EVENTS…The 27th Annual Southland Theatre Artists Goodwill Event–S.T.A.G.E.–will be dedicated to the memory of musical-comedy star and longtime Event co-chair Betty Garrett, who died Saturday at the age of 91. Titled Original Cast 2, a musical celebration showcasing artists from theater, television and cabaret performing songs they originated in musical productions, the benefit event for AIDS Project Los Angeles will take place for one night only, on Apr. 2 at the Luckman Theatre on the campus of Cal State LA.  David Galligan directs. Garrett, who appeared in 22 previous S.T.A.G.E events, was preparing to perform a number in this year’s show from Something for the Boys, in which she appeared on Broadway in 1943 with Ethel Merman.  A musical retrospective honoring Garrett is now being planned as part of this year’s show…UCLA Live is hosting New York-based Stephen Petronio Company’s I Drink the Air Before Me, a piece created in celebration of the troupe’s 25th anniversary, Mar. 11 & 12 at Royce Hall.  Petronio, known for its artful pairings of contemporary music and movement in lush performance landscapes, was inspired in this production by Ariel’s line from The Tempest, “I drink the air before me, and return/Or ere your pulse twice beat.”…Award-winning writer and acclaimed concert pianist Israela Margalit is bringing the US premiere of Trio to Lounge 2 Theatre in Hollywood for a five-week run, beginning Mar. 2. Helmed by Rick Sparks, the work peruses the sumptuous ménage a trois entanglements of three musical giants of the 19th century: composers Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann and Robert’s wife, the brilliant concert pianist Clara Schumann…As a sidebar, LA Opera is presenting internationally acclaimed German tenor Jonas Kaufmann in recital at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Mar. 11.  Kaufmann, making his first appearance in LA, will perform an all-German program featuring 20 songs by Schumann, including a complete performance of the song cycle Dichterliebe (A Poet’s Love)…By the way, LA Opera is celebrating early the upcoming 2013 centenary of Benjamin Britten’s birth with the suspenseful masterwork, The Turn of the Screw, Mar. 20, conducted by music director James Conlon, the first in a series of Britten operas that will be staged over the next two years…

CRANKING UP…Mid-Wilshire Blvd.-based Hayworth Theatre is waking from its short winter’s nap, hosting the John Lennon bio tuner, Just Imagine, starring Tim Piper, opening on Mar. 5.  This will be followed by the premiere of the one-hander, Riding the Midnight Express, scripted by and starring Billy Hayes, the actual protagonist of the feature film, Midnight Express (1978), starring the late Brad Davis, which was based on Hayes’s book, chronicling his near five-year confinement in a Turkish prison for attempting to smuggle drugs.  The production, helmed by Hayworth artistic director Gary Blumsack, is scheduled to open mid- to late April (TBA). Hayworth is also welcoming back Circus Theatricals (renamed The New American Theatre), once more making a home for itself upstairs, in the space it originally developed in 2007. …Celebrating its 20th Anniversary, Deaf West Theatre in NoHo puts its own spin on The Adventures of Pinocchio, the classic story of a mischievous puppet who wishes to become a flesh-and-blood boy, scripted by Carlo Collodi, adapted by Tony winner Lee Hall (Billy Elliott) in the tradition of commedia dell’arte, which “lends itself perfectly to Deaf West Theatre’s signature, award-winning combination of signed and voiced theater.” Helmed by Stephen Rothman, it debuts on Feb. 25… And Long Beach-based Cal Rep is launching its 2011 season aboard the Queen Mary with The Hyacinth Macaw by Mac Wellman, who describes the drama as “one of four plays that make up Crowtet; taken together they tell a story about a young woman, adrift and alienated in a world essentially gone mad.” Helmed by Jim Martin, it opens Feb. 18 in the ship’s Royal Theater.

