September 2007 Archives

Now, I understand that sometimes you just have to go. I've sat through things that, if I wasn't getting paid to sit there, I would have been on the bricks.

But if you've got to go, go unobtrusively.

I must have counted six or seven people departing mid performance at last night's productions of "Clay" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. I'd call them a bunch of philistines, but I do get that a salty language-d, one person Hip Hop musical may not be to everyone's taste. Particularly if you happen to be in your dotage as, it appeared, many of these walkers were.

However...

"Clay" is a one man show, 80 minutes, no intermission. That's not a long time to endure.

And if you have to go, use the exits at the BACK of the theater, so the performers on stage (or in this case, performer) don't have to watch you leaving.

As far as I'm concerned, the leavers left a very interesting show. My review of "Clay" appears tomorrow in the Daily News.

At the beginning of their season, the Geffen Playhouse was hyping its trio of well known female stars who would be appearing in upcoming plays.

So Christine Lahti just opened in Wendy Wasserstein's "Third."

Laurie Metcalf is gearing up for Jane Anderson's "Quality of Life" set to open June 10

Annette Bening? Gone!

Ms Bening (AKA Mrs Warren Beatty) has announced that due to personal reasons, she will be unable to appear in Joanna Murray-Smith's play "Female of the Species." which was supposed to go up in February.

Now stars dropping out of plays is not unusual in this town, and it's often for the same reason that movie stars don't often act in plays in the first place: aka ka-ching! My guess -- based on nothing other than intuition -- is that Bening's "personal reasons" involve a larger paycheck for a film role.

No word yet as to whether the entire production will be scrapped as well. Which is what happened over at the Falcon Theatre where the departure of Carol Burnett from Charles Grodin's play "How Have You Been Feeling Lately" has caused Grodin's play to be canceled right along with it.

And on the slightly disappointing front.

She's still on the poster, but for reasons described as "an unexpected family situation," Carol Burnett will not appear in Charles Grodin's play "What's Been Bothering You Lately" at the Falcon Theatre Oct. 17-Nov. 18. The show apparently will go on but with someone else playing the under-qualified life coach.

More info: (818) 955-8101. www.FalconTheatre.com

Even more frustrating is the cancellation of Sarah Jones's engagement of "Bridge & Tunnel" at the Brentwood Theatre. A Tony award winning solo show, first produced by Meryl Streep, "Bridge & Tunnel" was apparently supposed to be part of a tour which never materialized. It was to play the Brentwood Theatre beginning Sept. 25.

The publicists are using the word "postponed" not cancellation. We can hope, therefore, that Jones and "Bridge" will tunnel their way over anon.

There is some fairly regular cross over between the world of the tube and the stage. Theater stars get noticed and then they plucked up by sitcoms., etc. It happened to Mary-Louise Parker among others.

Anyway, at the Emmys last night, best supporting actor winner Jeremy Piven of "Entourage" _ who acknowledged that a bit of the dog hair had been consumed _ made a point of saying he was straight. Guess he felt we ought to know this because his sister was his date INSTEAD of his mother Joyce. Mama Piven would have been his date, except that she was busy opening a play at the 99 seat theater the family runs in Evanston, Ill. The Piven Theatre Workshop.

Not quite accurate, but close.

Joyce Piven will indeed direct "What Dreams May Come: American Visions Through Jewish Eyes," but it opens in November. In fact, her most recent project, "Suffragette Kones," a series of short tales about five turn of the century women, opened Sept. 15 at Burbank's Victory Theatre Center. How that opening kept Mrs P. from Red Carpet-ing it with her son Sunday escapes me, but I guess that was sister Shira Piven's gain.

Did you catch the cast of "Jersey Boys" serenading "The Sopranos?" What, like that money printing musical needs MORE publicity? What on earth was a rather clean and happy show (I know, I know. The Four Seasons had some mob ties) doing singing "Walk Like a Man" and "Who Loves You" to clips of "The Sopranos"?

Back in the press tent, nobody could figure out what to ask the JB's John Lloyd Young, Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard and J. Robert Spencer. "Uh, what are you doing here?" "Which of you gets the next sitcom?"

