The musical is touring nationwide and is currently playing at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, CA, until September 27. It will head to Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, CA, from November 10 to 22, 2026.

Portraying the lead, Jacob Jankowski, is Zachary Keller, whose credits include the regional premiere of John Proctor Is the Villain (Studio Theatre), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Signature Theatre), along with And Then There Were None (Drury Lane Theatre). TV credits include Shameless, Law and Order, and Chicago Med.

“It was an interesting experience, and I think you touched on it,” Keller said. “There’s something for everyone in this thing. There are life-size puppets, there are acrobats flying through the air, there are dance numbers, and there’s great music by PigPen Theater Co. And on top of that, it’s really a heartwarming story. The rehearsal process was really interesting because we would all be off in different rooms learning different things.”

With so many moving parts in the show, one of the most intriguing parts of this production is Rosie the elephant.

“It starts off where you just see an ear, because that was the first thing that Jacob remembers noticing about Rosie, and then you see the trunk,” the performer explained. “That was the second thing, like once the trunk hugged Marlena, that was a big step. And then you see the legs once Rosie finally starts being able to understand Jacob, and then you finally see the whole elephant itself.

“So it’s a memory play in that way, and that’s why some of the other puppets, they’re not complete puppets. You have just the tiger head, or you have just the lion head. You have just the zebra head, so you don’t remember the whole thing. That’s kind of how memory is sort of fragmented. You can’t remember all the specific details, but I thought that was a fascinating take.”

Audiences most likely won’t see the same type of show twice thanks to the different rotations of acrobats.

“The show is shifting, and if you come to see the show twice, more than likely you’re going to see a different show, at least in terms of the tricks,” Keller said. “So it’s interesting in that way.”

The post Zachary Keller Talks ‘Water for Elephants,’ Circus Acrobatics and Bringing Rosie the Elephant to Life appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

We had the chance to chat with Harry Francis, who portrays LeFou, about his character’s dedication to Gaston, preparations for each night’s performance, and what would happen if Gaston was gone from his life.

Check out the full video interview below:

“For me, LeFou only has a place in society in that town if he’s connected to Gaston,” Francis tells Nerd Reactor. “If people are buying drinks and they’re at the tavern, LeFou has people talking to him. He has a social life because of him being next to Gaston, being tied to Gaston. Gaston just loves the fact that he’s got someone for free who will just do whatever he wants for him, and there’s a bit when he sends me off into the woods to do his hunting for him, basically, he knows that no matter what, I will do whatever he says.”

Beauty and the Beast is a story known by many, and that includes the fate of Gaston. However, what happens to LeFou after the end of the tale?

“For me, if I’m attached to him, then people talk to me, then I’ve got some kind of personality because of him, which makes me sad, wondering what LeFou’s life is like after Gaston dies, because I think he would be a very, very lonely. I don’t think anyone would talk to him anymore. I think I think everyone would be done with him.”

About Disney’s Beauty and the Beast: The Musical

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast returns to the stage and brings back members of the original creative team to bring the fairy tale to life.

In the national tour, Belle is played by Kyra Belle Johnson, Fergie L. Philippe as Beast, Stephen Mark Lukas as Gaston, Danny Gardner as Lumiere, Christina Rose Hall as Mrs. Potts, Javier Ignacio as Cogsworth, and Harry Francis as LeFou.

Beauty and the Beast: The Musical is now playing at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles until September 6. It is headed to Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, CA, from September 22 to October 11, 2026. Tickets are available at beautyandthebeastthemusical.com/tickets.

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We had the chance to chat with Juliette M. Ojeda, who portrays Sophie in the Mamma Mia! national tour. You can check out the video interview above.

“Mama Mia was actually the first musical I ever watched live in person,” Ojeda tells Nerd Reactor. “It was on Royal Caribbean. I was 13, so it was about 10 years ago. This has just always been my dream role. I mean, this was the musical that inspired me to pursue musical theater, to pursue acting and singing.

