Funny, pathetic and utterly damaged Judy Garland in ‘End’

This is divas who doped themselves to death week in Los Angeles. Sunday 17 March 2013, the upbeat “One Night with Janis Joplin” opened with a block party with Mary Bridget Davies projecting the impish charm and belting out the blazing vocals of Joplin. Joplin’s will actually funded a party and so the Pasadena Playhouse’s block party seemed fitting. Wednesday night (20 March 2013), Tracie Bennett as Judy Garland in “End of the Rainbow” at the Ahmanson, was by turns playful, pathetic and funny despite a surprisingly foul mouth. Bennett’s Garland is broke, heavily addicted to everything and in love with the wrong guy and desperate to be the center of attention. Bennett’s seamless performance is well-worth seeing for many reasons.

Being the center of attention differs from being loved. The play begins by re-uniting Garland (Bennett) with one of her pianists, Anthony (Michael Cumpsty) at the London Ritz Hotel in December of 1968. Anthony is politely gay and in love with Garland as many gay men are. Garland is in love with the testy younger man, Mickey Deans (Miles Anderson).

When she enters the hotel, she is fashionably thin and complaining that somehow the hotel is smaller or her room is smaller. Garland at this stage has already been married and divorced four times. She and Deans have just become engaged. She is exuberant, but only until she needs her drugs and then Bennett’s Garland defines the word mercurial. She clever, imperious, simpering, playfully pouting and childishly needly and yet always manages to be charming, or charming enough at just the right time. She’s a practiced addict who knows how to wheedle and manipulate people, particularly people who need her to perform where once it was people who gave her the drugs to make her perform.

Deans had previously been a jazz piano player and a club owner. He was 12 years younger than Garland, tall and darkly handsome. The attraction is there and we understand what Judy Garland wants, and what Deans needs–he’s practical and he’s not used to owing money and believes he can manage a clever, well-practiced addict. Garland proves him wrong. Garland changes ploys and personality quicker than she changes her shoes.

The play shows the wild ramblings of Garland–a woman who can’t recall the questions she’s being asked and sometimes leaves the stage temperamentally to take a taxi to find more drugs. Unlike the Janis Joplin play, we see the effects of Garland’s addiction and her tragic road to an early death. Peter Quilter’s script is wildly demanding and Bennett is up to the challenge, transforming herself into a sly, manipulative woman, desperate to get what she wants. It’s as if Garland is channeling all her talent, all her intelligence and charm into being an almost functioning addict.

Director Terry Johnson adeptly keeps a whirlwind pace between Bennett’s quick personality changes. Bennett’s Garland seems young and old at the same time. Michael Cumpsty as someone who has watched Garland’s slow descent into a tormented always acting actor is touching and his Anthony has the best lines, providing comic relief. Erik Heger as the future last-husband has a thankless role, but Johnson doesn’t have him play it as a villainous gold digger. Heger’s Mickey Deans is a solid guy up against a genius of manipulation who wears him down into being her enabler.

What we don’t see in Quilter’s script is Garland as a mother. In 1968, Garland’s daughter Liza Minnelli was 22. Minnelli would be filming the 1969 movie “The Sterile Cuckoo.” Lorna Luft, Garland’s daughter with Sid Luft, would have been 16. Lorna and her brother Joey were 14 and 12 respectively when they shared a month-long engagement with Garland at the Broadway Palace Theatre in 1967 for one month.

Garland would marry Mickey Deans 15 March 1969; her divorce from husband number 4 Mark Herron was finalized in January of that same year. Not much is said in this play, but Garland and Deans were reportedly caught by Herron together and Garland’s infidelity was the reason for the divorce. Garland would be dead by 22 June 1969.

Fans of Garland, warts and wallowing in alcohol and all, will want to rush and get tickets. If you prefer the fantasy of the Judy Garland as a star as preserved by the silver screen, then stay well away. For some incredible moments of theater or as a fan of Hollywood history, Bennett’s performance in “End of the Rainbow” is a must see.  ”End of the Rainbow” continues until 21 April 2013 at the Ahmanson.

Tickets for “End of the Rainbow” are available by calling (213) 972-4400, visiting online at www.CenterTheatreGroup.org, or in person at the Center Theatre Group box office at the Ahmanson Theatre. Tickets range from $20 – $110 (ticket prices are subject to change). The Ahmanson Theatre is located at the Music Center, 135 N. Grand Avenue in Downtown L.A. 90012.

