L.A. Stage Insider
Celerating the Best in L.A. Theater and Cabaret in the Greater Los Angeles Area...
Fountain Theatre's stage adaptation of 'Citizen: An American Lyric' Moves to California Plaza....CTG's LA. Writers Workshop Festival Features 10 Female Playwrights...Inside L.A History Celebrates Two Iconic Theater Ensembles...and More
LA Stage Insider 08312
Written by Julio Martinez
NEW
Bernard K. Addison, Leith Burke
The Fountain Theatre’s stage adaptation of Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen: An American Lyric” joins this summer’s Grand Performances line-up. Two free, outdoor performances are set to take place on Sep 9 and 10 at California Plaza in Downtown Los Angeles. Citizen was adapted for the stage by playwright and Fountain artistic director Stephen Sachs from Rankine’s National Book Critics Circle award-winning book of poetry. Arumination on racial aggression, everyday acts of racism are scrutinized as part of a testimony of “living while Black” in America. Original cast members Bernard K. Addison, Leith Burke, Tony Maggio and Lisa Pescia will be joined by Monnae Michaell and Adenrele Ojo. Performances take place at 8 p.m. California Plaza is located at 350 S Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90071 in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, next to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), The Broad and Walt Disney Concert Hall. For more information, go to grandperformances.org
Luis Alfaro
L.A. audiences will have the opportunity to experience new theater thanks to Center Theatre Group’s L.A. Writers’ Workshop Festival which will take place over the course of two weekends, Sep 9-11 and 16-18, 2022 at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. For the first time in the history of Center Theatre Group’s L.A. Writers’ Workshop, all 10 playwrights in the group will have their work presented at the Culver City-based theatre. This year 10 women —Jami Brandli, June Carryl, Penelope Lowder, Lisa Ramirez, Jessica Ko, Pia Shah, Judy Soo Hoo, Julie Taiwo Quarles, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera, and DeLanna Studi—have worked together over the past months under the guidance of Center Theatre Group Associate Artistic Director Luis Alfaro to write 10 plays, which will be presented for the first time in front of audience members. Plays by Judy Soo Hoo, Penelope Lowder, Jessica Ko, Pia Shah, and Lisa Ramirez will be read, Sept 9 to 11, followed by June Carryl, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera, Julie Taiwo Quarles, DeLanna Studi, and Jami Brandli on Sep 16 to 18, 2022. Tickets are currently on sale for the L.A. Writers’ Workshop Festival and are available at CenterTheatreGroup.org or 213-628-2772.
PREMIERES
USC Vision & Voices in conjunction with USC Kaufman School of Dance presents the West Coast premiere of Monica Bill Barnes & Company’s (MBB&CO) The Running Show, melding dance and theater, portraying dancers as sports heroes,“propelled by an inner force that keeps them moving against all odds.” Takes place Sep 29 (7pm) at Bovard Auditorium on the USC campus in Downtown L.A. The engagement marks the New York-based company’s first Southern California appearance in more than seven years. Admission is free but tickets are required. Free tickets are available at https://visionsandvoices.usc.edu. For information call 213-740-0483. Bovard Auditorium is located at 3551 Trousdale Pkwy, Los Angeles, CA 90089.
AROUND TOWN
Sasha Hutchings
CTG’s Ahmanson Theatre will be hosting the L.A. premiere of the Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” the reimagined Tony-winner, directed by Daniel Fish, playing Sep 13-Oct 16. The tour will mark the first time a First-Class Equity production of “Oklahoma!” has toured North America in more than 40 years, featuring music by Richard Rodgers and a book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, based on the play “Green Grow the Lilacs” by Lynn Riggs, with original dances by Agnes de Mille. The cast includes Sasha Hutchings (Laurey) and and Sean Grandillo (Curly), joined by Christopher Bannow, Sis, Hennessy Winkler, Benj Mirman, Barbara Walsh, Hannah Solow, Mauricio Lozano, Ugo Chukwu, Mitch Tebo and Gabrielle Hamilton. Tickets are currently on sale, available through CenterTheatreGroup.org, Audience Services at (213) 972-4400 or in person at the Center Theatre Group Box Offices (at the Ahmanson Theatre) at The Music Center, 135 N. Grand Avenue in Downtown L.A. 90012. Performances run Tue-Fri (8 pm), Sat (2pm & 8pm), and Sun (1pm & 6:30pm).
Jon Lawrence Rivera
Laguna Playhouse opens its 2022-2023 season with “Kim’s Convenience,” set in a family-run Korean convenience store owned by Mr. Kim, a first-generation Korean, who is now grappling with both a changing neighborhood landscape and the chasm between him and his second-generation offspring. Written by Ins Choi and directed by Jon Lawrence Rivera, the cast features Yong Kim, Gavin Lee, Susane Lee, Clinton Lowe and Janet Song. Opens Sep 25 (5:30pm), performing through Oct 9 at the Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Drive in Laguna Beach. Tickets can be purchased online at www.lagunaplayhouse.com or by calling (949) 497-ARTS (2787).
Two Road Theater is hosting a revival of the 1968 play, “I Never Sang For My Father” by award-winning Robert Anderson, directed by Doug Kaback,” exposing the painful truths of the relationship between a gentle mother, a dutiful son, an alienated daughter, and their harsh, detached father.” The cast features Shayne Anderson, Dana Kelly Jr., Becky Bonar, Mary Carrig, Cheyann Dillon and Paul Buxton. The play runs Sept 16-Oct 23. Two Roads Theatre is located at, 4348 Tujunga Ave., Studio City 91604. For tickets, information and current health and safety protocol visit www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4525327.
