The things one misses when one leaves town.

I'm going to Mammoth for a few days this weekend, which -- as previously blogged -- takes me away from catching Mandy Patinkin's show Saturday night at the Kodak Theatre.

A couple of other one-off theatrical events of note this weekend.

Heaven only knows what the striking TV writers will churn out for the Thursday-Sunday benefit TV Takes the Stage at the Macha Theatre. It's kinda interesting that legit playwrights like Warren Leight (author of "Side Men") and Diana Son ("Boy") are joining the ranks of "Desperate Housewives," "Cold Case" and "Grey's Anatomy" scribes (16 in all) in an event to benefit "non-writers who have been financially affected by the WGA strike."

A bit more from the press release:

“Striking TV writers can master only so many online sudoku puzzles before they go crazy. And lately many of us have found ourselves writing dialogue for the coffee machine to say to the toaster -- it was time to hit the stage,” said Aaron Tracy, striking writer and Executive Producer/Creator of TV Takes the Stage. “The plays range pretty widely in subject matter from the night Marie Antoinette and King Louis first shared a bed, to the chat-room entrapment of child predators. We have sixteen writers from sitcoms to dramas to HBO shows, so you're going to get a little of everything. We’ve got sitcom writers trying finally to earn their Tennessee Williams yearbook quotes, and we’ve got Pulitzer finalists bored with starting every script with a dead body.”

Aaron added, “I came up with the idea for the benefit after reading about the costume designer on 'Grey's Anatomy' who lost her job because of a fight she has absolutely nothing to do with. This strike is affecting the livelihood of scores of people who don't have the slightest interest in new-media compensation, or residual payments for foreign distribution and this money will help them.”

It will cost you $20-$25 to see what these TV scribes can do for the stage. The Macha Theatre is located at 1107 N. Kings Rd. West Hollywood. www.plays411.com/tv or (323) 960-1052.

And last but certainly not least, the Getty Villa Theatre Lab gets back underway with Ellen McLaughlin (late of "Angels in America") performing her one woman theater/music piece, "Penelope."

"A woman's husband appears at her door after an absence of 20 years, suffering from brain damage. A veteran of a modern war, he doesn't know who he is and she doesn't know who he's become. While they wait together for his return to himself, she reads him 'The Odyssey,' and in the journey of that book, she finds a way into her former husband's memory and the terror and trauma of war. McLaughlin combines her talents with those of composer Sarah Kirkland Snider and the Eclipse Ensemble under the direction of director Lisa Rothe to present a modern adaptation of this ancient text.

The Villa Lab series has some pretty cool programs coming up including Luis Alfaro's L.A. prison take on Oedipus Rex, "Oedipus El Rey" (Feb. 15-17); followed by "Philoktetes," (April 11-13) more Sophocles with director Michael Hackett and British actor Henry Goodman; and finally David Catlin and the Lookingglass Theatre Co. exploring the Icarus myth in "Icarus" (May 16-18).

All of the Getty lab performances are 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday with a ticket price of $7.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The "Evita" and "Sunday in the Park with George" star will be at the Kodak Theatre on Saturday to do what many people think he does best: sing.

I chatted with Mr P. for a Q and A that will run this week in anticipation of the concert. Learned he's getting ready to play Prospero in "The Tempest" later in 2009. I don't imagine, after his rather unceremonious exit from "Criminal Minds" last summer, that Patinkin will be returning to series television anytime soon. Nor are the movies beating down his door. He played Joe Papp pack in "Pinero" in 2001. Then something called "Choking Man" in 2006, followed by a voice role in the animated baseball movie "Everyone's Hero" that same year, and that's it.

But the stage remains fruitful. He won't be back to Broadway anytime soon, but having a go at "The Tempest" for director Brian Kulick and Classic Stage, well...

"I try to do classical piece every year, and so I'm very excited. This is exactly what I wanted to be doing," said Patinkin who last attempted a Shakespeare play 20 years ago, playing Leontes in "The Winter's Tale for that same Joe Papp at the Public.

Papp apparently told Patinkin to be sure to mix the music and the classics. But the music _ and TV _ took over for awhile there.

Now Patinkin's back with the Bard, studying with a 27 year-old Shakespeare scholar, and relearning the Elizabethan dialog as though he were "returning to a foreign language."