Before they were the Beatles

With only Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr left, fans no longer hope for a reunion. What an amazing ride they had, but before they were the Fab Four, they were a different set of lads: John Lennon, George Harrison, Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe. Although billed as “Backbeat: The Birth of the Beatles” this stage play with music mainly focuses on the love story–the bromance between Lennon and Sutcliffe and the standard hetero-romance between Sutcliffe and German photographer Astrid Kirchherr. “Backbeat” is making its U.S. premiere at the Ahmanson and continues until March 1.

Sutcliffe (Nick Blood) is sometimes called the fifth Beatle ,and unlike Pete Best (Oliver Bennett) who was summarily dumped by the group (portrayed at the end of this play), his departure was voluntary. Sutcliffe met Lennon (Andrew Knott) at art school and they were roommates. While Lennon was a talented musician, he was not a first-rate artist. On the other hand, Sutcliffe was a gifted painter, but only an adequate bass player.

Lennon looked up to Sutcliffe and wanted to take his best friend along on a wild ride that would become the Beatles. To an extent, despite or because of the horrific conditions of their first Hamburg trip, the group became more cohesive. Yet the pull of art and Lennon’s affection for Sutcliffe took the focal point away from the creative center of Lennon and McCartney. Kirschherr (Leanne Best0 wasn’t exactly Yoko Ono, but she forces Sutcliffe to realize what’s important to him–art and love.

“Backbeat” is based on the Universal Pictures Films of the same name, written by Iain Softley, Michael Thomas and Stephen Ward. Softley and Stephen Jeffreys adapted the story for stage and the play is both concert and tribute band to the Beatles. Director David Leveaux with musical supervisor Paul Stacey begins and keeps the pace with a driving beat.

Don’t expect anything deep here. These are lads having fun, before the boys took on a more professional demeanor in dress and on-stage patter. There is enough to suggest what came later. Not just the success, but the sometimes contentious creative relationship between McCartney and Lennon as well as Lennon’s attraction to established artist Yoko Ono and McCartney’s insistence that Linda, negligible musician and singer that she was, be on stage with him.

“Backbeat” is meant to stimulate your intellect–not even in terms of the relationship between art, music and artists, but “Backbeat” want to motivate you out of your seat. This is theater meant to get your feet tapping to the beat and your hands clapping to the music. The show, a Kark Sydow production in association with the Glasgow Citizens Theatre, has a fun soundtrack and at the end, you’ll have the opportunity to do a little dancing. You might want to storm the stage, but  it’s not that kind of show. “Backbeat” is making its U.S. premiere at the Ahmanson and continues until March 1. If you enjoy the music of the early Beatles and that general time era, definitely take time to feel the “Backbeat” of the Beatles.

Take a cruise to Cole Porter elegance

Do you dream of taking a cruise to those more elegant times that Cole Porter tunes immortalized in the sassy, flirty musical, “Anything Goes”? With the Music Center Theatre Group’s Eileen Roberts as your social director, get on board this special New Year’s Eve-Eve cruise for a night of dinner, theater and dessert and dancing–all for a mere $98.

What will $98 get you? First, dressed in your holiday festive best, you’ll have an early dinner (4 p.m. to 6 p.m.) at the elegant supper club First & Hope. Don’t worry. You won’t need Dramamine  on this cruise, nor will you need a microscope to see the food nor a metrosexual to explain it to you. First & Hope serves upscale comfort food: jambalaya, black truffle macaroni and cheese, roasted rosemary garlic chicken au jus, Coca Cola braised short rib and grilled seasonal vegetables. Carefully selected white and red wines are included in the meal. Some hunky dancing sailors and a few other cast are scheduled to mingle. What would a cruise be without special guests or celebrities?

From there, you’ll walk to the 6:30 p.m. evening show of “Anything Goes” and sit in $100 mezzanine seats.

Fans of the movie musical may also been surprised, but remember Hollywood often changes original musicals plot. In this case, Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse’s original book has been revised by Howard Lindsay and John Weidman. Yet “Anything Goes” has a history of revisions so purists shouldn’t be offended. The 1962 off-Broadway revival was revised, influenced by the movies. More Cole Porter songs were added such as “It’s De-Lovely” from “Red Hot and Blue” and “Friendship” from “DuBarry Was a Lady.”

