ONE PERSON SHOWS
Saw Gordon Lightfoot (79)
at the Saban, with his still rich voice, singing If
You Could Read My Mind and Canadian
Railroad. Over at Theatre West, Tesla,
and at Theatre 40, Tom Dugan’s Wiesenthal.
The LA Women’s Theatre Festival has Freda
Payne, performing Ella Fitzgerald, First Lady of Song. Don't miss You In Midair, performed
by Danna Schaeffer, mother of actress Rebecca Schaeffer whose life
was cut tragically short when she was murdered by an obsessed fan. And all month The Hollywood
Fringe Festival explodes with hundreds of solo shows. If you like one person
shows there is a plethora of them this June.
ALBERTA HUNTER (Santa
Barbara)
Cookin’ At The Cookery: The Music And Times Of Alberta
Hunter. In my Hollywood Reporter days
I often saw Hunter perform at the 8th
Street Cookery Café. One of my favorite jazz artists, who can forget her unique
style and salty repartee that made her a NY sensation at 83! This show brings
her singular and improbable life story to the stage. Written, directed and
choreographed by Marion J. Caffey, show features hits Sweet Georgia Brown and Darktown
Strutters Ball. Did you know in 1928, she played opposite Paul Robeson in the London production of Show Boat at the Drury Lane Theatre?
THE LAST SCHWARTZ (Santa Monica)
The Schwartzes are
gathered upstate New York to say prayers for Dad a year after his passing. The
whole family are at loggerheads, nobody seems to know what it is to be kinfolk
anymore. Norma's husband hasn't spoken to her since she turned in their 15 year
old son for smoking pot. After five miscarriages, it appears Herbs wife,
Bonnie, won't provide him with an heir. Simon has one foot on the moon. Gene's
girlfriend, Kia, is about to have an abortion. And its a comedy! Presented by
West Coast Jewish Theatre at Edgemar Center for the Arts.
The 1956 Broadway production, starring Fredric March and Florence
Eldridge, inspired me to become an actress. Now Academy Award winner Jeremy
Irons and Olivier Award winner Lesley Manville take on the roles of James
Tyrone, an aging matinee idol, and Mary,
his drug-addicted wife. Along with their two grown sons, Jamie and Edmund (O’Neill’s
alter-ego), the most poisonous addiction is one they all share: the
irresistible urge to stab at one another’s most vulnerable points, and then
pretend they didn’t really mean it. Richard Eyre’s
Bristol Old Vic production, comes to the Wallis Annenberg Center for three
weeks.
WOOD BOY DOG FISH (Burbank)
The
experience begins one hour before show
time when the audience enters a mysterious and quirky carnival world with
games, food, drink and surprises before they even find their seats. This immersive
show has music, puppets, masks and amazing special effects. Written by Chelsea
Sutton, directed by Sean T. Cawelti, it’s a modern, mature and delightfully macabre adaptation of
The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. The action is set
in the tumbledown town of Shoreside, a tourist trap built around the legend of
a terrible sea monster - the Dogfish. The Rogue Artists Ensemble, at The Garry Marshall Theatre.
VIOLET
(Hollywood)
On Broadway this musical,
based on the short story The Ugliest
Pilgrim, by Doris Betts, was nominated for four Tony Awards, three Drama
Desks and three Outer Critics Awards. Set in
North Carolina in 1964, a young woman with a scarred face rides a bus through
the segregated South. She hopes a TV evangelist in Oklahoma can heal her scar,
the result of a traumatic childhood accident. Along the way, Violet
meets two soldiers, one black, one white, who teach her about love, courage and
the true meaning of beauty. Actors
Co-op on the campus of First
Presbyterian Church of Hollywood.Published in the June issue of NOT BORN YESTERDAY.
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