Okay, here's the other thing I did Friday: Went down to the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center to see a production of Smokey Joe's Cafe. As I've written here a number of times, some of the best theater in Southern California comes out of a company called the Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities. Each year, they have a 4-show subscription that gives folks down there — and those of us wise enough to make the short trek — a chance to see four musicals of surprising professionalism. The shows are all in for short runs (around 21 performances) but the company is usually able to secure sets and costumes from major productions, as well as the services of actors who've appeared before in them. Their production a couple years ago of Peter Pan was basically the Cathy Rigby production, which played Broadway and toured, with Cathy Rigby's understudy instead of Cathy Rigby. Their mounting of Smokey Joe's Cafe (which closes Sunday) features singers who've played the show elsewhere including — in the case of DeLee Lively — in the original Broadway company.
Smokey Joe's Cafe is not a play. It's a revue of songs written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, plus a few other collaborators. Leiber and Stoller had their hands in more hit rock-'n'-roll singles than you could imagine, and you sit there for much of an evening going, "They wrote that, too?" The numbers have been arranged and staged to give the members of the troupe — nine, in this case — a lot to play with, and some of the renditions are outstanding. I usually get bored by musicals that lack a storyline, but this one is just so infectious, it sucks you in and drags you along. If you've never seen it, the final performance of the Broadway company — it ran 2037 performances in New York — was well-preserved on video. Here — I'll give you a link to order it from Amazon. No, don't thank me…
For years, I've been a huge cheerleader on the web for the Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities, urging Angelenos to drive the modest distance to their very comfortable auditorium. I'm afraid I'm not able to cheerlead much at the moment, though. The rest of their 2003 season consists of Forever Plaid and The Music Man. The latter will probably be fine, and I'm eager to see who they'll get to play Harold Hill — a fact that will probably remain unknown until the production opens and get reviewed. (They seem to have a strict "don't advertise the cast" policy. I called up once to ask who was starring in the current production and they reacted like I was Geraldo, looking to broadcast troop locations again.) But Forever Plaid, though a wonderful show, has been seen way too often, and is way too small for their huge stage. When we all subscribed, the third show of the season was supposed to be Funny Girl, but the rumor is that they went too far overbudget on their splendid season opener, which was Ragtime, and had to skimp somewhere. So that's disappointing, and so is their entire announced 2004 season: Swing, Jekyll & Hyde, Ain't Misbehavin', and Neil Goldberg's Cirque. That's three musicals, only one of which has a plot, plus a travelling circus, and none of these interest me. If they interest you, visit their website. You might get the seats I'm releasing by not reupping my subscription.