My spam filter, which typically filters absolutely nothing, grabbed the latest casting notice out of the Geffen Playhouse because it contained the word...

... hold on to your seat here...

Nazis (eek!).

Meaning, apparently, that anybody can infect my beloved hardware with all measures of viruses, but throw in the word Nazi, and my computer balks. Go figure.

Back to the news...

Seems there's a Gestapo interrogator in Jeffrey Hatcher's play "A Picasso" which is set in 1941 during the German occupation _by Nazis, eek! _ of Paris. So this art critic turned interrogator tries to make Picasso authenticate three of his works.

Roma Downy (late of the tube's "Touched by an Angel") plays the interrogator and Peter Michael Goetz will be P.P. Theatre Producing Director Gilbert Cates directs. The production opens Feb. 11.

The production was scheduled to be on the Geffen mainstage, but flipped to the 117 seat Audrey Skirball Kenis space when the Geffen administrative brass realized the bigger house earning potential of the solo act Prince Leia Tells All (aka Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking.")

I was not, alas, able to pry any casting tidbits out of the Geffen for David Mamet's "Speed the Plow," which opens the same week as "A Picasso" on the mainstage. "Speed the Plow," it will be remembered, is Mamet's take on Hollywood and originally starred Ron Silver, Joe Mantegna and Madonna.

Randall Arney, the Geffen's Artistic Director, and one of L.A.'s best, will take the helm on this production. For his "All My Sons" last year, he got Len Carriou, Laurie Metcalf and Neil Patrick Harris. That production was one of the year's best, so, yes, I'm jazzed to see who he gets for "Plow."

One thing we do know: two of the players won't be Roma Downy or Peter Michael Goetz.