Stirling has been the narrator of the reality TV dating competition for more than a decade, and even he couldn’t believe how many people are gathering at local bars across the United States for “Love Island” watch parties. “I genuinely thought people were photoshopping them and sending them to me,” Stirling shared during a recent video call from his home studio in London.

@carolyn.burt

Love Island USA fans react to shocking twist ending for season 7 episode 20 at Roosterfish in West Hollywood. @reality bar #loveislandusa #loveisland #loveislandseason7

♬ original sound – Carolyn Burt – Journalist

• RELATED: How Love Island USA watch parties are taking over the bar scene

“Love Island” has been popular in the UK for quite some time, with many fans in agreement that season 5 was when it really hit is stride with contestants who are now household names such as Molly-Mae Hague, Tommy Fury and Maura Higgins, the last of which now hosts Love Island After Sun in the US.

For Stirling, it’s interesting to witness the rise in popularity of “Love Island” USA over the past year, and how it parallels the achievement of the UK version. He’s been narrating the series since the show first aired on ITV2 in 2015, and joined the US version of the show in 2022 when it made the move from CBS to NBC’s streaming service Peacock. The success of the franchise has catapulted him to iconic UK theatres, such as the Apollo Theatre in London, and now he’s bringing his stand-up to the States.

Stirling will bring “Iain Stirling Live” to the Hollywood Improv in Los Angeles on October 22. The 7:30 p.m. performance has already sold out, so a second 9:30 p.m. show has been added.

In an interview edited for length and clarity, Stirling chats about “Love Island,” the early stages of his stand-up career in Edinburgh, and other career highlights that have come, in part, thanks to his wildly popular narration of the TV show.

Q. You’ve been the narrator of “Love Island” for 10 years. What’s been the biggest change you’ve noticed with the series?

The biggest change is how well the Islanders prime and prep themselves. In earlier series, it was more like a “Survivor” vibe. Everyone just got a bit disheveled, but now obviously they’re very primed.

Q. Are there any major differences you’ve noticed between narrating the UK version of the show compared to the US version?

You know what the biggest one is? I don’t know if it’s just a “Love Island” thing or if it’s an American thing, but in the UK, we joke about people’s jobs all the time. In the UK, it’ll be like “my name’s this and I do this for a living.” Whereas in America, it’s like “my name’s this and I’m from here.” Like what state or area in America you are is a bigger blueprint for what you’re like as a person.

We’ve got loads of jokes [on “Love Island” UK] about jobs. In the UK, we’re very straight when we say what we do for a living. I feel like in America, they have all this fancy language to make their jobs seem a bit fancier than what they actually are.

In the UK, we’ve got like dog walkers and farmers and stuff like that, whereas apart from “pool boy Austin,” there wasn’t really anyone who had a job that we could joke about.

Q. What is the recording process like for both “Love Island” USA and UK?

It’s a lot more fluid in the American one. But, fundamentally, it’s the exact same process. The UK one, I write with Mark Busk-Cowley, who actually came up with the format of “Love Island” way back in the day.

In America, there are three of us: Me, Steve Bugeja, and an amazing New York comic, Caroline Hanes. It feels more writer-roomy. We all chuck ideas around like a Saturday Night Live writer’s room. Whereas me and Mark have been working together for so long, it’s like joke, next one, joke, next one.

Q. I don’t know if you’ve seen, but “Love Island” USA watch parties have taken over across the country. 

I genuinely thought people were photoshopping them and sending them to me. And then I’m lucky because Caroline’s from New York and she’s of the right age and demographic that her friends watch it.

And I’m online a little bit, but I’m also like a dad with two jobs, so I’m not really an online person. I’ve only now realized that it’s not a joke. I genuinely thought someone was watching the Super Bowl and they’d green screen that, but it’s legit.

Q. I’ve been writing about “Love Island” USA, and my editors were like, “Can we send you to a watch party and have you cover it?” 

Did you go?

Q. I did. It was crazy. I went to one in West Hollywood. I got there two hours early, and 10 minutes later, all the seats were taken. Thirty minutes later, everyone is packed like sardines and it’s standing room only. I think it was the best episode I could have seen live because it was one with the plot twist at the end that Nic and Olandria were safe. 

That’s honestly so cool. I can’t remember the year, but when “Love Island” UK really took off, and obviously it’s still massive here, but when it was the same [height of popularity as what is in the US now], it was when the World Cup was on, and England had a really deep run in the World Cup. So, there were loads of images of all the sports bars’ screens, all showing England in the World Cup semi-finals, but then there was another section of the bar that was “Love Island.” And obviously, for a sports bar to not show the national team in the semi-finals of a World Cup and show something else is nuts.

Q. This season of Love Island USA has been a roller coaster for a lot of things, but there have also been quite a few iconic moments aside from the drama. What’s been the most memorable moment for you in the US this season?

There’s obviously Nic and Huda’s “Mommy, Mamacita?” That’s gone so viral, but even my voice over into it, I did a joke about Nic not knowing what a mother is. I think those little fun moments are incredible.

Also, there’s a really lovely, vindicating moment when everyone clocked how popular Amaya was, and she had about four guys fighting for her. It felt really full circle because to be yourself unapologetically, when you keep getting it thrown back in your face, must be so, so difficult. Especially when she’s not got her phone to have that positive feedback from the American public. I found that really beautiful and empowering for her, and also hilarious that all these guys were shamefully being like, “You know what? I just realized I think you’re great.”

And she got to go, “Piss off.”

Q. People who know you best from hearing your playful, cheeky comments as the narrator of “Love Island,” what can they expect from your stand-up show? 

We do the Edinburgh Fringe Festival every year, where you have to come up with these narrative shows. There’s a story at the heart of the show, and a theme and narrative. The closest thing I can compare it to is a Mike Birbiglia, if anyone’s familiar with his stuff.

