{"id":9242,"date":"2014-04-20T11:46:17","date_gmt":"2014-04-20T18:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=9242"},"modified":"2014-04-21T11:07:28","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T18:07:28","slug":"rocking-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=9242","title":{"rendered":"Rocking Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.repeastplayhouse.org\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-9243\" src=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/rock_opera.jpg\" alt=\"A Night at the Rock Opera (REP)\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"5\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/rock_opera.jpg 250w, https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/rock_opera-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-5025\" src=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/userpicrepeast.jpg\" alt=\"userpic=repeast\" width=\"100\" height=\"99\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"5\" \/>Last night, we went to go see &#8220;<em>A Night at the Rock Opera<\/em>&#8221; at <a href=\"http:\/\/repeastplayhouse.org\/\">REP East<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/RepertoryEastPlayhouse?fref=ts\">FB<\/a>), so I&#8217;m guessing you&#8217;re expecting the traditional write-up\/review. But you&#8217;re not going to get it. There are a few reasons. First, there were no handouts, so I have no cast list to credit, nor a song list (or should I say &#8220;set list&#8221;) to give. Secondly, this was a fundraising benefit &#8212; so you don&#8217;t expect quite the same level as a well-established book show. Thirdly, we&#8217;ve got company coming over this evening, and I&#8217;ve already lost 6 hours to a headache. So, instead, a few observations.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The cast was made up of a REP regulars, from what I could tell. Going just from tagging on Facebook, the performers included: Ginhee Eng, Lori D&#8217;Itri, George Chavez, Sarah Krieg, Tom Lund, Beth Ann, Sarah Stoddard, Coastal Eddie, Nikki Berra, Casey Christianson, Kelly Bader, Amber Schwinn, Erin Rivlin, Leslie Berra, <span class=\"entity _586o\" data-icon=\"null\" data-select=\"group\" data-group=\"all\" data-fulltext=\"Jill\u00a0Kocalis\u00a0Scott\" data-text=\"Jill\u00a0Kocalis\u00a0Scott\" data-type=\"ent:user\" data-uid=\"560224648\" data-si=\"true\">Jill\u00a0Kocalis\u00a0Scott, and <span class=\"entity _586o\" data-icon=\"null\" data-select=\"group\" data-group=\"all\" data-fulltext=\"Bob\u00a0Berra\" data-text=\"Bob\u00a0Berra\" data-type=\"ent:user\" data-uid=\"839245278\" data-si=\"true\">Bob\u00a0Berra<\/span>. All were good singers &#8212; a few had particularly strong rocker voices (you can hear the difference). You can see a picture of the cast <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo.php?fbid=10203289852344010&amp;set=a.3930797625314.2174376.1140936256&amp;type=1&amp;theater\">here<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>The performances were very strong. Good voice, lots of energy, and you can tell they were having fun. That&#8217;s always key to me &#8212; if the folks on stage are having fun, the audience has fun.<\/li>\n<li>The selection of songs was a wide mix, and I could recognize most of the shows: Jesus Christ Superstar, The Who&#8217;s Tommy, Mamma Mia, Hair, Little Shop, All Shook Up, We Will Rock You, Hairspray, <span class=\"fsl\"><span class=\"text_exposed_show\">Footloose, Return to Forbidden Planet, Spring Awakening, Next to Normal<\/span><\/span>. Posts indicated there were songs from Rock of Ages (which I expected), but I don&#8217;t recall hearing anything from that show. There were also a few shows I expected to be in the mix but that weren&#8217;t: Grease, American Idiot, Marvellous Wonderettes, Backbeat. I also wish that more songs from certain shows were included &#8212; particularly more from Next to Normal (I love &#8220;My Psychopharmacologist and I&#8221;, but &#8220;I&#8217;m Alive&#8221; would have been great), Hairspray (&#8220;Mama I&#8217;m A Big Girl Now&#8221;), Spring Awakening (&#8220;The Bitch of Living&#8221; and &#8220;Totally Fucked&#8221;), and Rent (&#8220;La Vie Boheme&#8221;). But there&#8217;s only so much time. Part of the problem with song selection is defining just what is &#8220;rock&#8221; and what characterizes it. Especially for music from the early 1960s, the line isn&#8217;t always clear. This affects some of the songs from Hairspray, Little Shop, and All Shook Up. Arguably, more of the headbanging stuff was what I expected. But then again &#8212; this is a concert, I had fun, and all the songs were good.<\/li>\n<li>I was thinking, when they were performing Bohemian Rhapsody, that they <em>really<\/em> need to listen to the Big Daddy version. It&#8217;s on an unreleased album that was available only as a Kickstarter premium. However, I have it, and would be glad to play it for them. Just imaging Bohemian Rhapsody with &#8220;Shaboom, Shaboom&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>In general, the theme of the costuming was &#8230; black. Black dresses (of many forms, all long), and most of the guys went for the black on black look (black suit, black shirt, black tie). Some of selections worked; some worked spectacularly well, and a few less so. For women, the black dress has always been a classic; I&#8217;m guessing the black-on-black look for guys is in now (I never grew up with it). I&#8217;ll have to try it. Do you think I could rock brown-on-brown?