The Acting Company to become a 'Little Shop of Horrors'
The rock musical "The Little Shop of Horrors" opens Sept. 25 at The Acting Company in Yuba City and runs through Nov 1. It should be fun.
Composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman put this stage show together based on the low-budget 1960 black comedy film by Roger Corman of the same title.
This is slightly different, since movies are usually made out of plays.
It is about a bumbling florist shop worker who raises a plant that feeds on human blood. Don't let that bother you. It's very much funnier than this might suggest.
It has several popular songs, including the title song, "Skid Row" and "Suddenly, Seymour." Many are done in the doo-wop style.
"Little Shop of Horrors" has been produced all over the world, from Broadway to Buenos Aires, Toronto to Tokyo and from Stockholm to Singapore.
This version is directed by Debbie Collier and Heather Cowell.
And as director Collier noted in a press release, "The Little Shop of Horrors" is perfect Halloween fare.
TAC is located at 815 B St., Yuba City. Show times are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $15.
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Also coming up soon at the Magic Theatre in Yuba City is "Æsop's Æxcellent Ædventures." It runs Oct. 3 through Oct 31.
Directors Jeff and Brandon Graham describe it as a "fun romp through the famous fables of Æsop, as well as a few forays into the Brothers Grimm."
John Elliott plays Æsop. The cast also includes Brenna Souza, Heidi Winrich, Kathleen Hansen, Mary Scully, Aaron Hutton, Tad Crother, Julian Barkley-Brinson and Victoria Vlasova.
The Magic Theatre also uses the TAC facility at 815 B St., Yuba City.
The "Æsop" plays are at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Saturdays only. No ticket prices were posted so far.
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The last showing of a film documentary about the famous Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong is at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Center for the Arts, 314 W. Main St., Grass Valley,
You can meet the filmmaker Elaine Mae Woo at the show.
This presentation is sponsored by the Community Asian Theater as part of a film festival.
The film, "Frosted Yellow Willows: Her Life, Times and Legend," documents the life of the late Anna May Wong.
Wong was a Chinese-American Hollywood legend who acted in films spanning from the silent era in the 1920s through Technicolor in the 1960s.
She was reportedly the first Asian-American movie star to achieve national and international fame. She played opposite such stars as Douglas Fairbanks in "The Thief of Bagdad" in 1924 and Marlene Dietrich in "Shanghai Express" in 1932.
Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 door. The center's phone number is 273-5541.
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Still playing at the B Street Theatre in Sacramento is the John Patrick Shanley play "Italian American Reconciliation."
It follows the love troubles of Huey Maximilian Bonfigliano who — for motives of his own — desperately wants to get back with his ex-wife, Janice.
Shanley won the 1988 Academy Award for best screenplay for "Moonstruck" and multiple awards in 2005 for his play "Doubt: a Parable," which I saw and reviewed last year. Believe me, it was good.
"Italian American Reconciliation" runs through Sept. 20 on the main stage at the theater, which is at 2711 B St., Sacramento. Tickets and time information is a little more complicated at the B Street. So you are better off calling 916-443-5300 for details.
