Last evening was one of the best nights of live theater I've had in I-don't-know-how-long. I had not expected to see a fabulous production of Li'l Abner in a tiny auditorium on the campus of a city college here in Los Angeles. The tickets were $15 each so that further drove down my expectations. I mean, what do you expect for that money?
As it turned out, I would not have felt cheated to pay ten times that. In a room where the audience barely outnumbered the size of the cast (33 people plus a five-piece band), I saw a great production with an awful lot of care and cleverness in the design and costuming, especially when you consider they're only doing a half-dozen performances.
Opening night was last night. There's a matinee today at 3 PM and an evening performance at 7:15. On Friday, it's up at 8 PM and then on Saturday at 2 PM and 8 PM and that is it…for now, anyway. I think they're hoping to move it somewhere else at some point but that's not easy to do in Los Angeles, even with a show as good as this one.
I intend to write a big, enthusiastic review praising the excellence of the cast members and the staging. The direction, by the way, is by my pal, Bruce Kimmel who has always wanted to stage this show. He did an amazing job. Anyway, I have a deadline tonight and I'm waiting for some photos Bruce said he'd send me to post here…but I wanted to get this much up a.s.a.p. because you can't afford to waste a second if you want to see this.
I understand there are many seats available for both shows today and a few for Friday and Saturday. Here's the link to order. Trust me on this one, folks…and besides, it's $15 a seat. How can you go wrong? (And if you don't want to believe me, the group I was with included the great composer Richard Sherman and he had nothing but raves about it.)
I will write more about this show very soon because the folks responsible deserve to read some high praise. Just know that I had a great time and I really hope this thing has an afterlife. Just in case it doesn't, if you're in the L.A. area — it's at Los Angeles City College on Vermont near Melrose — hurry to see it while you can.