21Q

The Lambda Players are presenting "Dear Harvey" a reader's theater production celebrating the life and work of Harvey Milk. The production runs Thursday nights at 8 p.m. and on Sunday afternoons at 2 p.m. through May 31 at the Lambda Players Studio Theatre, 1028 R Street. Included in the production are stories from Tom Ammiano, Cleve Jones, Anne Kronenberg, Dan Nicoletta, and Stuart Milk. The production is free but a $5 donation is being requested. For information go to www.lambdaplayers.com or call (916) 444-8229.

Wayman Tisdale, the former Sacramento King, who went on to a major musical career died this morning from cancer. Tisdale had a 12-year professional basketball career, playing from 1989-1994 in Sacramento and averaging 22.3 points per game in his first season with the Kings. He retired in 1997 and then focused on playing music. Tisdale recorded eight albums as a band leader playing left-handed bass.

Lee Hansen, program director at Smooth Jazz KSSJ 94.7, reflected on Tisdale this morning.
"The first time I met him, he told me he used basketball as way to get a college education. He always considered himself a musician first. He wisely perceived that basketball and professional sports would secure his future and his family's future," Hansen said.

"When he walked in the room he always lit it up. We called him 'the big man with the big smile.' As much as he was respected for his basketball playing and he loved his music, there's no question his family and his faith were the two most important aspects of his existence," Hansen said.

"When we did a couple of in-stores where people got to meet him up close. We did one when he was on the rebound from cancer last spring as his new CD came out. He needed the assistance of a cane to get around. As he came out with the cane, this incredible physical specimen, he still had this big beaming smile. He talked about it a little bit and the crowd at Borders just about came out of their seats. They wanted to run up and hug him because he was so positive about everything. He made everybody else feel good in spite of the battle he was in," Hansen said.
Get to Tisdale's website at www.tisway.com

Capital Stage has announced it's 2009-10 season and the five play season includes three Sacramento premieres. The always interesting professional company will produce only five plays instead of six as its done in previous seasons eliminating its summer slot in 2010. Still to go this season for Cap Stage is the world premiere of Reina Hardy's "Erratica, An Academic Farce" which runs from July 11 through August 2.

Capital Stage's 2009-10 Season

"Speech & Debate" by Stephen Karam
A Sacramento Premiere
October 2 - November 8, 2009

"Santaland Diaries"
by David Sedaris Adapted by Joe Mantello
November 27 - December 27, 2009

"Fiction" by Steven Dietz
A Sacramento Premiere
January 22- February 28, 2010

"Someone Who'll Watch Over Me" by Frank McGuiness
March 19 - April 25, 2010

"Hunter Gatherers" by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb
A Sacramento Premiere
May 14 - June 27, 2010

Sacramento Theatre Company has announced their 2009-10 production schedule. The company will bring back several of its hits from past seasons as it wades through perilous, cash strapped, recession waters. The company will have high hopes for "Fully Committed" the one man tour-de-force for Matt K. Miller (currently on stage with his "Fits and Parts") and for a reprise of the musical "Always ... Patsy Cline."

The season will open with the delayed production of "Noises Off" the popular farce which was pushed back from this spring for economic reasons. STC will also move on with its August Wilson project bringing in "Joe Turner's Come And Gone" but only for one week end of a staged reading.

Here's the schedule STC provided.

"Noises Off" (Main Stage) Oct. 7 - Nov. 1

"Fully Committed" (Pollock Stage) Nov. 11 - Dec. 20

"Cinderella" (Main Stage) Dec. 2 - Jan. 3

Special Event: "Joe Turner's Come and Gone"
Staged Readings: Jan. 15 - Jan. 17

"Tuesdays with Morrie" (Pollock Stage) Jan. 20 - Feb. 28

"Arranged Marriage" (Main Stage) Mar. 3 - Mar. 28

"Black Pearl Sings" (Pollock Stage) Mar. 31 - May 9

"Always ...Patsy Cline" (Main Stage) Apr. 28 - May 23

Van Morrison's performance Saturday night at the Berkeley's Greek Theatre was nothing less than quintessential Van. One of the most influential singer song writers of his or any generation, Morrison has always had an uneasy relationship with the public components of his art. Rarely speaking to the press (not truly a component of art but sometimes helpful in the marketplace), Morrison comes from the "music speaks for itself" school.

The circumspect one maintains the same approach at his live shows and his Saturday night performance was a signature example. Billed as "Astral Weeks - Live," Morrison first performed a selection of songs from his vast song book. He began the night at the piano for "Northern Muse," before taking center stage.

Alternating between acoustic and electric guitars, occasionally picking up his saxophone or harmonica he and a fourteen piece band (including a string quartet, two guitarists, three singers, and woodwind player) worked through a survey of his tunes. The set included "And It Stoned Me," "Queen of the Slipstream" "Wild Night," "Common One," "All In the Game," and "Moondance."

Morrison was strong voice - scatting, slurring, and growling his way through the material. He worked with out a set list calling out each tune to the band immediately after finishing a song. There was short intermission and then Morrison came back and led a smaller version of the band through the "Astral Weeks" set. While part of the fascination with seeing someone like Morrison is simply the anticipation of what they will play from all the material at their disposal, knowing what was coming didn't diminish the experience.

The expansive versions enhanced already fluid sensual music with Morrison stretching out most everything from the classic record with the highlights coming from the album's core of "Sweet Thing," "Cyprus Avenue," "Ballerina," and "Madame George."
Morrison tacked on a encore of "Listen To The Lion - The Lion Speaks" followed an audience satiating "Gloria" and he was gone. At one point he did say "How about it for the band?"

Mara Davi, the Folsom High School graduate who made her Broadway debut in the 2006 revival of "A Chorus Line" as Maggie (see photo), will be soon be appearing closer to home. Davi, who now lives in New York City, will return to Sacramento this summer. Davi has been cast as Millie in the 2009 Music Circus season opening production of "Thoroughly Modern Millie." It should be a very exciting opening.
For more Music Circus information go to www.californiamusicaltheatre.com

International Record Store Day kicks out the jams Saturday. The idea is to recognize independently owned music stores and acknowledge the value they bring to our community with their passion, depth, breadth and specificity of interests, and just plain eccentricity.

As a record store rat in my youth where I served time behind the counter at the original Tower location (when they sold LPs and cassette's had a little section in the back) I can say there's nothing like hanging out in a place with people who love music as much as you do.

Independent record stores throughout the area will offer different activities reflecting the stores' own personalities. Numerous artists as diverse as The Smiths and New Order to Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and The Grateful Dead ( special T Shirt) are making special releases available and many of the local stores will have these exclusive records available.

Rob Fauble, owner of The Beat (17th and J streets) in midtown Sacramento, told me, "What we're going to try and do is show our appreciation to the customers that normally come in that day. We'll be here having another great day of being a record store."
Fauble suggested The Beat may also have some surprises for people buying records in the store tomorrow.
"We've always been here and have a good loyal customer base, so we're gonna say thanks to those people who have always supported us," Fauble said.

Downtown at R5 (16th and Broadway) the celebration will be a little higher pitched with not only everything in the store on sale, but special offerings and in-store performances throughout the day. There will also be a garage sale rock 'n' roll style in the parking lot, a raffle, a record swap and general merry-making all day.

The R5 Record Day in-store performance schedule:
(as we all know musicians lead complicated lives and the schedule and times are subject to change)

12 p.m. - 12:30 p.m. - Musical Charis

12:45 p.m. - 1:15 p.m. - Baby Grand

1:30 p.m. - 2 p.m. - Trainwreck Revival

2:15 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. - Not an Airplane

3 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. - Silver Darling

3:45 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. - The Ancient Sons

4:30 p.m. - 5 p.m. - The No-Goodniks

5:15 p.m. - 5:45 p.m. - St.Pierre

Area Record Stores Celebrating Record Store Day

Armadillo Music, Davis, 205 F St Davis, (530) 758-8058, www.armadillomusic.com

Gearhead Records (and Stuff)! Woodland, CA
39 5th St. Suite C, Woodland, (530) 662-7877, www.gearheadrecords.co

Dimple Records (2433 Arden Way, (916) 925-2600, www.dimple.com

Pearl Records, 1712 L St., www.myspace.com/334578rpm

Rare Records Records (1618 Broadway, (916) 446-3973, www.rare-records.net)

R5 Records, 2500 16th St., (916) 441-2500
www.r5records.com

The Beat, 1700 J St. (916) 446-4402, www.thebeatsacramento.com

Some time Sacramento resident Faith Prince, has returned to New York for a time to work on Broadway. Last week Prince joined the cast of Disney's "The Little Mermaid," performing as Ursula, the evil sea witch (photo below). Housed at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre (205 West 46th Street) the musical based on the Disney animated film and a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen features songs by Alan Menken, Glenn Slater and the late Howard Ashman.

Prince, who for the last several years has been living off and on in Sacramento with her husband Larry Lunetta and their son Henry, was nominated for a Tony Award for her work in the new musical 2008's "A Catered Affair." She won a Tony award for her performance in the 1992 Broadway revival of "Guys and Dolls." Prince also recieved Tony nominations for her work in the revival of "Bells Are Ringing" and her Broadway debut in "Jerome Robbins' Broadway.

April is Theatre Performance Month at Sacramento's Fairytale Town and the festivities start tomorrow.

Next Stage: Theatre for Young Audiences presents "Tomas & the Library Lady" this Saturday and Sunday.

Puppet Art Theater brings back the popular "Bunny Boot Camp" on April 11 and April 12 which coincides with Fairytale Town's "Spring Egg-Stravaganza."

Then the Fairytale Town Troupers kick off their second season with the world premiere of "Humpty Dumpty in Space!" This show plays two weekends: April 18 and April 19 and again on April 25 and April 26.
 
All productions have two performances per day at 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m.
Puppet Art Theater performances are $1 for Fairytale Town members, $2 for non-members. Performances by Next Stage and the Fairytale Town Troupers are included in park admission which is $4.50. Children 2 and under are free..
 
 Fairytale Town's Spring and Summer Hours are 9 a.m. - to 4 p.m. seven days a week, weather permitting. Guests who are in the park by 4 p.m. may stay and play until 5 p.m.

The Park will be open on Easter Sunday, April 12, from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., weather permitting.

For more information about Theatre Performance Month at Fairytale Town, call (916)808-7462 or got to www.fairytaletown.org.

 

The Monterey Jazz Festival, hosts its 5th Annual Next Generation Festival, this week end April 3 - 5 in downtown Monterey. The event includes the Next Generation Festival Jazz Competition with Big Bands, Combos, Vocal Ensembles, and individual musicians trying for spots atthe 52nd Annual Monterey Jazz Festival this September. The NGF supports artistic growth of young musicians from the ages of 12 - 18.

Fifty-seven bands from six states, from Alaska to Texas, are participating and California has bands from fourteen counties participating. The Sacramento area will be handsomely represented by ten different ensembles.

The Next Generation Festival officially starts tonight with the Kick-Off Concert at 8 p.m. at the Monterey Conference Center. Their will be performances by the competition judges, including pianist George Duke, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, trombonist Ron Westray, saxophonists Billy Harper and Paul Contos, bassist Ray Drummond, and vocalists Matt Falker, Jennifer Barnes, and Michele Weir.

The Jazz Competition starts tomorrow at 9 a.m. in Monterey's Conference Center.

There will also be auditions for the Jimmy Lyons Scholarship to Berklee College of Music, and for the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, the jazz festival's all-star high school band.

All Next Generation Festival competition activities from April 3 - 5 are open to the public, free of charge. More information on all Next Generation Festival activities and events is available on the MJF website, www.montereyjazzfestival.org and by phone at (831) 373-3366.

Sacramento Area 2009 Next Generation Festival Participants

HIGH SCHOOL BIG BAND DIVISION

Folsom High School "A" - Curtis Gaesser, director

Rio Americano High School - Josh Murray, director

HIGH SCHOOL VOCAL DIVISION

Folsom High School "A" - Curtis Gaesser, director

Folsom High School "B" - Curtis Gaesser, director

Natomas Charter School Performing and Fine Arts Academy - Jacosa Limutau, director

MIDDLE SCHOOL BIG BAND DIVISION

Folsom Middle School - John Zimny, director

Sutter Middle School - John Zimny, director

COLLEGE BIG BAND DIVISION

Sacramento State - Steve Roach, director

University of the Pacific - Patrick Langham, director

COLLEGE VOCAL ENSEMBLE DIVISION

Sacramento State Jazz Singers - Kerry Marsh, director

For a complete schedule of activities and competition times, visit www.montereyjazzfestival.org.

