Lance Davis
Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura opens its 16th season with Pulitzer winner Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 two-hander, The Sunset Limited — starring Emmy winner Joe Spano and Tucker Smallwood. In the LA premiere of the play at Rogue Machine in 2010-2011, Smallwood co-starred with Ron Bottitta. The Rubicon version is helmed by Rubicon associate producer Brian McDonald, opening Oct 26…Lillian Theatre in Hollywood is hosting the premiere of God’s Gypsy — about the the controversial 16th-century Catholic mystic and reformer Teresa of Ávila — scripted and performed by Coco Blignaut, based on the novel, Sister Teresa, by Bárbara Mujica, developed at the Actors Studio in collaboration with the novelist, helmed by Elina de Santos, with original music by Lili Haydn, opening Nov 15…Santa Monica Playhouse is reviving the Jerry Mayer comedy, Aspirin & Elephants, 25 years after its debut at the Playhouse, once again helmed by co-artistic director Chris DeCarlo, opening Oct 19… Classically oriented Parson’s Nose Theater (PNT) leads off its 2013-14 season with Moliere’s The Middle Class Nobleman, translated, adapted and staged by PNT artistic director Lance Davis, opening Friday, Nov 8 at Lineage Performing Arts Center in Pasadena…That “spectaculario” send-up of really bad musical revues, El Grande de Coca Cola, revived by two of its originators — Ron House and Alan Shearman – has been extended at Ruskin Group Theatre in Santa Monica, through Nov 23…And Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival (LAWTF) in association with the Fremont Centre Theatre is staging a Solo Performer Empowerment Day at Fremont Centre, Nov 16– “a full day of workshops and panels designed to empower and enhance the careers of solo performers in particular…” Among the facilitators are solo artists Iona Morris, Vanessa Adams-Harris and Elizabeth Wu, LAWTF co-founder Adilah Barnes and publicist/actor Phil Sokoloff...
SHORT TAKES… As its inaugural production, Pop Up LA Productions – founded by Simone McAlonen and Adele Han Li — is taking over the bar and restaurant of venerable Los Angeles Athletic Club in downtown LA for a four-performance run of Oscar Wilde’s 1890 comedic romp, The Importance of Being Earnest, helmed by Avital Shira, “setting the glittering world of Victorian gentry against the backdrop of Downtown Los Angeles, Oct 17, 18, 24, 25… Now that Radar L.A. 2013 has ended, downtown LA’s REDCAT continues its normal schedule, hosting the West Coast premiere of The Clement World, multidisciplinary artist Cynthia Hopkins’ theatrical and musical anthem to “fragile earth,” based on her three-week voyage through the arctic seas, Oct 24-27… Touring Layon Gray American Theatre Company is in town for a three-show-only sojourn of The Girls of Summer , focusing on an all-black female baseball team in 1945 Chicago, scripted and helmed by Gray, playing at Stella Adler Theatre, Oct 25-27……Finally, as a fundraiser for Watts Village Theater Company, artistic director Lynn Manning is performing his autobiographical solo show, Weights, one night only, Nov 11, at Mafundi Auditorium in Watts…
READINGS IN PASADENA…Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena is presenting Play/ground, its annual festival of new works, curated by literary managers Aaron Henne and Emilie Beck, in concert with artistic directors Jessica Kubzansky and Michael Michetti. The four-play lineup of staged readings includes The Missing Pages of Lewis Carroll, by Lily Blau and Habeas Corpus by Emilie Beck (Nov 9); My Barking Dog by Eric Coble and Dark Room by George Brant (Nov 10)… As a companion piece to its currently running revival of Ferenc Molnár’s The Guardsman, A Noise Within in Pasadena is offering a free-to-the-public staged reading of Molnár’s Liliom — the play that was the basis of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, Carousel — helmed by Apollo Dukakis, Nov 7
Katie Rubin
THE THING IS…“After I went through grad school in acting, I went to a three-year energy healing school. While there I had a personal spiritual awakening that was very life-changing, earth-shattering and profound for me. So, I was interested in telling that story of who I was, what happened to me and who I became. I wanted to tell that story in the context of a comedy structure. I wanted to be character-based and was a comedy. I was interested in figuring out how to tell a spiritual awakening story through the center of comedy. So, that’s what we’ve done. I’ve done standup comedy for a while but this is not a standup show. This is my fourth solo show. I have been doing solo shows for about 15 years. This piece I have been developing for close to two years. It is a scripted play. I play about 20 characters. I owe so much of what I’ve been able to do to my director, Victor Bumbalo. He has served so many functions. He is an incredible dramaturge, helping me to craft the stories within this piece and the arc of the central story. He has staged the piece, coaching me on how to create each character — the qualities I have to embody for each one and the different vocal choices I have to make. He’s guiding the lighting designer and helping to create the set. He is overseeing everything from the outside in. We had an invited preview audience on Tuesday. Of course, I was surprised where the laughs were and where they weren’t, more than any show I’ve ever done. We’ve made modifications and we’ll have another preview audience tomorrow night. I am still memorizing the changes. Everything is leading to next week.” — Katie Rubin, whose one-person play, Why I Died, A Comedy, helmed by Bumbalo, opens Oct 26 at Hudson Mainstage in Hollywood…
Evelyn Rudie and Chris DeCarlo
INSIDE LA STAGE HISTORY…Born March 8, 1930 in Brussels, Theodore Roter discovers acting while confined to a refugee camp in France during WWII. After the war, he emigrates to the US, intent on becoming a professional actor, eventually making his way to Hollywood during the late 1950s. Over the next 26 years, he appears in myriad film and TV productions, performing under the names of Ted Roter and Peter Balakoff. In 1960, yearning to return to the stage, Roter teams with actors James Arness and Eric Braeden to found Santa Monica Playhouse (SMP), located at 1211 4th Street. In 1962, 75-seat SMP opens to the public, operated by Roter and his wife Bela, populated by its own acting ensemble. Over the next 10 years, SMP stages more than 30 works, produced and/or directed by Roter, including a lengthy run of Jean Genet’s The Balcony. By 1972, Roter decides to concentrate on film work. Two of his ensemble members, Chris DeCarlo and former child star Evelyn Rudie (Eloise) — who meet, court and marry while in the company — campaign to take over SMP, which becomes official in 1973, with Rudie serving as artistic director. Desiring to continue Roter’s mandate of having an ongoing in-house ensemble, Rudie and DeCarlo establish Actors’ R.epertory Theatre, performing more than 500 productions to date, garnering a 1979 Margaret Harford Award from the LA Drama Critics Circle “for sustained excellence in theater.” Although SMP suffers a few financial shortfalls over the years, it continues a non-stop production philosophy as well as hosting visiting productions. With Rudie and DeCarlo serving as co-artistic directors, SMP is currently celebrating its 50th year with a 24-month theater festival of 50 plays and special events. Its founder, Ted Roter, enjoys a successful acting/writing/directing career through the mid ’80s. He passes away on Oct 29, 2000 at age 70…
Julio Martinez produces and hosts Arts in Review (AIR), which celebrates the best in LA-area theater and cabaret on KPFK Radio (90.7FM), Fridays (3-3:30pm). On hiatus during KPFK’s fall membership drive, KPFK is airing an Arts in Review special broadcast of the radio drama, Che and Allen — chronicling a fictional meeting between Che Guevara and beat poet Allen Ginsberg — this Saturday (10-11 pm), on 90.7FM, featuring actors Marcelo Tubert, Richard Heft and Gigi Perreau.