FYI…Historic Dupree Dance Studio, which for the last 12 years has been the home of Youth Academy of Dramatic Arts (YADA), has been transformed into the 99-seat  Third Street Theatre by YADA’s Lani Shipman and Kimberly Harrigan. Its debut production will be the 1992 James Lapine/William Finn tuner, Falsettos, opening in April (date TBA).  Back in the ’40s, the venue at 8115 W. 3rd St., LA, served as an off-studio rehearsal space for such filmdom hoofer thesps as Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Bob Fosse and Kathryn Grayson.  During the ’70s and ’80s, choreographer Roland Dupree turned the studio into the destination for hoofers and choreographers desiring to establish themselves on TV or film…By the way, San Pedro-based Relevant Stage has a bit of history going for it when it presents the classic Cole Porter tuner, Kiss Me Kate, beginning Feb. 17 at The Warner Grand Theatre.  Performing as Kate/Lili Vanessi will be Kristin Towers Rowles, granddaughter of the afore-mentioned Ms. Grayson, who performed the same role in the 1953 MGM 3D version of the tuner, co-starring Howard Keel…Katselas Theatre Company’s Skylight venue in Hollywood is hosting the Argyle Road Productions staging of The Birthday Present 2050, scripted by Tania Wisbar, helmed by Oscar-winning film producer Jonathan Sanger, debuting Mar. 19. Set in a futuristic “benevolent dystopia” where longevity is earned on a point system, it features a seven-member ensemble, including Bud Cort (Harold and Maude). Sanger is simultaneously producing the Broadway-bound tuner, Baby It’s You!, chronicling the unlikely career of New Jersey housewife turned hit pop rock record producer, Florence Greenberg, which had a 2009 trial run at Pasadena Playhouse, now scheduled to premiere at the Broadhurst in April…Founded in 1955, Downey Civic Light Opera, unlike many community CLO efforts, is still holding forth. Company exec producer Marsha Moode announced the upcoming  Irving Berlin tribute  tuner, The Melody Lingers On, opens Feb. 17, helmed by Moode and choreographed by Cate Caplin…Mutineer Theatre Company is presenting the world premiere legiter, The Woodpecker, chronicling the odyssey of a glue-sniffing trailer park lad “on an embattled exploration of faith and freedom,” scripted by Samuel Brett Williams, staged by founding artistic director Jon Cohn, opening Mar. 5 at the Studio/Stage on Western Ave. …“There’s magic to do just for you.”  DOMA Theatre Company is promising a “darker rendition” of the Stephen Schwartz tuner, Pippin, opening at the Met Theatre in Hollywood, beginning Feb. 18. Rory Alexander is featured in the title. Renee Cohen assumes mantle of the Leading Player…

EXTENSIONS…A plethora of productions are stretching their runs.  Hollywood-based Write Act Repertory’s premiere of the tuner Butterfly, scripted by Michael Antin, helmed by Derrel Maury, is extending through Feb. 26…Mackenzie Astin (son of Patty Duke and John Astin) has joined the cast of Caught, scripted by David L. Ray, helmed by Nick DeGruccio, extending its premiere run at the Zephyr Theatre in Hollywood until Apr. 3. Astin joins the ensemble on Feb. 26, when Corey Brill departs to join Robin Williams and the Broadway cast of Rajiv Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. …The premiere of the Ovation-recommended noirish espionage play, Puzzler, scripted and helmed by Padraic Duffy, at Sacred Fools,  is extended to Feb. 26. …The premiere of Macho Like Me, chronicling one woman’s six-month journey living as a man, written and starring Helie Lee, helmed by Sammie Wayne, is not only extending its run, but it’s also moving Feb. 18 to the Matrix Theatre on Melrose, through Mar. 12… Also transferring to a new space, Maripat Donovan is moving her solo show, ’Til Death Do Us Part: Late Night Catechism 3, from La Mirada to the Carrie Hamilton Theatre at the Pasadena Playhouse, Mar. 3 to Apr. 3…Over in Sherman Oaks, the world premiere one-hander New Eyes, co-scripted (with Suzanne Bressler) and performed by Yafit Josephson, helmed by Sammie Wayne, chronicling the cathartic journey of a young Israeli actress who finds herself in LA only to be cast as a Middle Eastern villain, is extending through Mar. 12 at the Whitefire Theatre…And it seems trumpeter/music director Paul Litteral will be blowing his horn into infinity as the tuner Hoboken to Hollywood, featuring Litteral’s 12-piece band and Sinatra-tinged crooner Luca Ellis, extends once more at Santa Monica’s Edgemar Center for the Arts, now running through Mar. 27.