California State University at Sacramento student actor Stephanie Zito nabbed first place in the prestigious Irene Ryan Acting Competition. The junior theater major won in the Best Classical Actor category performing as Rosalind in Act III, Scene II of Shakespeare's "As You Like It."

The regional competition, part of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, involves more than 350 graduate and undergraduate student actors from universities across the West. Zito's win has earned her a trip to the six week festival program Summer Arts Scholarship in Fresno.

Zito (left in the photo) performs at CSUS this week end in the current production of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." See a video preview of the performance by clicking here.

For more information on the competition or the production call (916)278-6368 or visit www.csus.edu/dram.

Garbeau's Dinner Theatre in Rancho Cordova has a new lease on life.

The landmark theater raised the $8,000 over the weekend that it needed to avoid closure, reports Mark Ferreira, Garbeau's CEO.

Not only was the monetary goal met, but Ferreira says Washington-based landlord Andy Lakha has relented on certain terms and will discuss renegotiating the lease on Wednesday with the company.

"The community response to our story was overwhelming," Ferreira says. He added the increased media coverage was a significant factor in keeping Garbeau's open.

"The landlord was not expecting us to be as big a story as we were -- neither were we for that matter," Ferreira says.

Theaters throughout the region also rallied behind Garbeau's efforts to stay open. "The fact that all the other theaters said they would support us by honoring our season passes was huge. It really helped us sell an enormous amount of the passes," he says.

Ferriera also instituted a Thursday night karaoke party as a fund-raising event. He now plans to continue this as a regular weekly feature.

"On the one hand we raised money. On the other hand, the amount of money we had to raise came down significantly," Ferreira says. "The conditions changed. Primarily finding someone to sign on for five years as a personal guarantee on our lease and having a future rent deposit were no longer required."

Ferreira says Lakha could see the company has positive momentum and, more importantly, a significant amount of cash was put toward the back rent. Moving forward, Ferreira wants to create more community partnerships for midweek usage of the venue and also expects to partner with a Folsom group that wants to use Garbeau's as a live music venue.

"We're looking more and more at either renting out the space or finding groups we can team up with for some type of production which helps everybody."

Garbeau's Dinner Theatre in Rancho Cordova, which is in danger of closing, may still have some life. CEO Mark Ferreira says even though the company will fall short of the $100,000 goal it had for March 16 -- there is hope. Strong community support has helped convince landlord Andy Lakha to renegotiate certain terms.

Lakha is dropping the requirement for Garbeau's to either create an untouchable escrow account with future rent or find an investor to personally guarantee the remainder of their five-year loan. Ferreira still needs $8,000, but he believes a strong showing this weekend will give Garbeau's enough capital to move forward.

The musical "I Love You Because" plays at 8 p.m. today and Saturday and at 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $15.50 - $23.50.
For information go to www.garbeaus.com or call Garbeau's box office at (916) 985-6361.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival artistic director Bill Rauch announced today the festival's 2010 season. The 75th anniversary season will include four plays by Shakespeare in the 11-play season, anchored by Rauch's production of "Hamlet."

There will also be two world premieres. The first, "American Night" by Culture Clash, will be the first play produced in OSF's new History Cycle. The second world premiere will be an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's classic film "Throne of Blood," itself an adaptation of "Macbeth."

2010 SEASON AT A GLANCE

Angus Bowmer Theatre

Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Feb. 26 - Oct. 24
Director: Bill Rauch

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams
Feb. 27 - July 4
Director: Christopher Liam Moore

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Feb. 27 - Oct. 24
Director: Libby Appel

She Loves Me
April 17 - Oct. 23
Music by Jerry Bock; lyrics by Sheldon Harnick; book by Joe Masteroff
Director: Rebecca Bayla Taichman

Throne of Blood, world premiere
July 24 - Oct. 23
Adapted by Ping Chong from the film by Akira Kurosawa
Director: Ping Chong

New Theatre
Well by Lisa Kron
Feb. 28 - June 18
Director: James Edmondson

Ruined by Lynn Nottage
March 27 - Oct. 24
Director: TBA

American Night by Culture Clash, world premiere
July 3 - Oct. 24 (first preview 6/29)
Director: Jo Bonney

Elizabethan Stage/Allen Pavilion

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
June 11 - Oct. 8
Director: TBA

Henry IV, Part One by William Shakespeare
June 12 - Oct. 9
Director: Penny Metropulos

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
June 13 - Oct. 10
Director: Bill Rauch

Sacramento Theatre Company has set casting for its "Lysistrata" replacement production "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)" which begins March 11 and runs through April 5.

Michael RJ Campbell, last seen as Goneril in STC's "Cinderella" and current director of "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" at the Wilkerson Theatre at California Stage, performs along with Miles Miniaci, and Aaron Wilton. Miniaci last worked at STC in "To Kill a Mockingbird" has professional credits across the region including Foothill Theatre Company, B Street Theatre, and Capital Stage. Wilton who played Curley in "Of Mice and Men" last season at STC has numerous New York and Bay Area credits as well. Peggy Shannon directs with Michael Laun assisting.

B Street has also announced casting for its new B-3 Series production of John Kolvenbach's "Love Song" which bows on April 4. Artistic director Buck Busfield has stocked the cast with a quartet of B Street veterans: Dana Brooke, Jason Kuykendall, Elisabeth Nunziato and Kurt Johnson.

B Street Producing artistic director Buck Busfield has announced the next two productions at his busy theater. On the B-1 Main Stage, Canadian playwright Michele Rini's two-person, romantic comedy "Sexy Laundry," opens on March 8, following the currently playing "Mending Fences."
"Sexy Laundry" will feature B Street Company member Kathy Morison, most recently in "The Little Dog Laughed," and Bay Area veteran Rod Gnapp, making his B Street debut. Busfield will direct.

For the B-3 series, Busfield has replaced Arthur Miller's classic large-scale drama "A View From the Bridge," with a smaller quirky romantic comedy, "Love Song" by John Kolvenbach.
The four-person play, which premiered at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, hasn't been cast, yet, but opens April 4.

The Bee has learned that Sacramento Theatre Company has laid off eight employees over the last 1 1/2 weeks. Managing director Mark Standriff confirmed the staff cuts this afternoon. "Hopefully this will save us roughly $100,000 through the end of the year," Standriff said. He didn't specify which positions had been cut, though he did say the business office, box office and production personnel were affected.

Standriff also indicated he didn't anticipate bringing back anyone who was let go.
"We might not be finished yet. We just have to take it day by day right now," he added.
"We're trying to do it so it doesn't affect us from an artistic product standpoint."

In a similar cost-cutting action, B Street Theatre has just laid off marketing director Brian Kameoka and eliminated his position. B Street has also decided not to fill two positions that had been open.
B Street managing director Bill Blake said, "We're in a cost-cutting mode trying to reduce overhead as much as we can. We're not cutting fat now, we're cutting muscle."
Blake added that B Street had been interviewing for a development director, but won't pursue filling that position right now.
"Every cost-cutting measure we can make, we're making right now," Blake said.

When the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival begins it's 37th season on July 11 it will have undergone an artistic makeover. A new creative team replaces last year's creative team who replaced the Foothill Theatre Company who put up the plays the year before that.

Henry Woronicz a former artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (from 1991 to 1995) is the new executive producer and John Grüber is the new production manager. Woronicz followed the legendary Jerry Turner and preceded the recently retired Libby Appel at OSF. He recently has been acting and directing throughout the country and appeared on Broadway in Julius Caesar.

He has directed at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival and the Utah Shakespearean Festival while also performing with the American Repertory Theatre, the Indiana Repertory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville and the American Players Theatre.

Woronicz also was recently appointed as the Head of Graduate Acting for the School of Theatre at Illinois State University.

The shows announced for the season, which runs until Aug. 23, are Measure for Measure and Much Ado About Nothing which will rotate nightly Tuesday through Sunday at stunning Sand Harbor State Park amphitheater on the shore of the lake.

Tickets are available at www.LakeTahoeShakespeare.com or by calling (800) 747-4697.

The festival will be holding local auditions for the season on Saturday, Feb. 21 at the University of Nevada, Reno's Redfield Proscenium Theatre, 1664 N. Virginia St., Reno. The time is from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.

A festival press release states: "Headshots will be processed and audition slots assigned beginning at 12:30 p.m. Actors may send resumes and headshots in advance to: Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, Attention: Casting, 948 Incline Village Way, Incline Village, NV 89451. All auditioning actors must prepare two contrasting Shakespearean monologues no longer than one minute each in length. Due to space and time limitations, the Festival screens for all non-Equity resumes before scheduling audition times."

There will be national auditions on March 9 and 10 at the Colony Theatre, 555 N. Third St. in Burbank. The hours will be from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Actors may send resumes and headshots in advance to:  Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, Attention: Casting, 948 Incline Village Way, Incline Village, NV 89451

For either audition, actors must prepare two contrasting Shakespearean monologues no longer than one minute each in length.

For information concerning auditions contact production Manager John Grüber at jgruber@tahoebard.com or (775) 298-0150.

If you're wondering who, if anyone, might be benefiting from the recession, early returns suggest the Reduced Shakespeare Company will do some great business. On the heels of Capital Stage announcing a reconfigured season due to economic considerations with a staging of the RSC's "The Complete History of America(Abridged)" (May 9 - June 21), the Sacramento Theatre Company has made a similar move.

STC will drop the ancient Greek comedy "Lysistrata" (likely a tough sell in any market) for their own Reduced Shakespeare title, "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" (March 11 - April 5). The two theaters plan to cross promote the productions with - wouldn't you know - "reduced" ticket incentives for attending both shows.

Visit www.sactheatre.org for information.

Garbeau's Dinner Theatre in Rancho Cordova is facing possible closure next month. Mark Ferreira, CEO and co-owner of Garbeau's since June 2007, says he needs to raise $100,000 by the end of this month to satisfy his landlord, Lakha Investment Group.

Ferreira's for-profit theater had strong revenues the first nine months of his ownership and artistic direction of the theater business. But he ties his theater's problems to last year's crumbling economy - specifically gasoline prices.

"The last six months have been tough. Once gas hit $3.50 in just about a week we saw our averages drop in half," Ferreira says. "We were getting about 145 people a night and when gas spiked that dropped to about 60 to 70 patrons per show.

"For nine months, every month saw a revenue increase and we were dwarfing past revenue records. The only change between then and when we dropped to half-houses is the economy."

Ferreria says he hopes to raise money through the sales of either gift cards or season passes. Should Garbeau's have to close, many other area theaters are supporting the effort by saying they'll honor the season passes. Garbeau's Web site is listing the B Street Theater, California Musical Theatre and Stage Nine in Folsom as theaters that will in some way accommodate Garbeau's season ticket holders.

For more information go to www.garbeaus.com or call Garbeau's box office at (916) 985-6361.

There are galas and then there are galas. Saturday night's opening of Sacramento Theatre Company's new production of "Gem of the Ocean" had an extra zip about it with so many factors coming together.

There was certainly excitement and interest in the first local professional production in nearly 20 years of a play by American master August Wilson.

The event doubtlessly bathed in its proximity to the inauguration of our first African American president and the spirit that created. The presence of Mayor Kevin Johnson and the invocation Dr. Ronn Elmore also added some zip. Well known Bay Area actors Mujahid Abdul-Rashid and Margo Hall were there no doubt checking in on their collegue C. Kelly Wright who plays Black Mary in the production. The house had a special vibe going.

I had the privilege of speaking at the prologue with STC artistic director Peggy Shannon and was struck at how helpful these informal conversations can be for audiences. Of about forty people in the room only four indicated they had seen a play by Wilson before. Discussing the playwright and amplifying his artistic intentions hopefully gave those people another entry point to the work. Certainly that's the intention and I've seen how effective pre-play talks are when trying to bring something like make a Shakespeare history play more accessible. To that end STC has redesigned its website with a special enhanced section on August Wilson and its "Gem of the Ocean" production.

Capital Stage www.capstage.org is making some economic-based changes to its current season in order to cut production costs. Following "The Scene," which opens on Friday, the company will replace the next two scheduled plays - George Bernard Shaw's "Mrs. Warren's Profession" and Yussef El Guindi's "Back of the Throat."

