Rubicon Theatre Company of Ventura Presents

the World Premiere Drama

CRAZY MAMA

A True Story of Love & Madness

By Sharon Scott Williams

March 26th – April 6th, 2025

Starring Acclaimed Stage & Screen Actress Linda Purl

Directed by Golden Globe Nominee Anson Williams

March 6, 2025 (Ventura, CA) – RUBICON THEATRE, Ventura County’s premier professional not-for-profit theatre company, committed to providing entertainment, enrichment and educational opportunities for local residents and visitors, continues its blockbuster 2024/2025 Dare to Dream Season with the World Premiere of CRAZY MAMA: A TRUE STORY OF LOVE & MADNESS, written by Ojai resident SHARON SCOTT WILLIAMS. This deeply personal, darkly funny, and profoundly moving solo play will run March 26 – April 6, 2025, at Rubicon’s intimate Karyn Jackson Theatre, 1006 E. Main Street, located in Ventura’s Downtown Cultural District. The production is directed by Golden Globe nominee ANSON WILLIAMS (“Happy Days” and “Melrose Place”/”Beverly Hills 90210” as director), and stars celebrated stage and screen actress LINDA PURL (“Happy Days”, “Matlock,” “The Office,” “Homeland,” “True Blood”). Purl returns to Rubicon for her ninth production with the company, calling the theatre her “West Coast artistic home.” This one-woman, 16-character, tour-de-force is about a daughter’s decades-long dream of saving her mother from the soul-crushing grip of mental illness. A testament to the steely resilience of the human heart and the enduring nature of hope, Crazy Mama will leave audiences breathless, moved, and inspired.

MARCH 26 – APRIL 6 (Low-Priced Previews Mar. 26 – 28/Press Opening Mar. 29)

5-STAR THEATRICALS
Presents the First Show of its 2025 Season…
CABARET
Book by Joe Masteroff
Music by John Kander
Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Based on the play by John Van Druten and the stories of Christopher Isherwood
Musical Direction by Gregory Nabours
Choreography by Clarice Ordaz
Directed by Michael Matthews

“In Here, Life is Beautiful…” beginning Friday, March 14 in the
Scherr Forum Theatre at the Bank of America Performing Arts Center!

OPENS: FRIDAY, MARCH 14 at 7:30pm (press opening) and runs through
SUNDAY, MARCH 30 at 1:00pm
Performances are Thursdays & Fridays at 7:30pm; Saturdays at 1:00pm and
7:30pm; Sundays at 1:00pm
BANK OF AMERICA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER –
SCHERR FORUM THEATRE
2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd, in Thousand Oaks
Tickets range from $68 – $95
For tickets, please call (805) 449-2787.
For theatre information, call (805) 449-ARTS (2787) or buy online at
www.5startheatricals.com.
Student, Senior and Group discounts are available.

Kevin Flynn & Friends headline
‘Comedy Night’ at the Odyssey

One performance only: Saturday, Feb. 8 at 8 p.m.
 

LOS ANGELES (January 9, 2025) — Everything is funnier at the Odyssey Theatre, where “Comedy Night” is fast becoming one of the top spots to see comedy in Los Angeles. Next up: series curator, writer, actor and comedian Kevin Flynn will be joined by stand-up pal Al Ducharme and a special surprise guest for an unforgettable night of comedy on Saturday, Feb. 8 at 8 p.m.

The Odyssey Theatre is located at 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles, 90025. All tickets are $20, with an additional $3 per ticket fee if using a credit card.

For more information and to purchase tickets, call (310) 477-2055 or go to OdysseyTheatre.com.

NEWS RELEASE

January 17 opening of Four Women in Red
postponed at Victory Theatre

LOS ANGELES (January 11, 2025) — With members of the cast, creative team and audience impacted by the wildfires, The Victory Theatre Center has canceled the previously announced January 17 opening of Four Women in Red, a new play by Laura Shamas about the current crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. A revised performance schedule will be announced at a later date.

LA MIRADA THEATRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS &

McCOY RIGBY ENTERTAINMENT

IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE CORNLEY POLYTECHNIC DRAMA SOCIETY

PRESENT

THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG
Written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer & Henry Shields

The Cornley Drama Society is putting on a 1920s murder mystery, but as the title suggests,
everything that can go wrong… does! The accident-prone thespians battle against all odds
to make it through to their final curtain call with hilarious consequences!

