Goldstar

Laguna Playhouse presents Moonlight and Magnolias, a comedy set during the golden age of Hollywood. When producer David O. Selznick halts production of Gone with the Wind three weeks into filming, it falls to playwright Ben Hecht to rewrite the unwieldy script. The catch? Hecht is given just five days to do the job, and he's never read the book. Learn more...

Set in a department store, where four women with seemingly nothing in common but a black lace bra meet by chance, this hit musical comedy pokes fun at everything from hot flashes and mood swings to night sweats and eating binges. Menopause is filled with parodies of classic Baby Boomer hits from the '60s, '70s and '80s. Learn more...

Frank Sinatra was the icon of cool, from classic elegance to contemporary "fedora" hipster. My Way: A Tribute to Frank Sinatra celebrates the pivotal moments of Sinatra's life. It goes from his early beginnings in the 1940's swing era, to the bright lights of Las Vegas with the Rat Pack in the 1960s, to his final performances in the 1990s as "Chairman of the Board." Learn more...

Victor is a wealthy and eccentric American expatriate living in 1961 Paris and he owns the world's finest restaurant, which he reserves solely for his private use. When he unexpectedly arrives in a state of broken-hearted desperation, the staff attempts to lift his spirits by seducing him with culinary splendors, but they find that the way to a man's heart may not be through his stomach. Learn more...

Laguna Playhouse presents A Little Princess. This stage adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's beloved children's novel tells the story of Sara Crewe, a young girl whose father suddenly becomes poor. Forced to work as a servant at the school she once attended, Sara manages to keep her kind heart and active imagination. Learn more...

Laguna Playhouse presents Number the Stars. Based on Lois Lowry's Newbury Award-winning book, this play tells the story of two girls living in Nazi-occupied Denmark during World War II. Annemarie somehow must find the strength and courage to save her best friend Ellen's life. Learn more...

'Til Death Do Us Part: Late Nite Catechism 3 is the latest class to be unveiled in this sinfully funny series. After teaching countless students all about the saints, venial sins, guilt, limbo and more, Sister is now offering up her hilarious lessons on the Sacraments of Marriage and Last Rites, including her own wacky version of The Newlywed Game. Learn more...

Featuring more than a dozen hit songs, Ella weaves myth, memory and music into a compelling story about the life and career of one of the 20th century's greatest jazz/pop vocalists, Ella Fitzgerald. The musical includes memorable tunes like "A Tisket, A Tasket," "That Old Black Magic" and "They Can't Take That Away from Me." Learn more...

Five actors handle over three dozen roles among them in this frenetic, colorful comedy based on the classic Jules Verne novel. Set during the 1870s, Around the World in 80 Days centers on London gentleman Phileas Fogg, who wagers that he can travel completely around the globe in a mere 80 days. Mark Brown's imaginative theatrical adaptation has itself been performed -- to great acclaim -- all around the world. Learn more...

Everyone's favorite late-nite nun returns with a holiday show that will keep audiences laughing as they watch Sister tackle the question that has been puzzling historians throughout the ages: what happened to the Magi's gold? Think CSI: Bethlehem as Sister engages the audience to help solve the mystery through a forensic examination of the nativity scene. Learn more...

This sentimental comedy about a journalist who returns home to Iowa to find a final resting place for his father's ashes is a nostalgic ode to days gone by. The journalist relives the summer vacations he spent as boy trapped in the family station wagon en route to uninteresting historical sites with a well-meaning but naïve father. Learn more...

Meet fledgling playwright Jerry Przpezniak and his betrothed Arlene Wyniarski, a couple of Buffalo greenhorns who are suddenly swept up in the whirlwind of New York's theatre scene when Jerry's autobiographical play is optioned for Broadway. It's a young playwright's dream, but the characters and dilemmas they encounter in New York are the things nightmares are made of. Learn more...

Take four endearing characters, add nearly two dozen classic pop songs from the '50s and '60s, mix it with an engaging story, and you have an unforgettable evening of musical theater. This musical blast from the past transports audiences back to the 1958 Springfield High School prom, where they meet The Wonderettes: Betty Jean, Cindy Lou, Missy and Suzy--four girls with big hopes and dreams. Learn more...

The Laguna Playhouse presents the world premiere of Alexandros, a hilarious human comedy with a warm Latin heart by award-winning playwright Melinda Lopez. It's a birthday party nobody will forget. Abuela, matriarch of a Cuban-exile family, is turning 75. Much-married Maritza and her teenage daughter, Marty, have driven in. Live-at-home son, Tio, wants everything to go smoothly, but as the punch flows, the party unravels. Learn more...