The Tony Award-winning 1987 Broadway revival changed the order of some of the musical numbers and re-scored the music. It’s the revival of this 1987 version (which starred Patti Lupone) that opened on Broadway in 2011 with Sutton Foster playing Reno Sweeney. Foster went on to win a Tony for Best Actress. Rachel York takes Foster’s place on the national tour and her  Sweeney has plenty of glamour and she was able to muddle through a few technical problems with the microphones on opening night (for my full review)

After the curtain closes, you’ll head on back to First & Hope for post-show beverages and desserts. Pair your champagne, tea or coffee with brownies, sugar cookies, profiteroles, peppermint marshmallows and a chocolate fountain. Cast members are expected to attend as well.

First & Hope’s swank Bar Fedora will have music to call you to the dance floor. The original drawings from the estate of the show’s costume designer Martin Pakledinaz will be on display. If that inspired you to find your inner glamour girl or channel the old Hollywood debonair air of say, Cary Grant, why not go tux and bow tie?

You don’t have to get all dolled up or dandified to attend. Holiday festive is requested. Dinner, delightful dancing and singing on-stage and the possibility of romance off-stage–what more can you ask as part of your New Year’s festivities?

For $98 what could be more delightful and delovely?  For more information, contact your social director for New Year’s Eve-Eve, Eileen Roberts at (213) 972-7249. The event is for adults. Parking is available at the Music Center parking lot off Grande Ave. for an additional fee of $9.

Angelenos should all go to ‘Anything Goes’

After seeing opening night of “Anything Goes” at that Ahmanson, I’m still humming the tunes this morning. In these dark economic times this top notch Roundabout Theatre Company production is a great pick me up.

If you’re a fan of the movies, you might be a tad disappointed. Keep an open mind and you’ll soon be tapping your toes and wanting to get up and dress elegant and dance. Fans of the musical may also been surprised. Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse’s original book has been revised by Howard Lindsay and John Weidman. Yet “Anything Goes” has a history of revisions so purists shouldn’t be offended. The 1962 off-Broadway revival was revised, influenced by the movies. More Cole Porter songs were added such as “It’s De-Lovely” from “Red Hot and Blue” and “Friendship” from “DuBarry Was a Lady.”

The Tony Award-winning 1987 Broadway revival changed the order of some of the musical numbers and re-scored the music. It’s the revival of this 1987 version (which starred Patti Lupone) that opened on Broadway in 2011 with Sutton Foster playing Reno Sweeney. Foster went on to win a Tony for Best Actress. Foster left the Broadway production for star in the ABC family comedy “Bunheads.”

Cast in her place for the national tour is Rachel York. York’s Sweeney has plenty of glamour and she was able to muddle through a few technical problems with the microphones on opening night.

Martin Pakledinaz’s costume design and Derek McLane’s scenic design give you all the sophisticated grace and beauty of  the 1930s.  It makes this the perfect toe-tapping opportunity to dress up Los Angeles.

In the first act, Reno Sweeney (York) meets with the man she thinks loves her, Billy Crocker (Erich Bergen).  Crocker is a Wall Street broker working for Elisha Whitney (Dennis Kelly). Whitney is about to embark on a journey and Crocker has forgotten to bring Whitney’s passport.

Sweeney is also boarding that same ship with her back-up singing Angels, Purity (Jacqueline Burtney), Chastity (Courtney Rottenberger), Charity (Dionna Thomas Littleton) and Virtue (Vanessa Sonon). Sweeney is billed as the “most sensuous sermonizer.”

Also on board  is another virtue: Hope. Hope Harcourt (Alex Finke) is an American debutante engaged to Sir Evelyn Oakleigh (Edward Staudenmayer) for his money at the urging of her practical mother, the widowed Evangeline (Sandra Shipley). Like Rose in “Titanic,” the Harcourt family is facing hard times and it’s the daughter who needs to marry for money.  Evelyn isn’t an evil, jealous guy, but a likable lord who attempts to learn the American lingo with often hilarious results.

In keeping with the light-hearted religious theme, Bishop Henry T. Dobson (Gary Lindemann) also boards the ship with his two Chinese converts, Luke (Vincent Rodriguez III) and John (Marcus Shane) who used to be gamblers.

A criminal element boards–second-rate gangster Moonface Martin (Fred Applegate) and although he’s only the 13th on the most wanted list, his friend “Snakes Eyes” Johnson is public enemy number 1. Billy, hoping to prevent Hope’s marriage to Evelyn, stows away on the ship and is mistaken for Snake Eyes.

As this is all about romance, there’s no need to worry about anything unseemly except for the man-lusting lady Erma (Joyce Chittick).

