INTERVIEW: LAURA WILEY BY RYAN M. LUÉVANO America’s favorite show to binge watch, Game of Thrones is taking the stage in Winter is Coming: A Musical Parody, produced by Make Believe Stage Productions, at the Hollywood Fringe Festival this June 2016. This original musical farce follows the Starks, Lannisters and Targaryens through Season One/Book One of Game of […]

Interview with director MICHAEL SHEPPERD About Celebration Theatre’s Production of The Boy from Oz BY RYAN M. LUÉVANO This April (2016) Los Angeles’ very own Celebration Theatre at the Lex in association with Nicholas Caprio, Michael C. Kricfalusi, Todd Milliner and Jack Morrissey will present, under the artistic direction of Michael Matthews and Michael Shepperd, the […]

INTERVIEW: JOHN BOLEN BY RYAN M. LUÉVANO I remember sitting at a Conundrum Theatre Company play committee session in January to read the over twenty original plays that were submitted. The rule was: We’ll read only the first ten pages to get a sense of the work, then we’ll move on to the next play. Before […]

INTERVIEW: TODD NIELSEN BY RYAN M. LUÉVANO International City Theatre opens its 2016 season with the updated musical revue Closer Than Ever by Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire. The musical is an Outer Critics Circle Award winner for Best off-Broadway Musical that also netted Drama Desk nominations for lyricist Maltby and Shire. This productions is directed and choreographed by Todd Nielsen, marking Nielsen’s […]

INTERVIEW: SAM HARRIS BY RYAN M. LUÉVANO Sam Harris, multi-million selling recording artist, Tony nominated Broadway/television actor, playwright, composer, and director brings audiences memories and stories from his life in a wonderful musical format. Ham: A Musical Memoir, now Ovation reccomended, plays at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Renberg Theatre until February 7, 2016. Here is […]

INTERVIEW: Caroline Sherman and Robert Hull BY RYAN M. LUÉVANO Co-creators Caroline Sherman and Robert Hull began the tall order of writing Empire the musical in 1999, a show recounting the struggle to design and build the world’s tallest Skyscraper during the Great Depression. Since its creation Empire has been performed and work-shopped all over […]

INTERVIEW: Janet Schlapkohl, Playwright Last year Janet Schlapkohl’s play My Sister, starring identical twins Emily and Elizabeth Hinkler, directed by Paul David Story, made its West Coast premiere at the Hollywood Fringe Festival where it won two awards. Schlapkohl wrote the play with then-theater department students Emily (Magda) and Elizabeth (Matilde) in mind at the University of […]

Sexual-Spiritual Healer: Dr. Stephanie Torres BY RYAN M. LUÉVANO What do you get if you mix Kundalini yoga and sexology? What you get is Dr. Stephanie Torres, Holistic Sexologist, who uses a body, mind, and spirit approach to healthy sexuality. And if you mix Dr. Torres with musical theater, then what you get is a […]

The Wrecking Ball Stops Here! By RYAN M LUÉVANO Behind every fading marquee, lone box office, empty stage and dusty lifeless lobby is Escott O. Norton—designer, executive director of the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation (LAHTF) and founder of the Friends of the Rialto, who’s fascination for historic theatres has transformed into relentless stewardship for […]

On Hollywood: Composers, Directors, Studios & Cinema   By RYAN M. LUÉVANO  The Composers When you think of the “Golden Age” of film composers, you think of the likes of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Miklos Rozsa, Dimitri Tiomkin — many of whom had emigrated from war-torn Europe and found their way to Hollywood. “Silver Age” composers are […]