The War Cycle Plays

NEWS FROM THE BEACH… Gospel According to First Squad, scripted by Tom Burmester, helmed by Danica Sudik, the third installment of Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble’s critically lauded The War Cycle plays, is premiering July 28 at the Powerhouse in Santa Monica.  But the big news is LATE’s “draw-down” from the facility, announced by Burmester, who is not only the founder and producing artistic director of the company but the managing director of the Powerhouse as well. “We are pulling out of the theater completely,” explains company member and press rep AJ Meijer. “This will be our final production in the space. It does not make financial sense to continue. I find it fascinating in a year where you had the Radar Festival, the Fringe Festival and the TCG Conference all lauded as huge successes, while one of the most critically acclaimed theater companies in Los Angeles has to become a nomad. It’s ironic that our show Group: A Musical was selling out at the Fringe and our show at the Powerhouse was only selling a few tickets.” Burmester, who founded the company in 2004, believes the new freedom from managing a space is a plus for the company. “Even though we’ve been at the Powerhouse since 2006, Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble should not be defined as a 99-seat theater company. We are now free to concentrate purely on the work.”  Currently, Burmester and the company are involved in preliminary research on the fourth War Cycle play. “It’s in the very early stages,” explains Meijer. “Although we know some themes we want to explore, there are many things the War Cycle has yet to touch upon. Our commitment is to keep working on these plays until the ‘war on terror’ is over. Now that we’re moving into Yemen, that could be never. We’ll just have to see.”…On a less volatile note, Luke Yankee has returned to Long Beach Performing Arts Center where he served as artistic director of Long Beach Civic Light Opera, departing in 1997.  Yankee is helming a revival of Noel Coward’s classic 1930 comedy-of-manners, Private Lives, for International City Theatre, opening Aug. 26.  The ensemble includes Freddy Douglas. Caroline Kinsolving, Jennice Butler, Adam J. Smith and Wendy Cutler...

Ana Gestetyer

PREMIERES…Chris Isaacson and Upright Cabaret are presenting the West Coast debut of Broadway diva and Saturday Night Live alum Ana Gasteyer in Elegant Songs from a Handsome Woman, Aug. 11-13, at the Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood.  Gasteyer promises “a classy, brassy and sassy club act, featuring Broadway ditties, beloved (if forgotten) standards, and movie melodies.”…The premiere dramedy, Counter Men, scripted by Chuck Faerber, helmed by Richard Kuhlman, opens Aug. 6 at Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks, focusing on the regulars who hang out in an LA restaurant and the waitress on whom they depend for food and emotional support…Next up for North Hollywood-based Group Rep is the premiere of Next Window, Please, “a portrait of six intelligent, spirited, outspoken and financially-strapped women who work in a bank.”  Scripted by award-winner Doug Haverty, helmed by Richard Alan Woody, production opens Aug. 13…The Lord of the Rings In Concert: The Fellowship of the Ring, in its West Coast premiere, is being performed Oct. 15 at Honda Center in Anaheim, conducted by Ludwig Wicki, featuring Howard Shore’s complete Academy Award and Grammy–winning score, performed by the Munich Symphony Orchestra, Pacific Chorale, Phoenix Boys Choir and soprano soloist Kaitlyn Lusk. During the concert, Peter Jackson’s complete award-winning epic will be projected digitally on a 60-foot screen. The concert kicks off a three-year celebration during which each of the three Academy Award-winning films will be performed In Concert upon the tenth anniversary of its release.:  The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) will tour in 2011, The Two Towers (2002) in 2012, and the grand finale, The Return of the King (2003), in 2013…

QUICK TAKES… No-Ho based Antaeus Company continues its annual ClassicsFest 2011 with Blow Out Your Candles: The Tennessee Williams Birthday Party Continued, Aug. 6, “an evening of jazz, excerpts from Tennessee Williams’ greatest hits, with birthday cake, all in celebration of the playwright’s 100^th anniversary”…Tuta Theatre West is presenting 2001 Olivier Award winning comedy Stones in His Pocket at the Zephyr Theatre, opening Aug. 18.  Scripted by Belfast-based Marie Jones, Zeljko Djukic‘s staging features Andrew Friedman and Jerry Richardson performing 15 roles, depicting the shenanigans that occur when a big budget Hollywood film crew descends on a small village in County Kerry, Ireland…“Celebrating the connection and diversity of the world’s cultures through music and dance,” Israeli American Keshet Chaim Dance Ensemble, African American Lula Washington Dance Theatre, and multi-ethnic, interfaith Agape International Choir join together for a cross-cultural evening, Rhythm & Roots, Aug. 28 at Ford Amphitheatre.  Guest artists include Israeli star Harel Skaat, R&B singer Abraham McDonald and female rapper MC Lyte…Theatre West is reviving Edward Albee’s 1975 Pulitzer Prize-winner, Seascape, helmed by Charlie Mount, opening Sep. 9. The cast includes Paul Gunning, Arden Teresa Lewis, Alan Schack and Kristin Wiegand…Known for its non-traditional casting, Southern California Shakespeare Festival is presenting William Shakespeare’s Richard III at the Studio Theatre at Cal Poly Pomona, Sep. 10, helmed by Lisa Wolpe and featuring Wolpe in the title role — which another woman, Melora Marshall, is also tackling this summer at Theatricum Botanicum…