What you get is a night filled with beautiful people flitting across the stage to great Cole Porter tunes such as “I Get a Kick Out of You” (first song of the night and sung by York), “You’re the Top” (Reno and Billy), “Friendship” (Moonface and Reno), “It’s De-lovely” (Billy and Hope) and “Anything Goes.”  Staudenmayer and York are hysterical in the comedic take on “The Gypsy in Me” and their chemistry is a cool burn.

Director Kathleen Marshall has planned a cruise worth boarding, filled with beautiful people are making beautiful moves and finding romance. This is like the Love Boat with more style and money (and you won’t have to take motion sickness pills).

Need a spiritual lift? Want to be transported back to an era of grace and luxury? Enjoy Cole Porter? The production of “Anything Goes” is like a smooth cruise back to the 1930s with rose-colored glasses.

“Anything Goes” continues until January 6, 2013 at the Ahmanson. For more information, visit the Ahmanson website.

‘Seminar’ is a cerebral parody of writers

Writers write. It’s something they are driven to do, for good or bad and the Internet has given them an excessive amount of opportunities to get their work out into the wilderness of cyberspace. Writer Theresa Rebeck gives you every reason to hate the four writing students who had paid $5000 each to have a private in-home “Seminar” with a once famous writer.

First we have the meeting in an impossibly large eight-room Manhattan apartment of Kate (Aya Cash). Kate’s the uptight one with minimal backbone who’s been re-writing the same story for six years based on the faint praise she’s received from many previous seminars, workshops and classes.

Her friend is the impoverished Martin (Greg Keller) who has spent all the money he has to join this seminar foursome. He bristles at the studied intellectual pomposity of Douglas (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe) but Martin can no longer pay for rent and convinces Kate to allow him to stay in her grand pad. You wonder with so little spine why the apartment (we only see the living room) isn’t practically a commune for the artistic types and con artists of New York.

Douglas is one of those impossibly smug writers who you imagine aspires  to be published in “The New Yorker” and will be much beloved by erudite critics, but likely unloved by the common man.

Izzy (Jennifer Ikeda) is the woman who is bares her breasts to get the attention of all the men and will in time take them as her conquests. Is she a whore or the next Jack Kerouac? Only her future tell-all will tell us.

They have all come together for this writing seminar with Leonard (Jeff Goldblum) who knew early success as a writer, but failed to live up to his  promise. After accusations of plagiarism, he settled into an editing job. Yet his bitterness comes out in his hesitating intellectual attack on his students. The two most productive students, Kate and Douglas are given off-hand unpleasant assessments.  Kate is the spoiled princess too enamored with Jane Austin and cursed with little talent. Douglas has talent that he whores.

The only praise Leonard has is for the sexually available Izzy who barely produces two pages about sex. That’s her come-on line or lines. Soon enough she and Leonard are sleeping together. Izzy has time to sleep with Martin as well.

Director Sam Gold doesn’t give us details that would make any of these characters more loving. The laughs are empty and for Los Angeles and even the Ahmanson, the breast baring isn’t particularly shocking. That bit of tit isn’t enough to titillate the audience, but should keep you from bringing your small kids.

I understand that Alan Rickman played Leonard on Broadway. You can only imagine his rich voice relishing the bitter anger in the lines. Goldblum’s Leonard is a different creature, the gentler, slightly absent-minded, off-center intellectual characterization that Goldblum seems to specialize in. You can imagine either as a real writing teacher. Certainly, Rickman’s villain would be more viscerally frightening even if you haven’t seen him in Harry Potter.

Women writers might be offended by the portrayal of women here, particularly as the end finds two men bolstering each other’s courage and praising each other’s ability to write. That’s when the real seminar begins. Yet with no character to love and the distinctly New York characterizations, the smart writing of Rebeck is mostly wasted. If you like New York types or at least sneering at them, this play is for you. If you’ve been to one too many writing seminar or taught one too many seminar, you might recognize these people as the types you’ve brushed shoulders with and avoided. If you’re still working on the same story after six years of faint praise and gentle criticism, this might be a wake up call unless it would make you late for your own three hundredth writing seminar or you’re saving your money for writing seminar 301.

“Seminar” continues until Nov. 18 at the Ahmanson, 135 N. Grand Ave, in Downtown LA. For more information visit their website.

‘War Horse’ proves puppets can tell an adult story

Puppets are no longer just for children and this National Theatre of Great Britain production at the Ahmanson of “War Horse” brings Michael Morpurgo’s poignant tale to life. If you’ve already seen the Steven Spielberg movie of the same name, this has a slightly different take on the story.