<\/li>\n<li>In some ways, the concert was sad. There were middle aged and up performers on stage, and the audience was filled with middle-age and such (including me)\u00a0 rocking out. Since when did Rock become the music of the older generation (I remember making this observation when we saw &#8220;Rock of Ages&#8221;)? Gee, I&#8217;m getting old. Excuse me while I go shoo someone off my lawn.<\/li>\n<li>The show got me thinking &#8212; could someone make a jukebox musical out of rock musicals (especially original songs for rock musicals &#8212; otherwise it gets too meta). It could be an interesting commentary on the evolution of theatrical music from the traditional era of Rodgers and Hammerstein.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Upcoming Theatre and Concerts:<\/strong>\u00a0 The last weekend of April will bring Noel Paul Stookey at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mccabes.com\/\">McCabes<\/a>, as well as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.renfair.com\/socal\/\">the Southern California Renaissance Faire.<\/a> May brings \u201c<em>The Lion in Winter<\/em>\u201d at <a href=\"http:\/\/colonytheatre.org\/\">The Colony Theatre<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheColonyTheatre\">FB<\/a>), and \u201c<em>Cat on a Hot Tin Roof<\/em>\u201d at <a href=\"http:\/\/repeastplayhouse.org\/\">REP East<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/RepertoryEastPlayhouse?fref=ts\">FB<\/a>), as well as \u201c<em>Hairspray<\/em>\u201d at Nobel Middle School. I may also be scheduling \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.centertheatregroup.org\/tickets\/Porgy-and-Bess\/\"><em>Porgy and Bess<\/em><\/a>\u201d at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centertheatregroup.org\/theatres\/ahmanson\/index.aspx\">Ahmanson<\/a>. June is mostly open pending scheduling of an MRJ meeting, but I will try to fit in as much of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hollywoodfringe.org\/\">Hollywood Fringe Festival<\/a> as I can. July will be busy: \u201c<em>Ghost<\/em>\u201d at\u00a0the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.broadwayla.org\/\">Pantages<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=122219167829595\">FB<\/a>) on 7\/5, \u201c<em>Return to the Forbidden Planet<\/em>\u201d at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/repeastplayhouse.org\/\">REP East<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/RepertoryEastPlayhouse?fref=ts\">FB<\/a>) the weekend of 7\/12, \u201c<em>Once<\/em>\u201d at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.broadwayla.org\/\">Pantages<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=122219167829595\">FB<\/a>) on 7\/19, \u201c<em>Bye Bye Birdie<\/em>\u201d at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cabrillomusictheatre.com\/\">Cabrillo Music Theatre<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CabrilloMusicTheatre\">FB<\/a>) on 7\/26, and \u201c<em>Family Planning<\/em>\u201d at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/colonytheatre.org\/\">The Colony Theatre<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheColonyTheatre\">FB<\/a>) on 8\/2. As always, I\u2019m keeping my eyes open for interesting productions mentioned on sites such as <a href=\"http:\/\/losangeles.bitter-lemons.com\/\">Bitter-Lemons<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.musicalsinla.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Musicals in LA<\/a>, as well as productions I see on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goldstar.com\/los-angeles\" target=\"_blank\">Goldstar<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lastagealliance.com\/lastagetixdisplay.asp\" target=\"_blank\">LA Stage Tix<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.plays411.net\/newsite\/discount\/discounttix.asp\" target=\"_blank\">Plays411<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night, we went to go see &#8220;A Night at the Rock Opera&#8221; at REP East (FB), so I&#8217;m guessing you&#8217;re expecting the traditional write-up\/review. But you&#8217;re not going to get it. There are a few reasons. First, there were no handouts, so I have no cast list to credit, nor a song list (or <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=9242\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,51],"tags":[462,410],"class_list":["post-9242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-concerts","category-reviews","tag-rep-east","tag-reviews-2014"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9242","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=9242"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9245,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9242\/revisions\/9245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}