Hollywood Gothique

Reviews of plays, musicals, and other live shows.

Wicked Lit continues with performances on November 8-10. This October’s incarnation of the Halloween Theatre Festival retains the spooky strengths manifested in previous years while adding a few new ingredients to the witch’s brew. Once again, a trio of terrifying one-act plays is presented within the Mountain View Mausoleum and Cemetery. This season, there is a bit more playful interactivity with the “Story Guides,” who keep the audience on the right track and then play (sometimes unexpected) roles in the dramas themselves. Wicked Lit also serves up brief mini-performances (poetry readings and storytelling) between the main courses, creating the theatrical equivalent of an elaborate French meal, with multiple entrees separated by appetizing hors d’oeuvre.

Dates: October 21 through November 5
Location: Mountain View Mausoleum and Cemetery, 2300 N. Marengo Avenue, Altadena, California
Wicked Lit’s innovative productions – based on the works of Poe, Lovecraft, Dickens, etc – fully immerse the audience in different times and locations, creating a unique brand of shuddery entertainment, quite distinct from other Halloween events in Los Angeles.

Location: The Comedy Store, 8433 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Dates: October 8, 15, 22, 29 at midnight
Last night, the Comedy Store offered up the debut of a new attraction for Halloween 2010: Haunted Midnights, a combination of video, live performance, and a nocturnal tour of the premises. This is not a standard Halloween attraction, with a maze and monsters. The pitch is that the Comedy Store is one of the most authentically haunted locations in Los Angeles, at least in part due to its association, decades ago, with some high-profile organized crime figures, who may have rubbed out the occasional victim on the premises; the evening promises seances, paranormal research, haunted tales, and proof. Skeptics will not be surprised to learn that you do not receive the last item, nor is there a seance. Nevertheless, Haunted Midnights turns out to be a fun and fascinating piece of late-night entertainment that (if all goes well) promises to become a traditional Halloween event for years to come.

Early this week we got one of two performances of iGhostat the NoHo Arts Center in North Hollywood. Although billed as a “new” musical, this updated adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s story “The Canterville Ghost” has actually been knocking around for a few years, at least according to one announcement made before the performance. The performance at NoHo was a staged reading, without sets or costumes – which is a bit disappointing, because one of the joys of the Arts Center (one of the best local theatres in Los Angeles) is the clever way they utilize their limited space (as in their production of Dracula earlier this year); however, the major of the story is conveyed through song, so even without the theatrical trappings, the cast managed to bring this ghost to life.

Fifty-five years after first appearing in THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON – modestly budgeted but moody monster movie – the Gill Man made his singing debut this morning at Universal Studios Hollywood. The facility that housed the Dracula stage show decades ago is now home to “The Creature from the Black Lagoon: A Raging, [...]

This is the last weekend to see the Boston Court Theatre’s premiere production of Courting Vampires, a play by Laura Schellhardt. I mentioned the play previously because I moderated a panel after the Thursday, May 21 performance, which featured guests David Ska (V is for Vampire) and Del Howison (Dark Delicacies). If you haven’t made it out yet, you really should give this one a chance.

Since the NoHo Arts Center has extended their stage production of DRACULA until April 26, I wanted to bump up my review of the production for those who haven’t seen it and are still considering whether to attend. This is a revamped version of the old play by Hamilton Dean and John L. Balderston – [...]

Well, after watching the very first public performance of the stage musical version of THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR (reviewed here), I made the experience a perfect circle by catching the very last performance at the NoHo Arts Center this afternoon.
Most of the tiny flubs I mentioned in the initial review had been fixed: Mrs [...]

Just caught the Saturday matinee performance of WICKED at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. This is the touring production of the hit Broadway musical, which opened here yesterday, Friday, June 17.
The lavish production is absolutely stunning, and the Pantages is the perfect theatre for it (the intricately adorned interior looks a bit like Oz all [...]

The debut performance of THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR, a new stage musical written by James J. Mellon, with songs by Scott DeTurk and Bill Francoeur, drew a standing ovation from the cozy 100-plus seat NoHo Arts Center Theatre on Thursday, May 26. Not only was the play itself quite charming — alternately amusing, romantic, [...]