Moonlight plans summer of classics
By: PAM KRAGEN - Staff Writer | ∞
Four classic musicals make up Moonlight Stage Productions' 2007 summer season, the company announced last week.
A revival version of "Annie Get Your Gun" opens the season June 27 and runs through July 8; "Me and My Girl" follows, running July 18 to 29; "West Side Story" fills the season's third slot, running Aug. 15 to 26; and "Little Shop of Horrors" closes the summer season, Sept. 5 through 16.
Kathy Brombacher, artistic director for Moonlight, said that while she's happy with the summer schedule, these four musicals were not the four she originally chose for the schedule. First on her list were the four musicals "Hairspray," "Cats," "A Chorus Line" and "Fiddler on the Roof," but none of them was available for rental.
The season's centerpiece production will be Rodgers and Hammerstein's "West Side Story," which the company has produced twice before, "but its message is timely and as up to date as yesterday's news, it seems, and the musical score is transcendently beautiful," Brombacher said.
"Annie Get Your Gun," Irving Berlin's musical about Annie Oakley, is now available with a Broadway revival score and book that Brombacher said makes the decades-old musical "sparkle in a new way."
"Me and My Girl," last produced by Moonlight in the early 1990s, is a "hilarious comedy with great roles for everyone in the cast and a favorite with audiences."
The season's closer is a first for Moonlight.
"I've always wanted to produce 'Little Shop of Horrors' but first thought of it as best suited to the Avo Playhouse," Brombacher said. "Now it seems the perfect quirky little pop-rock show to close our season, especially since it was revived recently on Broadway, and so we're finally bring it to our large amphitheater space."
Season tickets are now on sale; call VisTix at (760) 724-2110.
Speaking of Kathy Brombacher, the Moonlight chief usually works behind the scenes, but on Feb. 12 she'll mark her first return to the stage in seven years at a free reading of the comedy "Lettice and Lovage" at the Avo Playhouse in Vista.
Peter Shaffer's comedy is being produced in a staged reading as part of Moonlight's WordsWork play-reading series. The play is a comedy about two British women who refuse to accept the mediocre and who find an unusual way to combat the dreariness of modern life. One is a tour guide at a dreary mansion who likes to fictionalize the manor's history to guests and the other is an uptight administrator with high standards.
The play is directed by Jim Caputo and co-stars Jim Chovick, Melissa Fernandes and Sandra Ellis-Troy.
The reading will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 12 at the Avo, 303 Main St. in Vista. Admission is free.
Next up in the play-reading series is August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," featuring members of San Diego Black Ensemble Theatre. It will be presented March 12.
As an outreach to Latino students and members of the Fallbrook community, Fallbrook High School will present three bilingual short plays in student and public performances on Feb. 9.
"Actos," "La Carpe" and "Los Vendidos," three short plays by Mexican-American playwright Luis Valdez, will be presented by Teatro Mascara Magica, a San Diego-based Latino theater company and directed by William Virchis.
The three plays, presented in a mix of English and Spanish, will be performed three times during the day for Fallbrook High students and then again at 7 p.m. Feb. 9 for the community. All performances are free.
The Latino theater presentation was developed at the suggestion of Fallbrook High drama director Florene Villane last year as a way of reaching out to the town's large Latino population.
The school is at 2400 S. Stage Coach Lane in Fallbrook. For information, call (760) 723-6300.
After the enormous success of her play "The Vagina Monologues" in 1997, Eve Ensler wanted to give back to the community. So the following year, she created "V-Day," a program where groups in cities all over the world could perform her play on or around Valentine's Day without paying any royalties so that all proceeds could benefit women's groups in those communities.
Wickedly funny and surprisingly frank, "The Vagina Monologues" is a 90-minute series of comic and dramatic monologues delivered by actresses seated on stools on a bare stage. Ensler wrote the play in the early 1990s after interviewing more than 200 women, ages 6 to 90, about their vaginas. Their answers were compiled and rewritten in "The Vagina Monologues."
The play deals humorously with feminine issues such as sexual awakening, late-life self-discovery and self-esteem, but it also tackles tough topics such as rape, sexual abuse and female genital mutilation. Ensler's goal for creating V-Day was to raise money to stop violence against women and girls, and to date the program has raised millions of dollars for women's programs.
This weekend, Patio Playhouse in Escondido will celebrate V-Day with a pair of fundraising performances at 7 p.m. Feb. 10 and 2 p.m. Feb. 11. Tickets are $20 and proceeds from ticket sales will benefit local programs for women in crisis. To reserve tickets, call the Patio box office at (760) 746-6669.
Also, Patio Playhouse will present Lunafest, a special screening of short films by, about and for women, at 2 p.m. Feb. 10. Admission is $10. A portion of the proceeds will go to breast cancer research, with the rest going to V-Day.
