La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts (La Mirada, CA)
It's December 1939. "Gone with the Wind" storms the silver screen. Hitler invades Poland. But the biggest concern of Atlanta's Freitag family is Ballyhoo, a lavish ball for southern Jewish socialites. When Uncle Adolph brings Joe -- his new, very eligible assistant -- home for dinner, the romantic schemes begin. This comedy captures the same heartfelt warmth as the author's earlier success, Driving Miss Daisy.
Event summary prepared by the Goldstar Editorial Team.
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The last event was Sunday June 22, 2008 / 2:00pm. (view all dates)
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We really loved this story, the actors, the theatre, and our seats. I may see this again and take the kids next time.
This was a very entertaining play. It had humor and a good story. My parents and I enjoyed it as our Father's Day acitivity.
We had the best seats in the house....
Funny lines, good acting, great costumes, interesting set.
We thought the acting was terrific. We loved the story.
It was a great and enteraining performance. The first act was a little slow going, but the second act made up for it. Lots of humor. James Ryan was especially funny.
Out of town guests and I enjoyed an excellent show and fine seats. You covered all the bases and made the whole process very easy. Thanks very much.
This Alfred Uhry Tony Award winning serio-comic play is wonderful theater. And the professional cast is flawless. The Theater itself is a treat, with its "living room" style gathering space for pre- and post-performance socializing and delicious treats.
Heralded by the Los Angeles Times as "one of the best Broadway-style houses in Southern California," La Mirada Theatre was state of the art in 1977 and remains so today due in large part to each city council, responsible for either its construction or continued operation, recognizing the importance of maintaining the highest technical standards while presenting the finest nation... More
Set on the brink of World War II, The Last Night of Ballyhoo is a warm-hearted play about a Jewish family in Georgia that obscures its heritage for the sake of social status. The family gets pulled apart and mended again with plenty of comedy, romance and revelations along the way.
Alfred Uhry (playwright) was born in 1936 to an upper-middle-class German-Jewish family in Atlanta, Georgia. Uhry had worked on varsity shows at Brown with Robert Waldman; Uhry wrote the script and lyrics, and Waldman wrote the music. After college, Uhry moved to New York to begin his career in show business, where he continued to collaborate with Waldman. Their musical, The Robber Bridegroom (1975), was based on a novella by southern writer Eudora Welty. The play was a surprise hit Off-Broadway and moved to Broadway for the 1976-1977 season. It earned Uhry a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk nomination. He continued to work on other musicals, but also began to write comedy scripts for television shows and lyrics for commercials.
Driving Miss Daisy, Uhry’s first play, was an instant success, running for three years in New York and earning him a Pulitzer Prize in 1988. Uhry also wrote the adaptation for the film version. Uhry was then approached by the Olympic Games’ Cultural Olympiad to produce a play for the 1996 Olympic Games that would be held in Atlanta. He revisited Atlanta’s Jewish milieu that he knew so well to create his story about intra-ethnic prejudice. The Last Night of Ballyhoo went on to win Uhry another Tony Award. In 1998, he wrote the book for the musical Parade, which played at Lincoln Center in New York. It also had anti-Semitism as a central focus. Uhry most recently wrote the book to LoveMusik, based on the lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya.
Jules Aaron (director) has directed more than 250 productions for stage and television and is the recipient of 18 Drama-Logue Awards, three Backstage Garland Awards, four Bay Area Theatre Awards, three L.A. Drama Critics Circle nominations and one LADCC Award for director. He has directed frequently at the Public Theater in New York, Actors Theatre of Louisville (Humana Festival), South Coast Repertory, Pasadena Playhouse, Laguna Playhouse, New Mexico Repertory, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Falcon Theatre, TheatreWorks and La Mirada Theatre of the Performing Arts. Aaron has directed Bruce Davison, Don Cheadle, Julianne Moore, Joan Van Ark, Billy Zane and Mercedes Ruehl, among others. He directed a benefit of The Last Night of Ballyhoo at the Wilshire Theatre and an acclaimed production of Cabaret at ITC.
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