Harry Warren

TUNERS GOING AND COMING…Besides the final, FINAL national tour outing of The Phantom of the Opera, closing at the Pantages Theatre this Sun. (Halloween), the creep-fest that will not die, Rocky Horror Show, wrought by Richard O’Brien, is having a full-blown staging by Hollywood’s Coeurage Theatre Company, helmed by Ric Perez-Selsky, promising to “honor the film’s culture without mimicking it,” opening Oct. 29…On a more buoyant note, San Pedro-based Relevant Stage is reviving Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at the Warner Grand Theatre, choreographed and helmed by Lindsey Villanueva-Taylor who has added a few more songs from the original 1954 MGM film (Nov. 12)…If it’s tunes you crave, over at cozy Sierra Madre Playhouse, the career and songs of three-time Oscar winner Harry Warren (tinseltown’s most successful tunesmith with ditties featured on over 1100 film soundtracks) will be chronicled and performed by Warren’s granddaughter Julia Riva. Harry Warren: The Tin Pan Alley Years preems Nov. 7…And never to be out grooved, An Evening With His Royal Hipness, Lord Buckley, featuring the vocalese skills of award- winner Jake Broder (Louis & Keely Live at the Sahara) will be scatting the election returns at Magic Castle’s Cabaret at the Castle series (Tues, Nov. 2)…

YOUTH WILL BE SERVED…Bloody Red Heart, a collaboration between West LA’s Odyssey Theatre Ensemble and LA City College’s Theater Academy, puts teen stories on stage, performed by teens, adapted from RED: Teenage Girls in America Write on What Fires Up Their Lives Today, edited/adapted by Amy Goldwasser, helmed by Leslie Ferreira (Nov.4-21)…In Costa Mesa, South Coast Repertory‘s Theatre for Young Audiences series is offering Sideways Stories from Wayside School, adapted by John Olive from Louis Sachar‘s Wayside School book series (Nov. 5-21)…Downtown LA-based Bob Baker Marionette Theater is celebrating its 50th Anniversary Season  with a series of Conversations with Bob Baker, moderated by puppeteer/Hollywood historian Gregory Paul Williams, author of The Story of Hollywood: An Illustrated History, Sat., Nov. 6 at 4:30 pm…And venerable Theatre West continues its association with Storybook Theatre, offering Sat. perfs at 1 pm of its award-winning rendering of Jack and the Beanstalk, through Feb. 26…

THREE SOLOS, TWO COLLABORATIONS & ONE EXTENSION…Scripter/thesp Dari MacKenzie is offering Some of My Parts, “one hour, one woman, six characters,” helmed by Andre Barron, for three perfs at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills (10/31-11/2), prior to a run in the Big Apple… Scripter/thesp/ zither virtuoso Gwendoline Yeo (Desperate Housewives) brings Laughing with My Mouth Wide Open, a chronicle of her cultural journey from Singapore to America, to Hollywood’s El Centro Theatre (Nov. 20), helmed by Road Theatre’s Mark St. Amant…Thesp Jack Bates is channeling “The Great Profile” in his one-hander Barrymore, scripted by William Luce (The Belle of Amherst), helmed by Carlyle King, at The Marilyn Monroe Theatre at The Lee Strasberg Creative Ctr. (Nov.6)…Joining forces, downtown LA-based East West Players is uniting with UCLA Dept. of Asian American Studies & Pacific Asian Counseling Services to present a revival of Beth Henley‘s Pulitzer-winning Crimes of the Heart, featuring Maya Erskine, Kimiko Gelman & Elizabeth Liang, helmed by Leslie Ishii (Nov. 10)… Meanwhile, Pasadena Playhouse (Sheldon Epps, Artistic Director and Stephen Eich, Executive Director) revealed its play development program, Hothouse at the Playhouse, resumes this fall, produced in collaboration with Furious Theatre Company (Pasadena Playhouse’s Artists in Residency since 2004).  Furious co-founder Dámaso Rodriguez will head the program, helming the first reading,  The Confessions of Deacon Jim by Jason Aaron Goldberg (Oct. 28-29) at the Playhouse’s intimate Carrie Hamilton Theatre…And barely passed its opening weekend, Burbank-based Grove Theater Center‘s premiere staging of Bobby and Matt: Passing Notes through Life,” scripted by GTC Artistic Director Kevin Cochran, has been extended through Nov. 13…