"The mental gymnastics of it, the music of it, the ideas are thrilling," Patinkin said, "and there again, I can't believe I kept myself from this. It's a beautiful piece about forgiveness, and I just don't think there's anything of more importance to my life or to this world's life than the ability to understand and embrace forgiveness."

I will, unfortunately, be missing Patinkin's show Saturday. However, he says he intends to return in 2009 with fellow "Evita" star Patti LuPone for their dual concert.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

``Most of the actors that I see today, they don't listen. Or they listen for their next line. Most of them have never done stage or plays. You have to do stage. It's imperative.''

That pithy bit of wisdom came from the actor guaranteed of taking home a trophy Sunday night at the SAG awards.

No, not Clooney or Day-Lewis or Christie or whoever takes the statues. I'm talking about Charles Durning, the guild's Life Achievement Award recipient.

Admittedly, Durning offered up his thoughts on the importance of stage acting some four years ago when he trod the boards in an ill considered revival of Mary Chase's "Harvey." He played Elwood P. Dowd for the late director Charles Nelson Reilly. The production at the Laguna Playhouse was supposed to go to Broadway. Mercifully, that never happened.

Durning, a lovely man with a salty wit and great stories, was -- at 80 -- too old to play Dowd. Indeed, the actor seemed considerably spryer when, a year later, he was one of a quartet of elder statesmen in "Golf with Alan Shepard" at the Falcon Theatre, another misfire.

Only one man's opinion, of course. Plus, I'm balancing Durning's work in those two lesser efforts against his Big Daddy in Tennessee Williams's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" way back in, gulp, 1990 opposite Kathleen Turner and Polly Holiday. He won a Tony award for that role.

The man is in his fifth decade of performing with more than 130 movies and TV roles to his docket sheet. And a heck of a lot of stage work as well.

Congrats on the SAG laurel, Mr. D. You've more than earned it.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

``Most of the actors that I see today, they don't listen. Or they listen for their next line. Most of them have never done stage or plays. You have to do stage. It's imperative.''

That pithy bit of wisdom came from the actor guaranteed of taking home a trophy Sunday night at the SAG awards.

No, not Clooney or Day-Lewis or Christie or whoever takes the statues. I'm talking about Charles Durning, the guild's Life Achievement Award recipient.

Admittedly, Durning offered up his thoughts on the importance of stage acting some four years ago when he trod the boards in an ill considered revival of Mary Chase's "Harvey." He played Elwood P. Dowd for the late director Charles Nelson Reilly. The production at the Laguna Playhouse was supposed to go to Broadway. Mercifully, that never happened.

Durning, a lovely man with a salty wit and great stories, was -- at 80 -- too old to play Dowd. Indeed, the actor seemed considerably spryer when, a year later, he was one of a quartet of elder statesmen in "Golf with Alan Shepard" at the Falcon Theatre, another misfire.

Only one man's opinion, of course. Plus, I'm balancing Durning's work in those two lesser efforts against his Big Daddy in Tennessee Williams's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" way back in, gulp, 1990 opposite Kathleen Turner and Polly Holiday. He won a Tony award for that role.

The man is in his fifth decade of performing with more than 130 movies and TV roles to his docket sheet. And a heck of a lot of stage work as well.

Congrats on the SAG laurel, Mr. D. You've more than earned it.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There can't be any connection, can there, between the fact that we're in an election year and the miniature rash of presidential themed plays?

Nah!

I just spent the better part of two hours with #7, AKA Old Hickory, aka Andrew Jackson. The musical/satire "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" presented by Center Theatre Group at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, imagined Jackson as a moody, mopey rock star of a president who championed the common man unless he was of Indian descent, in which case he was butchered or sent packing.

"BBAJ" features appearances by John Quincy Adams, James Monroe and Martin Van Buren. As a Twinky-eating Van Buren, Brian Hostenske was a scream. (213) 628-2772, www.CenterTheatreGroup.org.

About to start previews with an opening Feb. 8 will be "Memoirs of Abraham Lincoln" with Granville van Dusen doing a solo turn as Honest Abe. Van Dusen has been touring this particular role for years, but he'll park at the Falcon Theatre through March 2. (818) 955-8101, www.Falcontheatre.com.

Nor must we forget John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin (OK he wasn't a president) and the rest of the Continental Congress mixing it up in "1776" at the Actors Co-Op in Hollywood, also beginning Feb. 8. (323) 462-8460.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't mean to be cynical. OK, maybe I do.