I’ve never done stand-up about “Love Island,” but I’m only doing a handful of dates, a couple of New York, and a couple of LA, so I feel like with the way “Love Island” is going, I want to do some stuff on “Love Island.” There’s a really funny comparison: There’s a male contestant in “Love Island” UK who’s got a 4-year-old kid, just like Huda, and I find it really interesting how underplayed the male being on “Love Island” is compared to the mother being on “Love Island,” I think that’s really interesting, and just sort of bad, but also a funny area as a father to talk about.

Q. You studied law at the University of Edinburgh. What led to the career pivot to comedy?

I’m from Edinburgh and I went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the reason I went to Edinburgh University is that they’ve got a group called the Edinburgh Improverts. It didn’t quite work out there; improv wasn’t my thing, so I started doing stand-up, and once I did stand-up, I fell in love.

Q. Since your 2022 special “Failing Upwards,” you and your wife have welcomed your first child together. Has fatherhood had a role in your comedy style?

I like to keep my private life as private as I can. I’ve made an unwritten rule that I talk about being a father, but I don’t talk about my daughter. I feel like that’s her story to tell when she’s old enough to tell it.

The main change on stand-up is two things, and they sound like they counteract each other, but they totally don’t. One, I’ve got a much bigger appreciation for people who spend money and take time to come and see my show.

Now that I’m a parent, I’m the one that’s got to book child care and find parking and do all that when I go to an event. So I really appreciate people that come to see me. And second, I think I’m a better stand-up because I’m a lot more relaxed. Before marriage and children, my whole self-worth was how good my stand-up was and how well it was received.

Q. My final question: What’s been your biggest career highlight? 

Probably putting on these American [tour] dates and them selling so well. It feels like such a massive achievement to do a voice-over in a reality television program. When you’re doing voice over for two minutes in an hour-long show, and for anyone to leave that show going “that voice over was good,” feels like such a massive achievement.

When I first started doing it 10 years ago, I wasn’t hired to write. My friend Mark [Busk-Cowley] was going to write it, but I went in the room every day and wrote it with him because, like, I’m in Spain. What else am I going to do? And then between us, we came up with this really fun way of doing it that no one else had done.

And then when I did these big theaters in the UK, the Hammersmith, Apollo in London, and all these mad theaters, because I do voice over on a reality television program, it’s sort of wild.

This is the premiere mounting of the Nordic sister act saga at a regional house in Southern California.

While somewhat based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale called “The Snow Queen,” and as girls of all ages (and their parents) know, “Frozen” is the story of two orphaned sibling princesses of polar extremes, one with magical power to create snow, ice and, inadvertently, woe, the other with humanist power and moral cheerfulness determined to create better lives for all.

Directed and choreographed by Houston-based theater maker Dan Knechtges, this version presents in a more intimate staging the familiar strengths and weaknesses that defined the national tour production seen a few years ago at the Pantages and Segerstrom Center.

Perhaps an adherence to Disney’s famously strict rules of the road for presenting its creative products, and/or maybe the smaller-scale economies in this production … whatever the cause, La Mirada’s trademark brio for animating up-beat, up-tempo musical productions is missing.

Even the under-age-10 set – perhaps 20% of Sunday’s matinee audience – was uncharacteristically subdued until Olaf, the snowman affably trundled around by puppeteer Mark Ivy, made his late first act appearance. (The theater’s fourth wall was repeatedly broken with high-pitched cries of “Hi, Olaf!” from the orchestra to the balcony seats.)

The insurmountable difficulty with “Frozen” on any stage is the classic stumbling block of many a musical: Act 2. After launching the story and developing and then exploring character complications, how does a show engage through to its invariably happy resolution?

When we’re lucky, a key solution can be a uniformly high-quality score.

But a head-scratching obstacle here is the insertion of weak songs not found in 2013’s original 100-minute animated hit movie, which was famously driven by the empowering, avalanche-strength pop hit “Let It Go.”

That 10-song score was written by the formidable, married songwriting duo of Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. But when the pair was re-commissioned to pad the movie’s length to a longer, two-act live theater format, intermittent flurries of duddy songwriting – especially for secondary “who cares” characters – blanketed the show.

The deepest snow drift, with particularly problematic timing since it is the second act curtain raiser, is “Hygge.” The word “hygge” basically translates from Danish as conveying when life is a snuggle-buggle of comfy and niceness.

Not here it ain’t!

Like skiers careening off course down the hill, original director Michael Grandage bafflingly doubled down on the number, turning it into a wonky full-cast production number. Kind of a showstopper (though not the good kind).

Another structural challenge the musical never solves is that sibling princesses Anna and Elsa, easily “Frozen’s” two potent characters, almost never get to sing together since their storylines take them on separate plot paths.

Regretful sighs aside, there are some positive facets within this production worth celebrating.

Chief among them are lead actresses Cailen Fu and Jenna Lea Rosen, who well fill the adult roles of the siblings.

Veterans of Knechtges’ Houston mounting, each embodies the nature of their characters. Fu sparks red-headed Anna, a girlishly effervescent performance, capturing Anna’s of-the-moment emotional vigor. She has a strong, precise voice, well on display during a show highlight, the powerful ensemble number “For the First Time in Forever.”

Rosen succeeds at tapping Elsa’s emotional distrust of her own magical powers and the damage they may create. The actress has the necessary steely and distant blonde ice queen intensity, which is intermittently layered with caring openness. When it comes time for chest-tone belting in “Let It Go” — while she doesn’t manifest Idina Menzel bigness, who does? — her lower registers exhibit command and discipline.

In a big cast, ably applied by Knechtges through the larger scenes, Garrett Clayton stands out as an especially effective Hans, Anna’s two-faced, power-seeking-in-disguise prince. Last seen in La Mirada in “The Play That Goes Wrong” as an upper-crust toff, determinedly milking scenes for attention, Clayton has soft features of emotional availability he subtly employs in courting Anna, which he later freezes into naked and unapologetic gazes of self-interest.

