Don Grigware - Page 49

Revolver/by Chris Phillips/directed by Ryan Bergmann/Celebration Theatre/through July 21

Film and stage actor Val Kilmer, best remembered for his now classic movie roles in the 80s and 90s including Top Gun, Jim Morrison in The Doors, Doc Holliday in Tombstone, and Bruce Wayne/Batman in Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever, is set to workshop an engagement of his Mark Twain evening Citizen Twain at the Kirk Douglas Theatre from June 28 - July 28. In our chat he discusses how it all began and how he feels about inhabiting the skin of one of the world's greatest humorists.

Let me start off by saying that the performance of The Rainmaker on Saturday June 15 was almost cancelled due to the illness of the two actors playing File and the Sheriff. Ron Vignone and Daniel Robinson respectively stepped in with only a couple of hours rehearsal so that the show could go on. With script in hand, both covered their roles quite effectively based on the little amount of time they had for preparation. Bravo!

Not unlike David Mamet's November, a screwball look at the overwhelming incompetence of an American President, Yes, Prime Minister by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn in its American premiere at the Geffen, is a savvy, right-on-target satire of British politics that is over-the-top, hysterically funny with an outstanding director and cast.

Internationally known biologist and writer Dr. Ana Isabel Ordonez is constantly embarking on new projects. Educated in Europe and a self-taught Victorian patchwork maker since the early 90s, Ordonez has presented her work in France and Luxembourg.

Playwright Brian Golden, who is currently artistic director for Theatre Seven in Chicago, hails from Iowa. His latest play Cooperstown is being produced at The Road Theatre's second space at the NoHo Senior Arts Colony on Magnolia Blvd. In town for the weekend, Golden held three talk-back discussions after the Friday June 7, Saturday June 8 and Sunday June 9 performances. In our chat, he describes how the play got started and what it means to him.

What a treat to see a brand new theatre company present such a fine opening show like A Man of No Importance! Winner of the 2003 Outer Critics Circle Award in New York as Best Off-Broadway Musical, Man..., based on a 1994 film starring Albert Finney, tells a simple but rich story of an ordinary bus conductor in Dublin in 1964 who invests his poetic soul in the spirit of Oscar Wilde and comes up all the richer. Now onstage at the Lillian Theatre in Hollywood, A Man of No Importance is a triumph for Good People and director Janet Miller, who has assembled a fantastic cast.

I asked the three co-stars of Priscilla Queen of the Desert the musical Wade McCollum, Scott Willis and Bryan West what they thought was the main reason for the show's amazing popularity.

Actress/comedienne Jo Anne Worley needs no introduction. One of the stars of the classic TV variety show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Worley will be at Welk Resorts in Escondido displaying her comic versatility as she presents her one-woman show Keep Laughin' June 26-30. In our recent chat, she did indeed have me laughing as she talked about her show, her take on what makes something funny, her favorite stars, and Actors and Others For Animals, which remains close to her heart. She's a tremendously joyous lady with terribly strong vibes about people and the biz and proves an overall endearing human being.

The Sunday, June 2nd Kritzerland Show at Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal in North Hollywood proved another highly enjoyable evening from Bruce Kimmel and Adryan Russ. The composer celebrated in this show, Noel Coward, is perhaps more renowned for his lyrics than his melodies, but what lyrics they are! Clever, witty, or cynical, they come fast and they delight the intellect.

What better place for an assortment of controversial characters to gossip and frolic than at a dinner party? The participants are famous within their own local realm as community politicians and their narrow-minded friends. It's a small town in New York state and mayor Charlie and his wife Myra are throwing a 10th wedding anniversary party. But we never see Charlie or Myra. At the very top, their friends Ken and Chris (Dan Acor and Tiffany Berg), the first arrivals, discover that some mischief's been going on : Charlie has been shot, with Myra nowhere to be found. What follows are the arrivals of three more couples and the police, and in between? A frenzied jumbo of crazy freak occurrences and spoken innuendos that liven up the party more than food or music ever could. It's a series of one fabrication after another. The only truth in Neil Simon's Rumors is its sheer sense of fun. It takes a super-skilled cast to pull it off. The play's a farce, so it's all in the timing. Without perfect timing, it dies. Michael Lopez has directed his 10 actors with the utmost nurturing and care, and the result is a nonstop absurd treat, richer than the 1000 Chocolate Chip dessert cake, at Encore Dinner Theatre in Tustin, now onstage through June 30 only. This is the first play they have produced in a while, as the offerings have consisted of mainly singers, a magician and other night club acts. Well, let me tell you, Rumors is a great dinner theatre choice, and this production should put the theatre once again on the SoCal map.

Originally on Broadway in 1951 Lerner & Lowe's Paint Your Wagon was one of their less successful shows, which chronologically came right before their mega-hit My Fair Lady. As with most Lerner & Lowe, it's the place and characters that Lerner had such a talent for depicting. In Paint Your Wagon it's the Old West circa 1852 during the days of the Gold Rush when men sought their dreams via the move west. David Rambo rewrote the book and presented a new version in 2004 at the Geffen and in 2007 in Salt Lake City - a totally revised, trimmed down and slicker rendition of the original, critiqued as harsh and cold, a downer, in spite of its beautiful music. The 1969 movie starring Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin, needless to say, was a bomb with a terrible script and bad rendition of the music due to the fact that none of the actors could sing. For her last hurrah, Marsha Moode, who is sadly forced to close Downey Civic Light Opera after 27 years, has chosen to dust off the original 1951 show, altering its ending for the better and presenting it with a wonderful cast led by the remarkable Richard Gould as Ben Rumson.

Sleepless in Seattle is one of the most popular films of the 90s which gave Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan two of their best roles ever as destined.to.meet lovers Sam and Annie. In a brave move Jeff Arch, Ben Toth and Sam Forman have composed a musical based on the movie which is making its world premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse through June 23. Under Sheldon Epps superior guidance, the well-cast show is a very bright, upbeat, contemporary look at relationships that does its ultimate best to remain faithful to the tone and texture of the film.

Priscilla Queen of the Desert the musical/book by Stephan Elliott & Allan Scott/based on the 1994 film distributed by MGM/directed by Simon Philips/Pantages Theatre/through June 16

Leave it to Kander and Ebb to create The Scottsboro Boys, a monstrously humane musical in the guise of a minstrel show. After all, it's what they are most famous for: taking headline news - the darker, the better - and turning it upside down inside out it with an unexpectedly entertaining structure.

In a quite extraordinary way Stephen Sachs' world premiere comedy/drama Heart Song tears down barriers separating life and death across many cultures. There is no finer celebration of the joys and pains of life than performing flamenco dance, which is gut wrenching and intensely theatrical. Boasting top-notch direction from Shirley Jo Finney and a resplendent cast, Heart Song is a life-affirming poem that must be experienced at the Fountain Theatre through July 14.

The Full Monty/book by Terrence McNally/music & lyrics by David Yazbek/choreography by John Vaughan/directed by John LaLonde/Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre, Claremont/through June 16

In Dying City, now in its West Coast premiere at the Rogue Machine Theatre, Christopher Shinn examines the devastating effects of the Iraq War on the American soldiers who participated in it and more urgently on those they left behind. At the core are Kelly (Laurie Okin), the wife of a deceased soldier, his identical twin brother Peter (Burt Grinstead) and in flashback, the deceased soldier/husband/brother Craig (also Grinstead).

As backstage comedies go, Opening Night is not on a par with the farcical Noises Off or with the flamboyant My Favorite Year, but it is a sweet play just the same with uber belly laughs and miles of heart. Now onstage at Theatre 40, a fine cast and steady direction make the play within a play Opening Night a definite worth see through June 16.