This post is mainly for folks who live in the Southern California area. Here, we have a company called 3-D Theatricals that stages revivals of great musicals in two venues. They mount a show and put it on for a brief time at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center and then move it for a while to the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts — or maybe sometimes they start in Cerritos and finish in Redondo Beach, I don't know. All I know is their shows are pretty good.
Last night, we went to see Spamalot in Redondo Beach. That's not an easy show to put on because it requires a ton of costumes and some pretty costly sets. Fortunately, they got both from some other production…probably a touring company. They sure didn't build all that stuff for nine performances in one place and nine more in another.
It looked really good and the performers were really good, especially Martin Kildare as King Arthur, Chelle Denton as The Lady of the Lake, Marc Ginsburg as Sir Lancelot (and others), Jeff Skowron as Sir Robin (and others) and Erik Scott Romney as Patsy (and other). The direction and choreography — which closely recreate what transpired on Broadway — were by Carol Bentley. My curiosity is aroused by the fact that the program book credits Casey Nicholaw with the original choreography but I could find no mention of Mike Nichols, who directed the original production.
What 3-D Theatricals gave us was a very, very faithful production. They've tossed in a few new lines — there was one about Mitch McConnell, one about buying tickets on Goldstar and one about James Blackman, who is the gent who used to stage musicals at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center before his company got evicted for financial problems. The laugh at the mention of his name suggested that 3-D has inherited a lot of his former subscribers. Anyway, we had a very good time.
If you're local and you want to catch it, there's a matinee today — probably too late for you to get there — and four performances next weekend. These are all in Redondo Beach in a great theater that's only about ten minutes south of LAX. Then there are nine more between August 18 and August 27 in Cerritos. Not-very-expensive tickets can be ordered here and they're even cheaper on Goldstar. If you can afford the full-price ones, order those because I'd like to see this company thrive. They're doing Young Frankenstein in October.
A tip: I love the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center. It's a full-size, fully-functional Broadway-quality theater with seats that have actual legroom. Parking is a breeze and the place is located about a six minute non-freeway drive from a section of Rosecrans Avenue in El Segundo that is loaded with good places to eat before. We went to McCormick & Schmick's but there's also a Houston's, a Fleming's, a P.F. Chang's, a Marmalade Cafe, a Johnny Rocket's, a Chipotle, an Il Fornaio, a California Fish Grill, a Grimaldi's Pizza and many more.
It's one of the easiest venues where I ever go to see a show and the staff at the P.A.C. is delightful. There was an older usher lady who volunteered to show us to our seats and I said, "Thanks but I'll bet I can find them." She replied, "Hey, you're an amateur at that and I'm a trained professional!" I decided she was right so I let her at least show us which row we were in. (The theater is a little too big so do spring for seats closer to the stage.)