While not Wicked-ly good, “Frozen’s” ultimate virtue is its attribute of two girls’ turn into womanhood with self-determination and self-realization.

For a show that’s all about the cold, it warms us through these attributes.

Disney Frozen The Broadway Musical’

Rating: 2 1/2 stars (of a possible 4)

Where: La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada

When: Through June 29. 7:30 p.m., Thursdays; 8 p.m., Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m., Saturdays; 1:30 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays

Tickets: $39-$139

Information: 714-994-6310, 562-944-9801; lamiradatheatre.com

He’s likely the only person at Segerstrom Hall that night who felt that way about it after experiencing his compelling, harrowing journey.

A sensory dazzle, “Life of Pi” is the rare non-musical on the Costa Mesa stage, a wonderfully realized mounting propelled by stage craft at its most magically absorbing.

Derived in part from a 2001 novel, and the 2012 worldwide hit movie, “Life of Pi” charts a 17-year-old’s perilous journey on a Japanese cargo ship with his zookeeping family. They, along with animals in tow, depart from political chaos in India for a new life in Canada.

The craft sinks in a huge storm and Pi is cast into the Pacific Ocean. Good news: he gets on a 20-some-foot lifeboat. Bad news (for him, but terrific for audiences): he’s not alone. And his castaway shipmate has marvelously oversized whiskers, formidable fangs and a ravenous appetite.

As the mesmerizing dive into Pi’s ordeal begins, we learn his name comes from the French word “piscine,” meaning swimming pool. This rapidly makes sense as events literally throw Pi into the deep end.

He narrates his surrealistic tale in flashback form to officials from Japan and Canada who have arrived at an infirmary in Mexico where he has washed ashore. They are investigating what caused the shipwreck and how in the great wide watery world could this castaway survive for 227 days?

First mounted as a play in the UK, “Life of Pi” crossed the Atlantic to capture three technical Tony awards in 2023 on Broadway for Best Lighting Design, Best Scenic Design and Best Sound Design.

Broadway wins are all well and good, but tour productions often leave their pricey tech achievements at home.

Here they are the creative beating heart that — along with an agile, captivating lead performance from actor Taha Mandviwala — transcends the stodgy dialogue in speechifying pronouncements about life’s big questions.

Concentrating on the achievements, let’s start with the puppetry. Most theatergoers of this century are well versed veterans of “The Lion King” school of animal parade pageantry.

Here, Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell’s zoo menagerie is perhaps even more skillful from a design perspective. The chunk-by-chunk assembly of the oversized animal anatomies is front and center to the audience’s eyes.

This is key when these constructions are manipulated on stage by one to four skillful puppet wranglers: the figurines’  movements breathe lifelike tension into the imagined creatures.

The visual movement exhibited by the animals is key. Kinetic, visual cues translate into instantaneous emotional associations: the gray goat cavorts, so it is lovingly charming; an orange orangutan swings by on its lanky arms and, with a baby, creates affection; hyenas slink and lunge, reaffirming our general concept of their non-stop ruthlessness.

This makes for a delight of first act discoveries. You never know when more simplistic pleasures will arrive, such as schools of fish mounted on a simple stick or a swarm of dancing butterflies.

There is a definite king of beasts in this waterlogged tale. Not a lion, but a fierce Bengal tiger called Richard Parker, accidentally and whimsically misnamed through a paperwork snafu.

Colored in a deep orange-glow with black smear striping, Richard Parker is a cleverly disjointed construction projecting emaciation. This hungry tiger’s menacing, meaningfully paced steps and sudden violent lunges captivate by conveying fury and fascination.

The adversarial relationship — to put it mildly — between Pi and Richard Parker is intense and gripping. Violence and exhaustion, plus control over rare calories coming their way, does not for friendly shipmates make.

And yet, frenemies emerge.

“You’re the only reason I’m alive,” Mandviwala says in an anguished, plaintive tone, manifesting acting rage in a moment of self-discovery which complements his otherwise energized intensity.

“It’s just you and me.”

Director Max Webster hasn’t been content to stop the sensory bliss at animal sightings. The production is a beautiful synchronicity of calibrated technical elements joined together to fully flesh out the storytelling.

A crucial early ingredient is the hyper-naturalistic lighting (co-credited to Tim Lutkin and Tim Deiling). Even before the show moves to the water, vivid pools of rich colors flood quick-moving scenes on land.

These set the show’s visual tone so that later, especially during the lashing storm, visual marvels have become common.

Other technical skills are equally well displayed, somehow drawing our attention yet never feeling self-indulgently showoff-ish.

The play’s sound (Carolyn Downing) is rich and lustrous throughout, notable showcasing the Indian musical cadences (Andrew T. Mackay is the composer) that propel early scenes.

Scenic and costume design (Tim Hatley) and video animation (Andrzej Goulding) also provide notable parts of the mix.

Overall, “Life of Pi” is an immersive satisfaction that draws one into its tactile world.

And it leads to a guarantee: immersing yourself in this rich theater-making will turn out better than it does for Pi.

He merely survives. We theatergoers, thrive.

‘Life of Pi’

Rating: 3 1/2 stars (out of a possible four)

Where: Segerstrom Hall, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: Through June 15; 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays

Tickets: $44.07-$145.77

Information: 949-556-2787; scfta.org

“I said yes, obviously,” says Morris, whose Brooklyn-based Mark Morris Dance Group has been widely acclaimed since its founding in 1980.

Which is not to say he was entirely sure how his interpretation of the Beatles’ legendary album would go down in their hometown, Morris adds.

“We opened the festival,” he says of the 2017 premiere of “Pepperland,” which the Mark Morris Dance Group brings to the Wallis in Beverly Hills for four performances May 16-18. “We were scheduled for the first night, and I finished it, for many reasons, very late. It was a short run-up time to present this from when we were asked.

