The Sherman Brothers Show at a past “Kritzerland at the Gardenia.” From l, Adryan Russ (associate producer), Bruce Kimmel (producer) and Richard Sherman (composer/lyricist).

Bruce Kimmel is one of those guys whose life seems like one long, memorable cocktail party, filled with interesting, famous, talented people, and of course, saturated with great music. Lately, the actor/director/author/music producer/impresario — yes, he’s a busy man — has been inviting friends over to the Gardenia Restaurant in Hollywood once a month for an evening’s worth of cabaret, featuring some of the best voices in town singing the best music they can get their hands on.

The event, dubbed “Kritzerland at the Gardenia” (named after a character in one of Kimmel’s 11 books) has been rolling since September 2010, and this month’s offering is the Alan Menken songbook. Menken, the composer of Little Shop of Horrors and just about every Disney song you’ve heard for the last decade, is a personal friend of Kimmel’s. The evening promises to delight music lovers, with extra surprises sure to make the night memorable.

“We have five fantastic singers,” Kimmel says, “Plus a guest star for every show. I introduce each song, and give the audience some context about how, when and where it was composed. This show runs a little over an hour, and it’s just plain fun in a way that cabarets usually aren’t.”

Cast members for the upcoming show include Broadway veterans and local favorites Roger Befeler, Kirsten Chandler, Dan Callaway, Juliana Hansen and Alet Taylor, under the musical direction of A.J. Robb and with special guest star Tony Award nominee Sharon McNight. The Gardenia, Kimmel says, “is a great place to eat dinner or just have a few drinks and listen to this wonderful music.”

“Kritzerland at the Gardenia” happens Wednesday, April 6 at 9 p.m. at the Gardenia Restaurant located at 7066 Santa Monica Blvd. in Los Angeles. The cover charge is $15. Dinner reservations begin at 7 p.m. and guarantee you a table. If you’re not dining, there is a two-drink minimum. For reservations, call (323) 467-7444.

Lindsey Alley, Shannon Warne, Jennifer Leigh Warren, Kim Huber and Alet Taylor star in “Having It All.”

The world-premiere production of the new musical Having It All, with book and lyrics by Wendy Perelman and David Goldsmith and music by John Kavanaugh, opens on Saturday, March 12, at the NoHo Arts Theatre in North Hollywood.

The tremendous gains that women have made in recent decades, having fought for and won their economic and reproductive independence, have been a mixed blessing. It’s a conundrum with which Perelman — a successful New York-based actress, wife and mother — is all too familiar. For some women, severing the ties that used to bind them to husband, home and family has meant freedom and fulfillment. For others, though, having the ability — even the mandate — to pursue the career of their dreams has meant eschewing the pleasures that traditional gender roles provided.

“We were sort of expected to juggle all the balls of ‘having it all’ — meaning having a career and kids — without having to make any sort of adjustments,” says Perelman. That, she found, turned out to be a particularly tall order.

Commiserating and collaborating with friends who found themselves in similar straits, Perelman began collecting stories and songs. Goldsmith and she started writing the book for a new musical, and composer John Kavanaugh, a frequent contributor to Disney and Universal Studios projects, was soon brought on board.

Having It All tells the story of five women who become stranded at JFK airport. As the flight delays drag on, the women, all from different backgrounds and with different family and career goals, wind up sharing their stories.

“The show is about five women,” Perelman says. “But everyone can relate to this show because it speaks to how we all have to balance the pursuit of our dreams. It’s actually more like The Breakfast Club than Sex in the City.”

After a series of successful readings and workshop productions in New York, the project eventually found its way to the desk of top Los Angeles producer David Elzer — who was fresh off the success of The Marvelous Wonderettes.

“At first I was hesitant to do another show featuring an all-female cast, but there is a tremendous universality to these women’s stories that really resonated with me,” Elzer says.

Under Elzer’s wing, the production quickly gathered steam, with casting director Michael Donovan and director Richard Israel assembling a cast that is “the crème de la crème of the LA musical theatre scene.”

“In the readings and workshops I’ve seen of this show,” Elzer says, “I’ve seen quite a few tears shed as well as some amazing laughs.”

“I think the emotion, the themes and the heart of the show are limitless,” says Perelman. “Because we all have to decide for ourselves what ‘having it all’ really means.”