I have just learned that Annette Bening will receive the Distinction in Theatre award at the Geffen Playhouse's "Backstage at the Geffen" gala on March 17. Robert Iger, president and CEO of the Walt Disney Co., will also be recognized.

Bening, who took home a special career achievement award for theater at the Ovations a couple months back, will be honored "in recognition of her seemingly inexhaustible vast commitment to the arts both on and off stage."

That would be primarily off stage.

Much is made of Ms. Bening's stage roots, her early days in San Diego and her training at ACT's Conservatory in San Francisco. She has exactly one Broadway credit: Tina Howe's "Coastal Disturbances" in 1987-88, and she got nominated for a Tony for it.

Yes, she has appeared on the Geffen stage, in a sold-out, month-long production of "Hedda Gabler" in 1999. There was a brief stint in a staged reading of Alan Bennet's "Talking Heads" a few years later and, in early 2006, a production of Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" at the Mark Taper Forum with Alfred Molina.

In what seems to me a bit of irony, the institution that is recognizing Bening's "inexhaustible vast commitment to the arts" is the same non-profit theater that had to sub out the Broadway-bound production of Joanna Murray-Smith's The Female of the Species once Bening dropped out for personal reasons. Not recast. Replace. No Bening meant no "Female of the Species." That production has been replaced by "The Joan Rivers Theatre Project" which opens Feb. 13.

I am to understand that Bening and her husband, Warren Beatty, have done much to raise money for arts non profits including the Geffen and Center Theatre Group. So bravo that.

But I'm not sure whether three local stage appearances in nine years does "an inexhaustible vast commitment" make.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am sure that Stewart F. Lane is a gentleman and a scholar, a wonderfully smart producer and just an all around good guy.

I have never met or spoken to the man.

I have seen "his" work: he produced "Jay Johnson: The Two and Only" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie." He has also produced the Kevin Kline "Cyrano de Bergerac" and the Broadway transfer of "The 39 Steps" for Broadway.

I very much wish Mr Lane's publicity firm, 5W Public Relations in New York, would leave me the flock alone. I've asked them to go away. They don't listen.

Every, oh, five weeks or so, I get a press release suggesting a story idea about the Broadway climate or entertainment in general and offering Stewart F. Lane -- naturally -- as a source. The first contact was made over the publication of Lane's book "Let's Put on a Show." I passed on a feature. Then the pitches started coming.

I have explained to 5W Public Relations that I am the Los Angeles Daily News not the NY Daily News, that I don't write about Broadway, and that if I have a story for which Stewart F. Lane would be appropriate, I WILL CALL THEM. I have gone so far as to ask them to STOP contacting me. No good. they have to ring my e-bell with every new thought.

So here in this blog space is the ink that 5W Public Relations believes Mr Lane so desperately needs. "Let's put on a Show" is a How-To guide to staging a show at any level mixed with personal producer-ial anecdotes. If anybody out there checks it out, let me know.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At the website for Valley Musical Theatre, www.valleymusicaltheatre.org, you'll find a blurb written by yours truly when I reviewed a production of "They're Playing Our Song." I wrote:

"With none-too-ambitious programming and players like Lewis in the fold, VMT - which scored a hit with "Beehive" - appears to be firing on all cylinders."

I wrote those words nearly a year ago. Much has indeed changed.

"They're Playing our Song" concluded the company's inaugural season at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood. It was also the last full production staged by VMT. Single night benefits ("Fractured Broadway," "Broadway Unplugged" have followed.)

VMT appears to be having financial difficulties -- no crime in that -- and it's not certain when they'll actually be up and staging things again. The company's website lists a splashy sounding benefit for next Monday, the 28th, featuring performers from "The Color Purple" and their friends. "A Purple Cabaret," scheduled for the Coronet, sounded like quite an evening.

Except it's apparently not happening either. I phoned up VMT honcho Ronn Goswick yesterday to get some details and, yes, to ask when we might see another non-benefit VMT event at the El Portal. I did not receive a return phone call, but the management from the El Portal kindly forwarded me an e-mail from Goswick to the "Purple" crew:

Dear Friend,

It is with deep sorrow and regret that I have to send this email to all of you.

I think you all know that we were doing this benefit for Valley Musical Theatre to help take care of getting us out of the red. It is an extremely difficult task to undertake and I want to THANK YOU all for being there to help me in trying to make this happen.

