Event
Starbright & Vine
Opening on February 6 at the PAC at 7 pm, the Partners for the PAC present a 4-person comedy/drama in readers' format called Starbright & Vine, written by Richard J. Allen, a New Yorker who currently lives and works in Fort Worth, Texas.
Allen has quite the bio. He is a two-time Emmy-Award winning writer who serves as Professor of Film, Television and Digital Media (FTDM) at Texas Christian University (TCU) in Fort Worth. He won his Emmy Awards in 2001 and 2002 as a writer for CBS's daytime drama, As the World Turns. Formerly Head Writer at NBC's Days of Our Lives, he has also written for ABC's General Hospital, One Life to Live and NBC's Another World. In addition, Allen received an Emmy nomination in 1987 for Days of Our Lives.
A staged reading of his play Professor Allen Writes a Book about Popular Culture was presented at Fort Worth's Sanders Theatre in December 2010 in conjunction with Amphibian Stage Productions. Previously, his play The Man Who Killed Rock Monnenoff was produced by Atlanta's Theatre-in-the-Square in 1989. His comedy Seducing Sally was produced at Fort Worth Theatre in 1999. In addition, his collection of 54 short plays, Parashah Plays, was published in 2000 by ARE Publishing.
Allen has also written the book and lyrics for several original musicals, including Mildred!, based on the film Mildred Pierce. Funded in part by a grant from TCU, Mildred! was presented in Fort Worth in 2002. In 2003, he produced a workshop production of his original one-act musical, Audition. His original full-length musical Return to Planet Zoloft was produced in 2007 at both the Scott Theatre in Fort Worth and at the Fort Worth Country Day School.
Allen has also written a teleplay which was broadcast in 1997. Big Shots starred Ed Asner, Bonnie Franklin, Steve Landesberg, Lawrence Pressman and Jonathan Prince, and was broadcast on PBS in South Florida as well as on JTN in Southern California. His screenplay, The O'Hare Affair, was a semi-finalist for the Nicholls Award in 1994.
Starbright & Vine, Allen's most recent play, produced previously by Fort Worth's Stage West Theatre as part of their 2013-2014 season, is a comic look at a once famous, now fading comedian who gets another chance at glory. While he can't pinpoint exactly where and when inspiration struck, Allen thinks it might have been great-uncle Irving who started it all.
"My grandfather's brother Irving, born about 1910 and growing up in Brooklyn, wanted to be in vaudeville," Allen told the TheaterJones North Texas performing arts website in an interview earlier this year.
"The story is that he auditioned for Eddie Cantor himself, and did get into the company but his mom, my great-grandmother, hid the letter of acceptance. She didn't want him to do that. So Uncle Irving was definitely a missed comedian, and he was a very funny man. I have some old footage my father sent me of Irving horsing around a pool in Miami with Sid Caesar."
Uncle Irving, who changed the family name from Itzkowitz to Allen when he auditioned for Cantor, never gave up his love of comedy, and passed it along to his great-nephew Richard, who lived "on Long Island near JFK airport the movie Goodfellas takes place where I grew up." He remembers Uncle Irving playing him comedy albums at family gatherings, especially one "called When You're In Love The Whole World is Jewish, with Lou Jacobi and lots of other actors doing Jewish humor. My dad loved theater and shows, too and I really fell in love with musical theater."
Having caught the theater bug early, Allen says "I always thought I'd be performing somewhere, someday. Seriously, the fact that I'm not going to be hosting The Tonight Show, or that the phone doesn't ring asking me to host the Oscars, that's stillaargh!" But his early acting forays brought mixed notices "they let me play Bottom in Midsummer and all the other actors said I wasn't acting!" and Allen found that "as things turned out, I loved teaching more than anything."
But he also loved to write, and one early theater memory is telling: "I saw Fiddler on the Roof in New York when I was eight years old, and I remember thinking while everyone was applauding wildly for the actors, 'Well, the actors didn't make that up. Why are they clapping for them?'" At 13, he attended the theater camp "that became Stage Door Manorthe one the movie Camp is about."
