A California Online Magazine with Local Focus and Global Appeal
In the matter of CenterStage Clovis vs. Legally Blonde: The Musical, both parties came out the winner. An exuberant cast cheerfully brings the story of the 2001 Reese Witherspoon comedy (based on Amanda Brown’s novel) to tuneful life on the Mercedes Edwards Theatre stage. It’s funny, brisk, and there are a few delightful casting surprises.
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After stuffing myself with ice cream in June, I turned the Great Food Search toward a more healthy highway of food—salads. Some people look down on salads as that green stuff they have to chomp through before they can really eat something, but the dishes I am about to introduce to you are more than a mouthful—this is FOOD!
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Seven years ago, the Good Company Players presented Calamity Jane, based on the Doris Day musical film, at Roger Rocka’s. Instead of using all local talent, the starring role was played by Louise Mandrell, country singer and part of the Mandrell Sisters. She was really, really good.
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If someone comes off as a really nice person, but suddenly turns mean and nasty, we call him a “Jekyll and Hyde,” all because of Robert Louis Stevenson and a bad dream. That dream, of a man physically turning from good to evil, became the 1886 novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Over the last 133 years, the story has appeared on stage, on movie screens, and on television countless times (I actually wrote script and lyrics for a musical comedy version presented when I was in high school in 1969), and in varying degrees of adaptation (Remember Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971)?).
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Did you ever have one of those times when a group of people find themselves together and suddenly become a set of BFF’s (Best Friends Forever)? Did you ever feel so beaten down by life that you wished someone could give your life a boost in a better direction?
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In summer, thoughts turn to ice cream, and the Great Food Search has industriously worked its way through ice cream shop after ice cream shop, just to let you know what’s out there. Here are some of the usual suspects…and a few of the unusual ones.
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She’s a shape-shifting daughter of the god Coyote.
She’s married to the Alpha of a werewolf pack.
She has claimed the Tri-Cities of Washington under her protection.
She is rounding up a herd of zombie miniature goats.
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Sure, I’d had sushi, before…I thought. At some Asian buffets, I’d had the California Roll, which is as close to real sushi as a fast-food burger is to a filet mignon. My immersion into Sushiland began when my wife texted about a new place in Sanger, Casa Oinari.
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In Frederick Knott’s Wait Until Dark, darkness is an obstacle and a liability for Susy Hendrix (Alyssa Benitez), but it becomes her best defense. Share the terror at the Selma Arts Center through May 26.
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Any way you spell it, it’s serious eating. Best known in the Middle East and Armenia, variants of this grilled meat dish range from Africa to China, with or without skewers.
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Humans think of themselves as the top of Earth’s food chain. Suppose the world was a bit different. What if there were creatures that could clear out entire sections of a country overnight? What if they looked on humans as “prey”?
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“Good Morning, Baltimore!”
Those words mean that the Good Company Players have time-traveled back to 1962 and the good old days of racial segregation on teenage dance shows in the musical Hairspray on stage at Roger Rocka’s Dinner Theater through May 19. What a joyous blast from the past it is!
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The Rogue Festival: the crown performing-arts jewel of Fresno’s Tower District, 9 days (or 10, if you count the Rogue Teaser, which I do) filled with music, dance, theatre, magic, comedy, and other things. I managed to see twenty-five shows this year, dashing from venue to venue to see as much as I could…but a chubby little reviewer’s gotta eat, right? Where can you grab some food when you’re on your way to somewhere else? Is there any place for a quick bite to eat? Let me put it this way—I did not lose weight during Rogue 2019.
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A Shot in the Dark? Oh, yeah! The one about the blind lady, and she doesn’t know the bad guys are in her apartment with her! No, that’s Wait Until Dark. This is A Shot in the Dark.
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