Wilshire Theatre Beverly Hills
the 2008 Broadway theatre season
celebrating the rebirth of a legendary venue

The international Broadway sensation
Luis Bravo's Forever Tango
Four Performances only!
February 29 - March 2

Direct from London -- first ever U.S. National Tour Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman's Whistle Down The Wind
Los Angeles premiere! Eight performances only!
April 22- 27

Janis Joplin. Her Words. Her Story. Her Music.
Love, Janis
Los Angeles premiere! Five performances only!
May 29 - June 1

The curtain rises on a spectacular new Broadway theatre season at the Wilshire Theatre Beverly Hills, 8440 Wilshire Blvd., featuring three attractions that celebrate the rebirth of this legendary venue with shows from Broadway and London.

David Baron, president of Wilshire Theatre Beverly Hills, has created this series to showcase “The best of Broadway in the best location in town. We are thrilled that we can bring great theatre right where our audience lives. I've talked to so many people who think that the best restaurants and the best shopping are in Beverly Hills - and our goal is to have the best live entertainment here as well.”

Fiery hot passion ignites on stage in Forever Tango from February 29 -March 2 for three performances only. Created and directed by Luis Bravo, the Broadway hit Forever Tango is sensuous and sophisticated, sleek and sexy. The production traces the Tango's colorful history, through music, dance, and dramatic vignettes, performed by an ensemble of dancers, musicians and singers.

Direct from London on its first ever U.S. National Tour, Whistle Down The Wind will have its Los Angeles premiere April 22-27. Based on the novel by Mary Hayley Bell, and subsequent 1961 movie set in the U.K., the musical, with book by Patricia Knop, Gale Edwards and Andrew Lloyd Webber and featuring music by Webber and lyrics by Jim Steinman of "Meatloaf" songwriting fame, is now set in Louisiana in 1959.

Love, Janis plays in Los Angeles for the first time ever May 29-June 1. The life and music of rock-n-roll icon Janis Joplin explodes onto the stage. Joplin's journey is told in her own words through letters and interviews intertwined with performances of her greatest hits. Described as an electric musical event full of energy, the show was a critically acclaimed hit in San Francisco.

In the past few years, the Wilshire Theatre has been enjoying a new renaissance of live entertainment - and has become the Beverly Hills home for major Broadway touring productions, concerts, and special events. The theatre has been host for the national tours of “Cabaret” and “Fiddler on the Roof” starring Theodore Bikel, Billy Crystal's Broadway show "700 Sundays," Chris Botti Live in Concert featuring Sting and Paula Cole, Kenny G, Annie Lennox, James Taylor, and HBO's Def Comedy Jam featuring Dave Chappelle. With this musical series, new life is being breathed into this revitalized venue. Two of the attractions are being presented for the first time in the Los Angeles area.

About 2008 Wilshire Theatre Season

Luis Bravo's Forever Tango
February 29 - March 2

Luis Bravo's Forever Tango features an all Argentine cast who trace, through music, dance, song and dramatic vignettes, the Tango's colorful history for three performaces only at the Wilshire Theatre February 29 through March 2. The show contains 7 dance couples, who tango in their own unique styles, and an on-stage orchestra.

Sensuous and sophisticated, the tango inhabits a world where everything can be said with the flick of a leg, the tug of a hand, the tap of a foot and the arch of an eyebrow. The show was nominated for 4 New York Drama Desk Awards in 1998 and continued on an international tour including engagements in Mexico, Korea, Japan and Germany.

In a September 2007 interview for the Beaumont Enterprise, Argentinean impresario and creator of Forever Tango Luis Bravo said he created Forever Tango in 1990 essentially as a means to celebrate his culture and the practitioners of the genre.

According to Bravo, “The biggest joy of the tango is that you're dancing with someone but in a certain way, you're dancing by yourself. You're dancing your own pain, your own desire, your own melancholy, in ritualistic ways … the biggest challenge is to find a partner, to find chemistry with another … It's very important, the chemistry. It's like in life. The biggest challenge is to find a partner in life. The content is so intense and the dancing is so close. It's a code that belongs to the two. It's about secrets and how to reveal them.”