“So we opened it, and it was a giant hit,” Morris says. “I really had no idea until other people watched. And then, you know, we didn’t know what to expect with a crowd in Liverpool except they’d love it or hate it.”

He laughs, and then continues.

“It could go either way, love it or hate it, while having a couple of drinks in the theater, which is a great thing to do,” Morris says. “So it was a relief to me.”

The rest of the performances in Liverpool went equally well.

“It was in a converted casino,” Morris says. “It was really kind of randy, and there was a bar that was open through the whole thing. People were screaming, and then a bunch of teenagers came.

“And then everybody, you know, everybody in Liverpool either is related to or slept with one of the Beatles,” Morris says, joking. “It’s like everybody was at the opening night of [the Stravinsky ballet] “Rite Of Spring,” something like that. Half of it’s fabricated, of course.”

Since then, “Pepperland” has become a frequent part of the Morris company’s repertoire, though they’ve not done it for several years, most recently touring with “The Look of Love,” a piece built around the music of Burt Bacharach.

In an interview edited for length and clarity, Morris, 68, talked about how he and composer Ethan Iverson adapted the music of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” for a contemporary dance, his earliest memories of that album, and why he insists on live accompaniment for almost every dance he’s ever created.

Q: How do you begin to tackle a collection of songs like those on “Sgt. Pepper’s”?

A: So there were a couple of months where I didn’t start it because we didn’t have the rights [to the music] to it. When we started getting those, I would work somewhat with the recordings, because that’s what Ethan was doing, and then working on the extremely varied and unusual orchestrations of these pieces.

Q: Unusual, because you and Ethan wanted to blend new material based on the album into the existing songs you chose?

A: I don’t know if it’s a dozen songs or something, it’s a lot. And they’re all treated very differently; otherwise, I wouldn’t do it. Otherwise, you just put on the record and dance around, and I’m not interested in that.

Q: Half of the score had new arrangements of songs on the album, like “A Day in the Life” and the title track, and half had entirely new numbers inspired by the album?

A: I don’t know. I don’t like to use the word “inspired” but Ethan might. “Based on.” It’s certainly based on what is going on, the chord progressions and the rhythms and all that. So none of the songs, very few of the songs, sound the way you would expect them to, thank God. That’s the thrill.

There’s new material within a bunch of the songs. We did it very openly and very freely. It’s really quite amazing. It’s its own music world that’s based on “Sgt. Pepper’s,” same thing with the dances. You just make sense as you go along.

Q: The instrumentation for it caught my eye: A singer, soprano sax, trombone, keyboards, percussion – and a theremin. It’s not often you have a theremin, I’d think.

A: Well, it’s not often you need one. Or want one. It’s like bagpipes. When do you want bagpipes, you know?

Q: It sounds like you and Ethan deconstructed and reconstructed the album in a sense.

A: We each did songs that we particularly liked and objected to songs that we didn’t like as much, and worked that out. Who’s doing it? Who’s singing? Who’s playing what? Why does this work? Does this make sense?

It just was making a program out of something that was already a program to listen to on a record. There’s some stuff that didn’t make sense, and there’s some stuff I don’t think is so good.

It was them [the Beatles] in the studio with no pressure to perform and all the money in the world. It was great. That’s such a fascinating and interesting and long-lived recording. It’s amazing music.

Q: You were 10 or 11 when “Sgt. Pepper’s” came out. What are your earliest memories of hearing it?

A: It was thrilling. Thrilling. I was 10 or something. I was just getting sex-oriented. And my sisters were both squealers, which is one reason they, the Beatles, stopped performing. They couldn’t hear their (bleeping) music. I’m not a lifelong devotee of the Beatles. I don’t listen to them often.

But it’s wonderfully written. The super praise that Paul McCartney has gotten over the years is justified. He’s a great, great songwriter. I thought he was cute. These days, I’m much more interested in Yoko Ono than people were allowed to be at the time.

Q: You’ve got the Beatles and now the Bacharach scores. I’m curious what the difference is for you between popular music like that and the classic pieces you’ve used from people like Vivaldi or Bach.

A: First of all, lots of music is popular and has been popular for hundreds and hundreds of years. A great deal of music from the opera, particularly the 19th century, as well as baroque and early classical was popular music. Everybody knew those tunes. They were part of what people sang on the street, in the tavern. Because there weren’t recordings, need I remind you.

I just choreograph to music that I love. I can’t work with what I don’t like. It’s not complicated, but it’s very multifarious and very interesting, the range of music that I use, and the range of music that exists in the world. And I don’t like to use the records that everybody uses.

There are phases that, God forbid, choreographers go through where everybody [uses the same music]. You know, Philip Glass. And I love Philip, he’s a friend of mine, but I don’t think of his music. Also, oh, Arvo Pärt, for example. There’s fads that go through whatever music is popular. And that very often makes choreographers mostly kind of dumb and ill-prepared.

They just dance to what they hear, and there isn’t a great deal of subtlety in the selection of music, or sophistication, I find, in the choice of a lot of choreographers. I want music I haven’t already thought about and rejected. [He laughs]

Q: The costumes your dancers wear for this are so vivid and bright. Tell me about those elements, costumes, staging, and other choices that enhance the choreography and music.

A: It’s a particular style that’s not unaffected by the period. The patterns and the colors, the costumes I’ve worked with a lot. We wanted people to look great. It’s very bright colors, basically the palette from the album, and also monochrome. It’s black and white, sort of op art. And then there’s sort of pop stuff.

Then the set is very, very simple. Sort of shiny aluminum mountain ranges in the back, made from those metallic blankets that they wrap around you when you’re dying at the end of a marathon. They’re like space blankets, to prevent hypothermia.

Q: How hard is it to find a theremin player?