Unfortunately over the past couple of days I have been forced into a corner and having to make some extremely tough decisions and that is why I am sending this email to all of you.

I am going to have to cancel the performance of A PURPLE CABARET on January 28. I have gotten information that would have made it impossible to do the show and not have it be a negative influence on each and every one of you as well as the audience and the theatre.

I am so sorry that we couldn't continue and put this show on for the public. You have already all given me so much and I will be forever indebted to each of you.

THANKS for you time, your talent and most of all your friendships - old and new.

I love you all.

RONN GOSWICK

---------------------------

OK, no "Purple Cabaret." Tant pis, and all that, and the "Purple" cast members actually get to rest their voices on their day off from performing at the Ahmanson.

I'd be curious to know how deeply in the red VMT actually is, and what "information" could cause a benefit cabaret -- a BENEFIT CABARET -- to be a "negative influence" on the performers and audience members alike.

There was a time when I was convinced that that the El Portal-- the largest in the Valley -- was cursed, and destined never to have a regular subscription selling home company. I had hoped that VMT had succeeded where others have failed, but clearly not.

I also have to hand it to the El Portal administrators. Even without a regular company, their limited engagements -- be they Danny Kaye or Joe Bologna or dance -- seem to get rears in the seats. And that's what its all about.

And VMT? Well, so much for cylinders.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

First off, congrats to all the acting nominees, and here's hoping we every last one of them rather than a bunch of casually dressed ent journalists (like myself) on the picket line free red carpet on Feb. 24.

I'm sure every last one of them took a drama class and did crappy summer stock in Cincinnati way back in the day. The cool thing about some of these nominees is that several of them continue to work on stage to this day. Because it benefits their craft. Because the better roles are there. Because they hate their agents, whatever.

I've waxed on at some length in this space about Hal Holbrook (best supporting actor, "Into the Wild") who -- in addition to being a real gentleman -- will turn 83 a week before the Oscars, and continues to play Mark Twain in "Mark twain Tonight!" wherever and whenever. He likely doesn't have a prayer ("No Country's" Javier Bardem figures to gun him down), but it's really cool to see HH even up there. And it would heavily SUCK if the writers strike prohibited him from being there to enjoy it.

There's also...

Amy Ryan (best supporting actress, "Gone, Baby, Gone"): A New York stage fixture, though perhaps not for long, now. She headlined David Linsey-Abaire's "Rabbit Hole" in September 06 at the Geffen Playhouse, playing the same role that won Cynthia Nixon a Tony award. Unless voters are in a Cate Blanchett frame of mind, She-who-is-not-Meg has got a legitimate chance.

Laura Linney (best actress, "The Savages"): She rocks. She'll play the sinister Marquise de Merteuil in a revival of Christopher Hampton's "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" in April on Broadway...and she probably doesn't have a prayer against Julie Christie or Marion Cotillard.

Philip Seymour Hoffman: (Best supporting actor, "Charlie Wilson's War") Given how much he works, I don't know how he finds time to return to the stage. But return he does, both as actor and director. He's been a member of the LAByrinth Theater Company in New York since 1995, and his brother Gordy used to run the 85 hour Shakespeare marathon out of the MET Theatre in L.A. Already an Oscar winner (for "Capote,") he'' also probably be Bardem-ed on Oscar night.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Hairspray:" 0, count 'em, 0, nominations. "Sweeney Todd:" 3, for Art direction, costumes and Johnny Depp.

While there are no shortage of Broadway musicals being turned into films ("Mamma Mia" and "Nine" still to come) the awards luster seems to be on the downswing since "Chicago" took the Best Picture gold for 2002.

I mean, "Hairspray" not even getting a best song nod? ("Enchanted," "Once" and "August Rush" will fight it out.) And what about "Sweeney's meager showing? That one had high expectations _ Tim Burton's got to get the love eventually _ and Golden Globe momentum.

Of course, the Christmas buzz last year had "Dreamgirls" a shoe-in for best picture and best director recognition. Neither got nominated, and the movie went on to score eight noms (three for original songs), and two victories.

Guess the golden age of movie musicals isn't upon us just yet.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For nearly 9-year-old Jeremy R. Henerson at "Schoolhouse Rock Live!" at the Greenway Court Theatre. Yes, sports fans, he lasted the entire thing. Of course it helped that we attended a matinee of a show where the audience gets to count along by fives. But, hey, theater critics aren't built in a day.

