On the Town

Oak Park High School opened its production of “Mamma Mia!” last week and, as every high school theater director knows, opening night is when to expect the unexpected. Sure enough, during a scene in which one of the show’s most potent dance numbers is being performed, the silvery top of a prop microphone popped off its stem and rolled out […]

Ed Wynn, best known as Uncle Albert in “Mary Poppins,” is widely credited for coming up with the axiom, “a comic says things funny; a comedian says funny things.” Paul Reiser, who appeared Oct. 26 at the Scherr Forum Theatre in Thousand Oaks, is definitely the latter. His brand of humor is a throwback to a style of stand-up rarely […]

Shows from Broadway’s so-called “Golden Age” are staged with distressingly less frequency these days, which makes 5-Star Theatricals’ current production of Meredith Willson’s (and Franklin Lacey’s) venerable musical comedy, “The Music Man,” all the more refreshing to revisit. The 1957 musical, which takes place in the fictional hamlet of River City, Iowa in 1912, is noted for its rich characterizations […]

As the Santa Ana winds continue to blast their declarations that the cooler days of fall and winter are around the corner, families and friends might be wanting to hold on to the warmer, carefree days of summer. Capture the taste and hot feel of the tropics right here in the area at the Mejico Grill and Tequila Lounge, nestled […]

Young Artists Ensemble will present “The Addams Family, School Edition,” Fri., Sat. and Sun., Nov. 1 through 17 at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts, 403 W. Hillcrest Drive, Thousand Oaks. The show is directed by Autumn Bodily with musical direction by Susan Treworgy-Calkins and choreography by Whitney Grubb. The play begins when young Wednesday Addams has fallen in love […]

Four-time Grammy Award-winner Don Felder and his band will play at 7 p.m. Sun., Nov. 3 at the Kavli Theatre, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks. Felder, formerly of the Eagles, released his first solo album in seven years, “American Rock ’n’ Roll,” in April. The new album features Sammy Hagar, Slash, Richie Sambora, Orianthi, Peter Frampton, Joe Satriani, Mick […]

In October 1998, Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old student at the University of Wyoming, was kidnapped, brutally beaten and left to die, tied to a fence in the middle of the prairie outside the town of Laramie, Wyo. Shepard’s bloody, battered body was not discovered until the next day. He died several days later in an area hospital. Shepard’s brutal murder […]