As the saying goes, "If only these walls could talk," and in Catherine Butterfield's imaginative new play, they do. A Manhattan brownstone with three contrasting eras and three sets of occupants: a pampered rich young couple of the 1930s, a starry-eyed pair of aspiring actresses in the 1970s, and a chillingly self-absorbed "power couple" of the new millennium. They all have dreams, but as events unfold they must learn to ride the shifting waves of fortune. Learn more...

Take three pairs of lovers, add an unsolved murder, several pinches of espionage and pickle everything in a brine of early Cold War paranoia and you have the ingredients for a side-splitting black comedy enmeshed in tangled romance. Why is Senator Joe McCarthy's daughter dating a would-be traitor? And what's that supposedly dead Russian fisherman doing pretending to be feisty landlady Mrs. Kravitz' deaf husband? Learn more...

This musical biography chronicles the rise and fall of Hank Williams, the brash, legendary singer-songwriter who stands among the greatest innovators of American popular music. The show highlights Williams' unique magic as a performer and the simple spell of his yearning songs, with more than 20 hits including "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," "Jambalaya" and "Hey, Good Lookin'." Learn more...

Art, like beauty, may be in the eye of the beholder, but that doesn't stop the three men in Yasmina Reza's runaway hit play from having strong opinions about it. Serge has paid a small fortune for a large white-painted canvas. Friend Marc is scornfully unimpressed, while Ivan tries to avoid taking sides. What begins as a sparkling debate about the nature of art soon morphs into a wittily observed, often poignant examination of friendship itself. Learn more...

Imagine four women at a Bloomingdale's lingerie sale with little in common besides night sweats, memory loss, chocolate binges, not enough (or too much) s*x, and more. Featuring a parody of 25 re-lyricized classic Baby Boomer hits, Menopause the Musical is a joyful celebration of women living through The Change. Learn more...

Commissioned specifically by the Laguna Playhouse, The Verdi Girls is a new play by renowned Irish comic dramatist Bernard Farrell. Every year, opera aficionados from around the world gather in Milan for a weekend festival devoted to the great composer Verdi -- a weekend which rapidly descends into hilarious chaos. Learn more...

Kurt and Win have spent their young lives protecting their alcoholic mother. When an accident leads to a devastating fire, they are catapulted into a media frenzy and Win becomes a reluctant hero. But the brothers harbor a terrible secret. Will Win choose family loyalty or listen to his conscience? Learn more...

Filled with humor and pathos, The Master of the House, Israel's Best Play of 2003, uses a familiar marital battleground as a springboard to explore life's complexities in contemporary Israel. Nava wants to completely remodel the house. Joel doesn't want to change a thing about it. Down deep, their motivation is the same. Until they come to terms with that, there can be no resolution. Learn more...

A reclusive former scientist, who abandoned his career to live in the Arizona desert and cultivate an interest in Anasazi pottery, is tracked down by a Ph.D. student who based her dissertation on his research in global warming and seeks his endorsement. Intellectual and romantic sparks fly in this play by David Rambo, who is a co-producer and writer for CBS's "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." Learn more...

The Laguna Playhouse presents the world premiere of The Pursuit of Happiness, a comedy by Richard Dresser. Annie's whole future happiness depends on her daughter going to college in the fall, and she'll stop at nothing to make sure that happens. Neil's obsession with work is gradually being overtaken by his fascination with a new and dangerous hobby. Jodi doesn't believe that attending college made either of her parents happy, and detests the burden of their living vicariously through her. Learn more...

The West Coast premiere of A Marvelous Party showcases the music of the enchanting Noel Coward in an exhilarating evening of song, dance and sparkling repartee. Drawn from Coward's songs, plays and journals, this effervescent revue lifts the spirit and makes the perfect holiday season entertainment. Learn more...

What do we owe our children? What do we owe our parents? Can we forgive the past? These universal questions resonate in a play embedded in the complexity of family life, as a midwestern mother faces not only the deployment of her son with the Marines, but must also navigate painful memories of her exodus from Cuba 40 years ago. Learn more...