“That’s just kind of been my journey. I’ve been auditioning for this specific tour for nearly three years. And after going in as the understudy and as an ensemble, I was auditioning for that part. The last thing I expected was for me to land the lead. So it’s been quite the journey, and it’s been really awesome. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

About Mamma Mia!

Synopsis: Set on a Greek island paradise where the sun always shines, a tale of love, friendship, and identity is beautifully told through the timeless hits of ABBA. On the eve of her wedding, a daughter’s quest to discover the father she’s never known brings three men from her mother’s past back to the island they last visited decades ago.

The musical stars Jessica Crouch as Donna Sheridan, Juliette M. Ojeda as Sophie Sheridan, Carly Sakolove as Rosie, Jalynne Steele as Tanya, Leland Burnett as Bill Austin, Rob Hancock and Rob Marnell as Harry Bright, Victor Wallace as Sam Carmichael, and more.

Mamma Mia! tickets are available until July 19th at the Center Theatre Group site. The Ahmanson Theatre is located at 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012.

The post Mamma Mia’s Juliette M. Ojeda Says the Musical That Inspired Her Career Is Now Her Dream Role appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

I had the chance to interview Nella Cole, who portrays Anne Boleyn, King Henry VIII’s second wife. Her song “Don’t Lose Your Head” is a high-energy pop track that captures her story, drawing inspiration from Lily Allen and Avril Lavigne.

“This show was a dream of mine, and Anne Boleyn was my dream role,” Cole tells Nerd Reactor. “So I first learned about it, I think, during the pandemic. Everything was closed, but I found out about Six and started listening to the music, and I became obsessed.

Cole has a background in pop music and commercial dance, so Six was definitely a musical that would have everything she would love.

“Six definitely blends all of my skills together,” she explained. “As soon as I got familiar with it, I was like, ‘I have to be in this show.’ And then it was a journey of going in and auditioning. And then you don’t hear anything, and then they bring you back again. It’s a lot of callbacks. It’s a lot of rounds. It just took a couple of years. I’m just coming back and getting to know the team and everything. Finally, I got the call that I got Anne Boleyn, and it was just a dream come true.”

The tale of the six ex-wives of King Henry VIII is known to many British. The saying, “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived,” is a popular saying among them.

“I think what’s interesting is Six has become so popular in the States, but it’s not our history,” she said. “So there’s a lot that we kind of miss that goes over our heads. But when we have team members who are from the UK, and we get to hear from them, it’s like a completely different thing in the UK. The history of the six wives is super prominent in their upbringing, and they learn about it in school. We open our show, you know, the first lyrics are divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. And I didn’t know that’s like a chant that they say in England, growing up to remember the six wives. So it’s totally different here in the States, but people have embraced it, and they love it.”

For Six the Musical tickets at Segerstrom, you can click on the link here.

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Starring as King Arthur in Monty Python’s Spamalot is Major Attaway, who has the title of the longest continuous run of playing the Genie in the Broadway musical Aladdin. As the King of the Britons, he is on a quest for the Holy Grail.

“The Broadway show premiered in 2005, it won Best Musical, and now I get to do the show for a very mixed audience, which is wonderful,” Attaway tells Nerd Reactor. “There are parents and grandparents who know every word that I’m about to say, which is very exciting, except for the random updates that we’ve made. And then you have people who have seen the film recently for the first time or never seen it before. My favorite thing about this show is that they can still come and have a complete experience, even if there are jokes that they don’t already know the punchline to. That means the comedy is still precise and clear enough to still be funny after all these many years. And I think that is fantastic. That’s what’s keeping us going.”

Attaway is no stranger to comedy, who has performed in Aladdin and Little Shop of Horrors.

