Orson Bean News

The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle named the multi-nominated Hit the Wall and Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles as 2015's Outstanding Productions at the organization's 47th annual awards event, held on Monday evening, March 14 at the Moss Theatre of New Roads School in Santa Monica.

The answer to last year's question of whether the digital arts venture STAGE RAW could bring back its awards ceremony celebrating the best of LA's up-to-99-seat theaters, the answer is YES. STAGE RAW is pleased to announce the SECOND ANNUAL STAGE RAW LOS ANGELES THEATER AWARDS, championing the best work of 2015 in L.A.'s still-embattled theaters of up to 99-seats.

High finance, family dysfunction, death -- and laughs. The world premiere of DINNER AT HOME BETWEEN DEATHS, a pitch-black comedy by Andrea Lepcio (Looking for the Pony), directed by Stuart Ross (Forever Plaid) and presented by Indie Chi Productions, opens as a guest production at the Odyssey Theatre on April 2.

To those of us called Baby Boomers, we grew up being entertained by television shows everyone in the family could enjoy together. There was the Ed Sullivan Show, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and many others too numerous to name. I remember watching To Tell the Truth and attempting to guess along with the panelists, one of whom was Orson Bean, who added his own humorous stamp to the show for eight years. So when I heard that his one-man show "Safe at Home, An Evening with Orson Bean" was being presented at Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice (where he has been a long-time member), I knew the stories he was going to share would be extremely humorous. And, as it turns out, deeply insightful into how he survived and thrived in the entertainment industry for so many years.

The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle (LADCC) has announced its nominations and special awards for excellence in Los Angeles and Orange County theatre for the year 2015 (Dec. 1, 2014 - Nov. 30, 2015).

Pacific Resident Theatre (Marilyn Fox, Artistic Director) announces the extension of SAFE AT HOME: An Evening with Orson Bean (SAGE Award/ArtsInLA; Best Solo Performance, 'Top Ten' - Stage Raw 'Recommended'). Directed by PRT's Guillermo Cienfuegos (The Homecoming and Henry V - CRITIC'S CHOICE - LA Times; Ovation Award, and Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Award for Best Director), performances will continue tonight, January 22nd, through March 13, 2016.

Pacific Resident Theatre (Marilyn Fox, Artistic Director) announces the extension of SAFE AT HOME: An Evening with Orson Bean (SAGE Award/ArtsInLA; Best Solo Performance, "Top Ten" - Stage Raw 'Recommended'). Directed by PRT's Guillermo Cienfuegos (The Homecoming and Henry V - CRITIC'S CHOICE - LA Times; Ovation Award, and Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Award for Best Director), performances will continue on January 22nd through March 13, 2016.

Orson Bean, star of stage and screen, performs a very personal evening of life moments and memories, along with the occasional joke or magic trick, entitled SAFE AT HOME: An Evening with Orson Bean, where fans of the timeless raconteur and well-known actor can experience up close what has made him such a funny and talented mainstay of television, films and stage productions over the years.

Orson Bean, star of stage and screen, performs a very personal evening of life moments and memories, along with the occasional joke or magic trick, entitled SAFE AT HOME: An Evening with Orson Bean, where fans of the timeless raconteur and well-known actor can experience up close what has made him such a funny and talented mainstay of television, films and stage productions over the years.

An old love can be an irresistible force, especially for people in their autumn years. Is marriage an immoveable object? 'Old Flame,' a new play by Richard Ploetz, weighs the force of an old romance against the strength of a 50-year marriage, examining our vulnerability to rediscovered passion, no matter what our age. Theater for the New City will present the piece April 24 to May 17, directed by James Glossman.

Impassioned members of Actors' Equity Association in Los Angeles have raised funds from within their own ranks to follow up yesterday's North Hollywood rally with a full-page ad in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times to urge a 'No' vote on the upcoming AEA advisory referendum to eliminate L.A.'s 99-Seat Theater Plan. Scroll down for photos from the Pro-99 Rally, held yesterday, March 23!

An old love can be an irresistible force, especially for people in their autumn years. Is marriage an immoveable object? 'Old Flame,' a new play by Richard Ploetz, weighs the force of an old romance against the strength of a 50-year marriage, examining our vulnerability to rediscovered passion, no matter what our age. Theater for the New City will present the piece April 24 to May 17, directed by James Glossman.