A: Well, it can be. Ethan heard this guy play, and he was fabulous. It was heartbreaking, you know, some of the music he plays on the theremin is just astounding and beautiful. You know, it’s very hard to play. You have to pretty much have perfect pitch, and it can still go haywire sometimes.

Q: That’s the excitement of live music.

A: Yeah it is, exactly. And dancing. Nobody accepts recorded dancing to live music. Actually, they probably would. People see dance in such a low state. But you think nothing of going to the ballet, and they’re playing some recording of a big orchestra. It’s like that’s just (garbage).

Of course, there are reasons for it. It costs way more and there are way more personalities involved. But to me, it’s like you watch “Avatar” on your phone. First of all, don’t watch it at all. What do you do, what are we after here? As little as possible, as little of an experience as we can handle? No, it should be the opposite of that.

A piano recital should make you lose your mind at how great it is. It’s just you and the piano. That’s my whole raison d’être, I have to tell you: Everybody alive while you’re alive.

Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage” will play in repertory from Jan. 23 through March 21 — an eight-week run that is among the longest in the theater’s history. SCR is hailing the two rotating plays as “The Theatrical Event of the Season” and theater-goers can see both plays in the same weekend or even on the same day.

Other highlights will include the regional theater hit “The Heart Sellers” by Lloyd Suh, pianist Hershey Felder’s portrayal of “Beethoven,” the world premiere of “Fremont Ave.” by Reggie D. White and a second world premiere yet to be announced. The theater’s beloved annual production of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” will be back for a 45th year.

“By design, each offering in the season converses with the others, providing performance after performance of impactful, moving, transformative theater,” SCR Artistic Director David Ivers said in a written statement, adding that the season’s themes are “family, intimacy, longing and joy.”

Here is a chronological look at SCR’s upcoming season:

“Million Dollar Quartet,” Segerstrom Stage, Sept. 13-Oct. 11: A legendary 1956 jam session featuring Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins is re-created in the Tony Award-winning revue, which is chockfull of iconic hits such as “Blue Suede Shoes” and “Walk the Line.”

“The Heart Sellers,” Julianne Argyros Stage, Oct. 26-Nov. 16: Lloyd Suh’s play tells the story of two immigrant women — one Filipino, the other Korean — who meet in a supermarket on Thanksgiving 1973 and spend the holiday together while their husbands work. The women discuss their lives in America, the families they left behind and how to cook a frozen turkey.

Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” Segerstrom Stage, Nov. 29-Dec. 28: The theater’s holiday tradition returns for a 45th year. SCR stalwart Richard Doyle returns to portray Ebenezer Scrooge.

“God of Carnage,” Segerstrom Stage, Jan. 23-March 21: After two 11-year-old boys get into a fight, their parents sit down to resolve the conflict — but the peace negotiations soon devolve into a donnybrook. Reza’s work won the 2009 Tony Award for best play.

Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virigina Woolf?,” Segerstrom Stage, Jan. 24-March 21: When a young couple is invited to an older couple’s home for a nightcap, they find that they have front-row seats for their hosts’ grievances and resentments. “Virginia Woolf” won the Tony Award for best play in 1963.

“Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale,” Julianne Argyros Stage, Feb. 8-20: In this Theatre for Young Audiences and Families production, the classic story of Cinderella is transformed into a bilingual musical featuring salsa and hip-hop stylings as two female basketball players seek to get Coach Prince to choose them to play in the big game.

World premiere to be announced, Julianne Argyos Stage, April 5-26: In advance of the Pacific Playwrights Festival (May 2-4), SCR will debut a new work from its play development program.

“Fremont Ave.,” Segerstrom Stage, April 25-May 23, 2026: Reggie D. White’s play, receiving its world premiere as part of the Pacific Playwrights Festival, chronicles three generations of Black men who live in a suburban house in Southern California from the 1960s into the 2020s and the woman who connects them.

“Hershey Felder, Beethoven,” Segerstrom Stage, June 10-21, 2026: Felder, a pianist known for bringing musical luminaries such as George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and Frederic Chopin to life in his one-man shows, embodies one of classical music’s most celebrated composers. Felder will also perform a “Great American Songbook Sing-Along” for one night only, on June 14.

Full-season subscriptions, which include all of the productions above except for “A Christmas Carol,” “Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale” and the two Hershey Felder shows, are on sale for $290 to $518. Four-play Segerstrom Stage subscriptions are $200-$352, while two-play Argyros Stage subscriptions are $102-$178. Season subscribers will get early access to buy tickets for “A Christmas Carol,” “Beethoven” and the “Great American Songbook Sing-Along.”

The theater is also offering $40 Family Fun Memberships, which include discounts and early access to single tickets for all of SCR’s 2025-26 season, including, “A Christmas Carol,” “Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale” and the SCR Theatre Conservatory Summer Players musical “SpongeBob Square Pants,” which runs Aug. 2-10.

For more details about subscriptions and other information, call 714-708-5555 or go to scr.org.

The popular series runs Saturdays from May 10 through October 11, with events spread across iconic locations including The Autry Museum in Griffith Park, the Los Angeles State Historic Park, and Burbank’s Equestrian Center.

Opening night on Saturday, May 10, features a screening of the Oscar-nominated musical and film “Wicked” at The Autry. Expect photo opportunities, themed cocktails, a live set from Lunar Riptide, and emcee Justine Marino setting the tone before the movie starts at 8 p.m. Guests can dig into food from fan-favorite trucks like Pickles and Peas, Belle Pasta, and Angelenos Wood Fired Pizza.

This year’s May lineup continues with the Oscar-winning “Anora” on May 17, a Dolly Parton-themed night in honor of the 45th anniversary of “9 to 5” on May 24, and a special Pride Month kickoff with “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar” on May 31.

June’s schedule highlights include “The Goonies” on June 7, a 30th anniversary screening of “A Goofy Movie” in partnership with Disney’s D23 fan club on June 14, and “Sonic the Hedgehog” on June 28.

