Guillermo Avilés-Rodríguez
NEWS… A lot of LA theaters will soon be experiencing greater potential audience flow. Beginning Nov 13, Metro is running trains every 10 minutes, 6 pm to midnight, on the Red, Purple and Blue Lines. The expanded service of the More Trains More Often campaign will continue through June 2012. Theaters that could benefit from it include two of LA’s largest — the Pantages and the Ahmanson, as well as others ranging from El Portal in the north to International City Theatre in the south. Watts Village Theater Company (WVTC) is one of the smaller groups that could experience a boost in attendance in the ensuing months — it’s about 600 feet from the 103rd Street station on the Blue Line. But it’s the only company that actually produces theater on Metro trains themselves. Upcoming in 2012, under the leadership of artistic director Guillermo Avilés-Rodríguez, WVTC plans to launch the third edition of Meet Me @Metro: Uncovering Los Angeles’ Hidden Treasures, along Metro’s Red and Gold Lines, taking passengers on an interactive “archeological dig” in collaboration with performance artists, museums and historical societies in the region (dates TBA)…It could be that award-winning thesp Laurie Metcalf won’t be gracing LA stages for quite a while, now that Justin Tanner’s Voice Lessons closed its run at Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks (Oct. 30). Not only is she leaping across the pond for the previously reported April 2012 London West End revival of Long Day’s Journey Into Night (9-29-11 INSIDER), but the three-time Emmy winner has also signed on for the Jeffrey Richards/Jerry Frankel-produced American premiere of David Mamet’s The Anarchist, his new play “about politics, money, religion and sex.” Co-starring two-time Tony winner Patti LuPone, production is scheduled to open on Broadway in the fall of 2012, helmed by Mamet (date and location TBA)…Not opening on Broadway or in LA is the historic 1964 Jule Stein/Bob Merrill tuner, Funny Girl, which was to have starred Lauren Ambrose and Bobby Cannavale and had been touted for a Jan 2012 revival as part of the CTG Ahmanson 2011-12 season, followed by an April move to the Big Apple. Lead producer Bob Boyett lamented that the current economic climate made it impossible to raise the needed $12 million to “produce Funny Girl on the scale it deserves.” CTG artistic director Michael Ritchie has yet to announce a “suitable replacement” for its current season…
Bets Malone
ENCORES…That Pantages Theatre cash cow, Wicked, is returning to its Hollywood home, opening Nov 30, starring Katie Rose Clarke (Glinda) and Mamie Parris (Elphaba). It set a box office record during its 2005 run. Then it returned two years later for an extended engagement that ran two years, becoming one of the longest-running Broadway tuners in LA history. This time out, the company features some local talent, including Lauren Boyd, Napoleon W. Gladney, Brenda Hamilton, Alli McGinnis and Kevin McMahon…If ever a thesp was anchored to a role, it’s Bets Malone, who has warbled and strutted as Suzy in the Marvelous Wonderettes franchise since Roger Bean first concocted the all-female four-hander tuner in 1999 for Milwaukee Rep, followed by the 2003 sequel, Winter Wonderettes. Over the years, Malone and Suzy have been nearly inseparable, including award-winning turns of both versions at NoHo’s El Portal Forum Theatre in 2006 and 2007, respectively. On Dec. 9, Malone inhabits Suzy once again in Long Beach-based Musical Theatre West’s staging of Winter Wonderettes, helmed by Bean, at Carpenter PAC. Joining her are shorter-term Wonderettes alumni Misty Cotton, Julie Dixon Jackson and Lowe Taylor…
Christine Lakin
AROUND TOWN…As if the pain weren’t excruciating enough the first time, Worst Audition Ever: All Stars, created and produced by thesp Christine Lakin, offers “a wry and candid evening of some of the most awkward moments of the audition process as a group of artists tell their real life experiences,” Dec 6 at King King Hollywood … Cabaret guru Chris Isaacson is taking Heart and Soul, the first show of Upright Cabaret’s third season of its American Icon series, on the road. Having launched at Scherr Forum Theatre in Thousand Oaks (Nov 4), followed by La Mirada Theatre (Nov 6), the tuner tribute to divas Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick and Whitney Houston, now moves to Annenberg Theatre in Palm Springs (Nov 11) before closing out at Hollywood’s Catalina Jazz Club (Nov 14). The production features vocally adroit Shoshana Bean, Sylvia MacCalla and Syesha Mercado, with pianist Davy Nathan (X-Factor) as musical director… Hollywood-based Actors Co-op’s critically lauded staging of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, adapted by Christopher Sergel, helmed by Gary Lee Reed, is adding two matinees to its run: Nov 12 and 19, both at 2:30 pm. Production closes Nov 20…And critically lauded Hermetically Sealed by Kathryn Graf, helmed by Joel Polis, which was originally spawned from Katselas Theatre Company’s developmental INKubator series, is having its premiere run at Hollywood’s Skylight Theatre extended until Dec 18…
