This is for the Ken Roht show I am currently assistant directing on. Three nites only! Hope you can make it:

This summer, Orphean Circus has been asked to host a beautiful, ornate Spiegeltent, as part of Bard Music Festival, in New York! I directed an Offenbach operetta project for these great people last year and they've asked me back to be the Ringleader, they call him Spiegel Maestro!, for the alternative performance space. Incredible New York choreographer Susan Marshall, London's performance/fine artist Martin Creed, Czech avante-garde violinist/singer Iva Bittova, Bindlestiff Family Circus and the Wau Wau Sisters (among many others) will be performing. I wanted to bring some of my crew with me to join the party and help me host. And I thought, well... while we're at it, let's be one of the acts that we're hosting.

So, I modified a big 99¢ show from two years ago and made it a raucous-randy-romp for 6 people. The same INCREDIBLE design team is in place. John Ballinger and I have come up with some new tunes for the now-pseudo-dinner theater show, including the lovable hit "Eat My Buns". Yeee-ha! Ann Closs Farley is designing our fashion, David Kelting is going to out-do himself with video design and this year Jason Adams is creating circus-like sculptures for us to play with. The whole affair shows three times at Bootleg Theater L.A., and then ships off to NY.

This is a very exciting move for Orphean Circus. Please come out to support the launch of our touring show, and buy one of our CD's of ORANGE STAR DINNER SHOW!!

See you there!
Ken

There came over the transom the other day a notice from esteemed publicist Lucy Pollack about a one-time-only reading of Orson Welles' Moby Dick Rehearsed at the Bootleg Theatre (formerly the still-lamented Evidence Room). The unknown script, the cast rife with favorites, and the presence of one of the friendliest lobby bars in town commanded attendance. It was free and open to all, not that this stopped me from calling Lucy and seeing if there was a list my co-worker and I could be put on because, well, our lives are small and showing up on lists makes us feel special. I missed the part about the 9 p.m. curtain on a school night but being on the cultural edge makes its demands. I'm not here to talk about the show because director Rob Adler just wanted to get it up on its feet and take a look at it. (And it looked like it's on its way to being quite something, though you didn't hear that from me.)

Wenzel Jones posted on BLOG Stage

                           Bootleg and Mr. & Mrs. Kickass

                                           present

                                       Week 17 of

                                 365 Days/365 Plays

                                 by Suzan-Lori Parks

                                        Showtimes:

                                 March 9 @ 10:30pm

                                March 10 @ 10:30pm

                                             FREE!!!

Location:

Bootleg
2220 Beverly Blvd. 90057
(213) 389-3856
Ample Street Parking

Directors: Anthony Byrnes, Michael Dunn, Jessica Hanna, Jennifer Li, Robert Prior, Kirk Wilson
Lighting Design: John Eckert
Sound Design: Adam Phalen

Players: Rob Adler, Don Allen, Joshua Allen, Ashley Blumstein, Sissy Boyd, Joshua Wolf Coleman, Patty Cornell, Liz Davies, Jenn DeMartino, Michael Dunn, Elizabeth Guilliams, Jessica Hanna, Danielle Holland, Marc Jackson, Daniele Watts, Jon Morris, Patrick Mapel, Robert Navarret, Tim Ottman,  Avo Soltes, Andrea Tvetkov, Sarah Utterback, Kirk Wilson and Jabez Zuniga

Producers: Michael Dunn, Jessica Hanna and Kirk Wilson

The Weekly review will be coming out this week, but
it's already online - we're a GO in the listings:

http://www.laweekly.com/stage/theater/theater-reviews/15222/

PAGEANT OF THE FOUR SEASONS, A 99¢ ONLY MODERN
SOME-THING!

Ken Roht's annual 99¢ Only shows suggest a
demented blend of low-budget Ziegfeld Follies, an
earth-bound Cirque du Soleil and the kind of
performance neighborhood kids put on in somebody's
garage. Ann Closs-Farley's grand and kitschy costumes
and Karen Steward's sets are made mostly of items from
the 99¢ Only stores. Christmas-tree ornaments, tissue
paper, plastic wastebaskets, garbage bags, shopping
bags and coffee filters are conjured into wildly
inventive attire that suggests all the world's
cultures, combined and scrambled into an homage to the
four seasons. Summer features Mother Nature, fish and
other pastoral creatures. Fall follows, with
evocations of falling leaves. Winter suggests falling
raindrops and light reflected off ice and snow, with
trancelike music. And spring is an exuberant outburst,
featuring giant flowers, insects and a song that
proclaims "Hi-Ho, I'm Alive!" Roht provides the
direction, script and choreography, with music by Marc
Jackson, Curtis Heard, Roht and O-Lan Jones. The music
is so densely layered that lyrics aren't always
comprehensible, but that hardly matters in a show so
filled with spectacle and eye candy.

An Orphean Circus
Production at BOOTLEG THEATER, 2220 Beverly Blvd.,
L.A.; Thurs.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 7 & 9 p.m.; Sun., 5 &
7 p.m.; thru Dec. 17 (then Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun.,
7 p.m.; Jan. 4-28). (213) 389-3856. (Neal Weaver)