Having real horses on stage would be wonderful except that they aren’t the cleanest animals because they aren’t easily house-trained and litter boxes don’t work for them (to my knowledge). Instead live horses or the cheap, dodgy looking two-men in a horse suit, horses are expressed with puppets by the Handspring Puppet Company.

If you saw “The Lion King” as a staged musical production, you basically have the  idea of what is going to happen. Yet these puppets are less colorful, and that’s in keeping with the more somber nature of this tale.

The stage is mostly bare and black with a white roughly torn strip about midway across the top.  This is used as a screen and photos and sketches as well as abstract expressions of war are projected on it.

The story begins in Devon, England with a bay colt Joey (at the performance I saw, the puppeteers were Laurabeth Breya, Catherine Gowl and Nick Lamedica). The puppeteers are dressed in the style of the times–trousers, shirts, vests and hats and coordinated to blend in with the horse puppet they animate (e.g. browns for those working with Joey and black for those working Topthorn). This puppet is not as detailed as the one playing the older Joey. The legs aren’t articulated, but the ears are wonderfully expressive.

Joey becomes the center of a bidding war between brothers Ted Narracott (Todd Cerveris) and war vet Arthur Narracott (Brian Keane). Ted stayed home from the war, but Arthur is the more successful one while Ted is susceptible to drinking. Supposedly, the men are bidding for their sons. Billy (Michael Wyatt Cox), doesn’t seem to want the horse as much as his father Arthur or his cousin Albert (Andrew Veenstra). Lieutenant James Nicholls (Jason Loughlin) was an early bidder but left off as the two brothers went higher than was wise–particularly since the horse is more of a hunter or riding horse than a farmer’s draft horse.

Although Ted wins the bid, the care of the horse goes to Albert as Ted faces his wife Rose (Angela Reed) who is more worried about the mortgage. The play makes this especially awkward because Ted owes the money to his brother Arthur. Arthur gets Ted drunk and gets him to bet that the horse, now named Joey (Christopher Mai, Derek Stratton and Rob Laqui), will be able to pull a plow in a week. Not an easy training job but Ted leaves it to Albert.

Albert is through patience and love able to teach his loyal Joey. For anyone who has taught an animal a trick that didn’t come easy, the kind of devotion this shows is heartbreaking because of what happens next.

The church bells announce the declaration of war and although Ned has just promised Albert that Joey is his, Ned hurries up to the town to sell Joey for a tidy sum. Albert, who is only 16, can’t follow Joey. Nicholls swears to Albert that he will take good care of the horse.

Yet World War I brought a change of tactics. The charge of horses became foolish carnage as the machine gun mows down the horses and men. The British soldier in France find the Germans have the upper hand and a better understanding of modern warfare. This is tastefully portrayed. Joey with another fine riding horse Topthorn (Jon Hoche, Danny Beiruti and Aaron Haskell) will go through many trials and both of them won’t survive, but we see that people on both sides showed kindness.

I haven’t read the original story, but the play came out before the movie. Written by Nick Stafford, the play made its Off-West End debut in 2007 and went to the West End in 2009. It went to Broadway in 2011 where it won a Tony for Best Play,  Best Direction (Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris), Best Scenic Design (Rae Smith), Best Lighting (Paule Constable) and Best Sound (Christopher Shutt). There was a special Tony awarded to Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones of Handspring for the puppetry.

The conflict between the brothers isn’t as convincing as movie set up where Ted is bidding against the wealthy landowner. Having the father break his promise so soon as in the play is also problematic. There is little to redeem Ned as a father and husband in the play. In the movie, Spielberg gives a deeper psychological reason behind Ted’s drinking and there’s desperation that forces him to sell Joey for the war effort.

Still, it’s a credit to the Handspring Puppet Company and Adrian Kohler with Basil Jones for their puppet design, fabrication and direction. There’s also a separate director of movement and horse choreography. The men in charge of the horse puppets don’t attempt to make the puppet look like a real horse–they even refrain from using something that would simulate the silky mane and tail or a horse. Instead, they go for the feeling and suggest a horse. The attention to detail helps: the movement of the ears and tail were well nuanced cues to the emotional state of the horses (Only the adult Joey and Topthorn are fully realized while other horses are represented by less detailed and articulated puppets).

Having two men on stage–one who plays an instrument (Nathan Koci) and one who sings (John Milosich) gives this play both atmosphere and the sweep of an epic poem.

