For The Record returns to The Wallis with a multimedia musical celebration of Richard Curtis’ beloved holiday movie, Love Actually. The world premiere production of Love Actually Live, presented by special arrangement with Universal Pictures and Working Title Films, will transform the Wallis’ Bram Goldsmith Theater into a giant, immersive, cinema for the modern day. The production will include songs from the hit soundtrack, including “Christmas is All Around,” “The Trouble With Love Is,” “All Alone On Christmas” and more. Performed live by an all-star cast and 15-piece orchestra.
WARNING: This production uses theatrical haze effects and contains adult content and brief nudity. It is recommended for ages 13+.
The film is much fun, but the current musical is absolutely sensational! Each of the principals in the film is matched by a doppelganger on stage dressed in outfits similar to the film actors' and they arrive on stage and continue to walk across it just as the film actor reaches the edge of the screen. Moreover, each and every member of this huge cast has an unbelievably beautiful singing voice, which they put to great use singing most of the songs on the original “Love, Actually” soundtrack.
The singers did not just sing a song as underscoring; they sang it full out, filled with emotional punch and pizazz...Love Actually Live put me into the true spirit of the holidays, like nothing I have seen in a very long time. Bravo to all involved.
There are in this town numerous “ensembles” which are hardly that, and a collection of “performance centers” that cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to deserve that designation. The Annenberg, under the stewardship of Artistic Director Paul Crewes, has earned their name with distinction.
No matter how many times you've streamed Love Actually or gotten out that decade-old DVD for another annual holiday viewing, you won't want to miss Love Actually Live at the Wallis. It's the season's most spectacular holiday treat.
All the nonstop talk and songs about love became, for me, a bit cloying over a 2 ½-hour-long stretch; I felt as if I had eaten one dessert too many at Thanksgiving. But the sold-out crowd at the Wallis stayed happy as the show went on, cheering each scene with increasing, even delirious, enthusiasm. Obviously, folks are still madly in love with “Love Actually.”
The production is wholly successful, born from a tremendous spirit of play throughout, and the iron discipline of artists giving their all. The design team does an extraordinary job of integrating the various elements with seamless elegance, with special kudos to sound designer Benjamin Soldate, vocal designer AnnMarie Milazzo, and conductor Jesse Vargas.
For an enchanting holiday experience that will have you clapping and singing in your seats, “Love Actually Live” at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts will lift your spirits.
Hearing these pop songs sung as inner monologues reminds us how very much music is each of our soundtracks, and watching a few of the performances, particularly by the women, briefly convinces us that those characters are indeed live.
Although I am not an aficionado of the film, Love Actually, this production is a dazzling musical extravaganza that gives it so much oomph. I loved every minute of it.
“Love Actually Live” is billed as “a multimedia-concert celebration,” but it's best not to think too deeply about the hybrid's complex, impressive construction. It's a bit of a head-hurting puzzle. Simply let this superbly mounted, quasi-jukebox musical wash over you with the warmth and joy of its myriad components.
LOVE ACTUALLY, a 2003 film written and directed by Richard Curtis, follows the lives of eight very different couples dealing with their love lives in various loosely interrelated tales, all set during the frantic month before Christmas in London, England. Its message that love is all you really need begins with a voiceover in which Hugh Grant as David comments that whenever he gets gloomy about the state of the world, he remembers the pure uncomplicated love he has witnessed at the arrival terminal at Heathrow as friends and families welcome their loved ones. From there, the film goes on to tell the “love stories” all eight of which wind up intertwining by the end.
The countdown to Christmas begins and ends with an all-out love blitz this year in For the Record's latest world premiere, LOVE ACTUALLY LIVE, a hybrid entertainment that blends scenes from Richard Curtis' 2003 film Love Actually with live performances of the movie's soundtrack. Co-produced by the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, it is a celebration of love in all its messy, complicated, wonderful glory in a Las Vegas-style vision designed to impress.
Described as a live multimedia concert celebration of the soundtrack for the hit 2003 holiday movie, LA's award-winning production team For the Record have come to peddle their festive wares at the Wallis and it's a match made in heaven, bringing together the ingenuity and imagination of their original concept and the classy opulence and resources of their new venue partners.