Laguna Playhouse presents the West Coast premiere of Sonia Flew, a moving account of two intertwined family dramas shows how political events impact ordinary lives. Set in post-9/11 America and Cuba of the Castro revolution, Melinda Lopez's play revolves around Sonia, cross-cultural matriarch of a mid-Western Jewish family, as she struggles with her son's decision to join the Marines. Learn more...

In this unique theatre event, the audience gets to help solve a murder mystery in a laugh-a-minute blend of whodunit and improvisational theatre: the audience plays detective, swept along by a cascade of colorful characters in hysterical situations. Set in a local hair salon and with lines as up-to-date as the morning's news, Shear Madness is theatre with the audience as a central character. Learn more...

The Laguna Playhouse presents sleight-of-hand comedy And the Winner Is, written by Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays With Morrie. It's trophy season in Hollywood and Tyler Johnes, Academy Award-nominated movie star and sleazy strip-joint franchiser, wakes up in a purgatorial bar where time has no meaning and nothing is as it seems. Johnes still wants to make the Oscars but instead must revisit his dubious life through unscheduled appearances by his agent, his former acting partner, his bimbo escort and soon-to-be ex-wife. Learn more...

The Laguna Playhouse presents the West Coast premiere of Catherine Butterfield's darkly comic The Sleeper, the story of a housewife's torrid romance with a man whom she begins to suspect is not who he seems. Winner of the 2004 Kaufman and Hart Award. Learn more...

2 Pianos 4 Hands is the story of two young boys who share a common goal: concert pianist stardom. What follows is an entertaining series of tales, from childhood stumbling blocks, coming of age turning points, to the acceptance of their fate, all with the piano panache of a smash hit! Learn more...

The perfect holiday show! It's Christmas, and Irene has an elaborate plan to redeem her out-of-work husband by impressing a supermarket tycoon into hiring him. Of course, things don't go exactly as planned in this side-splitting holiday farce--a perfect antidote to Scrooges, Nutcrackers, Grinches and Rudolphs. Learn more...

The irresistible comedy Bad Dates stars Beth Broderick (TV's The Five Mrs. Buchanans and Sabrina the Teenage Witch) as Haley, a recent divorcee with a 14-year-old and a shoe fetish, who re-enters the world of dating. Learn more...

The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!) is a comic satire about...musicals! The show features parodies of different musical genres and forms, including songs written in the style of various masters like Andrew Lloyd Webber, Rodgers & Hammerstein and Stephen Sondheim. Learn more...

The Laguna Playhouse presents The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, Charles Busch's "uproarious" social satire about a middle-aged Upper West Side doctor's wife who must cope with the unwieldly demands of a distracted husband, a kvetching mother, and the mysterious arrival of a strangely familiar face. It's a mid-life crisis of Medea-like proportions. Learn more...

Steve Martin's hilarious adaptation of Carl Sternheim's 1910 comedy, The Underpants, is a wild and crazy sex farce centered on a stuffed-shirt bureaucrat who is scandalized by his wife's wayward pair of knickers. It is directed by Playhouse artistic director Andrew Barnicle, who staged Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile at the Playhouse in 1999. Learn more...

The Laguna Playhouse presents the West Coast Premiere of Bright Ideas, Eric Coble's "madcap, stomach-churning, belly-laughing" play about two parent's obsession with getting their child into the right pre-school. Learn more...

The Laguna Playhouse presents the Southern California Premiere of Naomi Iizuka's 36 Views, a play about greed, love and the world of art. Learn more...

The Laguna Playhouse presents this ambitious play about the life of progressive activist Ida B. Wells, told through 20 classic spirituals sung a cappella in five-part harmony. Learn more...

The Laguna Playhouse presents Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, a delightful story about an irrepressible mouse who loves everything about school, until her teacher takes away her beloved musical purse. Learn more...

The Laguna Playhouse presents the hit stage adaptation of Mitch Albom's inspiring and heart-warming best-selling novel, Tuesdays with Morrie. Learn more...

The Laguna Playhouse presents Forever Plaid, featuring the greatest pop hits of the '50s. One of the most popular musicals in recent years, Forever Plaid is a perfect summer-fun show! Learn more...

The play's title refers to TV advertising that focuses on food, filmed primarily on mini-sets that are…wait for it…table tops. Tabletop—which has been compared to TV workplace comedies like "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Taxi"—examines the idiosyncrasies of the advertising business and its requisite personalities. Learn more...

The American Premiere of a funny, honest play about the battle between loyalty and desire: What the Night Is For, from the Laguna Playhouse. Learn more...