What is particularly timely about “War Horse” is that at the beginning of the play, the men are so sure that they will go to Europe and be back in a few months after easily defeating the Germans. Wasn’t that the same attitude some people had about Iraq and Afghanistan not so long ago?  It might discomfort audience members to know that horses were used in the current Afghanistan war, taking U.S. Special Forces to areas where tanks and other automotive transport were not practical.

“War Horse” continues at the Ahmanson until 29 July 2012. For more information, visit the Center Theatre Group website.

‘Fela’ last chance

This week is your last chance to see “Fela!” at the Ahmanson Theatre. This production  glosses over some of Fela Kuti’s bad points, and emphasizes his charm and his use of music, Afrobeat, to stir up political activism in his native Nigeria.

This is a guy who smoked igbo (that’s marijuana), had more than one wife, and worshipped his ancestors and their gods. If paganism offends you, take a pass. If women shaking their booties while baring their bellies is too lascivious in your view, don’t go.

Belly dance enthusiasts can get a few pointers from director Bill T. Jones choreography (assisted by Maija Garcia) and from the bright costuming (Marina Draghici). Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was a singer and performer so naturally most of the music and lyrics are by him. Additional lyrics are provided by Jim Lewis, who with Jones also wrote the book (inspired by Carlos Moore’s authorized biography “Fela: This Bitch of a Life.”)

Born in 1938, to a Protestant minister father and a feminist mother (Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti), he went to London to supposedly study medicine (hig two brothers are both doctors) and ended up at Trinity College of Music. By 1960, he had married his first wife. He was back in Nigeria by 1963 and in 1967 he moved to Ghana for inspiration, forming what he would call Afrobeat. He’s come to the U.S. two years later and become politically active. He even spent some time in Los Angeles.

Fela would then protest against the dictatorships in Africa, including the military government of Nigeria. He and his followers would be threatened and beaten. His mother was eventually killed. The play takes place in Lagos, Nigeria several months after Funmilayo dies.

The cheap seats (Hot Tix) are all gone (Thursday matinee was the last offering), but if you love the Afrobeat or social activism, this is a good musical to inspire you. In many ways, it goes well with the recent Harry Belafonte biographical documentary, “Sing Your Song.” Music can change the world.

“Fela!” which is presented by Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, continues until 22 January 2012. Visit the Ahmanson website for tickets and more information.

 

High flying acrobatics in ‘Bring It On’

“Bring It On: The Musical” is based on a 2000 teen comedy film about two cheerleading squads. The movie spanned four direct-to-video sequels (the 2004 “Bring It On Again,” the 2006 “Bring It On: In It to Win It” and the 2009 “Bring It On: Fight to the Finish”). The musical begins its national tour at the Ahmanson, with high-energy performances running until 10 December 2011.

The Movies

If you haven’t seen the “Bring It On” movies, then here’s a brief history:

The first movie centered on Torrance Shipman (Kirsten Dunst) who is a senior and the team captain on a cheer squad that hopes to get their sixth consecutive national championship. Her team, the Toros (in Rancho Carne High in San Diego), are using routines stolen from an East Compton (the rough side of Los Angeles) cheerleading team, the Clovers.

The movie was filmed in Oceanside, San Diego State University, the Academy of Our Lady of Peace in San Diego, Eastlake High School in Chula Vista, Kearny Senior High in San Diego and Torrey Pines High in San Diego.

“Bring It On Again,” centers on Whittier (Anne Judson-Yager), who is a first year student at a California State college and is determined to join the national varsity cheerleading team. Although she makes the team, personal politics lead to her leaving, but recruiting members of the drama club, the dance club and a few other groups. Her squad ends up competing against the more established squad, and wins.

The filming locations for the second movie were Altadena, California (North of Pasadena) and Northridge, Los Angeles County.

In “Bring It On: All or Nothing,” Britney Allen (Hayden Panettiere) is the captain of her cheerleading squad at Pacific Vista High. Her boyfriend is the quarterback. When her father loses his job and they move to Crenshaw Heights, Britney finds herself in a blue collar neighborhood where she doesn’t fit in. The head cheerleader Camille butts heads with Britney, but when Britney shows she has the right stuff, Camille allows her to join the team but when Britney lies to miss a game in order to attend Pacific Vista High’s homecoming game with her boyfriend, things go sour. The singer Rihanna appears as herself. The IMDB lists Los Angeles County as the location for filming.

