{"id":1940,"date":"2006-12-23T23:32:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-24T07:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=1940"},"modified":"2006-12-23T23:32:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-24T07:32:00","slug":"just-consider-the-problems-of-the-poor-elf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=1940","title":{"rendered":"Just Consider The Problems of the Poor Elf"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.repeastplayhouse.org\/home.htm\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pics.livejournal.com\/cahwyguy\/pic\/0002w1s6\" width=150 height=164 title=\"\"  align=\"Right\" hspace=5><\/a>We just got back from our last show of 2006: <i>Santaland Diaries and Seasons Greetings<\/i> at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.repeastplayhouse.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Rep East Playhouse<\/a> in Newhall. This is actually three shows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><i>Front Row<\/i>, performed by the Artistic Director, Ovington Michael Owston. This is a monologue that is purportedly a theatre review column on a local radio station. In this monologue, the announcer provides a number of reviews of elementary Christmas show. As one would expect from versions of <i>A Christmas Carol<\/i>  and other such shows, they are not up to professional snuff, and he rips them quite to shreds. As one who has had to suffer through such shows, I knew what he was thinking.\n<li><i>Seasons Greetings<\/i>, performed by Erin Rivlin-Sakata, was a monologue reading of one of those cheerful newsletters one often gets in the mail this time of year. The author, a bright and perkey housewife (think Corky Sherwood from Murphey Brown&#8230; on steroids) relates the trials of her life, her husband, her children, her new step-child, Kai-son, a Vietnam-war baby who just shows up, wears string bikinis all the times, and only knows how to say &#8220;give me five dolla&#8221;. She talks about how her daughter had a crack baby. The monologue ends on a sad note, when she leaves the baby with Kai-son, telling her to watch the baby. Kai-son hears &#8220;wash&#8221;, and proceeds to run the baby through the laundry. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Santaland-Diaries-Seasons-Greetings-Plays\/dp\/0822216310\" target=\"_blank\">monologue<\/a> was written by David Sedaris. Seasons greetings!\n<li><i>Santaland Diaries<\/i>, performed by George Chavez II, can best be described as: Are you a man, or are you an Elf? It is a monologue of a man in New York, who needing work, answers an ad from Macy*s to be an elf in &#8220;Santaland&#8221;. He goes on to describe his training, the layout, the people, the Santas, the moms, the dads, the other elfs, and the whole craziness that is the Santa setup at Macy*s. This was actually a very very funny routine.  The &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatrezone.org\/productions\/past\/santaland\/santaland.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Santaland Diaries<\/a>&#8221; routine was written by NPR humorist David Sedaris. You can hear some audio selections <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/ramfiles\/weed\/20001223.weed.02.rmm\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.\n<\/ul>\n<p>The performances were excellent &#8212; we have been uniformly pleased with the work of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.repeastplayhouse.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Santa Clarita Rep East<\/a> this season. They have announced <a href=\"http:\/\/www.repeastplayhouse.org\/2007season.htm\" target=\"_blank\">their 2007 season<\/a>: <i>A Few Good Men<\/i> (Aaron Sorkin; Jan 19-Feb 17); <i>The Last 5 Years<\/i> (Jason Robert Brown; Mar 9-Apr 7); <i>Driving Miss Daisy<\/i> (Alfred Uhry; May 18-Jun 16); <i>All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten<\/i> (Robert Fulghum; Sep 21-Oct 20); and <i>The Unexpected Guest<\/i> (Agatha Christie; Nov 9-Dec 8). For summer in the park, they are doing <i>A Midsummers Night Dream<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>And with this review, I bring our <a href=\"http:\/\/cahwyguy.livejournal.com\/tag\/theatre-2006\" target=\"_blank\">2006 Theatre Year<\/a> to a close. I hope you have enjoyed reading <a href=\"http:\/\/cahwyguy.livejournal.com\/tag\/reviews-2006\" target=\"_blank\">these reviews<\/a> as much as I have enjoyed writing them. I do encourage you to go out and see live theatre &#8212; there is nothing so good as a play or a musical on the stage.<\/p>\n<p>For us, there is one more review upcoming in 2006: our annual Christmas movie&#8230; we&#8217;re planning on going to go see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dreamgirlsmovie.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dreamgirls<\/a>. I saw the original stage production when it toured in Los Angeles in the 1980s, so it should be an interesting comparison. As for our 2007 calendar: there is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centertheatregroup.org\/tickets\/productiondetail.aspx?id=498\" target=\"_blank\"><i>13<\/i><\/a> at the Mark Taper Forum on January 14; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pasadenaplayhouse.org\/attend_a_show_defiance.htm\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Defiance<\/i><\/a> at the Pasadena Playhouse on February 10; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goldstarevents.com\/events\/event\/10936.html\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Thoroughly Modern Millie<\/i><\/a> at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center on February 25; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbvd.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Big Bad Voodoo Daddy<\/i><\/a> (concert) at CSUN Performing Arts on March 10; and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cabrillomusictheatre.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Smokey Joes Cafe<\/i><\/a> at Cabrillo Music Theatre on March 30. I also plan to see both <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.repeastplayhouse.org\/2007season.htm\" target=\"_blank\">A Few Good Men<\/a><\/i> and <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.repeastplayhouse.org\/2007season.htm\" target=\"_blank\">The Last 5 Years<\/a><\/i> at REP East and  <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.valleymusicaltheatre.com\/TPOS.html\" target=\"_blank\">They&#8217;re Playing Our Song<\/a><\/i> at Valley Musical Theatre during that period; the tickets just haven&#8217;t shown up on Goldstar yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We just got back from our last show of 2006: Santaland Diaries and Seasons Greetings at the Rep East Playhouse in Newhall. This is actually three shows: Front Row, performed by the Artistic Director, Ovington Michael Owston. This is a monologue that is purportedly a theatre review column on a local radio station. In this <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=1940\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,28,1],"tags":[462,176,174],"class_list":["post-1940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-theatre","category-lj-xfer","tag-rep-east","tag-reviews-2006","tag-theatre-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}