Richard Montoya. Photo by Elaine Siegel.
LATW ANNOUNCES SEASON 2013-14…L.A. Theatre Works (LATW) reveals its 10-play record-before-a-live-audience-for-future-radio-broadcast 2013-14 season — all performances to take place at James Bridges Theater on the campus of UCLA in Westwood. Season opener is Neil LaBute’s Reasons to be Pretty, starring Thomas Sadoski, reprising his Broadway performance (Sep 19-22). The season continues as follows: David Mamet’s adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, from a translation by Vlada Chernornirdik , starring Stacy Keach and Zosia Mamet (Oct 17-20); The Columnist by Pulitzer winner David Auburn (Proof), featuring JoBeth Williams and Tara Lynne Barr, helmed by Marsha Mason (Nov 14-17); to be announced (Dec 12-15); Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors with Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Hamish Linklater, Emily Bergl, Heidi Schreck and Skip Sudduth re-creating their roles from this summer’s Shakespeare in Central Park production (Jan 30-Feb 2, 2014); Sharr White’s psychological thriller, The Other Place, starring Calista Flockhart and Hector Elizondo (Mar 13-16, 2014); Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, adapted by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, starring Alfred Molina and Richard Kind, featuring Edward Asner, Gordon Clapp, Anna Gunn, Alan Mandell and Josh Stamberg, helmed by Martin Jarvis (Apr 17-20); American Night: The Ballad of Juan José, scripted by Richard Montoya, developed by Culture Clash and Jo Bonney, helmed by Shoshana Cooper (May 15-18, 2014); Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, adapted by David Pichette and R. Hamilton Wright, starring James Marsters and Simon Helberg (June 12-15); and August: Osage County by Tracy Letts, helmed by Anna D. Shapiro — uniting original Steppenwolf and Broadway cast members Deanna Dunagan, Rondi Reed, Ian Barford, Kimberly Guerrero, Francis Guinan and Jeff Perry (July 10-13, 2014)…
Anne D’Zmura
CAL REP SEASON 2013-14…Based at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), California Repertory Company (Cal Rep) is announcing its upcoming season, the first under the leadership of new artistic director Anne D’Zmura, performing at Royal Theater aboard the Queen Mary. The four-play schedule includes: Blackbird by David Harrower – the 15-years-later re-meeting of a middle-aged man and the adult woman with whom he had a sexual relationship when she was 12, helmed by Trevor Biship (Sep 20-Oct 12); Penelope, scripted by Irish playwright Enda Walsh and inspired by Homer’s The Odyssey (Nov 8-Dec 7); Edward Albee’s The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?, helmed by Jim Martin (Feb 14-Mar 8, 2014); and the rock tuner Next to Normal by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, helmed by Joanne Gordon (Apr 18–May 10, 2014)…
Randy Reinholz. Photo by Maria Ventura.
NATIVE VOICES 2013-14…Based in Griffith Park, Native Voices – the resident theater company of Autry National Center — announces its 2013-14 season, highlighted by the Equity premiere of Stand-Off at Hwy #37, chronicling the aftermath of a clash between protesters and law enforcement over plans to build a highway through a reservation in upstate New York, scripted by Vickie Ramirez (Tuscarora), helmed by Playwrights’ Arena artistic director Jon Lawrence Rivera, presented at Autry’s Wells Fargo Theatre (Feb 28-Mar 16, 2014). Native Voices opens its season with a free-to-the-public First Look Series staged reading of Stand-Off on Sep 26. First Look continues with Measure for Measure: An Indian Boarding School Comedy, adapted from Shakespeare by Native Voices founder/artistic director Randy Reinholz (Choctaw), helmed by Chris Anthony (Oct 24). The Third Annual Short Play Festival follows on Nov 10. The season-ending Playwrights Retreat and Festival Of New Plays will be performed at Wells Fargo Theatre (May 28-30, 2014), followed by a presentation at La Jolla Playhouse (May 31-June 1, 2014)…
Lee Meriwether
PREMIERES...After channeling the essence of Franz Liszt in Rockstar at Laguna Playhouse (Sep 17-29), musician/writer/actor Hershey Felder prepares to return to a favorite creative haunt, Gil Cates Theater at Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, premiering Abe Lincoln’s Piano, featuring an original score, based on the music of Stephen Foster, book by Felder, helmed by Trevor Hay, opening Jan 3, 2014…Theatre of NOTE in Hollywood is offering the debut of Sheet Cake Sliding — “a post-modern Willy Loman story for the latter half of the 20th century” — scripted by Stacia Saint Owens, helmed by Nicholas Newell, opening Sep 20… Promenade Playhouse in Santa Monica is hosting the premiere of The New Situation — spotlighting a pair of entrenched middle-aged siblings who decide to take in boarders at their home in the mid-Wilshire district, scripted and helmed by Carlo Perez Allen, opening Sep 6…Ovation-recommended One Night in Miami, scripted by Kemp Powers, helmed by Carl Cofield, is stretching its premiere run to Sep 15 at Rogue Machine on Pico Blvd….