Then again, JRH says he wants to be a scientist. Smart kid.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Orson's Shadow" opens at the Pasadena Playhouse tonight. Cool play for stage buffs: the drama that unfolds when Orson Welles tries to direct Laurence Olivier in a production of Ionesco's "Rhinoceros" in England at the behest of theater critic Kenneth Tynan. Vivien Leigh and Joan Plowright -- Olivier's first and second wives -- are characters as well.

First caught this play some seven years ago now at San Diego's Old Globe. A very good L.A. production produced by the Black Dahlia moved to the Tiffany back in 2002.

In previewing the PP production, I talked to playwright Austin Pendleton, a longtime actor and Steppenwolf Theater Co. alumni who originally wrote "Shadow" at the suggestion of Judith Auberjonois as a vehicle for her husband Rene Auberjonois to play Olivier. He never did. Nor did Alfred Molina -- forecasted to play Welles -- ever strap on the bulk. Oh, well, maybe if they do a movie. Which they should.

Despite a very intriguing subject matter, "Orson's Shadow" apparently did not exactly write itself, says Pendleton.

"I fooled with it for like 3 and a half years, went up every blind alley you could think of, and then after about three years, I had almost a complete draft. I’m a member at Steppenwolf where they had done another play I had written. They heard I was working on it and they said, can we read this new one? I thought, 'Oh I don’t know.' I was very un-confident about it. Finally I let them see it, and I thought that, since I was an ensemble member, maybe they'd put up a reading so I could hear what’s up with it. But then to my surprise, they said they wanted to produce it. Which really threw me. I didn’t expect that. And then they did."

In 1960, when the play (which is partially fictionalized for dramatic purposes) is set, Welles is on the outs with the studios and, grossly overweight, is playing Falstaff to thin crowds in fringe British theater. Olivier, on the cusp of creating the National Theatre, is looking for a non-classic role after doing "The Entertainer"

The friction that figured to develop between the two theater giants figured to sabotage things. And, in fact, it did.

"It's very ambiguous whether Welles was fired or whether he felt compelled to quit," says Pendleton. "In all the stuff you read, there's barely a paragraph in biographies of either man, and it's only a paragraph that says it wasn’t working out between them. It's about as vague as that. It's said that Orson began to feel Olivier was directing the actors behind his back. The play takes that idea and runs with it."

I asked if Pendleton viewed "Shadow" as a kind of valentine to the stage. Exactly the opposite, the playwright says.

"It shows the process of a genuine theatrical collaboration that was an accident waiting to happen. Even among people as good as that, particularly among people who are as good at that, they automatically bring out the deepest fears in each other. I've always observed and felt to be true that as wonderful as it is, a life in theater, and the cost of it on a person is really fierce. All of that is what I thought when I was writing it."

"Orson's Shadow" plays through Feb. 17 at the Pasadena Playhouse. (626) 356-7529, www.pasadenaplayhouse.org.

On a final "Shadow-ing" note, I got an e-mail back from Sharon Lawrence (who plays Vivien Leigh) thanking me for the story I wrote on her and the play. It appeared in Wednesday's edition of the Daily News:

Evan,

Thanks for your great work on the Daily News Arts Profile. It really captured my passion for creating this portrayal including the challenges and discoveries.

I always appreciate hearing how anyone practices their craft. Your clarity in detailing the “why and how” are of value to those of us who like to study the process other go through on their goal to create.

Hope you get to see the results!

Best

Sharon Lawrence

Sienna Productions

--------------

I've been interviewing and writing about actors for quite some time now. Usually -- like theater blog readers -- they don't respond. It's kind of cool when they give an attaboy. I've also received phone calls, letters e-mail notes from Nia Vardalos, Hal Holbrook, Garry Marshall and Amy Yasbeck.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, he's an amazing actor who doesn't work nearly enough. Yes, his work in "There Will be Blood" is the front runner for the best actor Oscar. If there is an Oscars.

Let me just mention, though, that the next interview I read with Day-Lewis characterizing how "press shy" the actor is will make it an even dozen, and "There Will be Blood" just came out around Christmas. He's about as press shy these days as Sen. Clinton.

Since this is a stage blog, I'm inclined to harken back to the last time Day-Lewis trod the boards. He played the title role in "Hamlet," way back in 1989 for Richard Eyre at the National Theatre, and he couldn't finish the run. There were some reports that Day-Lewis got so into the role that he actually thought he spotted the ghost of his own dead father on stage. He hasn't been back on stage since.

