LITTLE ME
Monday, April 18th, 2011
Take music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Carolyn Leigh, and a book by Neil Simon and what do you get?
You get Little Me, a 1962 Broadway gem that starred Sid Caesar in a septet of roles, scored ten Tony nominations (winning one for Bob Fosse’s choreography), closed way too soon due mostly to a newspaper strike, then toured the country with most of its original cast, its L.A. run one of the earliest musicals seen by a certain Steven Stanley just a year into his teens.
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ONE TOUCH OF VENUS
Monday, February 7th, 2011
Sparkling performances and Richard Israel’s deft direction make One Touch Of Venus, Musical Theatre Guild’s latest revival, a delightful 1940s bonbon.
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HELLO AGAIN
Monday, November 8th, 2010
Michael John LaChiusa’s Hello Again has inspired Musical Theatre Guild’s very best production since 2009’s two-in-a-row stagings of Kiss Of The Spider Woman and Violet. Under Michele Spears’ inspired direction and starring ten of the country’s finest musical theater talents, this seductive chamber musical, based on Arthur Schnitzler’s 1897 classic La Ronde, proved again that when MTG members and guest artists have the right material, their “concert staged readings” can the equal the very best fully staged productions in town.
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70, GIRLS, 70
Monday, September 20th, 2010John Kander and Fred Ebb had already had considerable success with Flora The Red Menace, Cabaret, The Happy Time, and Zorba when 70, Girls, 70 made its Broadway debut in 1971. Still, not even the renown of their four previous musicals could save their latest show from a quick 35 performance demise. In fact, 70, Girls, 70 vanished so quickly into obscurity that probably only the most avid Broadway buffs are even aware of its existence—Broadway buffs and the Musical Theatre Guild, which has as one of its missions to rescue flops like 70, Girls, 70 from obscurity.
DAS BARBECÜ
Monday, June 14th, 2010
Musical Theatre Guild concluded its 2009-10 season with a one-night-only concert staged reading of Das Barbecü, a show you’ve probably never heard of before, but one that proved a delightful discovery.
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IRMA LA DOUCE
Monday, April 19th, 2010For the past fourteen years, Los Angeles theatergoers have been thanking their lucky stars for Musical Theatre Guild and its prodigiously talented members. If it weren’t for MTG, Southland musical theater lovers would have missed out on seeing such forgotten Broadway gems as Fade Out – Fade In, High Spirits, Seesaw, As Thousands Cheer, It’s A Bird … It’s A Plane … It’s Superman, and Street Scene, and that’s just in the last four seasons. Even when the show being revived is perhaps best left forgotten, like September’s Stop The World – I Want To Get Off, MTG subscribers are guaranteed sensational performances by Broadway and regional theater vets at the top of their game.
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HIGH SPIRITS
Monday, February 22nd, 2010
For a musical based on the oft-revived Noël Coward comedy Blithe Spirit—and one that got eight Tony Award nominations to boot—you’d think that 1964’s High Spirits would have ended up a perennial CLO favorite. Somehow it didn’t, thereby making it ideal for one of Musical Theatre Guild’s concert staged readings of lesser known Broadway hits and misses. High Spirits’ one-performance-only production on Monday proved not only the rightness of the choice, but also that this is a show which deserves considerably more recognition than has been the case. With absolutely stellar work by its four leads and its superb direction by the multi-talented Richard Israel, MTG’s High Sprits had its audience in high, high spirits indeed.
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FADE OUT – FADE IN
Monday, November 9th, 2009
When was the last time you saw a production of the 1964 Jule Styne-Betty Comden & Adolph Green musical Fade Out – Fade In? Have you ever even heard of Fade – Out Fade In?
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