Having It All will begin previews on Saturday, February 26 and will open for an 8-week run beginning Saturday, March 12 at the NoHo Arts Center, 11136 Magnolia Blvd. (at Lankershim) in North Hollywood. Ticket prices are $40. Preview Tickets are $25. For tickets, please call (323) 960-7776 or visit www.plays411.com/havingitall.

Sam Wolfson.

Clearly, Sam Wolfson is not the kind of guy who’s content to rest on his laurels. After co-writing and co-starring in Jewtopia, the comedy franchise went to off-Broadway where it had a sensational and wildly successful run. He decided he wanted to write his second play about something that’s even more universal than Jewish humor: romance.

The fruit of his labor is Play Dates, a four-actor take on love during three very different stages of life. “The goal was to write ‘the ultimate date’ play,’” laughs Wolfson, who is 38 and has been married for one year. In the first scene, a pair of five-year-olds finds their first crush with each other. The second sequence, which allows for audience participation, features a radio talk show host named, appropriately enough, Dr. Love. “He says those things we all wish we could say to our friends when they’re complaining about their love lives,” says Wolfson. The third part is about a couple who have been together for 15 years. “That scene opens with the two of them in bed grooming each other like monkeys. Then it goes from there.”

The show had a trial run last August at the Elephant Theatre in Hollywood, and moves next door to Theatre Asylum for its upcoming run starting this week. Meanwhile, Wolfson isn’t slowing down, busily working on a pair of pilots for NBC and CBS. What he hopes to show with Play Dates is that love is never easy, no matter what stage of life you’re in. “Pretty much everyone can relate to that.”

Play Dates will preview on Thursday, January 27 & Friday, January 28 and will open on Saturday, January 29 and run through Sunday, March 6 at Theatre Asylum, 6320 Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood. Performances are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm; Sundays at 7:00pm. Ticket prices are $25.00 for all performances. There will be a special performance on Monday, February 14 (Valentine’s Day) featuring champagne, roses and other Valentine’s surprises! Tickets are available online at www.plays411.com/playdates or by calling (323) 960-7784. For more information, please visit www.greenbeetleproductions.com.

“The Secret of 50, Fatherhood and Facebook” is written and performed by Vince Cefalú.

It’s no secret that traditional roles for men and women have shattered into a million pieces recently. Daddy doesn’t have just one job, he has multiple interests, and Mommy’s got a career of her own. In fact, many families these days have to check their e-mail just to keep track of each other.

It’s into this world of schedule-juggling that actor, writer, husband, father, former stand-up comic and now solo performer Vince Cefalú enters with “The Secret of 50, Fatherhood and Facebook,” a series of wry monologues about the fractured nature of modern life, written from the perspective of a slightly baffled, but very amused former 20-something who now finds himself on the down slope of 50 with marriage and a 3 1/2 year-old son.

“I’d always wanted to do a solo show, but I knew I didn’t want to do somebody else’s material,” says Cefalú. Then one midnight he stumbled into his bathroom and began writing a piece about his father. “And it came out in verse, for some reason!” Cefalú laughs.

From there, he continued to obey his muse until he’d collected about a dozen observational pieces. A friend, director Lori Tubert, encouraged him to write more until an entire one-man show had taken shape.

Cefalú fires his wit at multiple targets, including the phenomenon of The Secret, the best-seller from a few years back, and the Facebook craze. “At first I couldn’t believe all the hype about Facebook,” says Cefalú, “And I shrugged it off. As it turned out, I wound up using Facebook to promote my show!”

Vince Cefalu’s “The Secret of 50, Fatherhood and Facebook” performs on Friday and Saturday nights, September 3rd through October 9th at 8:00 p.m. at the Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks 91423. Tickets are $20.00. They can be purchased online at: www.theatermania.com or by calling: 866-811-4111. To RSVP or for more information, call: 818-207-2640.

Samson Koletkar (rear), Joe Nguyen and Dhaya Lakshminarayanan.

Quiz time: Which of these descriptors do not belong with the others? Indian. Vietnamese. Jewish. Stand-up comic? Your answer: None of the above. At least, that’s the case with the Mahatma Moses Comedy tour, which will be making its first foray into Southern California after selling out shows in the San Francisco Bay area.

The tour is the brainchild of Samson Koletkar, “the world’s only Indian-Jewish stand-up comedian.” His tour-mates are Joe Nguyen, a Vietnamese Jew born in Georgia, and Dhaya Lakshminarayanan, a petite “venture capitalist turned stand-up comedienne,” whose last name just took me five minutes to type correctly.