For information, call Deborah Zimmer at (760) 727-3820 or visit www.vday.org.
Carlsbad-based Invitrogen Corp. has partnered with the San Diego Museum of Man to introduce hands-on science into its Footsteps Through Time evolution exhibit.
Invitrogen, which makes products used in life science and drug research, worked with officials at the museum to select and design new interactive exhibits in the Human Lab area that explain the scientific method, stem cells, mitochondrial DNA and animal cloning. Invitrogen scientists also helped the Balboa Park museum's staff update the exhibit's Time Tunnel, which highlights new technological breakthroughs.
"As a company devoted to improving the human condition, Invitrogen is passionate about corporate citizenship," said Lisa Peterson, Invitrogen community relations manager. "We view the Museum of Man exhibit as an opportunity to make scientific discoveries better known to the public and help inspire young people to pursue an education or career in science."
Paid for by a grant from the National Science Foundation, the 7,000-square-foot Footsteps through Time exhibit is the only comprehensive human evolution exhibit on the West Coast and is a favorite with schoolchildren because of its many touchable fossil casts and stone tools.
Its five interactive galleries feature exhibits on Primates and Hominids; the Time Tunnel, traversing millions of years and chronicling 200 of the most significant human technological breakthroughs; the Human Lab, which looks at the future of human evolution as influenced by scientific revelations such as cloning; and the Dig Site, where visitors can learn proper methods to dig up a prehistoric dire wolf or ancient footprints.
" 'The Footsteps through Time' exhibit was carefully designed to involve guests and help them ponder age old questions about time, genetics and the environment," said Mari Lyn Salvador, the museum's executive director. "Guests are invited to touch nearly all of its contents and to interact with its displays,î she added. ìWe are grateful that Invitrogen has helped us to improve this unique ---- and important ---- exhibit."
Ever sat in a movie theater and thought to yourself: "I could've written a better screenplay than that."
You'll have your chance next month when Escondido's Metropolitan Writing Works kicks off a six-week screenwriting workshop. The program will be taught by local author Garrett Chaffin-Quiray, who also teaches in the radio/television and cinema programs at Palomar College. The classes, which will be held at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, will cover lectures and discussions on writing for the big or small screen as well as analyses of myriad film and television series.
"We'll start with essential ideas about TV and movie development, including a basic vocabulary for talking about these two media, and quickly enter into the craft of screenwriting," Chaffin-Quiray said. "All writers are welcome. Expect to share ideas and thrill to great examples of TV and movie writing, while producing your own work in a friendly setting."
Chaffin-Quiray holds a bachelor's and master's degree from the University of Southern California' School of Cinema-Television, and he was a Graduate Fellow in Cinema Studies at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He has worked in public relations and media promotion in Hollywood.
"Writing for the Screen" begins March 7 and meets from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. for six consecutive Wednesdays at 340 N. Escondido Blvd. The course fee is $185, or $160 for writers who sign up before Feb. 20. For additional information or to register, writers can visit the Metro Writing Web site, www.metrowriting.com, or call (760) 208-1913.
Elton John, Bette Midler, Cher, Billy Joel and Barbra Streisand will be performing together this weekend at the Lyceum Theatre in San Diego. Well, not really, but sort of.
The Edward Twins, siblings who specialize in celebrity impersonations, will bring their act to San Diego's Lyceum for four shows this weekend.
Anthony and Eddie Edwards have been performing their impersonation show for more than 20 years, serving as an opening act for performers such as Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Rod Stewart and U2. They have a regular gig in Las Vegas as well, but they like bringing their act home to San Diego, where their father lives (in Poway) and is a big fan of their act.
The twins show grew out of their childhood fascination with celebrities, said Anthony Edwards, the act's producer and elder brother (by four minutes).
"When we were very young, we would listen to our parents' records and found out very early that we had a tremendous gift for mimicking the superstars, so much that now when we perform, people leave feeling like they were watching the actual stars onstage."
Anthony Edwards' impersonations include Neil Diamond and Elton John, while Eddie Edwards plays all the show's female stars, including Streisand, Cher and Tina Turner.
"Celebrities on Stage" will be presented at 7 p.m. Feb. 7 (a preview performance with low-priced tickets); 8 p.m. Feb. 8 through 10 and at 2 p.m. Feb. 11. The Feb. 8 performance is a fundraiser for Stepping Stone, a nonprofit alcohol and drug recovery agency serving the gay community in San Diego. Tickets to the Feb. 8 benefit performance are $40 to $50. All other performances are $30.
For tickets, call (619) 544-1000.
Pam Kragen is the entertainment editor of the North County Times.
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