Down by the Riverside, they're making musicals. Have been for quite some time, in fact.

A few weeks back, I got an e-mail _ as I sometimes do _ from a publicist for Performance Riverside which produces musicals on the campus of Riverside Community College. The organization used to be called Riverside Civic Light Opera,. I know this not because I'm a history buff on such matters or even because this is an especially relevant fact, but because...well, the reason is kind of a dirty little secret, but I'll spill it presently.

Anyway, Performance Riverside PR guy Chuck Abernathy sent me an e-mail announcement on the company's latest show, "Sensational Showtunes" (playing through Sunday) along with an enormous picture that clogged up my e-mail memory. I'm a one man theater reviewing band here at the old DN, and unless there's something really major happening outside L.A., I'm not reviewing much past Pasadena. Call me provincial, but there it is.

So I asked Mr. Abernathy to delete me from his contact list, basically saying that I (meaning the Daily News's reviewing staff) doesn't really get to Riverside. At all. Ever. Never request something like this from a PR guy.

Mr Abernathy, of course, wasn't about to take this sitting down (or standing up, as the case may be), and he wrote me back the following response. It's printed verbatim, because the spelling mistakes, etc. amused me.

Dear Mr. Henderson,

The question has never been whether you get out to Riverside. We aren't asking for a review neccessarily...we get those, and I know they are available to all LA Newspaper group members syndicated through the SB Sun....you may have read reporter Ralph ANderson passed away recently, but his spouse, Frances Scoggins has picked up his mantle. There's no point or relevancy to whether you yourself get out to Riverside much. It's whether or not your readers who enjoy or want to participate in music and performing get out to Riverside. It's also a question of whether the LA Daily News supports artists from it's own community who commute to Riverside for a chance to be paid to participate in their art. I know that because we pay our performers we have more than our share of performers from LA; in fact, until fairly recently we'd have LA auditions (in Burbank, as I recall, which is part of your beat), but now people are less shy about coming to our auditions in Riverside, so it's become unneccessary. Also, Danny Micheals and Lannie Alexander are cast members from your beat, as is our Choreographer John Vaughan. Cassie Murphy, from LaVerne, is also a former Citrus College Citrus Singer, as was John Vaughan. This event, then, is definately part of LA Daily News' beat.... is and always has been a big influence on us, and our mailing list indicated we have patrons attending from your sphere of influence. Wheter you get out here is immaterial...your readers do. It is, in fact, impossible that there would be no one with in the influence of in your 575,000 daily circulation

Quick question: How are the pictures I send you "hard to delete"? I've never had anyone complain that an e-mail or photo was "hard to delete", nor have I ever recieved a hard to delete photo or e-mail. It's usually just one click. I send the photos separtaely from the releases out of consideration for people running dial-up or a lower bandwidth...if you don't want the picture, just delete it before opening the attached file. That's not hard for anybody.

If what is its, however, that you just don't want to be bothered, that's fine...that's a totally acceptable reason for a journalist to ask not to be contacted. If this is the case, I will happily remove you. I just wanted to be clear.

Chuck Abernathy
Performance Riverside

Hell hath no venom like a theater troupe scorned. (He did subsequently agree to remove me).

So how about it all of you Inland Empire readers (or actors)? Seen anything at Performance Riverside recently? Ever? Am I missing great things? Should I be dropping by my alma mater with a bit more regularity?

Actually, RCC is not my alma mater, but UC Riverside is. Four of the best years of my meager existence were spent as an English major at that campus. During said time, I also saw four productions at what was then RCLO: "Evita," "Hello Dolly!" and "Brigadoon" and "Kismet." And guess what...they were all quite damned decent. Seriously. The company has a lot more professional contracts now than they did back in the late 1980s, and their productions show up from time to time at the local award shows.

Oh, and here's the dirty little secret I promised...before becoming the urbane and worldly theater critic you know him to be, yours truly was actually in the chorus of RCLO's "Oklahoma" back in 1987. I think I had maybe three lines, and, thankfully, they didn't make me dance.

I guess this makes me a Performance Riverside alum after all.