Season Wraps With Extensions and an Abrupt Closing

STRETCHING IT OUT…Success breeds extensions.  The Fountain announced the second and final continuance of the LA premiere of Opus by Michael Hollinger until Sept. 26. It has to make way for the US premiere of Athol Fugard‘s The Train Driver, due Oct. 16…The Celebration Theatre‘s LA premiere (in association with David Elzer) of the hit Broadway tuner [title of show] will play on until Sept. 11…The cozy NoHo-based Secret Rose is extending Stephen Karam‘s teen angst comedy Speech & Debate through Aug. 29…In Pasadena, The Theatre @ Boston Court and Circle X Theatre Co. premiere of Brit playwright Moby Pomerance‘s The Good Book of Pedantry and Wonder is sticking around until Sept. 5… Across town, Justin Tanner‘s Procreation is staying put at West LA’s Odyssey Theatre Ensemble until Sept. 4….In Venice, Pacific Resident Theatre extends its LA premiere of Becky’s New Car by Steven Dietz until Sept. 19…

Henry Jaglom. Photo courtesy of Rainbow Films.

CLOSING IT DOWN…But up the road at Santa Monica’s Edgemar Center for the Arts, the frequently extended Just 45 Minutes From Broadway (opened Oct. 2009) by ultra prolific writer/director Henry Jaglom was abruptly shuttered after the Sunday, Aug. 8 matinee.  According to an Edgemar rep., the show had lost one of its leads to a major film and decided to “close on a high note.” But Jaglom readily states he closed the show due to “intolerable demands” made upon him by Actors’ Equity Association. “Even though I was paying each actor $500 a week (even when performances went from 4 to 3 a week), which is monumentally over AEA minimum, paying for their parking and buying them dinner after every show, Equity kept increasing their demands. The kicker for me was Equity telling me I was paying the actors too much and that a percentage of the money I was paying to the actor should be paid to Equity instead. When I told the union I would continue to pay the actors $500 and pay Equity the difference out of my own pocket, they refused, stating that was an increase in pay therefore more needed to be paid to Equity. I regrettably felt I had no choice but to close the show. I am going to start filming the movie next month.”  The AEA office in Los Angeles had no comment, referring this writer to the New York office.  Speaking by phone, New York-based Maria Somma, spokesperson for AEA, responded, “Mr. Jaglom’s comments are without basis.  The production (Just 45 Minutes From Broadway) was operating under an Equity 99 Seat Plan (Los Angeles area).  This is not a contract; it is a ‘code’ which stipulates once a production has reached 60 performances, the option to continue requires the signing of a Hollywood Area Theater (HAT) contract, which sets minimum wages, as well as pension and benefits.  Mr. Jaglom’s statement that we told him he was paying the actors too much is unfounded.  The HAT contract states minimums. If a producer wants to pay his or her actors more, then more power to the actor.  Equity contacted the producers of this show last June and we began negotiations to put the production under a legal Equity contract. Those negotiations were ongoing when Mr. Jaglom decided to close the show.  That was his decision, not AEA’s.”…

DOUGH FOR THE SHOW…With funding of $125 million, groundbreaking for the Valley Performing Arts Center begins Aug. 18 on the campus of California State University, Northridge. The planned 166,000 square foot complex will include a 1,700 seat, multi-purpose concert hall designed to support orchestra, opera, Broadway, film and dance. In addition, the Center will house a 175-seat black box theatre, backstage support, classrooms, 230-seat lecture room, rehearsal and events space and a new broadcast facility for KCSN public radio. Designed by HGA Architects & Engineers, the facility’s gala opening is planned for Jan. 29, 2011…On a smaller but still appreciated monetary note, The New LA Theatre Center-based Robey Theatre Company is the recipient of a continuing grant from CBS of $10,000…