The “Bring It On: In It to Win It,” has the West Coast Sharks cheerleading squad competing against the East Coast Jets cheerleaders. Carson (Ashley Benson) leads the Sharks. Brooke (Cassie Scerbo) leads the Jets. Carson falls in love with Penn who is on the Jets squad.

Unlike the other movies, this was was filmed outside of Los Angeles, mostly in Orlando, Florida (Universal Studios, Hard Rock Hotel, Universal Orlando Resort).

The 2009 “Bring It On: Fight to the Finish” is about Lina Cruz (Christina Milian), an East Los Angeles cheerleader transfers to Malibu Vista High School because her mother marries a wealthy man. Lina competes with a squad called Sea Lions against the Jaguars whose captain Avery is snobbish and racist.

This movie was filmed in Malibu, Occidental College, Glendale Community College and Cal State Northridge.

The Musical

“Bring It On the Musical” shares the basic common premise with the movie series: cheerleading captain finds herself displaced and builds a team that beats or at least is a greater crowd-pleaser than usually her former team. Of course, there is some mean girl in the mix and except in the last 2009 installment, the girl is blonde.

With music by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tom Kitt and lyrics by Amanda Green and a book by Jeff Whitty, the musical premiered at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta in January of this year (2011). The Ahmanson is the first city of the show’s national tour.

The main character has an unusual name for a girl, Campbell (Taylor Louderman). That follows the tradition set by the first movie (Torrance), the second movie (Whittier) and the fourth movie (Carson), although all three of those names are actually city names in Los Angeles County.

Campbell is set to be the captain of the cheerleading squad during her senior year at Truman High when disaster strikes: Due to redistricting, she’s sent to another school, Jackson High, one that doesn’t even have a cheerleading squad. In this less affluent area, Campbell, along with a four-time cheerleader reject, Bridget (Ryann Redmond), try to fit in.

Bridget is the one who is asked to join a dance crew which also includes such diverse members as transvestite La Cienega (Gregory Haney) and finds that her bountiful bootie gets some admiration. Bridget also reveals that the new captain of Campbell’s former squad, Eva (Elle McLemore), has a mother on the school board who led the redistricting. Eva also has designs on Campbell’s boyfriend, Steven (Neil Haskell).

Campbell at first clashes with the head of the crew, Danielle (Adrienne Warren), who puts Campbell through some hazing, but they eventually team up and the crew recruits other students to join the squad.

You know how this is going to end, don’t you? Yes, the story line is predictable. The whole production is a little long and the first act could be tightened up and most of those songs are forgettable.

The second act improves and has better songs (two that I can think of), yet what everyone is really here for, what this show is really about, is the same thing the movies were about: cheerleading with plenty of stunts. David Korins’ set design is simple and utilitarian. Aside from some roll-on pieces such as school book lockers, the floor is padded like a gymnastics gym with a rectangle marked off in white. The back of the stage is padded as are the lighting scaffolding with crash pads.

There’s plenty of tumbling men and women and popping women into the air for a catch. Pyramids and built and disassembled and the costumes are mostly cheerleader wear (by Andrea Lauer).

Bridget and La Cienega are the most interesting characters and engaging portrayed by Redmond and Haney respectively. One wishes a sequel could be made around one or both of those characters, but the spirit of “Bring It On” is about predictable situations with predictable golden girls of cheer.

The director/choreographer, Andy Blankenbuehler, has Broadway credits–he won a Tony for choreography in 2008 for “In the Heights.” He was previously nominated for the musical version of “9 to 5.” He’s been a guest choreographer for “So You Think You Can Dance” and he has danced on Broadway in such shows as “Fosse,” “Contact,” “Saturday Night Fever,” “Big” and “Guys and Dolls.”

The production also relied on Varsity – We Are Cheerleading, as a cheerleading consultant. This company hosts summer camps and other events for over 350,000 cheerleaders and is the host of national championship events.

This isn’t a great musical, but it does have a sense of humor and some great cheerleading performances. Even if you weren’t a cheerleader (I wasn’t) or haven’t gone cheerleader for Halloween (I have),  if you enjoy women in short skirts (my husband does) or want to remember the sensation of flying through the air (on the trampoline or via a dance lift), or want to think of some ingenuous stunt for your squad or crew, this musical will do.

‘Bring It On: The Musical,’ Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m. ;Sundays (call for exceptions), 1 and 6:30 p.m. . Ends December 10. $20 to $120. (213) 972-4400 or www.CenterTheatreGroup.org/BringItOn Running time: 2 hour, 30 minutes.