Artistic director Stephanie Gularte said Cap Stage will substitute David Mamet's three- man drama "American Buffalo" and the equally small cast comedy "The Complete History of America (abridged)" for the canceled productions. The company's Jonathan Williams and Peter Mohrmann will be in "American Buffalo," with Janis Stevens directing. No cast or director information yet for "Complete Works."

"Also, we are still ending our season with the world premiere of 'Erratica, An Academic Farce' by Reina Hardy," Gularte e-mails. "Michael Stevenson will direct and Eric Wheeler, Jamie Jones and I will be in the cast."
The season will end Aug. 2, two weeks earlier than originally planned.

There is currently an online brouhaha over whether or not Equity actors are performing in Runaway Stage's current production of "The Wild Party." Equity is the professional union for actors and stage managers regulating pay, benefits and working conditions.

The official Equity handbook states,"Equity rules prohibit members from working (with or without pay) for any employer who is not a signatory to an Equity Agreement or Code, unless Equity has given prior written permission." The handbook also says, "Working without benefit of a contract is a serious breach of your professional responsibility, and is subject to disciplinary action."

For the record both the Runaway Stage producer/director Bob Baxter and actor in question, Andrea Thorpe, say no rules are being broken. Thorpe wrote in an e-mail that she did in fact join Equity in 2006 in a contract with the Studio Theater. But she writes she no longer is an Equity member.
"In order to continue performing in Sacramento, AKA doing what I love in my home, I chose to give up my Equity status," Thorpe writes.

Sacramento Theatre Company managing director Mark Standriff sent an ominous e-mail to STC subsribers and patrons on Monday. Painting a much more dire financial situation than Standriff described to me a week earlier, his message read in part, "Our theater company has managed to barely survive under these circumstances, but right now we're in need of raising a substantial amount of money in a very short time before things become strained beyond the breaking point. Frankly, we're facing the most serious financial challenge in STC's 67 year history."

Standriff then asks for donations and writes, "the rest of our season is in jeopardy unless we raise a significant amount of money in the next two weeks." Contacted today about the e-mail, Standriff said he's concerned about STC's cash flow over the next few months and wants to be "proactive" in his fundraising.
"I'm looking at the general outlook, what's happening to similar theaters and not wanting to put us in a similar situation," Standriff said.

Today STC announced a "restructuring" of the Pollock Stage season that includes consolidating the New Works Festival into one weekend of staged readings and delaying the production "The Illustrated Bradbury" to the fall 2009.

The staged readings for the New Works Festival take place in the Pollock Stage Jan. 16 through Jan. 18 and will be free. The schedule is "Black Pearl Sings" at 8 p.m. Feb. 16, "Brownie Points" at 8 p.m. Feb. 17 and "Beat Aside Apollo's Arrow" at 2 p.m. Feb. 18. For information: (916) 443-6722.

Nevada City's Foothill Theatre Company, the region's most economically distressed theater, has decided to carry on in 2009 with an abbreviated "demi" season of three plays, beginning in March and running through August. Executive director Karen Marinovich said the company doesn't want to obligate the board to a full season if things don't go well.

"Our hope is to earn the money we need to move forward. Then we will do two or three more plays toward the end of the year," Marinovich said.
The company has some new matching grant offers on the table and a major grant from the Irvine Foundation for an original Christmas show next year should they make it that far.

For 2009, the theater will open "Sylvia" their most requested show on March 5 at the Nevada Theatre. The one-woman comedy "Bad Dates" will run April 9 through May 16 at the Off Center Stage in Grass Valley and "The Andrews Brothers," a new 1940s style musical will run in June and August at the Nevada Theatre.

For more information: the FTC box office at (530)265-8587 or visit their Web site at www.foothilltheatre.org.

One of my favorite under-the-radar Christmas movies gets a rare airing this week end. The Preston Sturges written "Remember the Night" starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray screens tomorrow night at 6 p.m. on Turner Classic Movies (It also shows again Christmas Eve at 11:15 p.m. and Christmas morning at 6:15 a.m.)

The romantic comedy isn't available on either DVD or VHS which is a little odd considering the pedigrees of all involved. Stanwyck and MacMurray are iconic stars who would team up again more memorably in 1944's "Double Indemnity." Sturges would use Stanwyck in arguably his greatest film "The Lady Eve." In "Remember the Night" the great actress is a petty thief and MacMurry's an assistant D.A. who throws her in the slammer for Christmas. Then thinking better of it MacMurray decides to takes her to his midwestern home for the holidays. While romance ensues - this movie being written by the great Sturges there is also clever wit and surprisingly affective pathos as well.

Sturges' success and a writer and director included a nearly unmatched string of artistic and commercial hits from 1939 - 1944. After watching Mitchell Leisen direct "Remember the Night" Sturges sold his next script "The Great McGinty" (1940) for $10 so he could direct it himself. The films which followed "Christmas in July" (1940), "The Lady Eve" (1941), "Sullivan's Travels" (1941) "The Palm Beach Story" (1942), "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" and "Hail the Conquering Hero" (both 1944). Sturges' career would slide from that point but his best work is some of the best ever.

There are several Sturges biographies including "Between Flops: A Biography of Preston Sturges" by James Curtis. The title comes from a Sturges quote, "I've had a few successes between the flops."

Langston Hughes' "Black Nativity" receives a special production this weekend at Sacramento State. The production features direction by T. Michael Gates, a former CSUS theater professor and original Sons and Ancestors player, and choreography by Linda Goodrich, chairwoman of the theater and dance department .
"Black Nativity" is a gospel-based retelling of the Nativity story with a black cast and traditional and original music. The show was first performed on Broadway on Dec. 11, 1961.
There will be only one performance at 3 p.m. Dec. 7 at the Sacramento State University Student Union Ballroom. Tickets are $10-$25. For information contact the box office at (916) 278-4323 or Voices of California for Arts, Culture & Diversity at (916) 616-9698.

The California Musical Theatre board of directors canceled a special meeting set for this afternoon. CMT has been receiving national attention since last week's revelations that artistic director Scott Eckern donated $1,000 to a Yes on Proposition 8 campaign fund. The proposition, which was passed by California voters, bans same sex marriages in the state. The CMT board was due to meet and discuss negative publicity generated from a proposed boycott of the theater by theater artists and professionals. Eckern has issued an apology concerning his contribution which was published by Playbill.com.
www.playbill.com
Eckern has also donated $1,000 to the Human Rights Campaign, which works to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.
The CMT board has not scheduled a new meeting.

The successful Free Night of Theatre returns to Sacramento on October 1. That's right - free - as in you don't pay anything for tickets but you do have to have tickets.

Twenty area theatre companies are involved including American River College, B Street Theatre, Benvenuti Performing Arts Center, Broadway Sacramento and The Cosmopolitan Cabaret, Capital Stage, Celebration Arts, Chautauqua Playhouse, City Theatre, Garbeau's Dinner Theatre, Imprint Theatre Company, River City Theatre Company, River Stage, Rocklin Youth Theatre Company, Sacramento Theatre Company, Sierra College Department of Theatre, Stage Nine Theatre, UC Davis Theatre and Dance Department, Woodcreek High School Theatre Arts and the Woodland Opera House.

The expected participation of over 160 Sacramento region and Bay Area theatre companies in a collaboration of The League of Sacramento Theatres (The League), Sacramento Area Regional Theatre Alliance (SARTA) and Theatre Bay Area (TBA) makes ours the largest Free Night of Theater (FNOT) event in the country. All show listings are available for a preview online at seeaplay.com. To access the listings a new Free Patron I.D. program is available so anyone interested can create a free login and see exactly what is there. Interested audiences will need a Free Patron I.D. to get Free Night tickets and should do so before the October 1 giveaway.

Now a national event with over 90 cities across the participating Free Night of Theater will offer an estimated 9,000 free tickets in the Bay Area and Sacramento with new groups of tickets available every Wednesday from October 1 through October 22 through at seeaplay.com.

Now in it's fourth year FNOT has proved incredibly successful at attracting new audiences to theater. 75% of the people who came to Free Night 2007 were visiting that theatre company for the first time, and 56% of them had seen two or fewer other live arts events in the last year. 80 %of the audience was under 50 years old and 41% were people of color.

This will be the third consecutive year Sacramento area theater companies will be involved in the event which has steadily grown in popularity.

You learn a lot about a band from seeing them play live. After seeing a heated, often searing set by Radiohead headlining the opening night of the Outside Lands Festival at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, I've learned the five piece British art band are indeed the state of art in 21st century creative rock music. They represent the times both sonically in their complex music and emotionally in their poetic, disaffected lyrics.

The band's 22-song set, nearly two-hour performance, including a five-song encore, leaned heavily on their latest record, "In Rainbows," (seven songs) and four from "OK Computer," the most acclaimed record in their distinguished discography. Songs had full muscular rock guitar sound live, and the band's electronica leanings added a pulsing, rhythmic push to much of the material.

Opening with the percussive funky "15 Step" and then "Reckoner" from "In Rainbows" (initially sold over the Internet as a pay-what-you-want offering), the band played seven tunes from their newest record. From "OK Computer" they performed "Airbag," "Paranoid Android," Exit Music (For a Film)," and "Karma Police" with Yorke at an upright acoustic piano wheeled out to center stage. Other tunes included "Pyramid Song" and "You and Whose Army?" from "Amnesiac," and "Idioteque" and "The National Anthem" from"Kid A" and they closed with "Everything In Its Right Place," also from "Kid A."

Throughout, lead vocalist Thom Yorke showed a strong, impassioned voice while guitarist/keyboardist Jonny Greenwood blazed through the effects-laden songs. Yorke moved from electric guitar to acoustic guitar and piano during the set, while the animated Greenwood worked fluidly between a keyboard station and lead guitar. Bassist Colin Greenwood (Jonny's brother) solidified the band's bottom, while drummer Phil Selway injected sharp often surprising flourishes. Guitarist Ed O' Brien added dense textural layers to the music's shifting moods.

Bands as eccentric as Radiohead often gain obsessive cult followings, but rarely combine it with equally strong commercial draw. The band builds on inspirations from diverse sources, including enigmatic singer song writer Scott Walker, modern composer and electronic music innovator Olivier Messiaen, and jazz composer and bassist Charles Mingus. Though the outsize hype initially blindsided the band in certain ways, they have clearly made peace with their appeal (a capacity crowd of over 60,000 was estimated at Friday night's show), and they brought an intense focused energy and spontaneity to the performance. As Yorke graciously apologized for some early sound problems (the music dropped out completely for long stretches of the third and fourth tunes) the singer said, "We didn't really have much time to set up our gear. But it's ultimately about the music, and we thank you for your patience with us."

They apparently had time to set up an intricate, often stunning lighting and video accompaniment to the show. Huge video screens split into four quadrants projected close-ups and treated images of the performers from both sides of the stage.

Outside Lands continues today and Sunday with headliners like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Jack Johnson still to come.

The current production of "The Sound of Music" at the Music Circus demonstrates not only the tuneful mastery of song writers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein but it also reminds us of their often invisable craftmanship as well. The production includes two songs ( "How Can Love Survive?" and "No Way to Stop It") performed by Elsa Schraeder (Elizabeth Ward Land), the presumptive fiance of the Captain, Max Detweiler (Dick Decareau) the charming chiseling family friend and Captain von Trapp (George Dvorsky).

The songs function several ways pushing the plot forward while revealing character. They add lyrical diversity to the score as more urbane expressions that stand out in contrast to the other songs, which are much more earnest and pastoral.
"How Can Love Survive" comically tells us who Elsa is describing and the nature of her relationship with the Captain. The tune suggests this coupling of the very rich would be a marriage of convenience as much as anything. While wondering if their "love" can survive the "gold plated chains" which has them "trapped by our capital gains" the song also foreshadows the Captain's eventual embrace of Maria because of love and nothing more.
The cautionary "No Way to Stop It" has Elsa and Max suggesting to the Captain that he just let the Nazis think he is on their side, the way they do. Coming at the top of the second act the song lets us know the Anschluss has taken place and the Nazi's are now in control of Austria. It also tells us where each person stands with the new political regime. As Elsa and the Captain agree to part we also know he can pursue Maria.
Interestingly, because of their content, both of these songs were cut from the movie. Added, however, was the ballad "Something Good" between Maria and the Captain and though all revivals don't necessarily include the song it's being done here for the first time.