So they harmonized a few bars and got the hell out of there.

Wish they would have brought back "Tony Bennett: An American Classic" winner Rob Marshall. Might have been fun to ask the "Chicago" director about the progress of the movie, "Nine" he's supposed to be helming.

Which brings me in the most roundabout way to one of favorite interview anecdotes. It will connect. Bear with me.

About five years ago now (!), I was interviewing former "Frazier" iceberg Bebe Neuwirth (a two time Emmy winner, BTW) about the movie "Tadpole." Well, Neuwirth is a creature of the theater, and a dancer. I had seen her several years before that in a revival of "Damn Yankees" in San Diego before it went to Broadway.

When I mentioned I had seen the production, Neuwirth winced. Not my best work, she said. She hadn't clicked with the production's choreographer. I don't remember the exact quote, but she basically said that while she was a dancer in the style of Bob Fosse (and had won her two Tony awards in Fosse musicals), the "Damn Yankees" choreographer didn't really work in that style.

That choreographer was, of course, Rob Marshall who would go on a couple of years later to direct the movie "Chicago." And Catherine Zeta Jones, playing the part Neuwirth played on Broadway, won an Oscar.

OK, so maybe it doesn't connect THAT well to Emmys, but I like to tell it anyway.

There is some fairly regular cross over between the world of the tube and the stage. Theater stars get noticed and then they plucked up by sitcoms., etc. It happened to Mary-Louise Parker among others.

Anyway, at the Emmys last night, best supporting actor winner Jeremy Piven of "Entourage" _ who acknowledged that a bit of the dog hair had been consumed _ made a point of saying he was straight. Guess he felt we ought to know this because his sister was his date INSTEAD of his mother Joyce. Mama Piven would have been his date, except that she was busy opening a play at the 99 seat theater the family runs in Evanston, Ill. The Piven Theatre Workshop.

Not quite accurate, but close.

Joyce Piven will indeed direct "What Dreams May Come: American Visions Through Jewish Eyes," but it opens in November. In fact, her most recent project, "Suffragette Kones," a series of short tales about five turn of the century women, opened Sept. 15 at Burbank's Victory Theatre Center. How that opening kept Mrs P. from Red Carpet-ing it with her son Sunday escapes me, but I guess that was sister Shira Piven's gain.

Did you catch the cast of "Jersey Boys" serenading "The Sopranos?" What, like that money printing musical needs MORE publicity? What on earth was a rather clean and happy show (I know, I know. The Four Seasons had some mob ties) doing singing "Walk Like a Man" and "Who Loves You" to clips of "The Sopranos"?

Back in the press tent, nobody could figure out what to ask the JB's John Lloyd Young, Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard and J. Robert Spencer. "Uh, what are you doing here?" "Which of you gets the next sitcom?"

So they harmonized a few bars and got the hell out of there.

Wish they would have brought back "Tony Bennett: An American Classic" winner Rob Marshall. Might have been fun to ask the "Chicago" director about the progress of the movie, "Nine" he's supposed to be helming.

Which brings me in the most roundabout way to one of favorite interview anecdotes. It will connect. Bear with me.

About five years ago now (!), I was interviewing former "Frazier" iceberg Bebe Neuwirth (a two time Emmy winner, BTW) about the movie "Tadpole." Well, Neuwirth is a creature of the theater, and a dancer. I had seen her several years before that in a revival of "Damn Yankees" in San Diego before it went to Broadway.

When I mentioned I had seen the production, Neuwirth winced. Not my best work, she said. She hadn't clicked with the production's choreographer. I don't remember the exact quote, but she basically said that while she was a dancer in the style of Bob Fosse (and had won her two Tony awards in Fosse musicals), the "Damn Yankees" choreographer didn't really work in that style.

That choreographer was, of course, Rob Marshall who would go on a couple of years later to direct the movie "Chicago." And Catherine Zeta Jones, playing the part Neuwirth played on Broadway, won an Oscar.

OK, so maybe it doesn't connect THAT well to Emmys, but I like to tell it anyway.