Koletkar arrived in the United States in 2000 with the dot-com boom, and while he toiled as a software consultant, his long-held dreams of becoming a stand-up comic flowered.

“There was no stand-up comedy in India when I was growing up,” he says, “but my family was always very funny. I enjoyed writing plays, and I always found a way to make them funny.”

Koletkar started working open-mic nights and traditional comedy clubs around the Bay Area in 2006. Finding that there wasn’t a niche for the kind of mixed-ethnicity, clean humor he preferred was the inspiration for putting his own tour together. “People never know what they’re going to have to listen to in typical comedy clubs. That’s why we take what we like to call the smarter approach to comedy. The result is a show that appeals to all ages, and all varieties of people.”

The “Mahatma Moses Comedy Tour” will appear at Forum Theatre at El Portal Theatre, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, California 91601 on Saturday, September 4 at 5:00 p.m., 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. Recommended for ages 18+. Tickets are $12-$20. Information and reservations are available at www.Mahatma-Moses.com or by calling 415-676-1371.

“My mission in life is to return love to the world,” says the reborn King. “People will get to hear some new music, some old music, some classics, and some songs that get wrapped around the classic Elvis style with a modern-day beat.”

Helping Elrus mount his attack are the Sweet Icings, backup singers and dancers with a lot more eye appeal than the Jordannaires. Hosted by “Big Mike,” the evening also promises special surprises with comic guests Eddie Barojas, Henrietta Komras, and Bethany Dwyer, along with Froy and Matt from truTV’s Operation Repo.

Elrus Pearsley was born at the exact moment Elvis Presley died, so his sequins get a little ruffled when he’s compared to an Elvis ‘impersonator.’ “There’s nothing wrong with impersonators, but I’m the real deal, and that’s the difference. Come on out and see for yourself, baby. Ah, thank you very much.” 

Elrus Pearsley’s “Taking It To the People” show performs at the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club, 1000 Universal Studios Blvd. #2222, on Monday, August 16th at 9:00 p.m. Tickets are $15, and parking is $3.00. Online Tickets are half price with coupon code “Elrus”. For more tickets and information, go to www.thejonlovitzcomedyclub.com or call 818-824-6545.

René Rivera as Pablo in the World Premiere of The King of the Desert (El Rey del Desierto)

Dreams are like flowers growing up through the cracks of a sidewalk – once they’ve taken root, they’re hard to kill even in the harshest environments. For a young boy growing up in a barrio near San Antonio, Texas, becoming a successful actor might have seemed like a lottery shot. But from early on, René Rivera knew he had to find a way to express himself.

His parents were second-generation Mexican-Americans with an unhappy marriage. “There was a lot of bickering and fighting,” says Rivera, “And that lack of communication and affection filtered down to us kids.” He loved reading and writing poetry, but when he walked into his high school drama teacher’s office, he didn’t even know what acting was. “I just told him I wanted to do what they do in the movies,” Rivera laughs.

Rivera found his calling on stage and his dreams took off, through the prestigious Julliard School, and on to Broadway and into the movies. The story of that journey comes to the stage in a one-man show called The King of The Desert (El Rey del Desierto), written by his wife, Stacey Martino, and directed by Valentino Ferreira. All three are members of the venerable Actors Studio. His parents are proud of their son’s success over the years, and eventually they even become “gentle friends” with each other, as Rivera lovingly puts it.

The play opens on Cinco de Mayo, but more than just a tribute to his ethnic roots, “It’s a tribute to parents everywhere.”

The King of the Desert (El Rey del Desierto) opens at The Chaplin Stage at the El Centro Theatre; 804 N. El Centro Avenue (between Gower Street and Vine Street, just north of Melrose Avenue); Hollywood, CA 90038 on Wednesday, May 5th. Thereafter, performances will be given on Thursdays and Fridays, May 6 – June 11, 2010 at 8:00 p.m. Ten percent of the proceeds from the run of the show will benefit The National Latino Children’s Institute headquartered in San Antonio, TX. Tickets are $15.00 each for General Admission. Tickets for Students, Seniors and Guild Members are $10 each. For reservations and further information please call the Box Office at 323-960-5774 or buy online at www.plays411.com/kingofthedesert.

Hal Holbrook appears as Mark Twain in “Mark Twain Tonight!”