SOLO MOJO.
Tiffany Phillips
The critically acclaimed show, I Never Met a Jerk I Didn’t Like, written and performed by Tiffany Phillips is an everywoman’s referendum on dating in the 21st Century. It returns to the Whitefire Theatre, Sep 22 (8pm). Its World Premiere opened in February 2013 to a record-breaking, sold-out solo show in the Whitefire Theater’s 30-year history. The show then sold out every performance at the Hollywood Fringe Festival and was rated #3 on LA Weekly’s “Top 10 Shows to see at the Fringe.” During the Fringe Festival run, I Never Met a Jerk I Didn’t Like was selected among entries from all over the world to be part of the prestigious United Solofest in New York on Theatre Row. The show was a smash hit and sold out the Off-Broadway house and was voted the: "Audience Favorite” at the United Solofest. For tickets and information, go here.
INSIDE L.A. STAGE HISTORY:
Two Live Theater Groups – 18 Actors, Inc. and The Tanner Players
Eighteen Actors, Inc. (1940-1951)
Morris Ankrum
In the spring of 1940, film character actor and Pasadena Playhouse faculty member Morris Ankrum gathered a group of fellow thesps at his home, intent on forming a loosely knit theater company devoted to reading and developing new works and old classics for the pure joy of working on the craft. In attendance are Ankrum’s wife, Joan Wheeler; Dana Andrews and his wife Mary Todd; Victor Jory and wife Jean Inness; Moroni Olsen; Cy Kendall; Dorothy Adams and others. When Ankrum is asked to give the ensemble a name, he takes a head count and proclaims, “We are now Eighteen Actors, Inc.” Almost all the ensemble members had achieved some success in the film industry but none could be called film stars—although Jory received great acclaim for his portrayal of a villainous carpetbagger a year earlier in the blockbuster, Gone With the Wind.
Dana Andrews & Dorothy Adams
What started out as merely in-house readings, rehearsals and discussions escalated into a full out stage production when Ankrum had the opportunity mount a production of Robert E. Sherwood’s Petrified Forest, starring Dana Andrews and Dorothy Adams at newly established Gardner W. Spring Auditorium on the campus of Chaffey High School in Ontario in July 1940. In November, Eighteen Actors, Inc produced an original comedy on the same stage, once again helmed by Ankrum. After the outbreak of WWII, the membership of the ensemble varied as some are called to active military service and others are finding themselves in greater demand by Hollywood. Andrews actually achieved stardom when he was cast as the lead in Laura (1944), followed by his acclaimed turn as a troubled returning GI in The Best Years Of Our lives (1946). Eighteen Actors, Inc does press on, performing occasionally at Pasadena Playhouse and other stages around the LA area, producing a range of fare – from Shakespeare to new works, sometimes as pure staged readings. By 1950, the ensemble dissipates as individuals continued to follow new paths, including the fledgling television industry. The ensemble’s final production is an Irish play, Autumn Fire, by T.C. Murray, produced at one of Pasadena Playhouse’s alternative spaces in February 1951.
Justin Tanner
Mark Ruffalo, Laurel Green: “Ken and Babie at Home”
During the mid ‘80s, a boy from Salinas named Justin Tanner moved to L.A. and attended LA. City College, with an idea to make it in live theater. He acted, wrote and made a lot of actor friends. Somewhere along the way he wrote a play, gathered some of his friends and produced it at Open City on Santa Monica Blvd. The play, "Changing Channels," received three LA Weekly Awards and was on LA TIMES list of best new plays of 1987. Searching for a permanent home, he found the CAST Theatre on El Centro Avenue in Hollywood, where new works were produced by Ted Schmitt and dramaturged by Diana Gibson. Schmitt passed away in 1990. Gibson rook over the monumental task of producing and mentoring Tanner’s works. He had a ten-year association with The CAST, debuting such long running hits as "Zombie Attack!", "Party Mix", "Teen Girl", "Bitter Women", "Pot Mom", "Heartbreak Help", "Intervention," "Coyote Woman," and Ken and Barbie at Home, all populated by an ensemble known as the Tanner Players, including Mark Ruffalo, Dana Schwartz, Laurie Metcalf, Pamela Adlon, Laurel Green, Maile Flanagan, John Amirkhan, Jonathan Palmer, Jamie Tolbert, Brendon Broms, French Stewart, John Glover, Lisa Beezley, Fred Willard, Gill Gayle and Andy Daley (also the set designer and builder).
When Tanner’s association with Gibson ended, he took control of the CAST. A several-month revival of several popular Tanner plays resulted, financed in part by his better paying side jobs of writing for television (Gilmore Girls, My So-Called Life, Love Monkey, Ave 43). Tanner left the Cast Theater in late 1999 and the Tanner Players went with him.
French Stewart, Laurie Metcalf: “Voice Lessons”
Space Therapy (2007) Voice Lessons (2009) opened at the Zephyr Theatre, with Voice Lessons" enjoying extended run.The cast included Laurie Metcalf, French Stewart, and Maile Flanagan. It was co-directed with Bart DeLorenzo. A later run of "Voice Lessons" at Sacred Fools Theater Company was nominated for four Ovation Awards, including Best Play in an Intimate Theatre. In 2011, Tanner’s Day Drinkers, made its debut at the Odyssey Theatre, Then, after along break, Tanner premiered El Niño, produced by Rogue Machine at the MET Theatre, directed by Lisa James in 2018, featuring Tanner Players regulars, Maile Flanagan, Jonathan Palmer, Melissa Denton, Joe Keyes Danielle Kennedy and Nick Ulett. We’ll see what comes next.