The Playwrights Collaborative at Chautauqua Playhouse has scored a double coup. Wednesday at their 7 p.m. meeting locally based professional playwrights Richard Broadhurst and Richard Hellesen will both be in attendance. Each has had works done around the country and will speak on the realities and difficulties of getting a play produced.
Hellesen is currently the literary manager for the B Street Theatre and recently had his short play "One Destiny" performed at the White House with First Lady Laura Bush in attendance. Broadhurst's drama "Resting Place" had its world premiere at the Sacramento Theatre Company in February.
Playwrights Collaborative, which has been existence for just over two months, hopes to be a resource for developing writers. Leo McElroy and Gary Agid lead the workshop and McElroy says he's looking for a "distilled respectful approach" to criticism that's adapted to current theater sensibilities. He says a committee selects the plays, which are read ahead of time so the people attending know what will be discussed.
Besides talking with writers Hellesen and Broadhurst, the short play "An Imperfect Child" by Frank Ingram and Mark Smith will also be read.
The Chautauqua Playhouse is located at 5325 Engle Road
For more information contact Gary Agid at gary@agid.com (916) 383-9267 or Leo McElroy at mcelcom@comcast.net (916) 564-0905.

"Antony and Cleopatra" is one of Shakespeare's lesser seen but more highly entertaining plays. Take heart, the rarely seen epic romantic tragedy will be staged Sunday at the Sacramento Shakespeare Festival with Adrienne Sher directing.
"The biggest part of the job was editing the script down to two hours," Sher says.
"I've never edited a Shakespeare before and it was fascinating. It gave me a love of this play which I hadn't had before. It's very funny! I learned so much doing it."
The reading takes place in Room A6 on the City College campus at 7 p.m. Sunday night.
The staging is minimal and Sher says the actors will carry scripts and move "some, but not a whole lot."
"My main interest was in making sure the story got told, so I did some direction around relationships and dynamics."
Christine Nicholson and Luther Hanson will play the doomed lovers with Rod Breton and Ken Figeroid also taking part.
"I'd kind of like to direct it now that I've worked on it. I really, really enjoyed it," Sher says.
The reading is a fund raiser for the festival and tickets are $10. For information call 558-2228 or go to the Sacramento Shakespeare Festival website at www.sacramentoshakespeare.net

B Street Theatre has set an impressive lineup for the second season of the edgier themed B3 Series. On Aug. 30 B3 will open with Douglas Carter Beane's Hollywood comedy "The Little Dog Laughed," which was nominated for the 2007 Tony Award for Best Play. It deals with a hard-driving agent who is trying to keep her star client's "recurring homosexuality" from becoming common knowledge.
In November, Irish playwright Conor McPherson's "The Seafarer" gets its Sacramento premiere. Set in an unruly old house in a town outside of Dublin, five hard drinking Irishmen find themselves in an unusual poker game on Christmas Eve. "The Seafarer" received a Tony Nomination for Best Play 2008. This year's awards will be announced on Sunday night.
In January of 2009, Margaret Edson's "Wit," the winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, comes to town. The play about an English professor dealing with terminal ovarian cancer deftly balances intensity and humor in a story that's also surprisingly uplifting.
The B3 season closes next April with Arthur Miller's classic "A View From the Bridge," the story about Italian immigrants living illegally in Brooklyn and Eddie the longshoreman who initially shelters them. It is one of Miller's most enduring and popular dramas.
This year B Street will also sell $60 subscriptions to the B3 Series. For information call (916) 443-5300 or go to www.bstreettheatre.org.

Locally based composer Gregg Coffin ("Convenience" and "Five Course Love" at the Sacramento Theatre Company and "rightnextto me" at the B Street") is on fire.

Actually, the modest, hard-working tunesmith is having a nice year, especially in Korea. Gregg reports that after a very successful two-month run at the Chung Mu Art Hall in Seoul, his musical comedy "Five Course Love" continues its Korean sojourn with an open-ended run at a new theater. So basically as long as people continue to come the show will play.

Coffin says the show has moved from its original home in Seoul to the new location in a kind of "theater row."

"The producers of the show have sent me lobby posters, playbills and placards as well as a DVD with about 15 minutes of the show to see," Coffin says. "It's a truly mind-bending experience to hear my music and not understand a word anyone is saying up there."

Gregg says the Korean Web site for the show - www.fcl.co.kr - is also a real treat.

"You'll find three hearts on the graphic, besides the logo. The two on the right are to purchase tickets from different online venues; the one on the left is a fan page from an online club called CYWORLD. Select it, and there's a navigational bar on the left of that page and you can click on photos and movies of the production over there."

There's also a Facebook group page at www.facebook.co. Type "FIVE COURSE LOVE" in the search block and you'll find the fan site with pictures from all the productions and videos of the Korean version. Oh, and Gregg adds, "I'm not making this up - the Korean production has figurines. There's a picture of them up on the Facebook fan site."

Erik Daniells' feisty Artistic Differences production company made quite a splash last summer with its production of "Hair." The legendary "tribal love-rock" musical had a perfect mix of scruffy panache and top-flight musicianship, and audiences flocked to The Space at 25th and R streets to see the twice-extended show.

AD has kept a low profile since then, but will re-surface this weekend with a benefit show, at 7 P.M. Sunday at the Benvenuti Performing Arts Center, 4600 Blackrock Drive, Sacramento. It will also be a preview of the upcoming production of "bare" by Jon Hartmere Jr.and Damon Intrabartolo (opening July 25 at The Space).

"We've regrouped and have been restructuring the business side of the theater, trying to get that in order," Daniells reports. He's putting together a board of directors and hopes the company can reach a point where they're doing about three shows a year.

"Our goal is to do smaller, lesser-known works - things you don't typically see," Daniells says. He expects to announce the upcoming season at the benefit.

Daniells - who is currently working with the Willows Theatre Company in Martinez as well, teaching the songs of "Evil Dead: The Musical" (a campy horror movie spoof) to the cast - says he hopes the benefit also will introduce AD to a wider audience. (There will be songs from the company's two previous shows "Falsettos" and "Hair," along some tunes from the new show opening in July.)

And Daniells is bringing in a couple ringers for the benefit. His sister, Kelly (pictured above, in the middle), who starred in the Las Vegas production of "Mamma Mia!" for a year and half, will sing "An Old Fashioned Love Story" from "Wild Party" (the Andrew Lippa version). Kelly brings along Ian Cullity from the Vegas "Mamma Mia!" cast and he'll sing "Pity the Child" from the musical "Chess" (lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson).

Besides the entertainment, the AD benefit will feature a raffle prize of two tickets and air fare to Las Vegas to see "Mamma Mia!"

For more information for for tickets - $10 in advance, $15 at the door - call (916) 708-3449.

Capital Stage Artistic Director Stephanie Gularte (pictured above in this year's "Fool For Love") has chosen her company's 2008-09 season and it shakes out like this:

The season opens with "First Person Shooter" by Aaron Loeb (Sept. 20-Nov. 2). The 2007 winner of the Bay Area Critics Award for best new play deals with the connection between a violent video game and a schoolyard shooting.

Then, there's "Every Christmas Story Ever Told" by Michael Carleton, John K. Alvarez and James Fitzgerald (Nov. 20-Dec. 28), a three-ring circus comedy that returns for its third tour of holiday mania.

In 2009, Cap Stage will produce the Sacramento premiere of award-winning playwright Theresa Rebeck's "The Scene" (Jan. 17-Feb. 22), a comedy about dating and popular culture.

And the spring brings a classic from George Bernard Shaw, "Mrs. Warren's Profession" (March 21-April 26). In Shaw's (pictured below) thorny morality play, a conservative ingenue learns that her first-class education was financed by her mother's illegal occupation.

In May, a politically topical black comedy, "Back of the Throat" (May 9-June 21) by Yussef El Guindi is another Sacramento regional premiere.

The season will close with the world premiere of a play (July 11-Aug. 16) from Capital Stage's "Playwright's Revolution" competition.

Jennifer Smith, News10 anchor, e-mailed me after my recent post on Broadway actress Faith Prince. Prince, who has been living occasionally in Sacramento with husband Larry Lunetta and their son Henry, was nominated for a Tony Award for her work in the new musical "A Catered Affair." The production already has won the Drama League Award for Distinguished Production of a Musical.

Anyway, Jennifer wrote: "Faith and I grew up together in the town of Lynchburg, Va. We were both active in the community theater there as kids. In high school, I branched off and started working in television, and Faith starred in all the high school productions at E.C. Glass High School."

Jennifer adds, "I had the pleasure of seeing Faith in her Tony-winning Broadway performance in 'Guys and Dolls' (above). In this photo (below), Faith are I are sitting side by side on the front row as children in a wonderful production of 'The King and I.' (I'm on the end .. she's to my right.) I believe we were in the 6th grade."

Hector Amezcua/Sacramento Bee file

Sacramento-based playwright Richard Hellesen,whose work has been seen around the country, can add a uniquely prestigious venue to his resume - the White House. That’s right - the one in Washington, D.C., where our president and his wife live.

On Monday, Hellesen’s play “One Destiny,” gave a special performance for First Lady Laura Bush, Salma Kikwete, the first lady of Tanzania, and students from several different Washington-area schools. (Check out the "official" press release.)

The play takes place in 1865, a couple days after President Lincoln was assassinated, and depicts the traumatic event from the points of view of two people who were there - Harry Hawk, the actor on stage when the president was shot, and Henry Ford, one of the theater's owners.

The 45-minute, one-act play was commissioned by Ford’s Theatre and Hellesen researched the historically accurate piece there before writing his play.

Hellesen has written numerous works for young people, including “The Wind in the Willows,” which is currently playing at the Young People's Theatre of Folsom through April 20; and “Johnny Tremain” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” both of which have been produced at the B Street Theatre’s Family Series. Hellesen’s most popular work may be his enduring adaptation of “A Christmas Carol,” with music and songs by David de Berry, which still lights up stages around the country during the holiday season.

Now Hellesen has had a command performance, so to speak.

Bryan Patrick/Sacramento Bee

While my colleague Chris Macias very effectively summed up Friday night’s jumping Bruce Springsteen show at Arco, I’d like to add a couple of observations.

The band opened in a smoking groove with “Spirit in the Night,” and it was obvious that Bruce was feeling good and feeling it from the crowd, as well. He kept up the pace throughout, and the songs from his latest record, “Magic,” sounded terrific live. Of the older material, it was especially cool to hear “Because the Night,” along with the three tunes from “Darkness at the Edge of Town”: “Candy’s Room,” “The Promised Land” and the set-closing “Badlands.”

Lots of Little Steven, which was welcome - featured as he was on “Badlands,” “Ramrod” and “Murder Incorporated.” The three guitars, including Nils Lofgren, were nicely integrated, with all of them getting appropriate solo space. Clarence Clemons didn’t seem to be moving well, but his sound was as definitive as ever.

It was great to see Springsteen winging it through the set, changing out previously selected songs for others he felt fit the loose, energetic mood of the night.

We also got a great encore set with one more song than he usually plays - “Rosalita”!

In a different world, this blog post would be reminding you to watch the brilliant documentary on one of the most fascinating artists of our time, playwright Tony Kushner.

Kushner (pictured above), who spoke at a well-attended appearance at UC Davis last spring, is the smart, funny, thought-provoking, Pulitzer Prize-winning, Tony Award-winning writer of such works as “Angels In America,” “Caroline, Or Change” and “Homebody: Kabul.”

The documentary, “Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner” by filmmaker Freida Lee Mock, will be shown at 9 tonight on most public television stations across the country. Most, but not all. One station not showing the program is our local affiliate KVIE (Channel 6). It's not showing the documentary tonight, and it’s unclear if it's planning on showing it, ever.

Apparently, the station doesn’t think anyone in the Sacramento region would be interested in a revealing portrait of one of our most important living playwrights. The station is, however, showing a “Chanukah Celebration,” starring “The Nanny” Fran Drescher, which is interesting, considering that the Jewish Festival of Lights ends at sundown, before the program airs.

Lezlie Sterling/lsterling@sacbee.com

Sometimes I interview people who give me much more material than I can use in a story. I’d like to think it’s because I ask such good questions, but it’s probably more that these people have a lot to say or they’re just great talkers.

Actor David Silberman is a great talker who has a lot to say. (Check out my story on him - in today's issue of Weekend Ticket - and see a great video on him by The Bee's Andy Alfaro, by clicking here.

On working steadily in a very tough business, Silberman says he’s gotten a few breaks.

“I’ve been able to go from job to job and situation to situation,” Silberman says.
“There’ve been some fallow times in there, which all actors experience, but I’ve been really lucky in a profession where, at any point in time, 90 percent of the union members are unemployed.