Fair enough. The man doesn't work that often, and it's not like he's grabbing at big paychecks. I think a player, particularly one nurtured in the British system, ought to go back from time to time, but, like I said, Day-Lewis's business is, quite literally, his business.

The most interesting thing about the Day-Lewis "Hamlet" turned out to be who replaced him and finished the run at the National. Anybody remember Ian Charleson from "Chariots of Fire"? Well, apparently he made an unforgettable Prince of Denmark. Especially remarkable: Charleson was dying of AIDS when he played the role. Talk about knowing whereof one speaks when reciting "To be or not be..."

I have digressed

So maybe six weeks from now, Daniel Day-Lewis wins a well deserved second Oscar, trots backstage and in his most "press shy" manner, informs us he's doing a Helen Hunt and will next play Macbeth on Broadway.

Stranger this could happen.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Curtains lovers and non curtains lovers alike will want to check this one out. After all, it makes reference to blog perennial PARIS HILTON!!

But before we get to P.H., let me wax on a little bit about Christine Lakin.

The former kid star of TV's sickly sweet family comedy "Step by Step" (You don't remember it? Good.), Lakin's been polishing her stage act a bit as part of the Garry Marshall and Troubadour Theater Co repertory company. You see, the Falcon Theatre is the regular home of the madcap Troubies (which recently closed "A Charlie James Brown Christmas") and Lakin has been seen in several Troubadour shows including "JACKson Frost" and the title role in "Alice in One-Hit Wonderland." She played Joanie in the world premiere of Marshall's "Happy Days: the Musical" and had a role in Marshall's "Georgia Rule."

The lady can act. And choreograph. And take a joke. If you take the stage with the Troubies, you need to check your dignity in the next county (I mean that in a nice way).

Although, I suspect dignity will take an even more severe thrashing in "The Hottie and the Nottie" which will star Lakin as the ugly duckling best friend who is barring the course of true love between Nate Cooper (played by Joel David Moore) and Christabel Abbott. Christabel, of course, is played by none other than Paris Hilton who also produces this, ahem!, movie. And while it's probably not fair to prejudge anything before I've seen it, this one looks, well, awful.

Ms. Lakin's character, June Phigg, has bad hair, bad teeth, bad style, bad everything. Given the tone of the film and that Lakin is not even remotely a "nottie," her character will probably clean up and turn out to be a looker.

Expect this one on the DVD shelves very soon. And let's hope Lakin returns to Troubie land with all dispatch.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A few weeks back I sat down with Tom Schumacher, president of Disney Theatricals, and the keeper of all information regarding the theatrical endeavors of the Mouse.

We already know that "Marry Poppins" -- the next bit Disney stage hit -- will kick off its North American tour in the fall of 2009 in Chicago. No timetable for when it will get to L.A., but get here it will.

"Tarzan," the Bob Crowley designed and directed adaptation of, well, the animated "Tarzan" was a costly Broadway flop despite Schumacher's assertions that the show is doing great guns in its Amsterdam production.

Could "Tarzan" tour, I asked Schumacher? Probably not, he said.

"Tarzan works well in a sit down production production. In Amsterdam, it's a gigantic hit," he said. "The reason it’s such a success is because it works so well in the theater. You could argue perhaps the reason it wasn’t successful in New York is, frankly the event in the theater wasn’t as thrilling as it should have been. We did something wrong because it’s not running whereas in Amsterdam it’s sold out every night in a much larger venue. Hence it will continue running there and we're doing a second company in Germany."

OK, that was a slightly longer answer to my question than I had asked, and didn't really explain WHY "Tarzan" wouldn't tour, although given the show's technical demands, I imagine it would be difficult to bus and truck the jungle from week to week, city to city.

Come to learn, then, via the always informative playbill.com that a new "revamped" version of "Tarzan" with Phil Collins' music and David Henry Hwang's book, will debut in Atlanta's Theater of the Stars one year from now before beginning a mini tour to such places as Raleigh, NC, Dallas, and the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. Lynne Taylor-Corbett will direct the new version.

The occasion of my chat with Schumacher, BTW, was the recent publication of his stage primer for kids titled "How Does the Show Go On?" I recommend the book. Very colorful, inventive, informative and with tons of pictures from, natch, Disney musicals including, natch, "Tarzan."

