Photo by Kevin Berne
TAKING FLIGHT...Feeling cozy and secure in their NoHo based Chandler Studio Theatre, award-winning The Production Company has been unceremoniously chopped out of its home of 3 years by an elapsed lease and an expanding karate studio next door. Flying over the Cahuenga Pass to the even cozier confines of The Lex in Hollywood, TheProdCo’s artistic directors August Viverito and TL Kolman are hurriedly preparing the space (adjoining the McCadden Place Theatre) so as not to lose momentum from their successfully launched 2010-2011 season, which began with their acclaimed staging of Amadeus. As for futures works, Viverito (between sessions with hammer and saw) reveals, “We’re still working on that. Talk to you later.”…Over in OC, ThreeSixty Entertainment is bringing their London hit staging of Peter Pan (Oct. 3) to the Performing Arts Ctr. complete with revitalized JM Barrie text, performed in a state-of-the-art theater tent, highlighted by the world’s first 360-degree CGI theater set and 15,000 square feet of Hi-Resolution video that will take Peter, Wendy and the audience in flight over 400 square miles of virtual London and beyond.
Amanda McBroom
OLD HOUSES…The hallowed, silent walls of the Pasadena Playhouse are alive again — with the sound of opera. Pasadena-based Intimate Opera Company makes the Playhouse its home with an inaugural holiday outing of Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors (Dec. 16) starring LA based mezzo-soprano Suzanna Guzman, helmed by company Artistic Director Stephanie Vlahos. Upcoming in 2011, Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto (TBA). But the great news for long time Pasadena Playhouse theatergoers is the premiere of the tuner Dangerous Beauty (2011 TBA), book and verse by Jeannine Dominy, lyrics by Amanda McBroom, music by Michele Brourman, helmed by Sheryl Kaller, choreography by Benoit-Swan Pouffer, vocal arrangements by AnnMarie Milazzo, chronicling the tumultuous tale of Veronica Franco, a celebrated courtesan/poet of 16th century Venice…That often battered battleship of Downtown culture, Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC) launches its fourth fall season voyage crewed by the Latino Theater Company (LTC), captained by Jose Luis Valenzuela. Sailings from LATC’s collaborative group of resident companies include: El Teatro de La Esperanza’s La Victima (Oct. 2) and Evelina Fernandez’s La Virgen De Guadalupe, Dios Inantzin (Dec. 9 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels), both staged by LTC’s Valenzuela; Calligraphy (Nov. 12) scripted by Velina Hasu Houston, helmed by Jon Lawrence Rivera, co-produced by Playwrights’ Arena and LTC; the previously announced The Reckoning (Sept. 25) by Robey Theatre Co.; and a fleet of supplemental Face of the World 2010 attractions including, a revival of the 1982 original high school tuner, Is There Life After High School? (Dec. 3) by Jeffrey Kindley (book) and Craig Carnelia (music & lyrics), staged by Gary Gardner, produced by the UCLA School of Theater, Film & TV…The Bob Baker Marionette Theater is celebrating its 50 anniversary season, highlighted by Bob Baker’s Halloween Hoop-Dee-Do (Oct. 2-31) which first played at the Downtown puppet emporium in 1963.
Lily Vonnegut
PREMIERES…The tuner, Randy Newman’s Harps and Angels, conceived by former LA Herald Examiner theater critic Jack Viertel, preems at the Mark Taper Forum (Nov. 21), music & lyrics by Randy Newman, musical staging by Warren Carlyle, helmed by four-time Tony winner Jerry Zaks…The ambitious Action! Theatre Co. is offering the West Coast premiere of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (Sept. 25), adapted for the stage by Oscar winner Eric Simonson (A Note of Triumph), directed by Tiger Reel and introducing Vonnegut’s youngest daughter Lily Vonnegut, opening at East Hollywood’s Studio-Stage, Sept. 25…Son of Semele Ensemble (SOSE) is getting cerebrally adventurous with the US premiere of On Emotion (Oct. 15), scripted and helmed by UK-based Mick Gordon, in association with neuropsychologist , Dr. Paul Broks and British author/philosopher A.C. Grayling…Before relocating in 2011 (TBA), Santa Monica-based City Garage is offering the LA premiere of Charles L. Mee’s Paradise Park (Sept. 17), helmed by Frederique Michel…And for all those theatregoers who have been breathlessly anticipating the latest John Steinbeck spoof, SeaGlass Theatre is offering Of Grapes and Nuts, a skewering of two Steinbeck classics, The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, helmed by Ovation nominee Paul Stroili, preeming at Burbank’s Victory Theatre Center (Sept. 18)…Over in NoHo, Artistic Directors Taylor Gilbert and Sam Anderson have tabbed Marisa Wegrzyn’s controversial The Butcher of Baraboo, to open The Road Theatre Company’s 20th Season, at the Lankershim Arts Ctr. (Oct. 8).
Willow Geer
CASTINGS...Colony Theatre Artistic Director Barbara Beckley has revealed her cast of choice for the revival of John Van Druten’s 1950 witchy comedy, Bell Book and Candle. Theatricum Botanicum mainstay Willow Geer (daughter of Ellen Geer, granddaughter of Will Geer) will trod the boards with Michael A. Newcomer, Will Bradley, Benton Jennings and the always delectable Mary Jo Catlett, opening Oct. 23…Perhaps the largest cast gathering this fall (13) will grace Company of Angels‘ season opener The Wiggle Room (Oct. 1), “a new play about what ownership means in times of socio-economic crisis,” by award-winner Oliver Mayer (Blade to the Heat), helmed by Don Boughton. This premiere outing features Marlene Forte (Real Women Have Curves), Giselle Forte, Ruth Livier (Drag Me to Hell), Lynn Freedman, Tina Sanchez, Jossara Jinaro, John Kaisner, Andrew Hamrick, John Henbest, Will Dixon, Danny Munoz, James Matthews, Sue Ann Jewers, Elias Maffia, Kila Kitu, Tamika Simpkins and Kennedy Kabasares.
EXTENSIONS…The Elephant Theatre Company’s Ovation Recommended Parasite Drag, scripted by Mark Roberts, helmed by David Fofi, is reaching out until Oct. 2…while the premiere run of Allen Barton’s Engagement, the final production of the Katselas Theatre Company’s 2010 season, is completing its extended run at the Beverly Hills Playhouse on Sept. 17.
INSIDE LA STAGE HISTORY…For the four-show 1957 LA Civic Light Opera season (founded in 1938) at 5th Street’s Philharmonic Auditorium, Artistic Director Edwin Lester pulled a coup when the legendary Broadway diva Mary Martin agreed to not only reprise her portrayal of Nellie Forbush from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s 1949 Tony Award-winner South Pacific but also the character of Annie Oakley from Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun, a role she played on tour after replacing Ethel Merman from the original 1947 Broadway run. During the late afternoon, prior to the opening night performance of Annie Get Your Gun, this writer, then a callow teenage theater usher, had just arrived at the curtained entrance to the first balcony seats. Martin was onstage rehearsing the comical “You Can’t Get a Man With a Gun.” At the first sound of her voice, I excitedly threw open the curtain to the balcony, allowing a stream of light to flow in from the entranceway. Without missing a note, Martin pointed her prop rifle in my direction and incorporated this warning into the lyrics, “…and any usher who leaves a curtain open during the performance will be shot…with my gun, with my gun.”