“TONS OF FUN FOR ALL AGES!” – Huffington Post
“BEST SHOW I’VE EVER SEEN!” – Mahatma Gandhi

THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG
Written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer & Henry Shields
Directed by Eric Petersen
OPENS: Saturday, January 25 at 8 pm (Press Opening)
and runs through Sunday, February 16 at 6:30 pm
PREVIEWS: Friday, January 24 at 8 pm & Saturday, January 25 at 2 pm
PERFORMANCES: Thursdays at 7:30 pm; Fridays at 8 pm;
Saturdays at 2 pm & 8 pm; Sundays at 1:30 pm & 6:30 pm.
There is no performance on Sunday, January 27 at 6:30 pm.
There will be an Open-Captioned performance on Saturday, February 8, 2025
at 2:00 pm.
Talkbacks with the cast and creative team will be on Thursday, January 30 at
7:30 pm and Thursday, February 13 at 7:30 pm.
LA MIRADA THEATRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
14900 La Mirada Blvd. in La Mirada, CA 90638.
Arrive Early to Find Best Parking — It’s Free!
Tickets range from $19 – $90 (prices subject to change).
Children under 3 will not be admitted into the theatre.
For tickets, please call (562) 944-9801 or (714) 994-6310 or buy online at
LaMiradaTheatre.com.  Group, student, and military discounts are available.

Baseball brings joy behind barbed wire in L.A. Theatre Works
audio theater recording of ‘Zeni: Dean of the Diamond’
 

LOS ANGELES (January 14, 2025) — “We took a piece of barren land and turned it into a place of hope, a piece of freedom, where everyone could find joy again.” Fresno baseball legend Kenichi Zenimura broke records and barriers, building a baseball field and organizing a league behind the barbed wire fence of a Japanese internment camp during World War II. L.A. Theatre Works presents a state-of-the-art audio theater recording of Zeni: Dean of the Diamond, a new play by Mas Moriya based on the true-life story of the man often referred to as “the father of Japanese American baseball.”

Zenimura, known as “Zeni,” loved baseball. As a young man in the 1920s he developed a Nisei baseball league in Fresno, California, going on to organize barnstorming tours that brought the likes of Babe Ruth to the West Coast and Japan. When he and his family were sent to Gila River, an internment camp in Arizona where Japanese Americans were incarcerated, he knew that, somehow, baseball would be the key to improving the lives of his fellow detainees.

”This is an amazing story about how a group of men and boys were able to create a sense of community and home in an unthinkably inhospitable environment,” says L.A. Theatre Works senior producer Anna Lyse Erikson, who directed the recording.

Part of LATW’s “Japanese American Civil Liberties” podcast series, a new collection of audio theater productions about the Japanese American experience during and after World War II, Zeni: Dean of the Diamond stars Keiko Agena, Tristan Chung, CJ Cruz, Genki Hall, Derrick Kemp, Michael Sun Lee, John Miyasaki, Rob Nagle, Rosie Narasaki, Tristan Pravong, Thomas Winter and Paul Yen. The series is sponsored by the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program, a state-funded grant project of the California State Library.

L.A. Theatre Works, the world’s foremost producer of audio theater, stands apart in its approach to making great theater widely accessible and affordable, bringing recordings of plays into homes and classrooms of millions of theater lovers, teachers and students each year. The company’s catalog of nearly 600 recorded plays is the largest archive of its kind in the world. LATW’s syndicated audio theater series broadcasts weekly on public radio stations across the U.S. (locally, in Southern California, on KPFK 90.7 FM); can be downloaded wherever you get your podcasts; and can be streamed on demand at latw.org. AudioFile magazine calls L.A. Theatre Works productions “the gold standard for fine audio theater recordings.”

Zeni: Dean of the Diamond is available now at streaming.latw.org and at retailers and libraries everywhere.

Tick, Tick… Boom!
Music, Lyrics, and Book by Jonathan Larson

Something wicked this way comes: ‘Macbeth’
opens Feb. 15 at A Noise Within 

PASADENA, Calif (January 7, 2025) –– Delve deep into the psychological turmoil of a man fighting from a place of loss and tortured by guilt, fate and the corrupting influence of his own desires when Andi Chapman directs William Shakespeare‘s final and darkest tragedy. Presented by acclaimed classical theater company A Noise Within, Macbeth runs February 15 through March 9 at the company’s home in Pasadena. Low-priced previews begin February 9.

Set for this production against the haunting backdrop of New Orleans from the late 19th century through the 1920s, Macbeth may be the Bard’s most disturbing play: a macabre tale of witches, hallucinations, ambition, power and Shakespeare’s bloodiest couple. Macbeth and his wife thrash against the rise of their own consciences in a gripping psychological and political thriller that follows Macbeth’s transformation from a celebrated battlefield hero to a bloody tyrant, unveiling the profound darkness that resides within the human soul.