THE THING IS…”In all the promotion that went out last year for Circus Theatricals’ two major productions, More Lies About Jerzy at the Hayworth and Titus Redux at the Kirk Douglas, we’ve been using ‘The New American Theatre and Film Company’ as our tagline. Jack [Stehlin] is in the process of writing a book, The New American Actor. So, after a lot of deliberation, we now are going to use The New American Theatre as our name.  Our acting company will be called The New American Studio Ensemble. The name of our training center is The New American Studio for Actors. We are indeed moving back to the Hayworth. Improvements and renovations are being made to the building and to our lovely theatre space. The move will afford us with more space for our productions, rehearsals, and our professional actors’ training center. Hopefully, the building will be ready for the second half of our season. We are presenting a 2011 season of all American plays. The stage won’t be ready for our upcoming revival of Robert Anderson’s I Never Sang For My Father (1968), which will open Mar. 26 at McCadden Place Theatre, helmed by Cameron Watson. The production co-stars Ann Gee Byrd and Neil Vipond.

Jeannine W. Stehlin and Jack Stehlin

But we are planning to present the rest of the season at our home space, debuting this spring (date TBA) with William Hoffman’s 1985 play, As-Is, which takes place in New York, right at the start of the AIDS epidemic. In the fall, we will present the world premiere of the political drama Bedfellows, by LA playwright Chuck Rose...New American Theatre managing director Jeannine W. Stehlin, who has produced more than 40 productions with her husband, artistic director Jack Stehlin, who founded Circus Theatricals in 1983. They’re currently in process of refurbishing the company’s space at the Hayworth while in pre-production at McCadden Place…

Sal Mineo with film ingenue Gigi Perreau at premiere of Rebel Without a Cause

INSIDE LA STAGE HISTORY…In 1967, while living in San Francisco, I met a tall, effusive young actor named Michael Greer who was appearing as decidedly flamboyant Queenie in a production of the controversial stage play Fortune and Men’s Eyes, scripted by John Herbert, focusing on a young man’s brutish sexual experience in prison. The title came from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, which begins with the line, When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes. By 1969, I moved back to LA and re-met Greer who informed me he was once again playing Queenie in the play at the Coronet Theatre, produced and directed by movie star Sal Mineo, whose once spectacular film career had moved to Tinseltown’s lower level. The play’s main protagonist, Smitty, was being played by a youthful Don Johnson. The night I saw the play, Mineo was onstage playing Rocky, a career criminal who sexually dominates Smitty. The play sure altered my perception about what could be done onstage, and I was deeply impressed with Mineo’s presence as an actor. He had the credentials. Prior to making his splash in films during the mid-50s, Mineo had appeared on Broadway in The Rose Tattoo with Maureen Stapleton and The King and I with Yul Brynner. During the early ’70s, his film career continued to flounder but he found a home on stage. In 1975, he garnered rave reviews in the San Francisco production of P.S. Your Cat is Dead. A year later, he was preparing to open the play in LA at the Coronet, with Keir Dullea. Returning to his apartment after a rehearsal on Feb. 12, 1976, he was murdered in the alley behind the building during a robbery attempt. Sal Mineo was 37…

The Julio Martinez-hosted ARTS IN REVIEW, broadcast Wednesdays (2 to 2:30pm) on KPFK (90.7FM), spotlights the best in live theater and cabaret in the Greater Los Area. Upcoming on Feb.23, pledge drive programming for Pacifica Radio…