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The Ensemble Behind 'Kansas City Choir Boy'

Musical heavyweights Courtney Love and Todd Almond lead the cast of Kansas City Choir Boy, which plays at the Kirk Douglas Theatre through November 8, 2015, but this contemporary music-theatre work is very much an ensemble piece. Director Kevin Newbury gave us a glimpse into the extremely collaborative process of bringing Todd Almond’s music and...

The Ensemble Behind 'Kansas City Choir Boy'

The Hands are Alive with 'The Sound of Music'

In the new national tour of The Sound of Music, on stage at the Ahmanson Theatre through October 31, Maria teaches the von Trapp children to sing in perfect harmony in a matter of minutes—exactly the time it takes to sing the song “Do-Re-Mi” from start to finish. Not exactly realistic....

The Hands are Alive with 'The Sound of Music'

Making 'Something Good' a Little Bit Better

Nearly everyone knows The Sound of Music, and at any given night at the Ahmanson Theatre, where a new national tour is kicking off this fall, many audience members could probably sing along to every song. One might give them pause when it begins, however. Since this production is coming on the heels of Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella, which ha...

Making 'Something Good' a Little Bit Better

Blending, Bending Genres in 'Kansas City Choir Boy'

Rock operas have delighted listeners since the late 1960s, when The Who gave us Tommy, The Pretty Things released S.F. Sorrow, and the British band Nirvana (not that Nirvana) invented the genre with The Story of Simon Simopath. In the intervening decades, rock operas have increasingly found their way to the stage as theatricalized adaptations, such...

Blending, Bending Genres in 'Kansas City Choir Boy'

The Creating, Colliding, Cosmic Musical Worlds of ‘Popol Vuh: Heart of Heaven’

Part Mayan and Aztec, part electric, part rock opera, part mariachi, and part East L.A., the music of Popol Vuh: Heart of Heaven spans centuries and continents. So does the story it tells: the Mayan myth of the creation of the world. A collaboration between Center Theatre Group, famed Chicano theatre company El Teatro Campesino (ETC), and the Boyl...

The Creating, Colliding, Cosmic Musical Worlds of ‘Popol Vuh: Heart of Heaven’

The Man Behind the Music

Inner Circle members received a rare glimpse into the orchestra pit of the Ahmanson Theatre at the Inner Circle’s most recent Up Close Dialogue as producing director Doug Baker sat down with Jay Alger, the music director of Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Up Close Dialogues are opportunities for members of the Inner Circle to hear Cent...