‘Macbeth’

WHAT:
Delve deep into the psychological turmoil of a king tortured by guilt, fate and the corrupting influence of his own desires when A Noise within presents Macbeth, a macabre tale of witches, hallucinations, ambition and power. Shakespeare’s bloodiest couple, Macbeth and his wife thrash against the rise of their own consciences in a gripping psychological and political thriller that follows Macbeth’s transformation from battlefield hero to bloody tyrant, revealing the human soul’s darkest depths.

WHO:
• Written by William Shakespeare
• Directed by Andi Chapman
• Starring Michael Boatman, Kamal Bolden, Ben Cain, Joy DeMichelle, Julanne Chidi Hill, Mildred Marie Langford, Ned Mochel, Alex Morris, Roshni Shukla, Randy Thompson
• Featuring Noemi Avalos, Brooklyn Bao, Norman Campos, Joseph Darby, Robert De Loza, Tony Jimenez, Daniel Kim, Howard Leder, Angel Monzon, Koa Spiegel, Ahkei Togun
• Presented by A Noise Within, Geoff Elliot and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, producing artistic directors

WHEN:
Previews Feb. 9 – Feb. 14:
• Sunday at 2 p.m. / Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 7:30 p.m.
Performances Feb. 15 – March 9:
• Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7: 30 p.m. / Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. (no Saturday matinee on Feb. 15; dark Thursday, March 6)

ADDITIONAL DATES:
• A one-hour INsiders Discussion Group will take place prior to the matinee on Sunday, Feb. 16 beginning at 12:30 p.m.
• Post-performance conversations with the artists every Friday (except the preview) and Sunday, Feb. 23
• Student matinees are scheduled on select weekdays at 10:30 a.m. Interested educators should email education@anoisewithin.org.

WHERE:
A Noise Within
3352 E Foothill Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91107

TICKETS:
• Tickets start at $51.50 (including fees)
• Student tickets start at $20
• Wednesday, Feb. 12 and Thursday, Feb. 13 (previews): Pay What You Choose starting at $10 (available online beginning the Monday prior to that performance)
• Discounts available for groups of 10 or more

HOW:
www.anoisewithin.org
(626) 356-3100

The Group Rep is proud to present THE CURIOUS SAVAGE, a gentle comedy written
by John Patrick, directed by Doug Engalla and produced for The Group Rep by Aly
York.

The play centers around Ethel Savage after her late husband leaves her ten million
dollars and she decides to establish a fund to support dreamers. But her three greedy
stepchildren commit her to a mental institution, hoping to “bring her to her senses.” In
the sanitarium, she befriends the other “guests.” Meanwhile, the stepchildren discover
that Ethel has hidden the family fortune and attempt to browbeat her into confessing
where the money has been stashed. There is a wild goose chase where the question,
“Who is really crazy and who is sane?” comes into play. With warmth, humor and
dignity, this charming play celebrates those who are often overlooked, emphasizing
kindness, affection and empathy in a world that too often rewards greed and ambition.

About performance times and tickets:
January 17 – February 23, 2025
Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm; Sunday Matinees at 2:00pm
After the Matinee: Talkback with Cast and Staff 1/19 and 1/26
General Admission: $36. Seniors & Students with ID: $30. Parties
10+: $25.00
Buy Tickets and Reservations: www.thegrouprep.com or (818) 763-
5990
The Lonny Chapman Theatre is located at 10900 Burbank Blvd., N.
Hollywood 91601

To view a quick chat with director Doug Engalla and actress Sara
Shearer please visit youtube.com/watch?v=YxJ9VW8-d3c
For more information about the show & the Group Rep at the Lonny
Chapman Theatre:
Website www.thegrouprep.com
Facebook facebook.com/TheGroupRep
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thegroupreptheatre

ROAD THEATRE COMPANY
Presents the Second Show of its 2024-2025 Season…

The West Coast Premiere of

SLEEPING GIANT

Written by Steve Yockey
Directed by Ann Hearn Tobolowsky

Limited Engagement Opens Friday, January 17
at the Road Theatre in North Hollywood

Previews: Tuesday, January 14 at 8pm; Wednesday, January 15 at 8pm &
Thursday, January 16 at 8pm
Opens: Friday, January 17 at 8pm (Press Opening)
Runs: Friday, January 17, 2025 – Sunday, February 23, 2025
Performances are Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm; Sundays at 2pm
There will be two captioned performances for the deaf and hard of hearing
communities on Saturday, February 1 at 8pm and Sunday, February 8
at 2pm.
The Road Theatre, located in The NoHo Senior Arts Colony,
10747 Magnolia Blvd. in North Hollywood.

Tickets: $39.00 (General Admission)
$25.00 (Seniors)
$17.00 (Students)
$15.00 (Previews)
Tickets available online at:
ww.roadtheatre.org or call 818-761-8838.