Put a Little Drama in your Life
Published in Pasadena Magazine May 2001 The world's gone mad for Plaid. Forever Plaid creator/director Stuart Ross can't even remember how many productions he's directed ("52 or 54," he thinks), or how many have been mounted in which foreign countries ("Japan, England, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Czech Republic and sort of Australia"). "I just kept doing it because it was so much fun. Read More →
Published in Pasadena Magazine November 2000 He's the Energizer bunny of the theater world. In his 61 years, Alan Ayckbourn has penned 56 plays -- and maintaining the rabbit metaphor, there's always another one on the way. But surprisingly, he hasn't devoted his life exclusively to playwriting. He's also served as actor, stage manager, sound technician, scene painter, lighting technician, propmaker and director. Read More →
Published in Pasadena Magazine October 1999 Mavis and Mona; Pump Boys and Dinettes. Jim Wann has created them all. Born in the small-town South, in the town of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee (looking out for nearby Chattanooga), Wann's heart remains below the Mason-Dixon Line, even though he lives in upstate New York. His musical compositions and theatrical creations are Read More →
Published in Pasadena Magazine January 1999 Late 1800s. Down on the cotton plantation. After Miss Leah’s first son was sold into slavery, her next five were claimed by illness and she soon buried their father beside them. Then she just started walking West. “If I had wings,” she said, “I’d a set out flyin’ west.” Pearl Cleage’s Read More →
Published in Pasadena Magazine May 1998 The legend took shape in 1924. Noel Coward, sleek, young 23 year-old writer/ star of that influential, youth-oriented, strike-the-pose play, “The Vortex,” had himself photographed in his elaborate, scarlet bedroom, languidly smoking a cigarette, wearing a Chinese dressing gown and an imperious look. The caption read, ‘Noel the Fortunate.’ That picture of decadence, glamour and insouciance became Read More →