Brad Garrett

THE THING IS… “I’m very candid with my students. I don’t believe you can teach someone to be funny. You can teach them how to break down a script as far as pace, timing, finding the punchlines, being able to take the moments in a comedy that you might not take in a dramatic scenario. It’s creating a freedom.  I call it the four Fs. Fearless freedom finds funny. But the most important thing I emphasize is:  Stage time is the key. You have to commit to it, whether it’s standup comedy, whether it’s acting. We’re in such a fast-food type of scenario now, especially with the new technology. I have young people come in who have never acted before.  It’s their first class and the main thing on their mind is, ‘I need to get an agent.’ Because this is a business that has no set rules and reality TV makes stars out of people like Paris Hilton, many young people feel they can become a star without putting in the work. So, I tell my students, if they are serious about acting, comedic or whatever, the only way to get there is through intense training and performing on stage as much as possible. Yes, there are more outlets today, including the Internet. But if you look at webisodes, 70% of them are junk. And the people on them are not going to go any further unless they can truly deliver the goods. You can’t fake that. And you can only be a cute kid for so long.  I still take classes and so does Doris Roberts, who played my mom on [Everybody Loves] Raymond and she’s 75. It’s like football. Once you’re on a team, you don’t stop training, you train even more. The bottom line is: this is a business that you have no control over.  All you can do is work on the one thing you do have control over, your craft.” – Actor/standup comic Brad Garrett is sharing his craft and his acquired professional wisdom in a series of seminars held at the Edgemar Center for the Arts in Santa Monica…

Los Angeles Theatre Center

INSIDE LA STAGE HISTORY… In June of this year, this writer had the honor of interviewing legendary stage actor Alan Mandell, who offers his memories of being one of the original theater reps at the first TCG Conference in 1961.  He recalls, “The first meeting I attended kind of astounded me because I met people like Peter Zeisler from Minneapolis and Bill Bushnell who was representing the Cleveland Playhouse.”  Flash forward to 1967 and the American Conservatory Theatre (ACT) has arrived in San Francisco to fill the vacuum left by the departed SF Actors Workshop that Mandell had represented.  At a welcoming ceremony held at the Curran Theatre, ACT founding artistic director Bill Ball introduces his staff, including his managing director Bill Bushnell. Eight years later, in February 1975, successful stage/TV actor Ralph Waite takes over the former Oxford Playhouse in Hollywood, re-naming the facility Los Angeles Actors’ Theater (LAAT), attracting such adroit thesps as Mitchell Ryan, Donald Moffat and Richard Jordan. Fortunately, Waite discovers one of the directors running evening workshops in the space has extensive administrative credentials. His name is Bill Bushnell, who left ACT in 1969 during one of the company’s purges. By 1981, Bushnell, along with Diane White, is successfully overseeing all phases of LAAT’s operations, with Mandell as managing director, but Bushnell has bigger plans.  By October, 1985, he has marshaled enough city, county, corporate and public support to morph LAAT into the Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC), a four-theater complex hewn from a stolid early 20th century bank located at 514 S. Spring Street in downtown LA. Despite offering a slew of acclaimed stagings, the facility does not attract enough theatergoers and the financial numbers do not crunch on the plus side of the ledger. On January 9. 1994, as reported by Don Shirley of the LA Times, “Bill Bushnell is outta here. The man who ran Los Angeles Theatre Center–L.A.’s most important theater of the late ’80s–has moved to St. Croix, in the Virgin Islands, where he shares a sailboat, At Random, with his brother Jon, a university professor.” Shirley quotes Bushnell, “…the City of Angels has become creatively toxic.”  In 2003, Bushnell returns to LA to helm Split by vet TV writer/playwright Mayo Simon, produced by Hope Alexander for Company Rep, and then quietly slips out of town. Meanwhile, LATC moves forward, now administered by Latino Theater Company, recently co-hosting the 50th Anniversary TCG Conference and soon to be one of three venues hosting the annual California International Theater Festival. Bushnell’s original vision for the space, if not his visage, is in place…

- The Julio Martinez-hosted ARTS IN REVIEW, broadcast Fridays  (2 to 2:30 pm) on KPFK (90.7FM), spotlights the best in live theater and cabaret in the Greater LA area. Upcoming on July 29, a spotlight on the acclaimed two-person stagework, The Word Begins, currently at Rogue Machine, written performed by Steve Connell and Sekou Andrews…