The tango symbolizes the upheavals men and women go through in relationships, breakups, reconciliations, seductions and flirtations - all the power plays, mood swings, wretched longings, mounting jealousies, abrupt rejections, dangerous flair-ups, swelling yearnings and warm embraces. The tango simultaneously alludes to Argentinean volatility over the eras as social, economic and political changes impacted the nation time and again, said Bravo. Therefore, according to Bravo, the dance winds up "unstable," "insecure," "emotional" and otherwise in flux. "That's why it can be melancholic, violent, tender, all in the course of three minutes."

In Forever Tango fourteen native dancers sporting more than 100 costumes, along with an 11-piece onstage orchestra and a vocalist, offer a putative history of the tango through personalized vignettes. One segment, for instance, symbolizes its raw origins in Buenos Aires bordellos that teemed with immigrants in the late 1800s; another routine flaunts some polished updates of modern European ballrooms that abound with glitzy sophisticates.

The revue employs only Argentinean dancers because the tango, as a kind of national lifeblood, courses through their veins, according to Bravo. Landing on Broadway in 1997 for a 14-month run and returning twice more to the Great White Way for short follow-up engagements, Forever Tango makes ample use of the bandoneon, an Argentinean accordion, often in standards such as "Besame Mucho."

The choreography - the show's most popular component, naturally - is a collaboration between the couples and Bravo, a professional cellist who specializes in Argentinean music and who helped arrange the songs in the entertainment.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman's
Whistle Down the Wind
April 15-20

Andrew Lloyd Webber's Whistle Down the Wind will have its Los Angeles premiere at the Wilshire Theatre April 15-20 as part of its first-ever U.S. National tour. Directed and produced by Bill Kenwright, the musical comes direct from a record-breaking West End engagement and United Kingdom sell-out tour.

Based on the novel by Mary Hayley Bell, and subsequent 1961 movie set in the U.K., Whistle Down the Wind, with book by Patricia Knop, Gale Edwards and Andrew Lloyd Webber and featuring lyrics by Jim Steinman of "Meatloaf" songwriting fame, is now set in Louisiana in 1959.

Featuring a host of award-winning songs including the Boyzone smash hit 'No Matter What,' Whistle Down the Wind tells the story of a young Louisiana girl who finds a mysterious stranger hiding in her barn. When she asks his identity-the first words he utters are 'Jesus Christ;' and it's as if all her prayers have been answered. While the townspeople are determined to find the escaped felon, she and her friends vow to protect him from the outside world.

This new American premiere production partners renowned top rock lyricist Jim Steinman (Meatloaf's classic album “Bat Out of Hell,” Bonnie Tyler's “Total Eclipse of the Heart”) and award-winning composer Andrew Lloyd Webber (Cats, Evita, Joseph…) to create a melodic and haunting score that was inspired by the indigenous sounds of the American South - blues, gospel, country and rock 'n' roll.

Among the cast are Eric Kunze as The Man and Andrea Ross as Swallow, as well as, Dann Fink, Adam Shonkwiler, Austin J. Zambito-Valente, Nadine Jacobson, Carole Denise Jones, Greg Stone and Kurt Zischke. The ensemble includes Ryan Appleby, Renee Claire Bergeron, Al Bundonis, Raisa Ellingson, Elizabeth Earley, Alexis Hightower, Stephen Horst, James Jackson, Jr., Justine Magnusson, Jason Ostrowski, Thomas Rainey and Mickey Toogood.

Eric Kunze was most recently seen on the national tour of Jesus Christ Superstar in the title role. His additional Broadway credits include Marius in Les Miserables, Chris in Miss Saigon and Joe Hardy in the revival of Damn Yankees. Kunze's co-star, Andrea Ross, is an Elliot Norton winner for her roles in Ramona Quimby, The Sound of Music and A Little Night Music. Ross' upcoming debut album, "Moon River," is produced by Whistle Down the Wind composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Bill Kenwright heads the United Kingdom's largest independent theatre and film production company. He has produced countless shows in London's West End, on UK tour and on Broadway. As a director, his credits include Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar and Willy Russell's Blood Brothers. He was nominated for a London Theatre Critics' award for West Side Story and a Tony award for Blood Brothers in New York.

The creative team for the national tour of Whistle Down the Wind includes costume and set design by Paul Farnsworth, choreography by Henry Metcalfe, musical direction by David Steadman, lighting design by Nick Richings and sound design by Ben Harrison.