THE THING IS…”My live show will be mostly made up of songs from my new CD, The Secret of Happiness, produced by Georgia Stitt, who was a music director in New York and is an amazing composer in her own right. Georgia and I have a performance calendar together where we do concerts that are a live version of our blog, called Glamour and Goop: how we are bridging the gap between work and motherhood. Sometimes the glamour is wearing a beautiful gown, singing on stage and the goop is having your daughter barf on the beautiful gown. And sometimes the glamour is just getting a hug from that same daughter. Every working mom goes through this but, because we kind of live in this extreme world of show business, there are some pretty funny stories to go with it. So the show I’m doing this weekend will have some material from that as well. I’m also making Georgia do two songs that completely floor me from her own album. I’m really looking forward to the performances this weekend, performing in such a small, intimate venue. After that I am going out on what I call the Mommy Tour. I do this a couple of weekends a month. I’m gone one or two nights and then I come home. Sometimes Georgia and I do that together. Sometimes we do our separate thing. Also, if I’m going to some faraway place like the UK or on a Disney cruise ship, my husband and daughters just come along with me. We make a vacation out of it. Then it’s the best of all worlds.” – Ovation- and Tony-nominated stage/film/tv thesp Susan Egan (Beauty and the Beast, Putting It Together) and composer/pianist Georgia Stitt perform The Secret of Happiness LIVE at Hollywood’s Show at Barre, Sunday, Nov 13 (6:30 & 8:30pm)…
Sierra Madre Playhouse
INSIDE LA STAGE HISTORY…Massachusetts-born Nathaniel Coburn Carter (1840-1904), who makes his fortune as a Southern California real estate developer, picks up 1,103 cheap acres in 1881, northeast of Pasadena, after he receives insider information from tycoon Collis P. Huntington that a railroad station is going to be built in the area. By 1888, Pacific Electric Red Car has extended its passenger service to the community, now dubbed Sierra Madre, which Carter has subdivided for residences, highlighted by three streets, a hotel and a schoolhouse. Over the years, Sierra Madre attracts an eclectic array of artistic folk, including artists, poets, playwrights, authors and others. The citizens create their own entertainment, performing dramas and musicals in their own homes, as well as the Woman’s Club. When silent film director D.W. Griffth comes to town in 1910 to shoot The Twisted Trail, starring Mary Pickford and Mack Sennett, the Women’s Club keeps the filmmaker supplied with a steady stream of willing local thesps turned extras. Finally, realizing the community’s need for a dedicated home for live theater, a former furniture store at 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd is re-purposed to house the Wisteria Theater players in 1923. During the ensuing 50-plus years, the building evolves into Sierra Madre Theatre (1929), eventually doing duty as a movie house (at one time called the Bogart), an arcade and an all-purpose community entertainment center. In 1980, Charles Andrese and Cheryl Pertile establish the Playback Players and move into the space. With their initial production, Moby Dick-Rehearsed, scripted by Orson Welles, they rename the company, Sierra Madre Playhouse. Stan Zalas comes aboard as artistic director, with Andrese serving as general manager. When the company suffers financial woes in 1995, the Sierra Madre community becomes involved, creating a non-profit corporation with a board of directors comprised of nine community volunteers (1996). In 1998, an extensive renovation of the theater is underwritten by donations from an impressive number of supporters of the Playhouse. Today, there is no artistic director. Local resident Ward Calaway serves as board president. Productions are selected by committee, operating under the Equity 99-seat plan. The season runs year-long, presenting six to eight family-oriented works, including large helpings of Neil Simon comedies, Agatha Christie mysteries, tuners and an occasional more serious drama, such as the currently running To Kill A Mockingbird…
…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 Nov. 11, cast members Alex Morris, Linda Park and Maritxell Carrero discuss the multi-ethnic staging of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, currently at the Matrix Theatre…