Before the official season opener, SFC kicked off the festivities with its spooky side at Boo-ze, Bites & Frights: Half-O-Ween, held May 2 and 3 at Heritage Square Museum. The 21+ “Halfway to Halloween” celebration featured outdoor horror screenings of “The Craft” and “Final Destination,” along with carnival games, themed bars, and plenty of treats.

General admission tickets start at $22, with season passes available for $99. Reserved seating, child pricing, and a $125 date night package are also available. For the full schedule and to purchase tickets, visit streetfoodcinema.com.

Tennessee Williams unleashed Stanley Kowalski. Arthur Miller bestowed Willy Loman. Now at Laguna Playhouse, in a satisfying, well-directed mounting of August Wilson’s “Fences,” audiences face off with Troy Maxson, the King Lear-like patriarch towering over a tragic African American family drama.

Weekdays from 9 to 5, Troy is a 53-year-old ex-Negro League baseball player turned city garbage man in 1957 Pittsburgh. But in every other waking moment Troy is a vibrant, motor-mouthed prophet of his own life and times, bursting to tell all.

The playwright funds Troy with fantastic range, from humorous tales about jousting with the devil to cunning strategies for combating racial grievances to soulful confessions of personal weaknesses.

Raging, reminiscing, advising, cajoling, bullying, BS-ing … this character thrives on being heard!

A snippet from one declaration: “Death ain’t nothing. I done seen him. Done wrasled with him. You can’t tell me nothing about death. Death ain’t nothing but a fastball on the outside corner. And you know what I’ll do to that! You get one of them fastballs, about waist high, over the outside corner of the plate where you can get the meat of the bat on it … and good god! You can kiss it goodbye.”

This role has been a hallmark for some of the most important actors of the past half century. As the first Troy, James Earl Jones won a 1987 Tony for best actor and built a long-term leading man career. Denzel Washington revived the role on Broadway in 2010, then directed and starred in a filmed version in 2016.

In Laguna Beach, the Troy role is well inherited by regional actor Corey Jones who pivots through the character’s many shifts of moods and modes of behavior with strategic power.

Jones is physically what a Troy needs to be. The actor’s shoulders, chest and carriage embody the physical grace of an aging athlete. Gearing into one of Troy’s extended orations, he physically plants himself, summoning up intensity and weight to lean in slightly before teeing up whatever gale force energies are required.

What’s important here, too, is the range of Jones’ physicality. In the second act there is a moment where he enters quietly cradling a newborn. There is solemn delicacy to his holding of the baby and Jones feels a bit physically withdrawn and shrunken, his measured, hestitant gait conveying the emotional uncertainties in the scene.

The play’s setting — on the Laguna stage a stationary, rustic urban rendering — finds Troy and his captive audiences on the porch and in the yard of his house, which he is slowly fencing in (real sawing!).

This is where Troy holds court, his often-unwilling listeners including passive but sage best friend Bono (an insightful Boise Holmes), Troy’s war-casualty, brain-damaged brother Gabe (an affecting Matt Orduna), emotionally distanced sons Cory (K.J. Powell) and Lyons (Sean Samuels) from different mothers, and, most significantly, Rose, his put upon, patience-running-out wife.

In the latter third of the play, Rose has as many speeches as Troy. Actress Tamarra Graham shows us that plainspoken introspection and a knowing consciousness about the perimeters of an unsteady marriage can be more significant than bravado. The role has a smaller, but deeper range. Graham’s early on resigned, rolled-eye reactions to her husband are on point as is angriness and steel as dark events transpire.

The story, which won’t be spoiled here, includes a startling number of conflicts, divisions and reconciliations. Suffice to say that the complexities of aging envy, youthful ambition, misdirected desire, all within a social environment that marginalizes hopes and minimizes opportunities, calls for big talent.

In Jones, veteran director Yvette Freeman-Hartley and an appealing cast, Laguna Playhouse has it. A quarter into this century, a compelling reading of a significant drama of the last century appearing nearby doesn’t occur often or for long. Be advised.

‘Fences’

Rating: 3 1/2 stars (from a possible 4)

Where: Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach

When: Through May 18. 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Thursdays; 7:30 p.m. Fridays; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays; 1 and 5:30 p.m. Sundays. There will be no performance on Sunday, May 18 at 5:30 p.m.

Tickets: $51-105

Information: 949-497-2787; lagunaplayhouse.com

In pidgin English/Hawaiian Creole cadences, she warns, “… cuz I can see dat you’re carryin’ something you don’t need to carry.”

Now on South Coast Repertory’s Argyros stage, “The Staircase” probes a contemporary challenge in American life: the emotional toll of caretaking on the caretaker.

A play about unburdening the weight of responsibility — and the personal guilt often accompanying it — might imply a drag on an audience’s spirits.

But this captivating one act, 100-minute drama embraces and enlivens Gardner’s humanistic writing through a superbly directed cast of five and a lovingly curated and accomplished production.

Events take place in a Hawaii distant from coastal resorts and tropical cocktails. A sequence of nighttime scenes transpires in the interior of a modestly kept, but appealing two-story house with a formidable wooden staircase and poor lighting. Outside the structure, a mango tree looms nearby.

The unspecified timeframe is likely set during the late1970s/early 1980s (a visual clue is a newly purchased, boxy Sony TV on which Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” reigns supreme).

The four characters are unnamed, but with archetypal descriptors: Mother, Son, Sweetheart and Father.

Father, we learn, experienced a fatal mishap when Son, at a young age, was not on hand to intervene. Subsequently, Father intermittently lives on in Mother’s erratic memory as an idealized version which Son rejects. The challenges of maintaining responsibility for Mother’s day-to-day living weigh on Son, acutely aware of his personal life gone adrift.

Mother is inhabited in a protean characterization from Ehulani Hope Kane.