"I consider myself really lucky that I’ve been able to carve out a living over a number of decades, doing what I really love doing.”

Other people also had a lot to say about Silberman, including former Sacramento Theatre Company artistic director Mark Cuddy.

“He’s wonderful to have in a production because he not only plays his character in a role, but the role his character plays in the whole thing. He understands that,” Cuddy explains.

“Craft-wise, he has a sensational sense of timing and he’s a very empathic character. He has a big heart. He really shows love for other characters when that’s appropriate on stage. That’s a hard one and he does it without being sentimental, too.”

The Capital Stage Company, now in its third year, announced today the receipt of a two-year, $40,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation in support of its new Playwright’s Revolution project.

The playwright's project is set to debut in the spring of 2008. It is expected to spawn a series of readings and workshops, with the ultimate goal of creating plays for the company to produce.

“It’s been one of our goals to get new original work on our stage,” says Capital Stage managing director Peter Mohrmann. “It really comes down to, Where can we get some money to support artists in Northern California who we’d like to work with?”

Other local theaters already have programs that nurture new writers and works, including River Stage, the B Street Theatre, the Sacramento Theatre Company and Foothill Theatre, Mohrmann says.

“The way for us to step up with the other companies is to be a place that is germinating our pieces,” Mohrmann says.

Certainly, the Irvine grant is an added boost to the growing company, which started the year strongly with its successful staging of John Patrick Shaley’s political farce “Dirty Story.” The production starred Capital Stage's artistic director Stephanie Gularte (pictured between Timothy Orr and Harry Harris). "Dirty Story" showed a marked increase in audience support for a season-opening production, and subscription sales are on the upswing, as well.

Mohrmann says the company had planned to pursue a Playwright’s Revolution project whether or not it received any funding. But getting the initiative off the ground - and some interesting playwrights involved - should now be easier.

In an unrelated gift, the Irvine Foundation recently awarded $4.1 million in grants to be divided among 15 Central Valley arts organizations, including five in the Sacramento area. They are the Sacramento Philharmonic, the Sacramento Ballet and the Crocker Art Museum, which is to each receive $325,000; the Sacramento Opera, a $250,000 grant; and the Magic Circle Theatre of Roseville, a $200,000 grant. The $1.4 million in grant money is to be used over a three-year period.

I recently reported here that the Sacramento Theatre Company has added a production of Rick Foster’s “Vivien” starring Janis Stevens to its Stage Two season, Dec. 12-Jan. 6.

While I stated the production was a “perennial” in Sacramento, Stevens has charmingly written to say that this will really only be the second local production in Sacramento.

“It has only been produced once before in Sacramento: at California Stage in the 2000 season, when it ran for two weeks in May and was then extended, after I returned from Maine that summer, for another six weeks in the same venue.”

(There have been, however, several other Northern California productions, including at the San Francisco Magic Theatre in 2001 and a production at the Mendocino Theatre Company in 2002.)

The production here will be directed by Peter Sander, Stevens’ long-time acting coach, who says she was instrumental in the production receiving its 2006 Drama Desk nomination.

Stevens also writes: “We are taking the show to the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. I will fly out to NYC the Sunday that I close 'Vivien' at STC’s Stage 2...and start rehearsing in Philadelphia on Jan. 8 for a preview on the 15th and official opening on the 17th. It will run at the Walnut Street through Feb. 3.”

Stevens says she and Sander also had a successful run of “Vivien” at Lost Nation Theatre in Montpelier, Vt., earlier this year and they’ve been asked back in May of 2008 to do Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie.”

The third annual Free Night of Theater returns in October, and 25 Sacramento-area theaters will be participating for a second year.

Here's how it'll work: On and/or around Thursday, Oct. 18, theatergoers across the country will be able to attend free performances presented by more than 600 theaters in some 50 cities coast to coast.

Another important (time) and date to remember: 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 2, , when the free ticket sign-up begins (and likely ends soon thereafter, because tickets go quickly) online.

For more information, click here.

The area theater companies involved include the B Street Theatre, Beyond the Proscenium, Big Idea Theatre, California Musical Theatre-Broadway Series, Capital Stage, Celebration Arts, Chautauqua Playhouse, City Theatre, Davis Musical Theatre, Foothill Theatre Company, River City Theatre Company, River Stage, SacActors.Com, Sacramento Theatre Company and the Woodland Opera House.

Other cities taking part include Atlanta, Austin, Texas, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Mo.; Los Angeles; Minneapolis/St. Paul; Philadelphia; San Diego; San Francisco; Seattle/Greater Puget Sound, and Washington, D.C.

The Free Night will be produced statewide in Connecticut, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and Wisconsin.

The idea is to expose people to theater, and surveys of audience members who attended Free Night performances in 2006 showed that two out of three Free Night audience members attended a theater that they had never been to before, and 32 percent of them returned within six months.

The program will be presented in Sacramento by the League of Sacramento Theatres, SARTA and Theatre Bay Area.

As the Sacramento Theatre Company announced this week that single tickets are on sale for its 2007-08 season, it also announced a schedule change.

The English import “Sophie Tucker’s One Night Stand” is out, and the near-perennial “Vivien” is in.

“Vivien” will play on Stage 2 from Dec. 12 through Jan. 6. The one-woman show, written by Rick Foster and starring Janis Stevens, not only has had several productions in Sacramento, but Stevens has successfully taken the show around the country, including a stop in New York.

Based on the life of actress Vivien Leigh, the show takes place in an abandoned theater as Leigh looks back on her tumultuous life and legendary career in film and theater.

Stevens’ New York run was nominated for a 2005 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance. The busy bicoastal actress will squeeze in the new Sacramento booking just in front of a Philadelphia engagement of “Vivien.”

For more information, go here.

Director, choreographer and educator Ed Brazo puts his more than 25 years of professional theater experience to good use, teaching musical theater at CSUS. He also sometimes moonlights at the Music Circus, and this week, Brazo plays Rudy, the no-nonsense head waiter (pictured in the back of the photo) in “Hello, Dolly!” (Read my review.)

“Dolly” is well known for brassy leads, and Brazo has worked with a few. He toured nationally with Angela Lansbury in a production of “Gypsy” and, ironically, directed and choreographed the Dolly Gallagher icon herself, Miss Carol Channing, in “A Salute to the Arts” here in Sacramento this past spring.

Though I didn’t see that show, I’ll bet a paycheck that Channing delivered her own inimitable version of the title song. (Full disclosure here - the patient Mr. Brazo also choreographed and taught yours truly a dance for my wedding, for which I am eternally grateful.)

I see a lot of plays - 50 to 60 a year - and what I remember or don’t about a particular production years later can be sketchy at best. But some moments - for whatever reason - stand out. Before Tuesday night, I’d only seen “Annie” once before, the 2001 Music Circus production directed by Leland Ball. There was a moment in the last number of the show when Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks (Mark Zimmerman) turned toward his efficient, classy assistant Grace Farrell (Rachel deBenedet) and much to her surprise offered her an engagement ring, which she happily accepted. It was something that had remained in my mind’s eye as an emotionally rewarding moment that made sense to me.

At Tuesday night’s opening of “Annie,” at the Wells Fargo Pavilion, I found myself anticipating the exchange - but the moment never happened. Afterward, I cornered artistic director Scott Eckern, asking him if a different version of the play had been used. He said no - this was the same script they had used before, though there were some small alterations in the first act (actually mentioned to me at intermission by eagle-eyed Steve Issacson of the Davis Musical Theatre Company).

I insisted to Scott that something was missing in the final scene (Warbucks is again played by Zimmerman, by the way), and he calmly told me that they were doing the script they had always done. I went home disappointed and a little confused.

The next morning, the exceedingly thorough Mr. Eckern e-mailed me to say he had gone back and looked at the script Leland Ball had used in 2001. While it was the same script, Leland had in fact added the business of the ring and the proposal, which I had seen, and Eckern said he remembered after I asked him about it.

I felt a little better about my memory, though sad for Christy Morton’s Grace Farrell (pictured) who gets no ring in this production.

Capital Stage’s extended run of Neil LaBute’s “Fat Pig” finishes up this weekend with three performances (at 8 tonight, 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday) on the Delta King in Old Sacramento. Christin O’Cuddehy (pictured) and Shaun Carroll provide the flawed humanity in the powerfully acted piece.

The Sacramento Shakespeare Festival closes this weekend (it’s only August! What gives?). Kim McCann’s Kabuki “Macbeth” ends Saturday, while Luther Hanson’s Moulin Rouge-inspired "Comedy of Errors” has its last shows tonight and Sunday. Both play at 8 p.m. at the William Carroll Amphitheatre across from the zoo in Land Park.

Finally, the Music Circus production of Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me Kate” is well worth checking out. Besides star-caliber performances by Lynne Wintersteller and Paul Schoeffler, there’s a strong attractive ensemble, plus you get some of the greatest songs written for musical theater performed by an outstanding band under John Johnson’s musical direction. It plays at 8 tonight and Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 7:30 p.m. Sunday.

Sacramento Bee/Randy Pench

While much has been made of Shakespeare’s rhymes and rhythm (iambic pentameter, if you must know), little is known of his skills as an MC. Interestingly, two productions this summer somewhat address this absence of knowledge.

In the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s genre-shifting production of “Romeo and Juliet,” a DJ breaks out some beats at the Capulet’s dance after the usual lute and recorder set. Though the scene is played straight, it’s hard not to laugh at the juxtaposition.

More intentionally funny is the hip-hop music lesson that Greg Bryan’s outrageous Hortensio gives Karyn Casl’s super-cool Bianca at the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival’s “Taming of the Shrew” (pictured above).This jammin’ interlude raises the roof (well, it would if it weren't under the stars) and gets heads nodding, thanks to the two actors' gleeful abandon to the ridiculous moment.

If you don’t know the story, in order to gain access to Bianca, one of her suitors, Hortensio, disguises himself as the music teacher “Lit-E-O.” He must compete with Lucentio, also angling for Bianca’s affections, who has disguised himself as the scholar Cambio. (Check out my review.)

It’s interesting how similar ideas come to the surface in such different ways.

During Tuesday’s opening-night performance of “Nunsense” at the Wells Fargo Pavilion, actress Alyson Reed, who plays Reverend Mother, felt something pop in her left leg. Though she completed the performance, Reed knew something was seriously wrong, which a doctor's examination confirmed on Wednesday.

She can’t put any weight on the leg. Thus, Reed performed Wednesday night’s show from an electric cart, which necessitated some restructuring of the show for her and her four co-stars Allison Blackwell, Taryn Darr, Michele Ragusa and Erin Maguire.

And yes, the expectation is that, for Reed’s protection, she’ll complete the show’s Music Circus run in the cart.

By the way, you can check out my review of the show here.

The enterprising, industrious young people in the Barnyard Theatre of Yolo County are gearing up for their fourth summer production, which opens Friday.

This year, they bring Bertolt Brecht’s “Galileo” to the Schmeiser Barn, at 35125 County Road 31. To give the production just that much more verisimilitude, Barnyard Theatre will perform in the barnyard itself, placing Galileo’s explorations under an actual night sky.

Audience members should bring insect repellent and warm clothes for cool nights. Performances begin at 8:30 p.m., and the show runs Friday through Sunday nights - July 20-22, July 26-28 and Aug. 2-5.

Seating is limited. Tickets are $7 and $12 in advance; $10 and $15 at the door. For information, call (530) 574-1318 or check out their booth at the Davis Farmers Market on Wednesday nights.

Sacramento Theatre Company's Mark Standriff called today to say that on Monday, STC will announce a dramatic programming initiative. Standriff, the company's newly appointed managing director, says STC plans on producing all of August Wilson’s 10-play Pittsburgh Cycle in chronological order.

The Seattle-based Wilson, who died in 2005, wrote 10 full-length plays centered on the African American experience in the United States - one play set in each decade.

Standriff hopes STC can open the first play, “Gem of the Ocean,” in the spring of 2009. “Gem” was produced at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco last spring and a production currently runs at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.

Standriff says as a former artistic director, he believes theaters sometimes worry too much about the short term and don’t think enough about the long term. He also says that, as a managing director, announcing a 10-year commitment to producing Wilson’s works gives STC an opportunity to court supporters for a long-term commitment to diversity in Sacramento professional theater.