‘Leap of Faith’ a good not great con-man/preacher musical

“Leap of Faith” is a new musical making its world premiere at the Ahmanson and it succeeds in taking an old Steve Martin film and makes it better in some places, but it is by no means a great musical.

The story is an old one: the traveling preacher who isn’t really a man of faith, but a con man working that old time religion. In the 1992 movie, Steve Martin played Jonas Nightengale and technology made Jonas’ con worker easier along with a sharp manager (Debra Winger).

• Roger Ebert’s review “Leap of Faith”
  
• My review of “Leap of Faith” and were to find it locally
  

You might check out the movie because it features Steve Martin in a performance that is everything you’d want: funny, sad and cynical. He’s not being a comedian; he’s playing it straight and doing it well.

If like Ebert, you felt the screenplay by Janus Cercone and the direction by Richard Pearce, didn’t give a satisfactory ending or an ending at all, the book by Cercone with Glenn Slater corrects that.

Things have been changed around a bit. On stage, we don’t get to see the caravan of four trucks and buses or the slick trick with the cop–make a cop cry and get out of a ticket. In the background, we seen dried up stalks of corn standing in the background and the sky is golden–not with nostalgia but dry, economy-killing heat. The townfolk dance and this isn’t a hoe-down. This is a small town made up of Kent Boyds and Boydettes, but luckily the name of the town is easier to pronounce than Wapakoneta, Ohio. We’re in Sweetwater, Kansas (the movie took place in Rustwater, Kansas).

Behind them, a line of people walk in with suitcases in hand. This is the Angels of Mercy, a gospel choir, led by Ida Mae (Kecia Lewis-Evans), who help Jonas Nightengale (Raul Esparza) create his faith-healing revival meetings. They are on their way to Topeka to clean up on the faithful. Jonas’ sister Sam (Kendra Kassebaum) manages this team and wants to blow this town, but they have to wait for parts to fix one of their vehicles. Jonas is sure he can raise enough money to make their payroll and seduce the widowed waitress Marva (Brooke Shields). Yet Marva has a son, the red-haired Boyd (Nicholas Barasch) who has been unable to walk since the car accident that killed his father and the boy touches Jonas’ heart.

If stories like this can’t exist without a bad guy, Cercone and Slater provide one in the form of the Sheriff Will Braverman (Jarrod Emick). In the movie, Will was a more thoughtful, introspective guy who starts us a romance with a character named Jane who is Jonas’ manager. In this musical, he’s the driving force behind the well drilling efforts to bring water to the crops that in Robin Wagner’s scenic design look far past their permanent wilt point (and I’ve grown corn before) for water to even help.  The role is thanklessly humorless. Will is assisted by his deputy Wayne Storm (Charlie Williams).  But that “big ass water pump” is just “drilling for hope.” And in the musical, Will is too serious to romance Sam and has oddly seems to have no friends among the townspeople.

The theme here is that we need to “Rise Up” and the song is the first song of the first and second act. “Leap of Faith” is the last song. The message seems to be that the gospel reaches people in different ways or “the Lord works in mysterious ways.”

Under the direction and choreography of Rob Ashford, this musical is energetic enough, but sometimes the score by Alan Menken (“Little Shop of Horrors,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Little Mermaid,” and “Sister Act” among others), and the lyrics by Slater (“The Little Mermaid,” “Sister Act”) are uninspired. There were moments when snippets of the scores melodic line sounded vaguely familiar, particularly in the case of Marva’s first song, “Do Whatcha Gotta Do,” that seemed to recycle bars from many other musicals, all faintly familiar but utterly forgettable. Menken has won eight Oscars for Disney animation tunes (“Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin” and “Pocahontas”).

Esparza isn’t channeling Martin, but creating his own Jonas, but the chemistry between Shields and Esparza is rather cool and it doesn’t help that the tonal quality of their voices doesn’t harmonize well.

Those who have seen the movie and remember the ending, will still be surprised because so much of this story has been reworked. Unlike the movie there is a distinct ending yet everything is so neatly, so very neatly resolved. This isn’t a great musical and the story (book) is just an average retelling of the traveling con-man/preacher, but it does allow for some amazing voices to sing gospel music. Overall, this musical is slightly better than the movie where the only man dancing was Steve Martin’s faux faith healer. It’s a hop in the right direction, but not the kind of leap needed to make audiences rise up and give up their faith to the musical with a standing o.

“Leap of Faith” continues at the Ahmanson until 24 October 2010. For tickets or more information, go to CTG website.