“With the Genie, I was the person they were most likely looking at because my costume, bright blue, covered in crystals, my head covered in glitter,” he explained. “So I understood what it was like to have to hold the attention, but redirect it. And the King definitely does that. He’s not necessarily the focal point of the situation, which is confusing in a bit of a way, but he’s like the put-upon man. He’s like, ‘I have this job to do, but everyone keeps getting in the way,’ even though I do the job. It definitely helped with how I control pacing on stage. My job is to make sure everyone else is funny in this show, not for me to be funny.”

The actor talks about one of his favorite moments in Spamalot, which allows him an opportunity for some improv.

“Our director described it as doors that open,” Attaway said. “There are doors that open to allow us to do whatever we feel will make the moment funny and move it forward. But then there are clear moments where that improv has come to a close. That means we have to get back on script. That’s how I still have so much freedom in my ad-libbing in the show, because I know when to do it. I know when it’s safe to go off the rails. We have to keep the story on track because my character is the push for the minimal plot that we have anyway. If King Arthur doesn’t remain focused on it, then everything could just fall apart.”

Tickets for Monty Python’s Spamalot are available at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts site. It will be returning to Southern California at the Hollywood Pantages from March 24 to April 12, with tickets available via Broadway in Hollywood.

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Los Angeles residents can check out the show now until September 7 at the Ahmanson Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. If you’re in the Orange County area, Segerstrom Center for the Arts will host the show starting September 9th.

In this story, Juliet decides not to kill herself. This gives her a new goal on what to do with her life. Portraying the titular character is Rachel Webb, and when you hear her sing, you’ll understand why she was picked for the part.

“Being a part of & Juliet is empowering,” Webb tells Nerd Reactor. “It is simply empowering. Juliet’s story is empowering, specifically in the end, but it’s a journey that I think everybody can connect to.”

Portraying William Shakespeare and Anne are Teal Wick and Corey Mach. The two act as a bickering husband and wife, and Anne inserts herself into the new story of Juliet, with William as a reluctant participant.

“Songs are verse and Shakespeare’s writing is verse,” Wick said. “It’s not just a coincidence that Max Martin’s pop songs and William Shakespeare go so well together. What is William Shakespeare other than the pop writer of his time? They didn’t have pop music back then, but they had theater, which was the forum for popular culture. And what is pop music but the forum for our popular culture? So we just showed that Shakespeare and Max Martin are the same.”

Nick Drake portrays May, Juliet’s best friend and someone who wants to fall in love. There are uplifting themes, and the comedy helps make May relatable.

“& Juliet is the greatest, funnest show that you’re ever gonna see in your lifetime,” Drake exclaimed. “We have the luxury of singing Max Martin songs, songs that you know already, songs that you play in your shower, songs you play in your car, songs you dance to at your parties with your friends.”

Kathryn Allison plays Angelique, Juliet’s nurse. Her character shows audiences that it’s never too late to fall in love.

“The fact that I get to sing Britney Spears and P!nk every night is wild,” Allison said. “With my little allowance that I got as a kid, P!nk’s debut album was the first album I ever purchased with my own money. So it’s just really a full-circle experience.”

Tickets for & Juliet are available at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles and Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, CA.

And if you can’t get enough of & Juliet, you can check out tour costumes and Broadway props from the musical at the Grammy Museum in Downtown Los Angeles. & Juliet: The Music of Max Martin and Friends pop-up exhibit will be on display from Wednesday July 23, through Monday, October 27, 2025.

Tickets are available at https://grammymuseum.org/exhibit/juliet-the-music-of-max-martin-and-friends/.

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Harry Potter now has a son, Albus Potter, and he is struggling with parenthood and living up to the accomplishments of defeating Lord Voldemort, aka He Who Shall Not Be Named. Meanwhile, Albus befriends Scorpius Malfoy, the son of Harry’s former rival, Draco Malfoy. Now the two discover the power to change the past and future, and they are on an adventure to save the wizarding world.

The play is available all over the world including London, New York City and Germany. For those in the United States, it’s currently on a national tour with upcoming cities including Washington DC, Boston, Orlando, Atlanta, and more. Right now, fans can watch Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles.