Wilson hasn't been produced professionally in Sacramento since the late '80s. Under artistic director Mark Cuddy, STC did both "Fences" and "Joe Turner's Come and Gone."

In case you haven't heard, the Musical That Previously Couldn’t Be Named in Broadway Sacramento's 2007-08 season is the multi-Tony Award-winning phenomenon “Jersey Boys.”

The show will kick off the season and run at the Community Center Theater Sept. 7-22; single-show tickets go on sale Monday, July 30.

Currently, tickets are available to Broadway Sacramento subscribers and to groups of 12 or more. For more information, go here.

...

...but you might if you don't make plans to order up some tickets to see "Jersey Boys" at the Community Center Theater in September.

"Jersey Boys" is the show that couldn't be named earlier by the new Broadway Sacramento organization because of its contract with the touring company, but with the announcement made today, now you - and everybody else - knows.

For more information, go to the California Musical Theatre Web site.

Sacramento Bee file, 2005/Owen Brewer

Locally based playwright and composer Gregg Coffin reports that his musical comedy “Five Course Love” is alive and doing quite well - this time in Long Beach, with very strong reviews from the show’s opening last week.

The show was a hit here for the Sacramento Theatre Company in May of 2005.

“FCL” has now had nine productions, including stops in Rochester and Albany, N.Y.; Coral Gables and Key West, Fla.; Houston, Texas, and off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theatre. Coffin says there will soon be a cast album, as well.

Coffin also wrote “Convenience,” which played at STC in 2004 and has had four other regional productions, including one he directed last year at the New Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco.

Though Gregg travels constantly, he says he’s happy at home here in Sacramento, working on his newest project, which he says centers around an Army wife and her husband, currently on tour in Iraq.

It’s called “rightnexttome” and workshops will take place in Kansas City, Mo., and Rochester, N.Y., in mid-September and mid-October leading up to a first production in Kansas City in late November.

Of that show, Gregg e-mails: “It’s thru-sung...my usual m.o. Two actors, playing six characters. All about disconnection and crisis of one kind or another. Love and loss and the ghosts of things gone by, about what we will believe without any proof, and the longevity of some things and the brevity of others....”

The highly regarded, longtime area actor and director Thom Bach passed away from cancer last Thursday, June 21. A celebration of his Life will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, July 9, at the Art Court Theatre at Sacramento City College.

Bach worked at most of the theaters in the area, including the Geary, Woodland Opera House, Chautauqua Playhouse and Lambda Players.

The 43-year-old started working in Sacramento community theater just out of high school. One of his first productions was “Juno and Paycock” at City College in 1983. There he met and developed a lifelong friendship with Kim McCann. McCann said Bach had made peace with his illness: “He really faced it with grace and humor.”

She said Bach expressed only one disappointment.

“He said, ‘I’m really only mad about I’m not going to know how “Harry Potter” turns out.’ ”

Bach scripted the celebration of life, considering it his last production.

Ashland, Ore. - The traditional Oregon Shakespeare Festival Sunday-morning press conference with the directors was a little giddy. There’s no doubt the transition from outgoing artistic director Libby Appel to the incoming Bill Rauch has put an edge on things. But the overwhelming feelings are renewal and creative rebirth.

Appel’s last day will be Aug. 1, while Rauch is already working full-time at the festival, having recently announced his 2008 season.

Appel and Rauch both had productions open in the Elizabethan Theatre this past weekend. Appel directed an earnest “The Tempest,” while Rauch staged a wild, unpredictable “Romeo and Juliet.” (Full reviews of both plays will run in The Bee on June 25.)

Large organizations so rarely positively and proactively reinvent themselves, so seeing one in the midst of such a conscious change creates a real charge. At one point during the press conference, Appel said, “I believe when the book is written on how to change leadership in a major arts organization, this episode will be a central chapter.”

Appel also told the story of calling Rauch to offer him the job of directing “Romeo and Juliet,” which opened Sunday night, and of his initial hesitation.

Rauch was in the process of applying for Appel’s job and told her he thought he might feel awkward about working there if he didn’t get the artistic director’s position. Appel told him she wasn’t worrying about that - she was asking him to be a part of her final season. Rauch said her response convinced him immediately to accept the “Romeo and Juliet” assignment. Then a couple of months later, he was offered the artistic director position.

Ashland, Ore. - Oregon Shakespeare Festival artistic associate Tim Bond did some of his growing up in Sacramento. Bond’s father, James, was president of CSUS in the '70s, though the former university president now lives in Ashland near his son.

Bond’s production of August Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean” is a highlight of the current season, and Wilson’s plays have become a Bond speciality.
Bond says he has had many opportunities to speak with the playwright about his work.

“I had the good fortune of having August tell me the story of three or four of his plays while he was writing them. I’d see him and he’d say, ‘Hey Tim, have you got a minute?’

"No matter how busy I was, I’d say 'of course.’ We’d just go sit somewhere and he’d just tell me the story of the play. He was a storyteller, a real griot. The monologues and conversations would just flow out of him, and 45 minutes later, he would have told me the story of the play he was writing or thinking about.

"I’m proud of the productions we did here at the festival because I felt like August was our modern-day Bard and it was appropriate to put him next to Shakepeare.”

However, Bond (and his father) will be relocating soon, as Tim, who has been with OSF for the last 12 seasons, will be moving to a new position, likely on the East Coast; his father will come with him and his family.

Tim Bond’s leaving is part of the administrative changes by incoming artistic director Bill Rauch that has eliminated some positions. Bond now hopes to lead his own mid- to- large-size theater company and hopes to have something definite by the end of the summer.

Ashland, Ore. - The Oregon Shakespeare Festival was established in 1935, so a fair amount of history and tradition exist here. The full-scale Elizabethan theater where the outdoor season opens this weekend is the oldest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.

When the trumpets (recorded) sound, signaling the raising (live) of the flag, it's a nod to the Elizabethan tradition letting the public know a play will be performed. Friday night was the opening of "The Tempest," Shakespeare's last full-length play. (Look for my full reviews of the outdoor season in The Bee's Scene section on Monday, June 25.)

The production is artistic director Libby Appel's last in her tenure leading the festival. Appel steps down after this season, with young Bill Rauch taking over, though she'll be back directing Arthur Miller's "A View From the Bridge" next year.

Like any outdoor arts festival, the first determiner of the overall experience is the weather. Leaving this week's first blasts of 100-degree Sacramento summer for the mid-80s of Ashland was certainly a pleasing development that bodes well for the weekend's two other outdoor shows - "The Taming of the Shrew" Saturday and "Romeo and Juliet" Sunday night.

Dreyfuss & Blackford

Up until now, you may not have heard of the E. Claire Raley Studios for the Performing Arts, but you'll be hearing more about it from this point on.

It’s the building going up at 14th and H streets, which will house the Sacramento Ballet, the Sacramento Opera, California Musical Theatre (Music Circus and Broadway Sacramento), and the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra.

The name and designs by architectural firm Dreyfuss & Blackford were unveiled this morning after Joyce Raley Teel gave a $5 million donation to the project in honor of her late mother E. Clare Raley.

The four organizations will each have their administrative offices in the four-story, 47,000-square-foot structure, along with much-needed rehearsal space, classrooms, and the ballet’s Center for Dance Education.

The project has a budget of $25 million, and the complex is expected to be ready for occupancy in the fall of 2009.

Today's announcement comes on the heels of one earlier this month that the Joyce and Jim Teel Family Foundation would give an additional $5 million, on top of an earlier pledge of $8 million, to help fund a major expansion of the Crocker Art Museum. Local art benefactors Mort and Marcy Friedman also announced at that time that they would donate $5 million to the Crocker, bringing their total contribution to $10 million.

If you are fan of progressive music, smart new music, genre-defying improvisatory music, or just plain good music, listen up. There’s a show - well, it’s more like a program, really, Friday night at Capistrano Hall on the CSUS campus of CSUS that you shouldn’t miss.

A cello player named Dana Leong will perform with a keyboardist named Jason Lindner and percussionist Scott Amendola. This is the kind of group you would get at the Knitting Factory in New York.

Lindner and Amendola both play a lot of jazz; Lindner has made a name for himself with his progressive big band and he’ll follow up Friday night’s show here by playing with funky bassist Meshell Ndegeocello at the Independent in San Francisco. Amendola plays in so many different bands that I’ve lost count, but let’s just say he’s a musician’s musician.

Leong, whose gig it is, also plays trombone (in Lindner’s big band). Leong’s Web site says, “Dana's sound is a fusion of computerized electronic hip-hop funk rhythms and rock propulsions. While playing the cello or trombone, Dana also uses his laptop onstage to integrate electronic soundscapes.”

The CSUS concert, part of the New Directions Cello Festival, starts at 7:30 p.m., with the Dana Leong group scheduled for 8:30 p.m. Tickets - available at the door only - are $20 general, $12 students and seniors, $6 for those under 12.

Michael Height, general manager of the ID America Festival, a theater festival taking place this November on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, reached out to me, saying he’s seeking plays on the topic of American identity. And he’d like the Sacramento theater community to participate.

Says Height: “We are seeking submissions of one-act plays that deal with this subject from all corners of America and the world. Our hope is to have these plays foster a dialogue between those with differing points of view.”

Height represents an organization called Quo Vadimus Arts, which his Web site says is “an international community of artists working to promote the exchange of ideas and experiences between cultures. Quo Vadimus means ‘where are we going?’ ”

He says that between 10 to 16 short plays will be chosen for performances at the Clemente Solo Velez Center in New York City, from Nov. 6-21. Four to five plays will be selected for a national tour of universities and regional theaters in 2008.

Go here or here to submit your play or to learn more about the festival.

The Sacramento Theatre Company has just announced its 2007-2008 season, with four Mainstage shows and four plays in the smaller Stage 2. Here’s what they’ve got going at 15th and H streets in the next year:

* “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck (Oct. 3 - Nov. 11) on the Mainstage: The classic story of friendship and morality.

* “Virgo, Hebrew Rising” by Brian Diamond (Nov. 7 - Dec. 2) on Stage 2: Diamond’s autobiographical one-man comedy about growing up half Jewish in the inner city.

* “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, adapted for STC by Richard Hellesen and David de Berry (Nov. 28 - Dec. 23) on the Mainstage: A reprise of the classic telling of the Dickens tale.

* “Sophie Tucker’s One Night Stand” by Chris Burgess (Dec. 12 - Jan. 6, 2008) on Stage 2: English actress Sue Kelvin will portray Sophie Tucker in this play with music.

* “Topdog/Underdog” by Suzan-Lori Parks (Jan. 23 - Feb. 17, 2008) on the Mainstage: The Pulitzer Prize-winning play about two brothers - one named Lincoln and the other Booth.

* “Resting Place” by Richard Broadhurst (Feb. 20 - March 16, 2008) on Stage 2:
A world premiere from the Sacramento-based writer.

* “Cyrano de Bergerac” by Edmund Rostand (March 19 - April 13, 2008) on the Mainstage: Anthony Burgess translates and adapts the timeless romance.

* “Magdalene” by Katie Ketchum (April 16 - May 11, 2008) on Stage 2: Ketchum’s one-woman musical-comedy takes on the Gospel of Mary of Magdala with a '50s rockabilly slant.

Friends and associates of the late Dennis Bigelow will convene Monday night at 6 p.m. in the lobby of the Sacramento Theater Company for a memorial reception and party.

Bigelow, who transformed the Eleanor McClatchy Performing Arts Center into the Sacramento Theater Company, passed away in 2005 at the age of 52 in Portland, Ore.

He came to Sacramento in 1983 from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where he was a stage manager and director. He was named producing director of STC in 1986 and worked there until 1988, directing 29 productions and creating a semiprofessional company that became fully professional under successor Mark Cuddy.

Bigelow commissioned the adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" by Richard Hellesen and David DeBerry, which became the company's signature production.

In an obituary that I wrote about Bigelow, I quoted former Bee theater critic Peter Haugen as saying, "Dennis played an important and underappreciated role in the evolution of the performing arts in Sacramento. He challenged audiences who were used to tame community theater fare with productions the likes of which had not been seen in Sacramento before."

STC is at 1419 H St.; after the reception there, dinner will follow at the Esquire Grill. For more information, e-mail kdmorison@sbcglobal.net.

The tremendously talented actor Rick Kleber is in serious condition at Sutter General Hospital. Kleber's colon ruptured last Monday and he went into emergency surgery on Tuesday.

Kleber (left), has been a mainstay at the Children Theatre of California over the last couple of years and always brings a positive energy and generous spirit to everything he does.

