California International Theatre Festival, produced by Tammy Taylor for the City of Calabasas, runs July 17-25. Unless indicated as free, tickets range from $30-$45 with VIP Festival Passports $150 (includes premium seating at all performances). Carlson Family Theatre at Viewpoint School, 23619 Mulholland Dr. and Calabasas Civic Center Amphitheatre and Founder‘s Hall, 100 Civic Center Way, Calabasas; 800.351.2766 or CITFestival.org. See schedule at end of article.

Calabasas is one of those cities that might have been named by Jack Benny in his famous train call, “All aboard for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cu-ca-monga…!” Except that Calabasas, the affluent suburb in the western San Fernando Valley, wasn’t incorporated until 1991, many years after Benny had ended his long-running radio show.

Stones. Photo courtesy of CITF

Having missed out on that potential claim to fame, Calabasas has turned to another branch of show business: the theater. For the third year in a row, Calabasas is playing host to the California International Theatre Festival, bringing innovative plays and performances from around the world to southern California.

Godmother of this week-long festival is actress Linda Purl, whom you will recognize as Helene Beasley of The Office, or Matlock’s daughter, or even Fonzi’s fiancee. Still acting, and singing in cabarets around the country (the New York Times noted that she “sounds like Judy Garland”), Purl launched this foray into international theater to “find a common ground” with people of different cultures.

“There was a lot of harsh feeling toward America after 9/11,” she says, “and I thought theater arts could provide an opportunity to demonstrate that, thematically, we all have similar issues of the heart—similar conditions of human experience.

Gillard Rowlings and Darryl Hopkins in Tempting Providence. Photo by Derek Butt

“We all work from our own arena,” she adds. “And not to sound like Pollyanna, I thought the theater could knock down a bit of prejudice, spawn a friendship and provide a better image of America.”

Having grown up in Japan, Purl was naturally attuned to the commonalities, and the differences, among the cultures of the world. And so she began traveling, following a lead here, a suggestion there and her own instincts as to what would pique the interest of her southern California audiences. “I was surprised at how plentiful theater festivals were in other parts of the world,” she says, “and as I traveled, the circle got smaller, so if I missed a director’s work in Singapore, I could catch it later in Mexico.”

Her goal is to provide an “intellectual buffet” and this year’s program includes the American premiere of the Israeli play Stones, about a statue commissioned by Hitler that was reworked to become a tribute to the warriors of the Warsaw Ghetto; the American premiere of an award-winning play from Newfoundland, Tempting Providence, about a pioneering nurse, which engages four actors, four chairs, a wooden table and a white sheet that becomes a prairie, a one-room school and a make-shift clinic (”It’s a Zen design; it works your intelligence,” Purl says); and Essence of China: Beijing Opera De-Mystified, a performance by a 32-year old British former computer animator who has spent the last 16 years devoted to the Beijing Opera and is director of the International Centre for Beijing Opera and the leader of the Monkey King Troupe.

Working with Pinter

Another entry from China is a reading of Raymond Zhou’s play The Ring Road, based on La Ronde. From Ireland comes a short story by Samuel Beckett, The End, performed by Conor Lovett (Purl calls Lovett a “transformationalist, part shaman” and the story “strong intellectual candy”); and from Britain comes a documentary film Working with Pinter: An Intimate and Revealing Portrait, in which the Nobel laureate works with actors on excerpts from his plays.

America’s contribution is Cabaret: Catch the Light, in which Broadway diva Michele Lee brings Tinkerbell to life in a performance the New York Times says “goes from zero to 100 miles an hour in 30 seconds…”

In addition, a series of four casual dinners open to the public will bring together show business professionals to discuss the how to’s of getting a job in the industry. This series, called Business Bistro, will be presented at Cal State Channel Islands; all the other presentations, plus the Festival Wrap Party: Across the Borders—Mexico and Beyond, which features a Santa Maria style barbecue, will take place at Founder’s Hall in Calabasas or The Carlson Family Theatre at Viewpoint School. (See schedule below for dates and venues.)

Michelle Lee

In discussing the Festival, Purl is quick to credit Calabasas mayor Barry Groveman and the City of Calabasas for “thinking outside the box.” It was they, she says, who decided to create a Greek amphitheatre behind the new Civic Center and to welcome her newest festival in 2008. Earlier, Purl had presented festivals in Colorado Springs and at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura.

At the moment, in addition to the Festival, Purl is caught up in her annual Apprentice Program which brings budding professional actors, aged 18 to 28, to a month-long program of study with international theater professionals. In addition, this year’s 18 apprentices will engage in all aspects of theater production (in front of and behind the footlights) and attend master classes by the likes of TV and film director Joel Zwick (Mork and Mindy, Laverne and Shirley, Happy Days, My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and this year’s Tony Award nominee for best actor, Alfred Molina (Red).

On July 22, the apprentices will present a performance built around them called Around the World in 80 Minutes. Under the direction of Ron Popenhagen, it will showcase acting styles from around the world and will be free and open to the public.

And in January 2011, Linda Purl will be located in New York, singing what she calls her “standard songs in a jazz wash” at Feinstein’s, the cabaret at Loew’s Regency Hotel.

Schedule of Festival events:

Sat., July 17; 8 PM; Stones, Carlson Family Theatre

Sun., July 18; 3 pm: Essence of China, Founder’s Hall, free

5 pm: Stones, Carlson Family Theatre

Mon., July 19; 7 pm: Working With Pinter, Founder’s Hall, free

Tues. & Wed., July 20-21; 7:30 pm: The End, Carlson Family Theatre

Thur., July 22; 7:30 pm; Around the World in 80 Minutes, Carlson Family Theatre, free

Fri., July 23; 8pm and Sat., July 24; 5 pm: Tempting Providence, Carlson Family Theatre

Sat., July 24; 8 pm: Cabaret: Catch the Light, Founder’s Hall

Sun., July 25; 11 am: The Ring Road, Founder’s Hall, free

5 pm: Across the Borders, Founder’s Hall

Feature image of Linda Purl by Cynthia Citron.

Article by Cynthia Citron.