The actress, making her SCR debut along with her fellow castmates, is a mother, grandmother and veteran of a half-century in the performing arts. She emphatically conveys a spirit animatedly alive in Mother’s native Hawaiian roots, with a naturalistic determination that makes clear her voice will count no matter what the obstacles.

“Stairs is a young woman’s game, I tell you,” Mother observes, drawing a laugh from the audience, as Kane carefully navigates the formidable staircase that Father designed for the house and has left behind.

Wil Kahele is a veteran actor from Honolulu. He charts a Son clandestine and resignedly passive at the outset, the actor then slowly enlarging  the character’s conflicts and internal needs with grace and assuredness as Son creates a future by facing off against the past.

Two smaller, story-amplifying roles are written for the son’s intermittent Sweetheart and for Father.

Nara Cardenas brings an open and warm generosity as the “sweetheart” whose presence beckons Son with a second chance to claim a life with a future. Ben Cain suits the role of a self-assured imperious father figure.  Father-Son confrontations are nothing new in dramas, but in this case it leads to a cathartic liberation.

There is a fifth significant performer, actively shaping the production while literally overseeing it. Situated above the audience and spotlighted in one of the theater’s second level boxes, musician Kainui Blaze Whiting is heard throughout striking intermittent beats on two “ipu,” traditional Hawaiian percussion instruments made from gourds.

Whiting additionally plays a Hawaiian stringed instrument and contributes impactful vocal chants. The performance is a mesmerizing sonic presence. This work is further is enhanced by a subtle sound design credited to Amelia Anello.

Visually, Rachel Hauck’s scenic design is also an excellent visual ingredient. A veteran of four other SCR productions, Hauck has won a Tony award for her design of “Hadestown” and is a recent nominee for another Broadway production, “Swept Away.”

The set is flanked and dominated by the staircase, which is both imposing and mysterious in ascending into a darkness the audience can’t see. Inside, the house is a carefully organized assembly of an object-filled living and kitchen space that connotes both lived-in-ness with casual decay.

Sara Ryung’s utilitarian costuming at first conveys down-market dressing devoid of all aspiration, comfort at the expense of ambition. But as events move forward, she introduces interesting touches that signal character aspiration.

The action is supported through adroit, nighttime lighting from Josh Epstein, who likely delights in continually frustrating Son with a balky lamp fixture with a mind of its own.

Ultimately, the likely key to the successes in this show is the impact of a talented ringmaster. It’s a safe bet that “The Staircase” has that in director Gaye Taylor Upchurch.

The components of this production flow unerringly without any facet feeling estranged from the larger aims of the storytelling. Genius talent is real when it doesn’t call attention to itself.

There is a quibble, however, reaching back into the writing of the Mother character and it leaves one with a final bit of unease. From early on there are repeated instances of memory loss and disassociation, signaling the character’s onset of dementia.

But the end of the play suggests a level of self-sufficiency for an 84-year old that seem at odds with what we have been shown, and which cast an unintended shadow over an otherwise upbeat denouement.

Since 1983, SCR has awarded 356 commissions to 245 playwrights, composers and lyricists. “The Staircase” is the 164th fully produced premiere the theater has staged of a homegrown new work and it surely must stand tall in the theater’s legacy.

A final word of cautionary advice: only two more weeks of performances remain. Moving quickly for tickets to “The Stairway” would be a very good step to take.

‘The Staircase’

Rating: 3 1/2 stars (out of a possible 4)

Where: Julianne Argyros stage, South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: Through May 18; 7:45 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays

Tickets: $35-$114

Information: 714-708-5555; scr.org

The hyper-energized, musicalized transformation of the 2001 Reese Witherspoon movie about contemporary girlhood has largely vanished from professional stages in Southern California for the past 15 years.

Walk out of this crisply directed and choreographed rejuvenation and you wonder why touring versions haven’t been plastering smiles on everyone’s faces at the Pantages, Ahmanson or Segerstrom Center for, well, like, evah.

No matter. In this well-produced, home-grown production the curtain rises on a two-level sorority building at UCLA. Pink dominates the view, starting with scenery channeling the look and spirit of a Barbie Dreamhouse.

The place is in coed tizzy. Resident fashionista/platinum blonde Elle Woods is about to get engaged and a multitude of Delta Nu sisters — the pack includes Bruiser, Elle’s adorable handbag-size pet Chihuahua and live musical theater’s second most famous canine — are in frantic anticipation.

Instead, Elle gets dumped and to win back the man who may not be worth having, she’ll need to  prove herself by getting into Harvard Law School.

A key theme of the show emerges during the initial and extended, sugar-rush pop number “Omigod You Guys.”

An evil clothing saleswoman — “blondes make commissions SO easy” — swoops in on Elle, showing her a dress with the sales tag ripped off: “Excuse me, have you seen this? It just came in; it’s perfect for a blonde.”

Elle retorts “It may be perfect for a blonde, but I’m not that blonde.” Then she sings, “I may be in love, but I’m not stupid…”

The story follows definitely-not-stupid Elle from West Coast to East Coast, and what emerges is the process of personal growth and self-discovery that braininess can be her — and any other girl’s — defining trait and saving grace no matter hair color.

Post-pandemic, La Mirada has made a habit of rolling out high-caliber, light-hearted efforts with routine panache and this mounting of “Legally Blonde: The Musical” stays on point.

Jerry Mitchell’s original direction and choreography have been more than ably built upon here by Cynthia Ferrer and Dana Solimando, respectively.

Ferrer is confidently at home with Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin’s snappy pop score. From the unlikeness of a Greek chorus — amusingly drawn from the sorority — to the smallest jaunty silliness built into one-dimensional characters, the quick-paced scenes are well developed and impactfully staged.

Solimando’s arrangements of the kinetic dance numbers are also sharply shaped. There’s a staggering range of styles satisfyingly on display: the unlikely manifestation of a cheerleading routine; an all-male hip hop element; a notably visceral jump-rope/exercise workout video homage; and an amusing, gently mocking Irish step dance.