It’s true on a number of levels to say that Hal Holbrook’s one-man show “Mark Twain Tonight!” is the performance of a lifetime. Not only because Holbrook has distilled a lifetime’s worth of Samuel Langhorne Clemens’ writing and humorous commentary into a single evening, but the fact that Holbrook has been doing the show for longer than most people have been alive.
Holbrook first put on Twain’s iconic white suit and wry demeanor in 1954. In the years that followed, the work earned the actor a Tony Award, took him around the world and earned him a reputation as a national treasure. His film career has spanned more than four decades and almost 40 films, including his Oscar-nominated role in 2007’s “Into the Wild,” but “Mark Twain Tonight!” has remained a constant throughout the years. Along the way, Holbrook has so immersed himself in the author’s writings that he’s been able to constantly refresh the show, making Twain’s satirical observations on 19th century life adaptable and relevant even to today’s fast-moving world.
April 21, 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of Mark Twain’s death, but thanks to Holbrook, the man hailed as “the father of American literature” is vividly brought back to life. Holbrook is one of the last great American character actors performing as one of America’s greatest characters, and his appearance at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza – his only one in the Los Angeles area on this tour – is perhaps a last chance to see two American legends at the same time.

“Mark Twain Tonight!” performs Friday, March 19, at 8 p.m. at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza  (2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd. in Thousand Oaks). Single tickets are $29 to $69 with group discounts available. Tickets are available from Ticketmaster or the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza Box Office.

Taylor Dayne

Taylor Dayne is the kind of performer who just loves to play. She’s sold out huge venues during a career that includes three Grammy nominations for unstoppable earworms like “Love Will Lead You Back” and “Tell It To My Heart,” but she’s also willing to drop in and do a gig that just plain looks like fun. That’s how she finds herself heading into a three-night stand at the Upright Cabaret, an intimate and unconventional venue in Hollywood.
“I went there with a bunch of friends once on a spontaneous night, and I was instantly struck by what a great place it was” said the singer. It also represents some interesting challenges. The pre-recorded tracks and flashy dance moves of her earlier career will be scaled down to simpler interpretations of her favorite songs. More importantly, though, she’ll have a chance to share the stories and memories behind some of her biggest hits. “I was a little girl singing into a hairbrush the first time I heard Barry White’s “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love,” she recalls. “But in 1994, I was performing at the opening of Barney’s in New York, and I had the chance to sing it with Barry himself.” The startled shoppers probably weren’t ready for that, she laughs, “because we rocked that place!”
Dayne’s future plans also include a summer run in an intimate setting in Vegas, followed by a Showtime reality series. Her gig at the Upright Cabaret, though, will see the world-famous pop star transform herself into a storyteller and chanteuse.

 “Taylor  Dayne: Up Close and Upright!” March 19-21, at 10 p.m. (8 p.m. Sunday) at Upright Cabaret, 1714 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles.  Tickets: $30 advance online (www.uprightcabaret.com/events) or $35 at the door (if available). Dinner reservations are made online at time of ticket purchase. Online ticket buyers receive first priority in seating. Table food/drink minimums apply.

Sheryl Lee Ralph.

Sheryl Lee Ralph is not content to just use her voice to sing. The film, TV and Tony-nominated Broadway actress has been an untiring advocate for AIDS/HIV awareness for decades now. Although she’s kept busy over the years with co-starring roles alongside heavyweights like Denzel Washington, Robert DeNiro and Eddie Murphy while at the same time raising two children, she still makes time for a cause she fiercely believes in. “It began when I saw friends of mine dying of this disease while I was in the original cast of ‘Dreamgirls’” she says. “Eventually, the rate of infection in women began matching that in men. And this from a disease that is 100% preventable!”
She found that she was simply unable to sit back and watch as the disease slipped from the front pages and those afflicted with it were seemingly forgotten. In 1990, Ralph founded the DIVA/ AIDS foundation, a non-profit devoted to helping raise awareness and easing the suffering of people living with HIV/AIDS, particularly women and children. This weekend, she has a special treat lined up: she’ll be doing a one-night only cabaret show, “With Love on Valentine’s Day,” as a benefit for the foundation at the Upright Cabaret in Hollywood. This will be a rare chance to get up close to her warm, magnetic personality as she dishes out a selection of her favorite love songs for an intimate audience. “Expect good food, great music and great stories!” she says.
Sheryl Lee Ralph’s “With Love On Valentine’s Day” will be held Sunday, February 14th at 8 p.m. at Upright Cabaret (1714 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046). Tickets are $25 and are available online at www.UprightCabaret.com/Events or at the door (if available).