The producers would have been better off sticking to the existing songs we all know and love, but considering this entire live experience is a bit of an experiment, it is definitely mostly a success. It is a chance to see a movie in a new way rather than just booting up Netflix for the fifteenth time, and, best of all, an opportunity for some truly talented singers to bring beloved source material to life.
The film is much fun, but the current musical is absolutely sensational! Each of the principals in the film is matched by a doppelganger on stage dressed in outfits similar to the film actors' and they arrive on stage and continue to walk across it just as the film actor reaches the edge of the screen. Moreover, each and every member of this huge cast has an unbelievably beautiful singing voice, which they put to great use singing most of the songs on the original “Love, Actually” soundtrack.
The singers did not just sing a song as underscoring; they sang it full out, filled with emotional punch and pizazz...Love Actually Live put me into the true spirit of the holidays, like nothing I have seen in a very long time. Bravo to all involved.
There are in this town numerous “ensembles” which are hardly that, and a collection of “performance centers” that cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to deserve that designation. The Annenberg, under the stewardship of Artistic Director Paul Crewes, has earned their name with distinction.
No matter how many times you've streamed Love Actually or gotten out that decade-old DVD for another annual holiday viewing, you won't want to miss Love Actually Live at the Wallis. It's the season's most spectacular holiday treat.
All the nonstop talk and songs about love became, for me, a bit cloying over a 2 ½-hour-long stretch; I felt as if I had eaten one dessert too many at Thanksgiving. But the sold-out crowd at the Wallis stayed happy as the show went on, cheering each scene with increasing, even delirious, enthusiasm. Obviously, folks are still madly in love with “Love Actually.”
The production is wholly successful, born from a tremendous spirit of play throughout, and the iron discipline of artists giving their all. The design team does an extraordinary job of integrating the various elements with seamless elegance, with special kudos to sound designer Benjamin Soldate, vocal designer AnnMarie Milazzo, and conductor Jesse Vargas.
For an enchanting holiday experience that will have you clapping and singing in your seats, “Love Actually Live” at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts will lift your spirits.
Hearing these pop songs sung as inner monologues reminds us how very much music is each of our soundtracks, and watching a few of the performances, particularly by the women, briefly convinces us that those characters are indeed live.
Although I am not an aficionado of the film, Love Actually, this production is a dazzling musical extravaganza that gives it so much oomph. I loved every minute of it.
“Love Actually Live” is billed as “a multimedia-concert celebration,” but it's best not to think too deeply about the hybrid's complex, impressive construction. It's a bit of a head-hurting puzzle. Simply let this superbly mounted, quasi-jukebox musical wash over you with the warmth and joy of its myriad components.
LOVE ACTUALLY, a 2003 film written and directed by Richard Curtis, follows the lives of eight very different couples dealing with their love lives in various loosely interrelated tales, all set during the frantic month before Christmas in London, England. Its message that love is all you really need begins with a voiceover in which Hugh Grant as David comments that whenever he gets gloomy about the state of the world, he remembers the pure uncomplicated love he has witnessed at the arrival terminal at Heathrow as friends and families welcome their loved ones. From there, the film goes on to tell the “love stories” all eight of which wind up intertwining by the end.
The countdown to Christmas begins and ends with an all-out love blitz this year in For the Record's latest world premiere, LOVE ACTUALLY LIVE, a hybrid entertainment that blends scenes from Richard Curtis' 2003 film Love Actually with live performances of the movie's soundtrack. Co-produced by the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, it is a celebration of love in all its messy, complicated, wonderful glory in a Las Vegas-style vision designed to impress.
Described as a live multimedia concert celebration of the soundtrack for the hit 2003 holiday movie, LA's award-winning production team For the Record have come to peddle their festive wares at the Wallis and it's a match made in heaven, bringing together the ingenuity and imagination of their original concept and the classy opulence and resources of their new venue partners.
The producers would have been better off sticking to the existing songs we all know and love, but considering this entire live experience is a bit of an experiment, it is definitely mostly a success. It is a chance to see a movie in a new way rather than just booting up Netflix for the fifteenth time, and, best of all, an opportunity for some truly talented singers to bring beloved source material to life.