Which won't tour. Or maybe it will.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 9:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A ways back, I noted that South African playwright Athol Fugard would, once again, allow his latest play, "Victory," to have its American premiere at the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood. Apparently, he had a good experience before with the critically praised "Entrances and Exits" which Stephen Sachs directed at the Fountain back in 2004.

"Victory" will open Jan. 25. It concerns two burglars breaking into the home of a white man in post Apartheid South Africa. Morlan Higgins, who was in "Entrances and Exits," returns for "Victory."

This is about all I'll be able to tell you about "Victory" until after I've seen it. I requested an interview with Mr Fugard and was told he will no longer be conducting interviews. Not for this play. Perhaps not ever.

At this point in his career, I was told, Mr Fugard (who is 75 and lives and teaches in San Diego) concentrates pretty much exclusively on writing.

Which is certainly understandable, if a bit unfortunate for those of us who would like to talk to the man about his writing. I had that privilege once when Fugard's play "Sorrows and Rejoicings" played the Mark Taper Forum in 2002. At that time, Fugard announced that he was done directing his own plays. He had quit acting a few years previously.

I've seen Fugard on stage, and I've seen him direct several of his plays. The art form loses a little bit with each facet of the craft that he renounces. The silver lining, then, is the plays keep coming. The newest one is "Victory." It will be here at the end of the month.

(323) 663-1525 or go to www.FountainTheatre.com.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the topic of "it might make sense to know what your neighbor is doing," it strikes me as a little odd that two theater companies _ one long established, the other just starting out -- are both doing plays about thrill killers Nathan Leopold & Richard Loeb.

And it strikes me as further odd that the Blank Theatre Co.'s world premiere of "Dickie and Babe: The Truth About Leopold and Loeb" and the Havoc Theatre Co.'s musical "Thrill Me" will be playing at the same time and within blocks of each other on Hollywood's Theatre row.

Now "Thrill Me," with book, music and lyrics by Stephen Dolginoff and directed by Nick DeGruccio appears to be a two hander. Jan. 25-March 2 at the Hudson Backstage Theatre. (323) 960-4429, www.plays411/thrillme or www.havoktheatre.com

"Dickie and Babe," written by and directed by Blank AD Daniel Henning, will feature Michael Urie, Vicki Lewis, Charlie Schlatter and Nick Niven. It opens Feb. 2 and plays through March 16. www.theblank.com, (323) 661-9827.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It sometime astonishes me the caliber of people who can end up working for peanuts on an L.A. stage.

I give you Tonya Pinkins, Tony award winning star of "Caroline, Or Change," "Jelly's Last Jam," "Radio Golf." A real heavy hitter, this lady. I've seen her in the aforementioned "Caroline" and in "Thoroughly Modern Millie" pre Broadway, "Play On!" Etc. Apparently she's been on the soap "All My Children" for the past 17 years playing attorney Livia Frye Cudahy. I mean, the lady seriously rocks. No less than Oprah Winfrey proclaims her one of the "Ten Women in America Who Will Take Your Breath Away."

Now, no knock on the Celebration Theatre or its production of the West Coast premiere of "As Much as You Can" -- which I fully intend to see -- but how does a small theater in Hollywood manage to secure an actress like Pinkins.

Enough gift horse staring. They have, and Pinkins will be in the Paul Oakley Stovall play beginning Friday and playing through Jan. 27. The play concerns an African American man bringing his Swedish boyfriend to meet members of his traditional A-A family during his brother's wedding. I'll let you know whether Pinkins is in breath removing form next week.

Tix are $34. Check out www.celebrationtheatre.tix.com, asmuchasyoucanla.com or call (323) 212-4119.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...not to take a few months off from "The City in Curtains" to concentrate on -- imagine! -- work that goes into print,

...to incite some people to comment on TCiC who are NOT the purveyors of porn or the peddlers of vacuum cleaner or spamsters of similar ilk,

...to put up a new entry every single work day. Actually, make that every other work day. Hopefully. Maybe.

...to get future theater critic Jeremy Henerson, almost 9, to sit through an entire evening performance of something without falling asleep,

...to tell anyone who unwraps a cough drop in earshot during a performance I'm attending how completely I think s/he sucks.

...to convince people that there is decent stage in L.A. and to tell them about it from time to time.

Enuf. Let's get to it.

Posted by Evan Henerson at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)