The 2003 film from Richard Curtis about a seemingly disparate group of British men and women who struggle with love and relationships has been given the For the Record treatment. Love Actually Live, now playing at The Wallis in Beverly Hills through December 31st, marks an innovation in For the Record Live’s previous shows based on the collected work of a given director.
For this show an individual film is celebrated. Rather than having the performers act out dialogue from the film leading up to the songs, director Anderson Davis uses scenes from the film to get us from song-to-song. And the songs themselves to get us from scene-to-scene. So the cast ends up as the “live soundtrack” to the movie itself.
The cast includes such For the Record Live veterans as: Tomasina Abate, Kelley Jakle, Doug Kreeger, B.Slade and Rumer Willis. Joining this show are Tony Award winner Steve Kazee (Once the Musical) and Rex Smith (Pirates of Penzance.) The rest of the cast features Glory Curda, Alex Csillag, Olivia Kuper Harris,Carson Higgins, Sean Yves Lessard, Emily Lopez, Carrie Manolakos, Cairo McGee, Zak Resnick, Justin Matthew Sargent, Megan Shung and Tom Zmuda.
If you don’t remember the movie, here’s a trailer to remind you:
Love Actually is set at Christmas, so clearly this is a holiday-themed show. It should be noted that the film does include some material that might not be appropriate for younger audiences. And there is some minor nudity.
Check back for our interview with Rex Smith about tackling the role of Billy Mack – made famous by Bill Nighy in the movie.
Photo of Love Actually Live by Lawrence K. Ho