Love Actually Live at The Wallis

My sister and I in front of the Love Actually Live step-and-repeat

I am visiting my sister in Southern California for the holiday, and she surprised me with an early Christmas present! Love Actually is one of our favorite Christmas movies, and she bought us tickets to see "Love Actually Live" at The Wallis. I've heard of shows in which an orchestra will play the score of a movie while the film is on a large screen, but this was different!

There was not only a band of musicians for this performance, but there were singers, too! And not only did they sing songs from the movie (as well as others), but they even dressed like the characters and played bit scenes while the movie was playing.

One screen showed the movie, the other was the outside of a building, and the long one at the top represented his trip to "an American bar."

And the movie played on multiple screens, too! There were two split screens as well as a long narrow one near the ceiling. Throughout the performance the movie would play on one of the screens and then bounce around between scenes. And the screens would raise and lower to reveal the live actors as they mimicked the scenes in the movie, or the actors would sneak behind the screen and then "appear" on the screen as the movie.

Because most songs in movies are just clips, and the performers were singing full songs, some parts of the movie had to be cut out. That was a little sad when you know the movie by heart and pieces go missing. And some songs they didn't include, including Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You," which was disappointing (but probably due to copyright concerns). I understand why they made those decisions. At least the singing was really great! I was very impressed!

Levi Smith played Sam, and his version of "Puppy Love" was wonderful!

Aubrie Sellers sang Joni Mitchell's "River." This song isn't in the movie, but Joni Mitchell does play a role in the film. The actress' voice reminded me of LeAnn Rimes with a little country twang. 

Ruby Lewis as Mia the secretary killed Santana's "Smooth," although it's not part of the original soundtrack.

I was blown away by Carrie Manolakos' version of Kelly Clarkson's "The Trouble with Love Is."

Gabriela Carrillo sounded just like Norah Jones when she sang "Turn Me On."

I did find a clip of the group singing "Love Actually," which is the movie's instrumental theme song with lyrics written by Audra Mae.

This show was a lot of fun. I highly recommend it. And it's not too late to buy tickets!

*All photos of the show are from The Wallis' webpage for the show.