With a big cast to fill, the successes here started early with elevated regional casting making up a 40+ person phalanx of largely actors’ equity talent.

Elle is described by a chum as a “genetic lotto win,” and that captures Kathryn Brunner’s skill at inhabiting the lead. With quirky peppiness built into the role’s DNA, and beyond leaning into  the character’s thrust-jaw determination, Brunner projects friendliness into empathy and not just with allies but sometimes her rivals, too.

Plus — and a potentially show-sinking issue if this isn’t in place — Brunner is an actress who is also a good singer. Keep an ear open in the second act where she leads or is a major part of seven straight numbers. Vocal stamina is required, Brunner never flags.

Supplemental performances of note include Anthea Neri-Best as Paulette, Elle’s gal pal salon worker (love is “the number one reason for bad hair decisions”).

Paulette’s own roughhewn, lovelorn travails provide the show’s sub-plot and Neri-Best winningly leans into her vocals in the unexpected, clever ballad “Ireland.”

The acrobatic peak of the show’s indefatigable performances arrives at the beginning of Act 2 with the introduction of wrongly incarcerated (Elle as fledgling lawyer/fellow Delta Nu sister to the rescue!) fitness video queen Brooke Wyndham.

As Brooke, the ultra-fit Jane Papageorge’s astonishing ability to jump rope, belt a song and power the dance ensemble — as well as freeze a daunting pose or two — through the workout anthem “Whipped into Shape” is not soon forgotten.

A performance at a different pace is the smooth and mock refinement served up by Edward Staudenmayer as the avuncular — and predatory — Professor Callahan.

Staudenmayer looks, sounds and winningly conveys the edge underlying his oh-so-suave  exterior in the self-explanatory tune “Blood in the Water.”

Supporting elements for this production are well in place, too.

Adam Ramirez’s  costumes range from muted green and brown for the Harvard crowd to surprising variations of pink sub-tones for Elle. Ann E. McMills’ lighting shows off everything splendidly. Nice, discreet framing is  found in Jonathan Infante’s subtle projection designs.

Stepping back from the overall cheerleading here a bit, the show’s script can be bit of a mess as events proceed. The writing late in the second act — beginning with the extended chunks of the “Legally Blonde Remix” number — is a hurried jumble.

Opening night also saw a couple of miscues: one character mistimed a vocal entrance and there were a couple of detectable wording stumbles.

Bruiser, played by Little Ricky, notably has four separate lines of dialogue — the script describes them as “yaps”  — but hit just three on cue. Perhaps food-treat payment in the moment not up to snuff for the pooch’s liking?

At this point the giddiness of the production has carried things along so effectively that none of these kvetchings detract from the show’s considerable bring it on impact.

‘Legally Blonde: The Musical’

Rating: 3 1/2 stars (of a possible 4)

Where: La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada

When: Through May 18. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 1:30 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays

Tickets: $25-$95

Information: 714-994-6310, 562-944-9801; lamiradatheatre.com

Until now, SCR’s primary Segerstrom Stage has been open this calendar year for only a dozen performances of a show organized through an outsider presenter.

Having formally downsized productions from 13 to 9 annually due to economic shifts, the theater also suffered a January storm partially blowing the roof off a noncampus storage building, damaging the theater’s stored props and costumes.

As a result, playwright Keiko Green’s new one-act, 100-minute play — which launches the annual Pacific Playwrights Festival with readings, staged presentations and a second-stage production of another new work, “The Staircase” — is a welcome sight.

During last year’s festival, “You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World!” received an energizing semistaged presentation.

And the well-designed technical production here confirms the theater’s tradition of lovingly fostering new and ambitious work.

This said, the new show also reminds that playwriting ambitions come with creative risk that doesn’t necessarily fully pay off.

Green’s play presents an interspersion of personal and worldly themes: a small family and others are buffeted by the father’s final days with pancreatic cancer while their experiences are amplified by a larger, strident polemic laying out worldwide climate catastrophe.

The material sounds — and is — dire, but it is presented with comic brushstrokes that are embellished by intermittent flourishes of surreal imagery, manifested by the father’s emotional and medicinal swings.

The play’s beginning is strong, the parents absorbing the heartbreaking news with a compelling early moment as they collapse in a communal, mutually propelling hysterical bout of laughter.

Green’s narrative technique is effective. The family’s early 20s transgender child (River Gallo) acts as an able narrator as well as a character trying to fashion a personal and professional life while the nuclear family is abruptly coming to an end.

The father (Joel de la Fuente) proceeds through the remains of his existence with an elevated consciousness and preoccupation with the planet’s health as a whole. The mother (Alysia Reiner) manifests ever shifting wellings of grief as she grasps for emotional survival.

Overall, though, as characters swell and events cascade, director Zi Alikhan’s six-person cast struggles on a scene-by-scene basis to carry ahead through the play’s widely ranging tonal demands.

At points the play is like observing an emotional bounce-house with tangential characters bounding on and off through brief, sketch-like flights of fancy. The show’s potency is muddled.

At the same time, the play certainly courses with humanity. And it definitely holds your attention, if only because the character mélange is quite the array, from young Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg to cartoony extinct species interacting in an emotional support therapy session.

The penultimate ending is emotionally stirring, but to get there the fourth wall is broken to include the audience. While this is an earnest, powerfully shared moment, it also feels like another theatrical layering of too much-ness.

Perhaps the strongest takeaway from the roiling energies in place in “You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World!” is that theater itself can be messy — sometimes wonderfully so — and it’s satisfying to encounter it alive and kicking once again in Costa Mesa.

‘You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World!’

Rating: 3 stars (out of a possible 4)

Where: Segerstrom Stage, South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: Through May 3; 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m., Sundays. An additional performance has been added at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 29

Tickets: $35-$114

Information: 714-708-5555; scr.org