Blake... da Musical
Produced by The Grove Theatre Center
Written by Rick Batallaand Henry Phillips
Past Productions
July 16-24, 2005 - GTC Gem Theater, Garden Grove, CA
August 6-October 9, 2005 - GTC Burbank Theater, Burbank, CA
December 3rd and 10th, 2005 - GTC Gem Theater, Garden Grove, CA
June 17-25, 2006 - GTC Gem Theater, Garden Grove, CA
As featured in Entertainment Weekly, Backstage (New York), Yahoo! News and the Washington Post 2/24/06 LA stage has stars in plays and plays about stars - by By Sue Zeidler, Reuters
Nominated for Four Ovation Awards
Including
Franklin R. Levy Memorial Award for Best Musical in an Intimate Theatre
Best World Premiere Musical (book and music)
Best Direction of a Musical
Best Lead Actor - Rick Batalla as Robert Blake
WINNER! Best World Premiere Musical 2005!
"Blake ... Da Musical" (Grove Theater Center) by Rick Battala and Henry Phillips nabbed top musical honors at the 2005 L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation Awards, held Monday at downtown's Orpheum Theater." - Variety - Local legit prod'ns take bow for Ovations (registration required)
Theater Mania article on the evening
Check out the Official GTC Blake at the Ovations Page!
The Ovation Awards are sponsored by the LA Stage Alliance and took place Monday, November 14, 2005 at 7:30pm at the Orpheum Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles.
Recognized by Travis Michael Holder (critic for Backstage West and member of the LA Drama Critics Circle) in his 15th Annual Ticketholder Awards 2005 as a runner up in "Best Musical", "Best Actor in a Musical - Rick Batalla", "Best Actress in a Musical - Molly Benson", "Best Ensemble Cast", "Best Original Score", and "Best Musical Direction"
NOMINATED FOR TWO OC WEEKLY AWARDS
Including Best Musical Production
and
Best Performance, Male - Rick Batalla
The Orange County Weekly Theater Awards took place March 13, 2006 at the South Coast Rep Theater. The cast of Blake provided the entertainment for the evening, performing "Hey Blake!", "The Tragedy of Bonnie and Blake", and "Star F**ker".
NOMINATED FOR TWO LA WEEKLY (LAWEES) AWARDS
Including Musical of the Year and Best Musical Direction
The 27th annual L.A. Weekly Theater Awards were hosted by the Blank Theater and took place April 10, 2006 at the Music Box @ Fonda with a theme of 1929
Attorney who sued Blake gives '...da Musical!' a thumbs up
Eric Dubin's verdict: Go see it and laugh.
Original Cast Recording Now Available
Rick Takes a Photo Op at the Drums (10MB) - As recorded by Kevin Robertson
Radio Spot on KFWB (.mp3 file)
Reviews and Articles
"Rick Batalla's twisted little tale could become Orange County's first homegrown Broadway musical blockbuster." - OC Register 6/17/06
"GTC is going out with a bang, not a whimper. This weekend and next, Cochran and Johanson are bringing back their company's biggest hit, "Blake � da Musical!"...it's an appropriately raucous way to bring down the curtain." OC Register 6/18/06
"Shamelessly enjoyable...proudly outrageous...beyond hysterical...Blake...da Musical is da bomb!" - LA Times 8/11/05
"RECOMMENDED - The show's comic timing is so tight you could time a murder to it." - LA Weekly 8/18/05
"It's a profane masterpiece that energizes you with its bawdy humor before hitting you hard in the most unlikely of places -- your heart." - Glendale News Press 8/18/05
"Scandalously funny, jaw-droppingly irreverent, and an opportunity to watch what might turn out to be a cult theater classic" - OC Weekly 7/22/05
"GTC has an honest-to-goodness hit on its hand." OC Register 9/04/05 (registration required)
Roar of the Crowd Winner August 24, 2005 (registration required - free)
"'Blake...da Musical!' is hilarious and sharp." Squeeze OC 12/02/05
Pick of the Week 9/5/05 Review Plays.com
"CRITICS PICK - From the minute the rockin' cast steps onstage in this wonderfully disrespectful, totally sillky send-up of this year's most sensational real-life Hollywood murder cast to wail 'The Tragedy of Bonnie and Blake', we realize this is going to be fun." - Backstage West 9/22/05
"A genuine alternative to lame holiday crap this season is the return engagement of Blake . . . da Musical." - OC Weekly
"If you believe in the healing power of laughter - rip-snorting, guilty-pleasure, I-can't-believe-they-said-that laughter - then you owe it to your health to get up to Garden Grove and see this dang thing before it lands in New York and those snotty East Village theater hipsters pretend they discovered it." - OC Register 12/06/05 (registration required)
Issues pulling up the reviews? Click here for the text only versions.
Directors - Rick Batalla and Kevin Cochran
Music Director - Henry Phillips
Running Crew - April Tamburelli
BLAKE - Rick Batalla
BONNIE - Molly Benson
FRED - Vince Cefalu
DON VIDELLO - Travis Clark
GODMOTHER - Kate Danley
BILLY - Bob Simpson
Live Band
Henry Phillips - Guitar
Kevin Robertson - Drums
Win Meyerson - Keyboard
Clip of figuring out the bit with the bird (need Quicktime 6.2 or higher)
View Pictures from the Show