Robert E. Lee Shades of Gray- One-Man play by Tom Dugan
AROUND TOWN…Oscar, Tony and Emmy winner Christopher Plummer stars in the solo work A Word or Two in a Center Theatre Group special event, scripted and arranged by Plummer, helmed by Des McAnuff, opening Jan 19 at the Ahmanson Theatre in downtown LA, presented in association with the Stratford Festival of Canada… Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura is presenting Tom Dugan’s solo work Robert E. Lee: Shades of Gray – “a compelling and dramatic portrait of one of U.S. history’s most enigmatic figures,” helmed by Jenny Sullivan (original direction by Mel Johnson, Jr.), opening Sep 7. Gray, which made its LA debut at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40 in May 2012, replaces Rubicon’s previously announced, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe by Jane Wagner, which was originally scheduled in September but will now be shifted to a future season…Theatre of Arts is reviving the death row drama, Coyote on a Fence, scripted by Bruce Graham, helmed by James Warwick, opening at Arena Stage in Hollywood, Aug 31… Studio Theatre at Long Beach Playhouse is reviving Peter Shaffer’s 1975 Tony winner, Equus, helmed by Robert Craig, opening Sep 7….In honor of Woman’s Equality Day (Aug 26), Amy Simon’s She’s Herstory — an ever-evolving chronicle of “the most dangerous women in America” — focuses on Lucy Stone (1818-1893), the first American woman to get arrested for civil disobedience, Oct 13 at the Lounge in Hollywood...
Lindsay Pearce
MUSICALLY SPEAKING…The 2009 chamber tuner Ordinary Days — about young adults making connections in New York, wrought by Adam Gwon, helmed by Angel Creeks – opens Sept 6 at Victory Theatre Center in Burbank…Opening that same night, bare the musical, wrought by Jon Hartmere, Jr (book/lyrics) and Damon Intrabartolo (book/music ) is returning to LA, 13 years after its four-month premiere run at Hudson Theatre in Hollywood and its subsequent 2001 debut Off-Broadway, now starring TV warblers Lindsay Pearce (Glee) and Payson Lewis (The Sing Off). Helmed by Calvin Remsberg with musical direction by Elmo Zapp, bare performs at Hayworth Theatre in the Westlake district…bare shares the space with the long-running John Lennon tuner Just Imagine, starring Tim Piper, which has been extended until Dec 29…Two American Idol alumni, married couple Ace Young and Diana DeGarmo, have been tabbed for the new touring company of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, settling in at Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, June 3-22, 2014… And La Mirada Theatre launches its faux-band Tribute Fridays 2013 on Aug 30, spotlighting The Garth Guy – Tribute to the Music of Garth Brooks, with a the added attraction of Shades of Shania, a Shania Twain songfest by Kim Simmons. On Sep 6, La Mirada hosts House of Floyd, celebrating the music of 1960s British rockers, Pink Floyd…
Pamela Kosh, Walt Gilmore, George Strattan constructing Golden Mall Playhouse in 1970
INSIDE LA STAGE HISTORY…In 1967, George Strattan, Pamela Kosh and Walt Gilmore are contributing their talents at a small LA-area theater, eventually deciding they would prefer to design and build their own performance space. Strattan, a graduate of State College in Pennsylvania, also attends American Theatre Wing in New York. British-born Kosh is active in repertory theater in England as an actress and director before immigrating to USA. Gilmore graduates from University of Illinois with a degree in theater, serving as student head of the University Theatre during his senior year. In 1970, they found not-for-profit The Curtain Raisers, acquire the Academy Bowl, located at 226 E. Tujunga Avenue in Burbank and proceed to renovate the aging bowling alley into Golden Mall Playhouse (GMP). After nearly four years of construction, 230-seat GMP opens Sep 14, 1973 with a revival of Arsenic and Old Lace, followed by Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park. Between 1973 and 1981, Curtain Raisers produces 45 plays and musicals, including a smattering of theater-for-young audiences productions. Keeping to the tried-and-true of staging previously successful legit fare, GMP attracts audiences, assisted by free theater parking and close access to the 5 and 134 freeways. Proving to be quite adept at promotion, Kosh and Gilmore (who are now married) and Strattan actively reach out to local clubs, schools and organizations, promoting GMP’s productions as ideal attractions for raising funds. Unfortunately, in 1981, the City of Burbank initiates a massive display of eminent domain for the sake of civic redevelopment — not only tearing down Golden Mall Playhouse, but removing that portion of Tujunga Avenue altogether. Ironically, GMP’s final production, staged a few months before demolition in 1981, is Same Time, Next Year…
Julio Martinez-produced and hosted Arts in Review celebrates the best in LA-area theater and cabaret, Fridays 7:30 to 8 pm — on KPFK Radio (90.7FM).