Frances Fisher, French Stewart and Kirsten Vangsness will join a protest march by members of Actors' Equity Association against a proposal recently announced by their union to end the 99-Seat Theater Plan in Los Angeles on Monday, March 23.

Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts ("The Wallis") presents Enter Laughing - The Musical, featuring a book by Joseph Stein (Fiddler on the Roof), music and lyrics by Stan Daniels ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show"), and directed by Stuart Ross (Forever Plaid). Musical Direction is by Gerald Sternbach. The show will run for 23 performances only, February 8 - March 1, 2015, in the Lovelace Studio Theater

The 2014 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) presents Propaganda! The Musical a world premiere musical Book, Music, and Lyrics by Taylor Ferrera & Matt Webster. Nathan Brewer directs a cast of 10, including MaryJoanna Grisso (Nat. Tour: West Side Story), Nick Mason, Kenita Miller* (Bway: Xanadu, The Color Purple), Kenny Morris* (Bway: Hairspray, Les Miserables), Benjiman Dallas Redding (Nat. Tour: West Side Story), Shaun Repito (Nat. Tour: West Side Story), Dale Sampson*, Beth Cheryl Tarnow*, and Jillian Wallach (Nat. Tour: Legally Blonde). Propaganda! The Musical is being staged at PTC Performance Space, 555 West 42nd Street (bet. 9th & 10th Avenues) in NYC for five performances from Today, July 23 through Sunday, July 27, 2014.

The 2014 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) presents Propaganda! The Musical a world premiere musical Book, Music, and Lyrics by Taylor Ferrera & Matt Webster. Nathan Brewer directs a cast of 10, including MaryJoanna Grisso (Nat. Tour: West Side Story), Nick Mason, Kenita Miller* (Bway: Xanadu, The Color Purple), Kenny Morris* (Bway: Hairspray, Les Miserables), Benjiman Dallas Redding (Nat. Tour: West Side Story), Shaun Repito (Nat. Tour: West Side Story), Dale Sampson*, Beth Cheryl Tarnow*, and Jillian Wallach (Nat. Tour: Legally Blonde). Propaganda! The Musical is being staged at PTC Performance Space, 555 West 42nd Street (bet. 9th & 10th Avenues) in NYC for five performances from Wednesday, July 23 through Sunday, July 27, 2014.

Relatively obscure Broadway musical SUBWAYS ARE FOR SLEEPING by Golden Age team of Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green was recently performed in its UK premiere this month thanks to a particularly dedicated patron of the piece.

Orson Bean (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Being John Malkovich, Desperate Housewives), Austin Butler (The Carrie Diaries, Aliens in the Attic, Ruby and the Rockits), David Clayton Rogers (Nashville, Mixology, Jane by Design), and Lyndon Smith (Parenthood upcoming The Forger with John Travolta) have been announced as the cast of Death of the Author, a world premiere by Pulitzer Prize nominated playwright, Steven Drukman, directed by Bart DeLorenzo, to be performed at the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at the Geffen Playhouse beginning May 28. DeLorenzo returns to the Geffen Playhouse after directing Coney Island Christmas, by Donald Margulies, in 2012. Previews begin May 20; opening night is May 28.

National Geographic Channel (@NatGeoChannel) today announced that up-and-coming actor Will Rothhaar (@Poetiqrothhaar) has been cast as the volatile former Marine and assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in the upcoming two-hour original factual drama Killing Kennedy by Scott Free Productions. Rothhaar is the final of the four major players in the film to be announced, joining Rob Lowe (John F. Kennedy), Ginnifer Goodwin (Jacqueline Kennedy) and Michelle Trachtenberg (Marina Oswald).

This year's main-stage attraction of SCR's annual Pacific Playwrights Festival, SMOKEFALL---a co-production with Chicago's Goodman Theatre directed by Anne Kauffman---starts off initially intriguing, as if first unveiling itself as a dark dramedy that follows three generations of an eccentric family living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the tolls that the passage of time imposes on their lives. But instead, what actually transpires through the course of its three acts is an uneven play that ultimately gets too bogged down in its own randomly structured quirkiness.