Love, Janis
May 29 - June 1

Janis Joplin, the icon of 1960's rock music, comes to life on stage in both music and words from May 29 - June 1 at the Wilshire Theatre. Love, Janis explores the performer not only through her legendary songs, but also through the poignant and honest letters she wrote to her family.

Love, Janis has played to critical acclaim in New York and San Francisco. The New York Times described the musical line up as “just right…if there's a real authenticity to the music, it's probably because it was arranged and directed by Sam Andrew, an original member of Big Brother and the Holding Company and of Joplin's next group, The Kozmic Blues Band.” The San Francisco Chronicle went on to say “The experience is more like hearing Janis live than any recording ever captured.” Two actresses portray Janis Joplin in Love, Janis, one as the singing “public” Janis, and one as the non-singing private Janis.

The show begins as Janis is just starting out in the music industry, leaving her hometown of Port Arthur, Texas, to travel to San Francisco. Here the audience witnesses several of her career milestones: auditioning for and signing with Big Brother for the first time, getting a big break at the Monterey International Pop Festival, and leaving the group to start her own band as a bona fide rock star.

Along the way, audiences get a glimpse of Janis' reactions to this journey in the stories she chooses to relay home to her family, seeing the girl who still wants her mother's advice and is desperate for news from home as well as the lonely life Janis faced performing on the road. And, ultimately, audiences witness the star's decline: her excessive abuse of drugs and alcohol, her fight to stay true to herself despite her fame, and her struggle to live up to the public persona associated with being Janis Joplin.

Inspired by sister Laura Joplin's book of the same title, Love, Janis, is told in Janis' own words (the entire spoken text comes directly from the actual letters Janis wrote home and her many print, radio, and television interviews.) These are intertwined with her legendary songs, resulting in a compelling portrait of an artist who just wanted to be remembered for her music…and her refusal to compromise.

About Wilshire Theatre Beverly Hills
Originally named the Fox Wilshire, the Wilshire Theatre Beverly Hills opened its doors on September 19, 1930. Designed by renowned theater architect Charles S Lee, the Wilshire serves as an interesting example of Lee's early Art Deco style. With its rich plasterwork and heavy sculpture, the Wilshire is reminiscent of Lee's other early work like the Baroque masterpiece The Los Angeles Theater and the Tower. Lee would later become famous for his clean simple Art Deco lines with theaters like the Bruin and the Academy Theater.

Fox West Coast Theaters built The Wilshire to house their first run feature films. For the first 50 years of its life, the Wilshire served as one of the premiere movie palaces in Los Angeles and has hosted numerous premieres and special events. In November 1953 the Wilshire hosted the premiere of How to Marry A Millionaire starring Marilyn Monroe and Lauren Bacall.

On Christmas Day of that year Walt Disney exhibited its new Grand Canyonscope - the first Donald Duck cartoon in Cinemascope which ran with the studio's classic feature 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Other notable events include 1960's special screening of GI Blues starring Elvis and attended by Ronald Regan and the 1970's exclusive engagement of the film Woodstock.
In 1981 the Wilshire Theater was renovated and converted to a stage venue.

The Wilshire has hosted numerous theater productions including its opening attraction of Henry Fonda in The Oldest Living Graduate, and national tours of The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof, A Chorus Line, Jesus Christ Superstar, Legends, Dreamgirls, Once on this Island and many others.

Season subscriptions for the three attractions are now available with preferred seating and a package discount at the Wilshire Theatre Box Office, 8440 Wilshire Blvd., and by phone at 323-655-0111. Tickets can also be purchased through Ticketmaster - online at ticketmaster.com, by phone at Ticketmaster at 213-365-3500, and all Ticketmaster outlets.


Sandra_Gabriel.jpg: "A Scene from Forever Tango"
Photo Credit: Forever Tango
Wilshire Temple Interior.jpg: "Wilshire Theatre Beverly Hills"
Photo Credit: Wilshire Theatre
Love Janis LJ-006.jpg: "A Scene from Love, Janis"
Photo Credit: Love, Janis
08 - Kunze & Company.jpg: "ERIC KUNZE as The Man and the COMPANY of Whistle Down the Wind"
Photo Credit: Joan Marcus