An online message system has been set up for him at www.carepages.com, where you can also find information about his condition. Use the name "kleberonthemend" to find the latest on how he's doing.

I haven’t read very much of Sacramento-based writer William T. Vollmann’s work, but what I have read is fairly stunning. Vollmann was awarded the 2005 National Book Award for fiction for his novel “Europe Central,” and he has written a great deal of literary nonfiction as well.

The New York Times Book Review described Vollmann’s novel as: "His most welcoming work, possibly his best book…part novel and part stories, virtuoso historical remembrance and focused study of violence.”

The Times literary supplement called him “one of the most important and fascinating writers of our time.”

So he’s got some impressive credentials. But what matters most is if an artist speaks to you through his work. Does he illuminate the world in a way that makes it both new and familiar? Vollmann did that for me.

The piece I read is his most recently published “travel story,” which appears in this month’s Harper’s as a feature called “Letter From a Freight Train: Catching Out - Travels in an Open Boxcar.”

The piece follows Vollmann’s recent experiences riding freights - often starting in and around Sacramento - going wherever the train takes him. Vollmann often makes these travels with a friend he just identifies as Steve (another Sacramentan and a longtime personal acquaintance of mine).

I had heard of the train trips for years and had seen many of Steve’s photo albums of the trips, as well. Vollmann’s writing is a whole other vision, and a rather brilliant one, into a dark, anachronistic world.

The writer told me the piece is the abridged opening chapter of his latest book, which he just finished and which will be published sometime next year. Much of it takes place in and around Sacramento, Roseville and Marysville as Vollmann and friends try to catch out.

Allen Schmeltz will be leaving his five-year home at Garbeau’s Dinner Theatre at the end of the month. Schmeltz founded and was artistic director of Garbeau’s Acorn & Oak Theatre for children. He is forming Allen Schmeltz Productions and will work with Ed Claudio at his new Actor’s Theatre of Folsom. Schmeltz and Claudio also will produce with Mike Jimena and Connie Mockenhaupt at their Back Lot Theatre, opening in El Dorado Hills in late February 2007.

Schmeltz plans to continue teaching theater arts throughout the area.

Meanwhile, director Julie Anchor is still casting for her production of “Greater Tuna” for Main Street Theatre Works. The auditions will be at California Stage (25th and R streets) at 7 p.m. Thursday. The majority of rehearsals will be in Sacramento, and two men are needed - age is open - to play 20-something characters. The show is set to run Feb. 16 through March 24 (with a possible one-week extension) at The Playhouse dinner theater at Sutter Creek Days Inn. Main Street Theatre Works offers a gas stipend. For more info: Susan McCandless, MSTW artistic director, at (209) 295-4499.

Here are a couple late entries into the holiday theater derby - one “G” rated for the entire family and the other “R” rated for adults.

The first is “A Laura Ingalls Wilder Christmas,” which is playing at Cosumnes River College. The production is directed by Cheri Fortin, the new artistic director of Next Stage: Theatre for Young Audiences. (Next Stage will produce family-oriented theater at CRC’s newly named Black Box Theatre, which is actually River Stage with a new name. Don’t worry - River Stage isn’t going anywhere, the theater space has just been renamed to avoid confusion, though it briefly added to mine.)

“A Laura Ingalls Wilder Christmas” performs at 7 p.m. Friday through Sunday and 2 p.m. Saturday; the last shows are this weekend. Tickets are $8 and $10. For more information: (916) 691-7364.

Meanwhile, over at the Thistle Dew Dessert Theatre, “Scandal erupts at the North Pole when one of Santa’s eight tiny reindeer accuses him of sexual harassment” in "The Eight: Reindeer Monologues." At least, so say the producers of the show, who also say this is “NOT a child appropriate” production, which just may make it appropriate for you.

Show times are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Dec. 23 at the little theater on the corner of 19th and P streets. Reservations are required: (916) 444-8209. Tickets are $24 and include dessert, coffee or tea. There's more information at www.myspace.com/the_8_reindeer.

Sacramento Bee/Michael A. Jones

Nothing says the holidays to a theater critic as much as the proliferation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” It is easily the most produced play (in some version or another) in the United States each year. I haven’t counted this year's entries, but we are quite lucky to have our own locally grown adaptation (by playwright Richard Hellesen and the late composer David DeBerry) playing again at Sacramento Theatre Company. Of course "A Christmas Carol" is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to holiday theater productions.
Three years ago, I came up with the idea of a photo shoot combining various disparate characters in a fun salute to the numerous holiday-themed productions in our area. The spread would come out on the Friday after Thanksgiving as a sort of holiday season kickoff. It went so well (thanks to the photographers, designers, actors and costumers) that we’ve continued it in some variation each succeeding year since. This year’s theme is “The Usual Suspects” (courtesy of art director Val Mina) which really needs no more explanation. The photo spread has been pushed to Sunday’s Ticket+ and here’s a taste.

The not completely surprising demise of Tower has a deeply personal sting, of course, for many here in Sacramento. And for numerous friends and associates who are losing jobs, there is more than a sting.

As Dr. Johnson once famously observed, the end of anything brings forth some deep and uncomfortable emotions, and the end of Tower is no exception.
Like many, the record store (at Watt and El Camino) was an early high school hangout and endless source of information for me. In the days of more time than money, I whiled away the hours and learned a lot about music, especially jazz, standing in the stacks, reading liner notes. (And often surreptiously splitting the cellophane wrappers to open up double albums to read what was stashed away on the inside.)

Later, I worked at the 16th and Broadway store. We sold vinyl then (the mid-70s) and had a small cassette section in the back. From opening the store on a Sunday morning to closing at midnight on a full moon, it was a great gig. And my record collection was greatly enhanced during that time. After a couple years of trying to find “that record by that guy” - with that guy being anyone from John Kay to Perez Prado - I finished college and left the job. Many I worked with went on to manage their own Tower outlets from here to L.A.

My good friend and Bee colleague David Barton, who is currently on sabbatical in New York, sent a poignant message on Saturday, which I excerpt here:
“Tower played as crucial a role in my development as my parents or my schools did ... The thing I still remember best is going up to Tower Watt with my little brother Bobby in the summer of 1967, dresssed in our best approximations of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper garb - me in my dad’s WWII dress jacket, a black wig and drawn-on mustache (I was George) - and casually thumbing through the records, which were, I believe, $1.99 for mono, $2.99 for stereo.”

There's more that happened here than just a business failing.

To quote Dr. Johnson: “There are few things not purely evil, of which we can say, without some emotion of uneasiness, “This is the last.”

California Musical Theater artistic director Scott Eckern was on Seventh Avenue looking toward Central Park (that’s in New York City, kids) as we spoke this afternoon, but he had glowing reports from Sacramento on the Free Night of Theater program.

“We anticipated there would be a great response," he says. "My concern is always, ‘Did we get the word out enough?’ and, apparently, we did.”

While Eckern, along with CMT executive producer Richard Lewis, is in New York for the National Alliance for Musical Theatre fall conference, he's staying on top of the local news.

Free tickets to participating area theaters became available beginning Oct. 3 through the seeaplay.com Web site here and were so sought-after that the computers were initially overwhelmed.

“We’re in partnership with Theater Bay Area and it was their computer that was processing the requests,” Eckern says.

“They’re making sure now that there aren’t duplicates. If there are, the campaign is set up to not have any so it may free up some shows, which are currently listed as being gone.”

Eckern suggests people check back to the Web site on a regular basis between now and Oct. 17 to see if more tickets become available. The shows take place between Oct. 19 and Nov. 19. Eckern says theaters might also decide to make more tickets available, as well.

Here are the numbers as of this afternoon: 27 Sacramento region theaters... 29 productions ... 40 performances ... and 2,112 tickets claimed.

“People got very excited about this opportunity, and I think there are people out there who are taking advantage of this by either going to theater for their first time or going to a theater they haven’t been to before,” Eckern says.

“There’s nothing to lose - take a chance. If you don’t recognize the title, it’s OK -
check it out anyway. Any live theater production adds value to your life.”

Sunday night at the sold-out Elly Awards ceremony, Ed Claudio not only picked up his first Elly for directing the outstanding production of “Glengarry Glen Ross” (after being nominated 15 times, he said) - read the story here - but he also announced his bittersweet farewell to Del Paso Boulevard.

Claudio will close the Actor's Theatre of Sacramento at the end of the year, completing 10 seasons at the complex creatively known as The Building. But as the saying goes, when one door closes, another one opens, and Claudio will be opening doors in Old Folsom.

Claudio is to be a partner and artistic director with Mikon Productions (owned and operated by Mike Jimena and Connie Mockenhaupt), running a new theater at 717 Sutter St. in Folsom. For their first show, they’ll be bringing back the sensational Alexandra Ralph in the one-woman song cycle by Andrew Lloyd Webber, “Tell Me On Sunday.” The show will open Nov. 3 in an intimate, 49-seat Actor’s Theatre of Folsom, as it will be called.

Claudio says he will continue to operate a teaching studio in Sacramento and should have that location firmed up soon.

Nearing the eve of the Elly Awards, it was a happy chance Thursday to run into John Beaudry, who has meant so much to local theater.

Beaudry has been living in Korea the last few years, teaching English while studying and developing his spiritual awareness. But before that, he, along with business and artistic partner Ivan Sandoval, ran The Show Below at the Geery Theater on L Street. The pair was known for an uncompromising approach to producing truly professional-oriented theater with people who mostly went unpaid. They also took home a bunch of Ellys.

When they closed their doors after producing more than 50 plays since they opened in August of 1987, my predecessor at The Bee, Peter Haugen, wrote “what sets The Show Below apart among small theaters is its unwillingness to say ‘good enough.’

“To accomplish what they have - and it has been considerable - the team of Beaudry and Sandoval has asked a lot of their non-union actors," Haugen added. "The people who worked at The Show Below have been asked to put in professional-level effort even though they made their livings doing other things.”

When I saw him Thursday, Beaudry was sitting with long-time friend and director Adrienne Sher, who often worked for him at the underground theater. They traded “war stories” about the old days, waxed philosophical on the current state of Sacramento theater, and seemed optimistic about the future.

“Tropical Depression (there are no Kates involved)” was the title and/or theme of Sunday night’s hugely enjoyable 29 1/2 Hour Playwriting Festival. The event, now in its seventh year and sponsored by City Theatre at Sacramento City College and Synergy Stage, is just what it advertises.

Plays are written, rehearsed and performed in the time it takes most of us to come up with half of an idea. There were eight plays in all, including “Casting Slouch” by Lorne White, “What’s in a Name?” by Jes Gonzales, “Cause and Kate-fect” by Nina Breton, and “Underwater” by Crom Saunders. And they are short - most ran about 10 to 15 minutes.

The idea is mostly for fun, but there’s a lot of craft being learned and put on display as well (go ahead - try and write a 10-minute play; take a whole day). Performers and the standing-room audience alike had great times.

After the final play, festival coordinator Luther Hanson called the actors on stage for a deserved curtain call. He then brought out the writers, directors and, finally, the behind-scenes contributors. It was a master stroke of inclusion by Hanson, who deserves much credit for putting this together along with assistant coordinator Christine Nicholson, Lori Ann DeLappe-Grondin and Mariam Helalian.

Making good on their promise to offer alternative theater in Sacramento, Capital Stage last week announced an eye-catching 2006-07 schedule, which opens with the intriguing Rebecca Gilman and closes with the infuriating Neil LaBute, who has become their poster boy. Here’s the schedule:

“Boy Gets Girl” by Rebecca Gilman, a Sacramento premiere (Sept. 23 - Nov. 5, 2006).

“Every Christmas Story Ever Told” by Michael Carleton, John Alvarez and Jim Fitzgerald, a West Coast professional premiere (Nov. 25 - Dec. 31, 2006).

“Les Liaison Dangereuses” by Christopher Hampton, from the novel by Choderlos de Laclos (Feb. 3 - March 11, 2007).

“Three Days of Rain” by Richard Greenberg (April 7 - May 13, 2007).

“Fat Pig” by Neil LaBute, a Sacramento premiere (June 23 - July 29, 2007).

Interesting titles all. This season, Cap Stage will also institute a five-play, staged-reading series. Though the performance details haven’t all been worked out, four of the five plays have been selected: “The Exonerated” by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, “Doubt” by John Patrick Shanley, “The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow” by Rolin Jones and “Frozen” by Byrony Lavery.

