18 at 8pm as part of Whitefire Theatre's Solofest 2023. Here's my interview with her about the show.

ArtsUP! LA is presenting the world premiere of Volun-Tears, a powerful play by Korean War Veteran Lester Probst, based on the true experiences of women who have suffered sexual harassment and sexual abuse while serving in the United States Armed Forces, performed by U.S. Veterans. I decided to speak with Lester Probst on what inspired him to write the play and what message he hopes to instill in audience members to start the road to achieving equality within the ranks of our military, especially for women.

The Actors' Gang is excited to present their family friendly holiday show, Shambles, an unbridled concoction of seasonal charm and sassy cunning all rolled up in a cirque-infused panto, blurring the lines between audience and performers. When I read that this immersive experience will drop theater goers into a 60's NASA holiday party complete with alien abductions, ugly Christmas sweaters, and free-flowing champagne offered as theatergoers meander through curated rooms of wonder, I knew I had to speak with the production's creator and director, Cirque du Soleil's Stefan Haves about his vision to bring such fun family fare to the stage.

Tanya Thomas celebrates the many definitions of beauty in Naturally Tan, her award-winning, one-woman seriocomic play, performed Saturday, December 10 at 5:00pmiIn the Soaring Solo Stars Series at the Zephyr Theatre.

Jim Leonard has published eight plays, including The Diviners, And They Dance Real Slow in Jackson, and Battle Hymn, with his theatrical honors including the Outer Critics Circle Award, an Ovation Award, the Dramatists Guild Award, and an LA Weekly Award for best play.

John Mabey's three-person play A Complicated Hope centers around Marie and her daughter Rose Marie who are left adrift after their husband and father, Michael, passes away. But it's how he leaves that alters the lives of the family forever, especially after they meet Arnie, Michael's boyfriend. Mirroring the erratic path of grief itself, A Complicated Hope flashes between the moments in time that changed them all, exploring the challenges of both finding a family of choice and letting yourself be found. Earlier this year, Kentwood Players presented a reading of Mabey's play in which Shawn Lefty Plunkett portrayed the role of Arnie. I was curious to find out what led to his decision to produce the fully-staged West Coast premiere of A Complicated Hope as well as take on the role of Arnie again.

As an early holiday present for opera lovers, On November 12 and 13, the Verdi Chorus’ 39th season culminates with a Verdi Puccini Fest for two performances only at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica. Under the direction of Founding Artistic Director Anne Marie Ketchum, who promises the program will include “some of the most exciting moments from two of the greatest operatic composers who ever lived,” I decided to speak with her on its inception, creation, and what makes the Verdi Chorus such a special part of our city.

A serial killer's backstory always seems to fascinate people more so than that of their prey. But what is it about these vicious murderers that inspires works of art being written about them? That question popped into my head when I heard about the West Coast premiere of Cyndy A. Marion's play Broken Story, which was inspired by the murder of writer Susan Berman and her close relationship with serial killer Robert Durst. I knew I wanted to find out what inspired Cyndy to create the play and how she conducted her research.

Tony Award winning playwrights Edward Albee and Harold Pinter, who have left indelible marks in world theatre, both give voice to the outlandish and amusing behavior of humans in many of their dark comedies. Pacific Resident Theatre is offering a retrospective of two of their early one acts in tandem, both first produced in 1960. Albee's Fam and Yam, set in an upper Eastside penthouse, examines an encounter between two unnamed playwrights, one famous, one not, offering Albee's biting wit and incisive satire at its best. In Pinter's The Dumb Waiter, two working-class hitmen wait in a basement for their next assignment. I decided to speak with Pacific Resident Theatre's Artistic Director, Marilyn Fox, about the production.

Even though I was very young, I still remember the tension in the air at school and at home during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. And just today, news of the current Cold War going on between Russia and the rest of the world regarding Ukraine, with even Elon Musk warning the world about possible nuclear war breaking out. So it seems very fortuitous that Peter Knell and Stephanie Fleischmann have created a heart-stopping experience set in a submarine during the crisis of 1962. Their new opera ARKHIPOV is based on the true story of the man who saved humanity from nuclear annihilation during a tipping point between Russia and the United States in the Cuban Missile Crisis. But what motivated them to create an opera about such a terrifying moment in world history? I decide to speak with them and find out.

Open Fist Theatre Company is presenting the world premiere of To the Bone, a darkly funny comedy about family, baseball, and genetics, written and directed by Catherine Butterfield. The play centers on sisters Kelly Moran and Maureen Dugan from the 'Irish Riviera' south of Boston, where they were known as 'hard girls' back in high school. And since the adage says that it's better to write about the things you know, I decided to ask Catherine Butterfield about how much of her own personal life is reflected in the play and what it's like to write and direct it herself.

Carla Ching is among the first three recipients to win the Los Angeles New Play Project Award, which supports playwriting and producing in smaller Los Angeles theaters. Her new play, Revenge Porn or the Story of a Body, opening September 23 at The Pico, directed by Bernardo Cubría for Ammunition Theatre Company, was originally developed as part of the 2021 Ammo Writers' Lab. It takes a very public look into the private lives of people who hurt the ones they love most, and how or if revenge should be taken to offset the pain. I decided to speak with Carla Ching about the play and how it was developed for its world premiere.

Odyssey Theatre Ensemble is presenting the Los Angeles premiere of what may be Henrik Ibsen's most controversial play, Ghosts, adapted by acclaimed British director Richard Eyre and directed by Bart DeLorenzo, a Los Angeles-based theater director and producer who is the founding artistic director of the Evidence Room theater, a 17-year-old company renowned in Los Angeles for contemporary theater productions. I decided to speak with Bart about what led him to direct this new adaptation at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble.