Odyssey Theatre Ensemble Presents IONESCOPADE, 5/31-8/11

Thirty years after directing and choreographing the Odyssey Theatre's award-winning West Coast premiere, and following a wildly successful Off Broadway revival at the York Theatre last season, Bill Castellino reunites with musical directorGerald Sternbach to charm audiences with a revitalized, updated version of Ionescopade at theOdyssey Theatre beginning May 31.

Taken from the plays, playlets and poetry of "Theatre of the Absurd" playwright Eugène Ionesco(Rhinoceros, The Bald Soprano, Exit the King), Ionescopade is a zany musical vaudeville featuring mime, farce and parody - all hilariously balanced on the edge of madness.

Composer/lyricist Mildred Kayden was Ionesco's guest in his Paris apartment while creating the work, and they remained friends until his death in 1994.

"Ionesco was always very loving and warm," says Kayden, now 90. "He always insisted that life is funny. We need to look at life and find the humor in it, or we can't take it."

"Ionescopade is a vaudeville, so it's episodic, fast moving, a little naughty and very, very funny," explains Castellino. "When I first approached it in 1981, I saw it as an entertaining, silly evening of non-sequitors. Thirty years later, it all makes a new kind of sense. The world around the play has changed. Continuous access to information, multi-tasking and endless news cycles make seeming non-sequitors normal in daily life. Like a true spiece of art, Ionesco's work lived during his time, and now it continues to live in other periods."

He continues, "Ionesco wrote during and after WWII in France, and his plays are impacted by the Nazi occupation, repression, informants, paranoia and liberation. Now, in a post-911 world, these topics resonate afresh, and that's fascinating to me. Humanity uses laughter to survive oppression. Ionescopade shines light on this very human resilience."

Ionescopade premiered at New York's New Rep Theatre in 1974, then transferred to the Cherry Lane Theatre. Critic's called it "one hell of an entertainment [that] snaps, crackles and spins across the stage like a Toulouse-Lautrec version of Hellzapoppin." The 1981 West Coast premiere, directed and choreographed by Bill Castellino with musical direction by Gerald Sternbach, ran at the Odyssey Theatre for over ten months, garnering LA Weekly and Drama-Logue awards. In 1995, Castellino directed Lilianne Montevecchi and Ron Holgate in a revival at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., and in 2012 he helmed the Off-Broadway Alliance award-nominated York Theatre production, for which he also received a Lucille Lortel nomination for Best Choreographer.

The current Odyssey production features a top-notch cast including Alan Abelew (Odyssey Theatre productions of Theatre in the Dark, Sliding Into Hades, Threepenny Opera, Mary Barnes, Kvetch), Andrew Ableson (L.A. credits: Orson's Shadow, Torn, The Beastly Bombing, End Days, Smoke Lilies & Jade), Joey D'Auria (Emmy Award-winning actor and voice talent best known as WGN-TV Chicago's Bozo the Clown from 1984-2001),Cristina Gerla (The Grapes Of Wrath at A Noise Within), Kelly Lester(Adding Machine the Musical at the Odyssey, the Ovation and LA Weekly award-nominated Spring Awakening at Arena Theatre), Tom Lowe (West End productions of Les Mis and Cats, Les Mis at the Hollywood Bowl) andJennifer Malenke (Into the Woods on Broadway, MTG's Chess and Little Women as Meg). Scenic design is by Emmy Award-winner David Potts(Deadwood), lighting design is by Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Career Achievement Award-winner Jeremy Pivnick and costume design is byMylette Nora, whose work has been seen previously at the Odyssey in What the Butler Saw and Blood Wedding. Ron Sossi produces for the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble.

Mildred Kayden's other productions include music and lyrics for Storyville (with book by Ed Bullins; University of California, San Diego; Mandeville Theatre, Galveston, Texas; San Diego Repertory Theatre), Oh! My Giddy Aunt (Jan's McArt's Theatre), Cut the Ribbons(Westside Theatre) and Pop Operas: Mardi Gras, and The Last Word (with libretto by James Broughton, directed by Bill Castellino at the York Theatre).

Bill Castellino returns to the Odyssey Theatre where he directed critically acclaimed productions of Nightclub Cantata, The Great American Playwrights Show, Something's Rockin' in Denmark, Lullabye and Goodnightand Rap Master Ronnie. Together with Gerald Sternbach and Amanda McBroom, he created the musical Heartbeatswhich opened at the Matrix Theatre, then went on to productions at The Old Globe, Good Speed Opera House, Cleveland Playhouse and Pasadena Playhouse. Other directing credits include world premieres of Grumpy Old Men (Royal Manitoba Theatre Center, Winnipeg), Jolson at the Winter Garden (Maltz Jupiter Theatre, FL; El Portal Theatre, L.A), Reflections, Dr. Radio (for which he wrote the book), Cagney (Florida Stage), Dorian Gray, Lizzie Bordon (Goodspeed), Miklat, Fishwrap (author), Holiday for Hope (author), House Divided (Tennessee Rep), The Singing Weatherman, Happy Holidays (Pasadena Playhouse), Presidents (PBS and National Tour), Bell'aria (PBS and Las Vegas), Crash Club, Beautiful Dreamer,Another Summer, Breathe and many others. Additionally, he has worked at Carnegie Hall, the Smithsonian Institution, on the high seas and all over the world; he has taught at Boston University, the University of Alabama, Tisch, San Diego University, the University of Texas and Kalamazoo College. Castellino has written the book for eight musicals, has created cabarets for Amanda McBroom, Ann Hampton Callaway, Christianne Noll, Gilles Chaisson, Kathy Brier, Kate Reinders (and others) and has produced numerous concerts, benefits and special events.

Gerald Sternbach's recent musical directing credits include Having it All and Plaid Tidings at Laguna Playhouse; The Fix and The Robber Bridegroom (Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award) at ICT; and Nightmare Alley and Wishful Drinking at the Geffen Playhouse. He was the resident musical director for REPRISE! for six seasons, conducting over 18 shows and earning nine Ovation nominations, winning in 2006, and six Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award nominations that resulted in three wins. He made his LA Philharmonic debut at the Hollywood Bowl in 2005 with "Stephen Sondheim's 75th Birthday - The Concert." Other credits: associate conductor for Broadway productions of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Merlin and The Tap Dance Kid, and for the Los Angeles premiere company of Les Miserables; and conductor for the national tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Song and Dance starring Melissa Manchester. He has worked with Adam Lambert, Josh Groban, Sarah Brightman, Neil Patrick Harris, John Lithgow, Kelsey Grammar, Nancy Wilson and Jennifer Hudson. He composed the music and songs for Heartbeats with Amanda McBroom; for the '93-'98 editions of the Ringling Brothers' Circus; and his song "Mary," a paean to The Mary Tyler Moore Show written in collaboration with Faye Greenberg, was performed by Eric McCormack on the 2003 TV Land Awards show in the presence of the original cast. Upcoming: his fifth summer working with Marilyn Horne at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, and his musical, Amother Musical, written in collaboration with Elin Hampton, has been licensed by Steele Spring.

Performances of Ionescopade take place on Fridays and Saturdays @ 8 pm and Sundays @ 2 pm*, May 31 through August 11. (*On Sunday, June 2 only, the performance will be @ 5 pm with no 2 pm matinee.) Additional weeknight performances are scheduled onWednesdays @ 8 pm on June 19, July 17 and July 31, and on Thursdays @ 8 pm on June 13, June 27, July 11 and July 25. Tickets are $30, except Saturday, June 1 which is $45 and includes a gala reception with the actors. The Odyssey Theatre is located at2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles, 90025. For reservations and information, call (310) 477-2055 or go towww.OdysseyTheatre.com.