Brooke Shields

PREMIERES…Slightly adjusting its previously announced schedule, Downtown’s CTG Ahmanson Theatre is preeming the tuner Leap of Faith, starring multi-Tony winner Raul Esparza and Golden Globe nominee Brooke Shields. Based on the Steve Martin pic, featuring the talents of eight-time Academy Award-winner Alan Menken (score), Janus Cercone and Glenn Slater (book) with lyrics by Slater, previews begin Sept. 11…Also Downtown, East West Players launches its 24^th season with LA premiere of Mysterious Skin by Prince Gomolvilas, based on novel by Scott Heim. EWP Artistic Director Tim Dang is at the helm…A little further south of Downtown, 24th Street Theatre, in conjunction with Hispanic Heritage Month, is offering the US premiere of La Razon Blindada (a co-production of el Instituto de Cultura de Baja California, Mexico), staged by internationally acclaimed Argentine writer/director Aristides Vargas (Sept. 18), presented in Spanish with English supertitles…Back in Hollywood, Joseph Stern‘s Matrix Theatre Company offers up the West Coast premiere of Neighbors by Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins, helmed by Nataki Garrett (Aug. 28), focusing on the travails of an upwardly mobile African American academic and the family of black actors who move in next door…Attic Theatre and Film Center, supported in part by the LA County Arts Commission, is presenting the 19^th Annual Denise Ragan Wiesenmeyer One Act Play Festival (Sept. 2-19), showcasing new works by Lee Blessing (Into You), Frank Anthony Polito (Blue Tuesday), Wendy MacLeod (Undescended) and Allison M. Volk (The Last Two People). Directors are James Carey, Jim E. Tempo, Brian Shnipper and John Azura, respectively…On a solo note, Sonia Maslovskaya stars in the premiere of Anais: An Erotic Evening with Anais Nin (Sept. 10) at the Sherry Theatre in NoHo, scribed and helmed by Michael Phillips, produced by Larry Minion… Intermingling opera and aerialists, The Mortal Thoughts of Lady Macbeth, a contemporary chamber opera by award-winning composer Veronika Krausas, premieres Aug. 26 at West Adams Blvd.-based Fais Do-Do, directed by Yuval Sharon, choreographed by former Cirque du Soleil aerialist Bianca Sapetto, featuring soprano Michelle Jasso, actor John Walcutt, guitarist Michel Kudirka, as well as aerialists Karl Baumann and Gregory Curtis…

EVENTS…Sacred Fools Theatre Co. is holding a Sacred Fools Creepy Carnival to launch its 14^th season, Saturday, Aug. 28 (7:30 pm to midnight) at its Heliotrope Ave. facility in Hollywood. Tantalizing glimpses into its upcoming array of dramas, musicals, comedies and horror shows will be punctuated by excursions to the Dunk Tank, Voyeur Room and Opium Den (drinks only)…Comedic actor Larry Miller headlines a fundraiser for venerable Theatre 40 at the company’s Reuben Cordova Theatre in Beverly Hills, Sept. 12…At Glendale’s Alex Theatre, Musical Theatre Guild opens its 15^th season of concert- staged presentations of not-seen-much-anymore tuners with 70, Girls, 70 (Sept. 20), wrought by John Kander and Fred Ebb. John Bowab directs… NBC4′s much lauded weatherman Fritz Coleman is bringing his latest one hander, On the Fritz – An Evening With Fritz Coleman, to NoHo’s El Portal Theatre Mainstage for a weekender (Aug. 19-22)…

Mickey Rooney and Olivia de Havilland in Midsummer

LA STAGE INSIDER HISTORY…August 1934, the great Austrian director Max Reinhardt staged his epic adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Hollywood Bowl, featuring 13-year old Mickey Rooney as Puck and the stage debut of 18-year-old Olivia de Havilland as Hermia. Interviewed for Drama-Logue magazine in 1987 during his tour of A Funny Happened on the Way to the Forum, Rooney recalled, “Max’s staging at the Bowl was sheer magic but the film version (which also featured Rooney and the film debut of de Havilland) that Warner Bros. put out a year later was a piece of crap. Warner replaced most of Max’s professional stage actors with studio contract players who didn’t know the Bard from a turd.” On Sept. 23, the inimitable Rooney turns 90.