Starring as Harry Potter in the national tour is John Skelley, with Emmet Smith as Albus Potter and Aidan Close as Sorpius Malfoy.

“Yeah, it’s a really weighty thing,” Smith tells Nerd Reactor. “It’s more than getting a part in a new play. It’s more than getting even a part in a known musical that has already existed. Because of the fanbase of Harry Potter, there is so much expectation and weight, I think, especially for the original golden trio: Harry, Ron and Hermione.”

“Will you have this expectation put upon you?” Skelley asks. “And so in some ways, that part is freeing because you go, ‘Oh, I’m experiencing this, and Harry is experiencing this, and I can just live that truth of, yeah, there’s a lot of pressure. I think this is THE Harry Potter. This is how I am.’ And then those private moments, you get to explore those kind of deeper feelings. Those are, I think, hopefully universal feelings because I think all of us read the books and it’s impossible to not start to become one with those characters.”

Peeves is a ghost at the Hogwarts School who loves to cause mischief. When something weird happens during the show, the cast would call it the Peeves Show.

“So we do have shows where we call them Peeves shows,” Close tells Nerd Reactor. “So if you read the book, there’s a ghost called Peeves that is just looking to make mischief. This show is a living breathing thing and that’s what makes it beautiful is that you see like, ‘Ah!’ Something just happened. That reminds you that it’s real. But sometimes we have shows where there’s some sort of supernatural – poltergeist is trying to mess with our show, and honestly, sometimes that’s when it comes the most alive.

“Because I think it’s a common experiences as an actor like, ‘I flubbed a line,’ or ‘I feel like I miss something.’ Maybe it comes from ego, maybe it comes from some other source, but there’s this fire that’s lit in you and you’re like, ‘No, I will bring the resounding thunderbolt of truth onto this stage right now because I have to.’ Because of shame maybe. It shocks you awake.”

Tickets for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child are now available at the Pantages Theatre Hollywood. For more info, visit https://tour.harrypottertheplay.com/

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The stage musical was able to bring the time-traveling DeLorean to life, and it’s one of many key components in delivering the magic to audiences nationwide. Caden Brauch and Don Stephenson star as Marty McFly and Doc Brown, respectively. The musical is based on the book by Bob Gale, the producer and co-writer of the original Back to the Future film.

On the opening night of the musical at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, Gale made an appearance along with the original cast and crew of the film including director Robert Zemeckis, composer Alan Silvestri, star Lea Thompson, and many more.

“We’ve had some great openings and stuff, but that was one of the most electric entrances out that door at the top of the show,” Brauch recalls to Nerd Reactor. “I mean, they were already cheering, I think, before I even walked out. So it was pretty great to walk out and hear all that cheering. And to just have to stop for a moment and breathe and take it all in, it was a wonderful time.”

“It’s one of the great entrances, right?” Stephenson said. “When you come on in a DeLorean time machine and then get out, I don’t think there’s anything better. Maybe Carol Channing coming down the staircase in Hello, Dolly.”

Gale thinks about what year he would like to travel back to if he had a time-traveling DeLorean.

“Well, my mom was a professional musician, and after World War Two, she had a nightclub act in St Louis called Maxine and her men,” the film producer said. “I would like to go back in time and catch her act.”

Back to the Future: The Musical is at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood until December 1, 2024. It will be headed to Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, CA from December 26, 2024, to January 6, 2025.

Featured image credit: Back to the Future (L to R) Don Stephenson (Doc Brown), Caden Brauch (Marty McFly) and Cast – Photos by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman, 2023

The post Back to the Future Producer and Musical Cast Talk About the Show, DeLorean and Time Travel appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

I saw the musical on opening night, and it had Carolee Carmello starring as Kimberly, a 16-year-old girl with a fictional disease that makes her age fast. She has an alcoholic father and a pregnant mother, and the family recently moved to a small town, making the titular character’s life challenging as she has to adapt to a new life as a teenager who looks like an older lady. Kimberly meets Seth, a teenage boy who is a social outcast with a heart of gold. They bond quickly and their relationship is sweet as they bond over anagrams and more.

