Bette Midler as Sue Mengers
BETTE AT THE GEFFEN…Geffen Playhouse’s Spotlight Entertainment Series is hosting the West Coast debut of the Broadway hit I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers, starring Bette Midler, opening at Gil Cates Theater, Dec 5 for three weeks. Wrought by Tony winner John Logan (Red), helmed by multi-Tony grabber, Joe Mantello (Take Me Out, Wicked), this solo bio confessional — which premiered on Broadway last April 24 — sojourns within the life and career of the tinseltown super-agent who died in 2011. The previously scheduled Coney Island Christmas by Donald Margulies, which had been touted as an annual event, has been cancelled “due to schedule conflicts with the creative team.”
FURIOUS RETURNS TO CARRIE HAMILTON…After a two-season departure from its home of six years, Furious Theatre Company is returning to Pasadena Playhouse’s Carrie Hamilton Theatre, revealing a 2013-14 season that introduces new members and a continued connection to former co-founder and co-artistic director Dámaso Rodriguez. The company’s two new co-artistic directors are playwright Matt Pelfrey and Furious co-founder Nick Cernoch. And, in his debut outing as Furious resident director, Darin Anthony is helming the LA premiere of Johnna Adams’ two-hander, Gidion’s Knot — chronicling the cathartic confrontation between a teacher and her student’s mother — featuring LA Drama Critics Circle winner Vonessa Martin and Deborah Puette, opening Nov 2. Rodriguez will then bring his staging of Foxfinder by Dawn King to Carrie Hamilton on Jan 11, after having staged its US premiere at his new home base, Portland Oregon’s Artists Repertory Theatre (ART), where is the new artistic director, on Nov 2. Rodriguez’s cast features former Furious co-founders Shawn Lee and Sara Hennessy…
Ed Asner
ONE NIGHT ONLY…Playwrights’ Arena is offering a Sep 30 workshop presentation of Cinnamon Girl, a new musical, set in 1937 Ceylon, wrought by Velina Hasu Houston and Nathan Wang, helmed by artistic director Jon Lawrence Rivera, at Greenway Court Theatre in the Fairfax District…One week later, as a benefit for Road Theatre Company, Emmy-winning thesp Ed Asner is starring in a staged reading of The Last Dance, a new play by Jack Neworth and Cary Shulman, focusing on the troubled psyche of a former Medal of Honor winner living in a remote Mexican fishing village, helmed by Jack Bannon, Oct 6 at the Road on Magnolia in NoHo…In memoriam, Pasadena Playhouse is hosting a celebration of the life of composer Damon Intrabartolo on Monday, Sep 23 at 7:30 pm. Intrabartolo, who died on Aug 13 in Arizona at age 39, was the recipient of the 2001 Ovation and LA Weekly Awards (Best Musical), as well as the LA Drama Critics Circle Award (best original score), for the pop musical, bare. Memorial services will also take place in New York City on Sep 30 at St. Clements Theater and in Phoenix, Arizona (TBA). bare: a rock musical is currently in production at Hayworth Theatre in LA…
Danielle Agami
PREMIERES… Odyssey Theatre and New American Theatre are co-producing the LA premiere of British playwright David Greig’s adaptation of August Strindberg’s Creditors — a battle-of-the-sexes thriller helmed by David Trainer, opening Oct 11…The Industry, “LA’s home for new and experimental opera,” in partnership with L.A. Dance Project, is premiering Invisible Cities, based on Italo Calvino‘s fantastical novel, Invisible Cities, imagining a meeting of the emperor Kublai Khan at the end of his life with the explorer Marco Polo, composed and adapted by Christopher Cerrone, helmed by Yuval Sharon, choreographed by Danielle Agami, experienced via wireless headphones from Sennheiser in the setting of Los Angeles’ iconic Union Station, while the station is still operating, opening Oct 19… Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA is premiering, for two performances only, The Last Look Back, “a surreal pairing of kindred spirits and a hallucinatory comic ride about mortality, redemption, and the end of the twentieth century,” scripted by Stephen Serpas, helmed by Gates McFadden, performing Oct 4 and 5 at Atwater Village Theatre…Performing in the same space is Celebration Theatre, presenting the West Coast premiere of Philip Dawkins’ 2011 stage comedy, The Homosexuals, exploring various friendships through the lens of sexual tension, helmed by Michael Matthews, opening Oct 10…And Watts Village Theater Company is debuting Riot/Rebellion, chronicling the times and circumstances around the historic 1965 Watts Riots, scripted by 2011 Ovation-nominated Donald Jolly (Bonded), helmed by Barbara Roberts, staged at Mafundi Auditorium at Youth Opportunities High School in Watts, opening Nov 1…
Andy Fickman’s “Worst Audition Ever”