Starbright & Vine is the story of Marty Vine, a comedian who had a hit variety show in the '50s, and a sitcom in the '60s that ran for years. Vine, Allen says, is partly based on once-rising comedian Jackie Kahane Allen's agent in L.A. for a few years who was the opening act for Elvis Presley's later concert tours and gave the eulogy at The King's funeral. The fictional Vine is both a great comedy talent and a very difficult man; his illegitimate son is "the only one of his kids who still speaks to him." Out of the blue, the son tells Vine he's being offered the Best TV Comedian spot for a PBS "Best of the 20th Century" retrospective to be filmed at the Kennedy Center.
"Why me?" ask Vine. Turns out, he's the "best not so dead comedian"; the show's producers need someone who's still alive, can perform in the show and they want new material.
Vine, who knows his mind and memory are more than a little shaky, wants to turn them down. But when his son pairs him with a former child star turned comedy writer, he's forced to give it a try. They're both antisocial but Vine still has all the charm that made him a star, and "he's revisiting all of it via this younger woman." Says Allen: "It's a little bit of Sunshine Boys getting the act together again with a bit of sexual tension thrown in."
"I feel it's the best thing I've written and I think at age 54 I'm allowed to say that!" says Allen.
Given his resume, that's saying something.
For the Partners' production of Starbright & Vine (S&V), Marty Vine will be played by Tom Berdine, a veteran of theater at the PAC in the 80s and 90s, when theater thrived at Clatsop Community College's performing arts program and center. Some of his favorite shows from that era include Arsenic & Old Lace, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo & Juliet, Man of La Mancha and The Lion in Winter. Berdine was very impressed with Allen's script, and thought it would make a great screenplay. (Allen told me he's heard that before, but that for now, he's still working on getting the staged version down.)
The other title character, Jacqueline (Jackie) Cole, who was the extremely popular character Mandy Starbright in a series of science fiction detective movies before becoming a ghost writer, will be played by Julie House, veteran of Astor Street Opry Company (ASOC) plays, and former roller derby queen. House is also the recent new co-owner of Coldwater Surf and Skate, in its new location at 354 Ninth Street in Astoria. The fiercely private, independent, and smart Jackie is a "scary close picture of me," according to House. "Life imitating art," she added.
Marty's "bastard" son Blake, who doesn't use his father's last name (for good reason), is a relatively straight-laced tax accountant who hires Jackie to help his father who he thinks is faking dementia write the jackpot script. Clatsop Community College and ENCORE philosophy teacher and Philosofarian Seth Tichenor will play Blake. This will be Tichenor's first play, but he's no stranger to performance, as a teacher and speaker with a 20-year career in philosophy.
Donna is the latest in a long line of live-in girlfriends for Marty, and someone who Marty can't do without. She starts out the play as Marty's stage partner in the comedy act, and proves to be much more than just a pretty face (and body). Played by Stacey Brown, executive director of United Way of Clatsop County, and another veteran of ASOC, Donna rounds out the S&V cast.
As we get to know more about the title characters, Allen uses classic New York Jewish comedy schtick, as well as old words (valise), big words (eponymous) and lots of bad words (!@#$%*), English and Yiddish. No less than four of George Carlin's seven dirty words are used in S&V, and sexual innuendo is liberally spiced throughout the play, so you may want to keep the little ones away. For anyone with a friend or relative who has or had dementia (that's a lot of us!), this play will resonate. And it's hilariously funny, especially if you are tuned to East Coast humor.
Costumes, props and a set will be used in this hybrid readers' version of S&V, so audiences will get a fuller experience of Allen's work.
Playwright Allen will be in Astoria to catch the evening performances of S&V, and will stick around afterwards to answer questions from the audience. Allen told me, "I am excited to get more audience feedback, and this is a good way to get in the thick of a play that's still ultimately in development. I am willing to talk about anything from my soap opera days to being Jewish at Texas Christian University."
Starbright & Vine by Richard J. Allen, produced by Partners for the PAC
Clatsop Community College Performing Arts Center
16th & Franklin, Astoria
February 6 & 7, 7 pm, with playwright Q&A afterwards
February 8, 14 & 15, 2 pm
Tickets $15
Rated R strong language and sexual innuendo
|
|
 |
LocationClatsop Community College Performing Arts Center (View)
588 16th Street
Astoria, OR 97103
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
|
Contact
|