Northern California’s loss is Colorado’s gain as it was announced earlier this week that Philip Charles Sneed has been appointed the new producing artistic director of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival.

Sneed guided the Foothill Theatre Company of Nevada City for 12 years during a period of remarkable growth before being terminated by the board 18 months ago. He is a wonderful actor; smart, sensitive director, and level-headed administrator - making him an ideal artistic director.

The CSF presents four shows in repertory each summer - two indoors and two in the Mary Rippon amphitheater. According to the Denver Post, which wrote about Sneed’s appointment, CSF attendance last year was 28,226 - down nearly 14,000 from the year 2000; furthermore, its annual operating budget had dropped to $896,000, about $100,000 less than the last budget Sneed managed for FTC.

Sneed wrote in an e-mail: “CSF is the nation’s second-oldest Shakespeare festival, and I will have the privilege of planning the company’s 50th-anniversary season, to be held in the summer of 2007.”

The loss is double for us because, not only will Sneed be leaving, but his wife, the highly regarded costume designer Clare Henkel, also will be heading off to Colorado.

“Although we will miss Nevada City and our many friends here, we are happy to be starting this new chapter in our lives and in our careers,” Sneed wrote.

Still, it will be something of a long good-bye, as Sneed will be back next month to direct “To Kill A Mockingbird” at the Sacramento Theatre Company; he'll also be directing its holiday production of “A Christmas Carol.”

In my dealings with Sneed, I found him to be thoughtful, articulate, passionate and consummately professional. He will be missed.

Following my review of the Wednesday-night opening of "A Chorus Line" in San Francisco, I was flooded with e-mails regarding Mara Davi (seated, in middle).

First, there was this nicely informational note from Marc Valdez: "Regarding 'Chorus Line' actors familiar to Sacramento audiences, there was a third that should be mentioned: Mara Davi (Maggie), who comes from Folsom, has appeared in numerous local high school and community theater productions, and who has a sizable contingent of Sacramento-area fans following her Broadway career (as well as that of her equally talented and younger sister, Melody) with considerable interest."

Wow. Cool, I thought. Thanks, Marc. I wish I had known before the show. I would have loved to do a story about Davi, or at least mention the fact that she's a local in the review. Well, I'll put something in my blog, I thought.

Then, Trina Lee sent a classy, informative note with some of Davi's background, and added: "I imagine you'll hear from many of us about Mara today. We are all thrilled about her much-deserved success! She is not only lovely and talented, but a truly delightful person."

And, the always-charming Mikey Coleman wrote proudly: "I directed her in her first and last Sacramento shows!"

But then, the tone of the missives started taking a turn.

Andrea St. Clair told me local community theater is suffering because it doesn't get enough attention from The Bee, and local performers get the short end of the stick from the Music Circus when it comes to casting, no matter how talented they are. "It is a blatant oversight to include (I think she meant 'exclude') someone that actually learned their craft here in Sacramento ...." St. Clair opined.

Like I said, if I had known...but Davi declined to mention her Folsom roots in her short bio, giving titles of regional shows though no specific theaters or locations. And while I'm quite sure she's proud of where she comes from, Davi only gives a shout out to Psalm 150.

Ray Fisher rightly pointed out that I "missed an opportunity to share a source of area pride," adding that community theaters "are constantly struggling with higher performance- and- rehearsal-space rent, skyrocketing energy prices, and diminishing audiences because we have less money to spend on advertising."

Finally this, from Laura Daniells: "I am writing to inform you that I am in the process of canceling my subscription to the Sacramento Bee."

She wasn't only upset that I hadn't written about Mara Davi, but also because I had declined to review a production by her son's new theater group, Artistic Differences Theatre Company (www.ArtisticDifferences.Net).

In any case, I hope it's not too late to say to Folsom's Mara Davi: Congratulations and break a leg on Broadway in September.

The art and craft of the repertory actor has long been seen at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. There, the excellent actors may have a leading role one night and a one-scene walk-on at the next day’s matinee. In either case, they are on top of their game.

There’s a similar strength at this year’s Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, where the level of performance continues to grow and one sees it in especially strong supporting work.

Two of the actors making outstanding character contributions are Carolyn Howarth, pictured above, and Barzin Akhavan, pictured at right, below. Both play supporting roles in the two shows playing in rep, “Othello” and “Twelth Night,” but the roles are vital.

Howarth has been a stalwart artist with the Foothill Theatre Company for 12 years and her versatility comes as no surprise. In “Othello,” she plays the essential role of Desdemona’s lady-in-waiting, Emilia, who also happens to be Iago’s wife. Then in “Twelfth Night,” she plays Maria, Olivia’s gentlewoman and the ... ehh ... romantic interest of Sir Toby Belch. In each play, Howarth’s character is integral to the plot and her supple characterizations elevates the production.

Similarly Akhavan, a Seattle-based actor making his third appearance at the LTSF, is entirely invested in both his weak-willed Roderigo in “Othello” and his more-vigorous Antonio in “Twelfth Night.” Akhavan gives the productions more overall depth as well - another plus.

Read my review of the show.

To see more images, check out The Bee's photo gallery.

Music Circus audiences have had a rare privilege. In the orchestra pit for the extended run of “Fiddler on the Roof” (read the review) has been accordionist Elaine Lord, who recently did same for the Broadway revival starring Alfred Molina.

Few scores call for the accordion these days and, when it is needed, what you mostly hear is a synthesized keyboard simulating the sound.

Lord - who grew up in Sacramento and went to Sacramento High - has been playing accordion since she was a young child; she remembers taking lessons at the legendary Fran and Delores Studio in Carmichael.

At Sac High, classmate Lee Lunetta introduced her to his father, master percussionist Stan, who eventually gave Lord percussion lessons. Stan Lunetta is, of course, the percussionist for the Music Circus.

Lord says her journey to becoming a musician was fueled by an overwhelming love of music. "It was never a question in my mind," she says. "I wanted to continue it at a professional level and earn a living.”

Her jobs have included national tours of “Singing In the Rain,” “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” summer stock, and even performances at the Kennedy Center.

“Broadway was really the only venue I hadn’t conquered,” she says, laughing. But then, she heard about the revival of “Fiddler On the Roof."

“The magnitude of the accordian part in the ‘Fiddler” score is incomparable," she says. "It’s very challenging and very, very fulfilling to play.”

Lord says playing in a Broadway orchestra was an unbelievable experience made even more sweet with the attendance of her mother, Dani Lord, on opening night.

“It was just a dream come true to get to Broadway playing the accordion.”

-- Marcus Crowder

While the Tony Awards take place in New York and celebrate Broadway theater, there is more than a modicum (apparently significantly more) amount of interest in them here in Sacramento.

We at The Bee recently received a letter complaining of our lack of Tony coverage before and after the June 11 airing of the telecast. The letter writer, David Czarnecki, general manager of Garbeau’s Dinner Theatre, wondered what Tommy Tune must have thought when he opened the arts section and there was no story. For the record, Tommy Tune was performing in Grand Rapids, Mich., that day and I suspect what he mostly wondered was, “What am I doing in Grand Rapids?”

But Czarnecki may have a point, considering Sacramento television ratings for the Tony Awards broadcast on CBS affiliate Channel 13: The Sacramento-Stockon area was the eighth-highest viewing market in the nation for the program - significant considering we’re the 19th-ranked market in overall size. We had ratings of 7.8 and a 13 share. Our ratings were higher than Los Angeles (second-largest market), which had 6.1, and San Francisco (sixth-largest), which had 5.7. Both had shares of 10.

(As my television savvy colleague here at The Bee, Sam McManis, succinctly explains it: “Ratings chart the percentage of all homes with TVs; shares measure the number of TV sets turned on at a particular time.”)

I don’t completely understand it, either, but I think it means The Bee needs to send yours truly out to New York to cover theater a little more often.

-- Marcus Crowder

“Some things do manage to penetrate all the false heroics, all the flimsy ideology. We’re suddenly stung by our duty to a higher purpose. Our natural loyalties fall in line and we’re amazed how simple it is to honor our true heritage.”

So says Welch, the uber-American operative in Sam Shepard’s play “The God of Hell.” The speech comes near the end, when Welch has ostensibly taken control of a modest Wisconsin dairy farm and begun molding it to his own super-patriotic devices. Shepard’s play is a surreal political satire suggesting the current political administration has forced a kind of fascism on the populace.

The play is currently running at the B Street Theatre until July 16. (Read the review).

There appear to be some in our community who are less than tolerant of Mr. Shepard’s message and the B Street production, alhough it's also possible they're just not happy with the play's title and what they think it references.

Twice in the last two weeks, in the early morning hours, windows have been smashed in the front lobby of the theater where “The God of Hell” poster hangs.
“We’re debating whether the vandalism is in response to the show. But twice since the show opened...does raise questions,” says Buck Busfield, B Street's artistic director.

Busfield says this particular show has generated the most audience response in the form of letters and messages of any show he’s produced in over a decade of producing over a hundred shows. With letters, the communication is fairly straightforward. “We don’t like this play” or “We’re glad you’re doing this kind of work.”

But what does a brick through the window mean besides steady work for the glass repair man? Don’t do plays criticizing the government?

To use the character Welch's verbage - does brick/rock throwing fall under false heroics or natural heritage?

I’m not a political scientist, but it seems to me that one of the points of our country’s origin was to have a system that is open to question and criticism.
Art and artists, whether we agree or disagree with them, are necessary elements of that process.

The most intersting reponse to me is the patron who wrote Busfield saying he didn't want to see the play but included a check with his letter because he wants the theater to keep doing what it does.

-- Marcus Crowder

Billy Preston’s passing on June 6 and his funeral on Monday reminds me of a concert of his at Memorial Auditorium in the mid-70s. Preston and his band were headlining a show that included Tower of Power; the Buddy Miles Express opened.

Preston was riding the crest of his radio hits “Outa-Space” and the not-so-complex pop ditty “Will It Go Round in Circles.” His band included the teenage guitar/bass tandem of George and Louis Johnson (later known as the Brothers Johnson). What I remember most was the exuberance Preston and his fellow keyboardist (whose name I don’t recall) showed as they crossed the stage between the acoustic piano on one side and the Hammond B-3 on the other, always slapping hands as they passed each other.

I saw numerous shows at the Memorial Auditorium during the early '70s - pretty much anything that came there - because I had figured a way to sneak in. The method wasn’t particularly complicated - just wait around near the backstage door on I Street. At some point, when bands or entourages were coming or going, or both, one could simply blend into the scenery and scoot inside. From there, it was just about 10 feet or three long strides to another door, which leads out to the main floor. I worked it for more shows than I can remember and became so accomplished I even brought a couple of friends.

On this night, there hadn’t been any openings, and all the musicians for all the bands had arrived. All except one: The lead singer for Tower of Power, the ill-fated Rick Stevens. Their manager occasionally came out, casting frantic looks up and down the block. TOP was working their first national hit, “You’re Still a Young Man,” from their “Bump City” album, and Stevens’ vocal on that tune remains memorable.

The street was now deserted because the Buddy Miles band (still playing “Them Changes”) was already on. Suddenly, an old sedan came careening down the street and skidded to a stop in front of me.

"Is this Memorial Auditorium?” the driver asked, and I nodded. Stevens, in a tank top and creased straw hat, popped out with a couple of friends and they rushed up the steps and knocked on the door.

I naturally followed and we were all hustled inside, and I made my accustomed dash for the next door - melting into to the crowd to watch Mr. Preston do his thing.

-- Marcus Crowder

There's nothing quite as dramatic as a real surprise. Theater people know that better than most so it's probably not a shock that two local actors pulled off some real live drama.

Friends and family of Katherine Pappa and Matt Miller knew the two planned to be married in Jamaica. They had planned a pre-wedding send-off party in the lobby of the Sacramento Theatre Company. The giddy fun of the Polynesian- themed party spun into a whole other level, however, when the two casually dressed hosts briefly disappeared.

Suddenly a rumor rippled throughout the room that Katherine and Matt would be getting married then and there. People quickly arranged themselves to watch the spectacle, all asking, "Is it really happening?"

There was now a feeling of emotional electricity in the room and when they re-appeared, dressed for the occasion (their wedding, that is), the reactions ranged from laughter to tears to applause.

Kim McCann officiated, Michael Stevenson and Cheantell Munn read sonnets, and the bride and groom both said "I do" to whoops and hollers. It was dramatic. It was real. It was a wonderful surprise.

-- Marcus Crowder