AROUND TOWN… Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon has announced the Antelope Valley Theatre Project, “an immersive theater program that will expand the company’s reach to the Lancaster/Palmdale area with support from The James Irvine Foundation Exploring Engagement Fund.” In conjunction with the planned activities, Theatricum is presenting free performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Lancaster Performing Arts Center (Oct 13), Jackie Robinson Park in Sun Village (Nov. 10)and Antelope Valley College Performing Arts in December…Pacific Resident Theatre (PRT) in Venice is extending Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge, helmed by artistic director Marilyn Fox and Dana Jackson, through Sep 22…Eat Your Words, a storytelling event inspired by a food theme, hosted by Greg Walloch, opens Oct 3 at The Standard Hollywood Cactus Lounge in West Hollywood. Featured yarn spinners include Sam Pancake, Andy Behrman, Shauna McGarry and Sergio Perera. The once-a-month series continues Nov 7 and Dec 5…Founded in 1929 by the Assistance League, theater-for-young-audience ensemble Nine O’Clock Players launches its 2013-14 season with Snow White, wrought by Carol Weiss (book, music lyrics), helmed by Todd Nielsen, opening Nov 3 at Assistance League Theatre in Hollywood…Joey Fantone (*NSYNC) is hosting the latest edition of tinseltown confessional, Worst Audition Ever – featuring Christine Lakin, Greg Miller, Allison Mosier, Kirk Pynchon and Katie Meyer, Sep 24 at Cavern Club Theater at Casita del Campo Restaurant in Silver Lake…
Julie Payne
THE THING IS… “This event is sort of putting itself together very organically. This is actually a global initiative to perform poetry on International Peace Day, anyway that one can — whether it’s standing on a sidewalk reciting a poem to people or sitting down and reading some to yourself that day. It can take any form at all. And last year, Latifah Taormina (AKA Jessica Myerson, former artistic director of Pasadena Playhouse), who now lives in Austin, initiated actors reading poems in a theater down there. It was very well received, so a group of us decided to make one happen here. I began looking for people to read and it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Well, I knew a writer in my tai chi class named William H. Bassett, who turned me on to a writer who turned me on to a couple of more writers who were published Topanga Canyon-based poets. One of them is Gail Wronsky (on the faculty at Loyola Marymount). So it is all continuing to grow and creating itself. People who I know who also will be participating include Bill (Bassett), Michael Cooke, Philip Daughtry, Richard Reichig, Jane Marla Robbins and I am expecting more. Then we’ll all gather and talk and have refreshments. It should be a lovely event to have on Peace Day” – Actress Julie Payne, who is participating in Poems for Peace, in which professional actors read, and poets share poems, in a celebration of peace, poetry, and a global initiative called Peace One Day, Sep 21 (3-5 pm) at The 1909 (1909 Topanga Canyon Blvd) in Topanga.
David Cox
INSIDE LA STAGE HISTORY… Actor/director/teacher David A. Cox grows up on Long Island, attending Acadia University in Nova Scotia and CW Post College in Long Island. Launching himself into the off-off Broadway scene in the mid-1960s, Cox acts and directs at Café Cine and La Momma, while studying with Sanford Meisner, becoming a devoted disciple of Meisner’s methods. Cox moves to LA in the mid-’70s, becoming a member of Theatre East. In 1984, with permission from his former teacher, Cox begins teaching Meisner’s techniques, which he continues for 20 years. Along the way, he works steadily in film and TV while directing stage works. In 1990, he helms Up Cat Creek at Alliance Theatre. It is a flop. In a 1993 LA Times interview with Janice Arkatov, Cox recalls, “Critics didn’t like the play, but they loved the acting and directing, so we formed American Renegade (Theatre).” In 1991, after one season at the Alliance, the group moves to a two-stage space at 11305 Magnolia Blvd. in North Hollywood, which had once been a funeral home. With Elizabeth Meads coming onboard as co-artistic director, American Renegade mounts such plays as Christopher Durang‘s The Marriage of Bette and Boo (1993), Joanna M. Glass’s Artichoke (1993), Jane Anderson’s The Baby Dance (1994), Tom Bellin’s Suzanne — A Matter of Sunlight (1994). When Renegade’s home is leveled in 1994, Cox takes the company into a series of temporary spaces, finally settling in at 11136 Magnolia in 1997. In 1998 and 2000, Cox negotiates loans of $225,000 and $400,000, respectively, from the Community Redevelopment Agency to upgrade the facility. Productions include the classic Italian farce, The Sicilian Bachelor (1999), The Secret Nymph of New Hyde Park by Mark Troy (2000) and the Lloyd J. Schwartz/Michael Paul musical, Jubilee (2001). During American Renegade’s 13-year existence, Cox is also active in the formation of Valley Theatre League and the creation of NoHo arts district, while directing/and or producing more than 60 productions. But in 2004, Cox decides it is time to close down American Renegade. Theater veterans James J. Mellon, Kevin Bailey and Doug Hutchinson form Open At the Top, purchasing the property and renaming it NoHo Arts Center. Cox moves to Austin, Texas in 2005…
Julio Martinez-produced and hosted Arts in Review (AIR) celebrates the best in LA-area theater and cabaret on KPFK Radio (90.7FM), Fridays (3-3:30 pm). On Sep 20, Arts in Review spotlights director/producer Michael Michetti and actress Elyse Mirto, discussing A Noise Within’s staging of The Guardsmen…