City of Angels

January 24th, 2006
Reprise!, UCLA's Freud Playhouse
Musical, went with Troy

Starring Broadway's Stephen Bogardus, Burke Moses, Tami Tappan Damiano, and Vicki Lewis (a real surprise).

As always, Reprise delivers solid & amazing voices and actors. This production, done without sets but using mobile pieces of furniture, was tight and fluid. As the inner world of a writer's book runs up against the outer world of his clash with the movie industry, we see actors playing both the characters in the hilarious film-noire book and those involved in bringing his book to the big screen.

Bogardus (who also played the author Stine on Broadway opposite Naughton eventually) was flawless. And Burke Moses as Detective Stone (he originated Gaston in B&tB) was strong and also very funny. Vicki Lewis (you may remember from TV's Newsradio sitcom) held her own against these Broadway voices (as well she would, having done several things on Bway herself). But hearing Tami Tappan Damiano again was the real highlight for me; we'd seen her in Reprise's recent mounting of "On the Town" and she has an amazing voice... silvery and piercing, no cracks or wavering, just strong, clear and powerful. A real torchy, sirenesque quality. :) In general, the cast had some big shoes to fill (the original Broadway cast), and did so beautifully.

We sat next to the new Producing Director Jim Gardia (who was very friendly!), 3 seats from actor Michael York, 2 rows in front of actor Richard Kind, and 4 rows in front of the musical's lyricist David Zipple. LA is a a great place for us theatre geeks to live. :)