Carolyn Dunn

THE THING IS… “I had been working on a novel I never really finished. All this got started years ago when I was visiting Lake Powell in Arizona. There was an Indian man and his two children fishing at the lake next to us. Overhearing them talk about the fishing and his relationship with the kids struck a note with me. The characters in the novel came out of that experience. Then my father passed away and a lot of the novel’s developing story came out of my feelings and state-of-mind at that time, bringing the female characters into the story and their relationship with the male characters. I didn’t complete the novel but I become so involved in the characters I wanted to follow them beyond the book. I have written plays before that had a lot of mythic elements and were very serious. Then I was challenged by Native Voices to write something contemporary and very funny. So, I concentrated on the lives of four women from the novel who are now the focus of the play Frybread Queen. Native Voices wanted me to write something funny and this is what came out.” Honoring its mandate to exclusively develop work of Native American playwrights, Native Voices at the Autry is offering two readings of The Frybread Queen by esteemed scripter Carolyn Dunn (Muskogee Creek, Cherokee) at Griffith Park’s Wells Fargo Theater, Nov. 4 and Nov. 7…

INSIDE LA STAGE HISTORY…In 1928, Internationally renowned artist/entrepreneur Alice Pike Barney moved to Hollywood and, after producing two plays at Hollywood Playhouse, opened The Theatre Mart in a converted Spanish stucco building at 605 N. Juanita (off Vermont and Melrose Aves.). For the next three years, Barney produced new plays every week, many of them scripted by her, while simultaneously exhibiting her paintings at the Stendahl Art Gallery in LA. On Jan. 10, 1931, the LA Fire Department declared Theatre Mart a hazard that did not meet the zoning laws for a playhouse, shutting down its operation. Barney died that same year. Two years later, Preston Shobe and Galt Bell – who had honed their legit skills at Theatre of the Golden Bough (a youthful Gloria Stuart of Titanic fame was an ensemble member) in the Central California arts colony Carmel-by-the-Sea — brought Theatre Mart up to code, converting the space into a modified dinner theatre, installing tables, serving beer and a buffet. Their opening salvo on July 6, 1933, was a mid 19th century temperance-warning melodrama, The Drunkard by W.H. Smith, which had been successfully produced by P.T. Barnum, running for over 100 performances at his American Museum in Manhattan. Expecting a short run of this throwaway hiss-the- villain antique legiter before moving on to more substantial fare, Shobe and Galt, astonished to have a runaway hit on their boards, were forced to cancel the rest of their season plans in order to properly service this theatrical cash cow. Regular theatregoers and movie stars not only filled the house, they kept coming back. W.C. Fields saw it 34 times. Boris Karloff encouraged the addition of old-time songs to the between act “olio” (the 19th century predecessor to vaudeville). The Drunkard and its later-added tuner adaptation The Wayward Way, became a legit mainstay for LA auds, marking significant historical events along the way. On the night of the 2,245th performance, Germany invaded Poland. On the 3,088th perf, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. By its 7,085th outing on July 6, 1952, The Drunkard had been seen by more than two million people. In 1959, LA Fire Department once again proved to be Theatre Mart’s real villain, insisting the space couldn’t keep its permit unless it cut back on its seating from 340 to 260, rendering productions no longer financially viable. On Oct. 17, 1959, The Drunkard closed after its 9,477th performance, at that time the longest run in U.S. theatrical history, eventually eclipsed by The Fantasticks‘ 42-year, 17,162 performance run in New York. In 1960, Theatre Mart was converted into the headquarters of The Los Angeles Press Club…

The Julio Martinez-hosted ARTS IN REVIEW, broadcast Wednesdays (2 to 2:30 pm) on KPFK (90.7FM), spotlights the best in live theater and cabaret in the Greater Los Area. Upcoming on Nov. 3  is a spotlight on playwright Oliver Mayer…