Carmello captures the energy of a teenager along with their sense of adventure and curiosity. She is easily one of the best singers in the production, and it’s no surprise why she got the part. Miguel Gil as Seth is very friendly and delightful and is also a highlight of the show. Kimberly’s family includes Jim Hogan as Kimberly’s dad, Dana Steingold as Kimberly’s mom and Emily Koch as Kimberly’s Aunt Debra. Together, they complicate the title character’s life as flawed characters who try to make life easier for Kimberly. The other high school classmates are Grace Capeless as Delia, Sky Alyssa Friedman as Teresa, Darron Hayes as Martin, and Pierce Wheeler as Aaron, and they help bring life to the high school.

Yes, there was a moment that made me feel uneasy, but the way the show handled it was short and sweet. I was relieved by how the performers handled the romance plot with the big age gap behind the scenes.

The music of Kimberly Akimbo overall is fun and melodic, and there were some gems including Hogan’s speedy performance in “Happy for Her” and Koch’s hilarious performance in “How to Wash a Check.”

Kimberly Akimbo deals with a subject matter that can be depressing, but I believe there is a lot of hope and cheerfulness that helps balance things out. With the topic of a disease that makes someone age faster, I want to inform you that no, there is no sad ending. It has a happy ending and the musical is about finding happiness despite adversities. This should put those at ease who are watching the show and are dealing with something similar.

Kimberly Akimbo is now playing at the Pantages Theatre. Tickets are available at https://www.broadwayinhollywood.com/events/detail/kimberly-akimbo

Featured image credit: Carolee Carmello in the National Tour of Kimberly Akimbo. Photo by Joan Marcus.

The post Kimberly Akimbo Is a Hilarious and Sweet Musical That’s Part Robin Williams’ Jack and All Teen Dramedy appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

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I had the chance to chat with Lori about her experiences with Reefer Madness, Metal Gear Solid Delta, Snake Eater, MGSCON (the Metal Gear Fan convention), Inside Out 2‘s success, and navigating the entertainment industry while maintaining mental health.

You can see Lori’s performance as Mae in the LA production of Reefer Madness from June 27 to July 14. Tickets for Reefer Madness The Musical are available at Fever.com.

Lori Alan was Mae Coleman in the original Los Angeles production, and she is reprising her role in the revival musical. Christian Campbell portrayed Jimmy Harper in the original production as well as in the movie musical.

“My Jimmy Harper was Christian Campbell,” Alan tells Nerd Reactor. “And now he’s the head honcho producer along with Kevin and Dan and Kristen Bell. And they have worked so hard (it’s an extreme understatement) to build this theater from the ground up. It was the Whitley Theater and still is, but they have built it into something absolutely magnificent. They are such hard-working people.”

Lori Alan joins Anthony Norman (The Prom, Dear Evan Hansen) as Jimmy Harper, Darcy Rose Byrnes (Big Shot, Sofia the First) as Mary Lane, and J. Elaine Marcos (Annie, Priscilla Queen of the Desert) as Sally De Bain.

Reefer Madness The Musical is currently playing at the historic Hollywood venue, The Whitley (6555 Hollywood Blvd). Tickets for Reefer Madness The Musical are available at Fever.com.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater

As for Metal Gear, Lori talked a bit about her involvement in the remake of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. With Metal Gear Delta: Snake Eater coming to the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, she recorded some updated dialogue for the current console generation.

“There’s nothing new about the story,” Alan said. “Our voices are lifted and put in there. There’s just stuff for it to make sense in this current climate, if you will, of the actual device that you’ll be playing on. And there’ll be some behind-the-scenes things that will come out that are really incredibly cool.”

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