 Here's a very nice article by Cat Makino in "The Palm Springs Post" of me teaching at The Actor's Lab! Click on link if you want to read.
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 I made it to the front page, above the fold of "The Desert Sun" and I didn't have to die and there were no handcuffs involved! It's a really terrific article about me being a teacher for the new Palm Springs branch of J.D. Lewis' famed Actor's Lab! If you want to check it out, below is the link to the article!
 So excited to start my first class teaching at the brand new Palm Springs branch of THE ACTOR'S LAB! (P.S.--I have great students!)
 If you notice my last 3 news posts have all been dated August 1st. I was a big day. In addition to my class at the new Palm Springs Acting Lab being on the front page of the Desert Sun newspaper, I was also featured in a story in the Palm Springs Post, I began an exciting job that I can't quite talk about yet, and it was my first day as an instructor with the Acting Lab. So fun--I have a GREAT class.
But ALSO today--the Desert Theatre League announced it's award nominations for the past season. In the professional drama category, my play ELECTRICITY received 6 nominations; Outstanding Drama, Steve Rosenbaum for Outstanding Directing, Mel England and I both are nominated for Lead Actor, I'm nominated for the Bill Groves Award for Outstanding Original Writing and Mariah Pryor is nominated for Outstanding Lighting Design. I couldn't be more proud of my ELECTRICITY family and thankful for Robbie Wayne and Matthew McLean for our run at The Desert Rose. It was a delight. And as we work, work, work to bring the show Off-Broadway, these kinds of things feed our souls. A special thank you to Mel England and Steve Rosenbaum--my brothers in this amazing adventure. But a very very special thank you to the man who believed in the show from the beginning, Michael Darner who we lost in May and miss so much! These nominations are for him. AND because that apparently isn't enough, the other two Plays I did at the Desert Rose were also nominated in the Best Drama Category: THE DRAG and SEX (both written by Mae West) and I was nominated for Best Lead Actor for SEX as well. Grateful! And yes--it was such a good day that I bought a lottery ticket--luck ran out.  My friend Scott Travis asked me to be on his team for the game show AMERICA SAYS. We sucked and didn't win any money, but we had fun. I enjoyed getting to try to make host John Michael Higgins laugh. If you didn't know an answer you're suppose to say anything so that the turn passes to your teammate. Once when I was stuck I said "Channing Tatum!" Folks laughed, but the show execs asked me to record saying the wrong answer "sausage" instead. I said "I will, but just know that when I say "sausage" I'm thinking "Channing Tatum"." Michael liked that.
The Filmmaker's Gallery (Steven Roche & Paul Belsito) hosted a lovely night at Quadz featuring the animated shorts of Lonny Paul (Paul and I are the voices in one of them) as well as other clips from his musical career and the career of the wonderful Jody Hamilton who's famous parents happen to be Joe Hamilton & Carol Burnett. ALSO the fabulous Randy Doney, a dancer from all 11 years of THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW came to support and lucky me got to moderate the Q&A with all of the delightful people above!
 I'm honored to be the new acting coach to open up The Actor's Lab new branch in Palm Springs. It will be exciting to nurture the talented actors here in the Coachella Valley. Class starts August 1st, 2022!
 BWW Review: THE DRAG at Desert Rose Playhouse Mae West Classic Has Legs at 100! Jun. 6, 2022 I've got to admit that I was a bit leery about attending a play that was almost one hundred years old. Maybe that made me even more appreciative of The Drag, the current production at Desert Rose Playhouse. The Desert Rose team has polished this forgotten gem into a bright, enjoyable jewel. When the curtain opens, we see a man and woman in an office, chatting as he works at his desk and the woman shelves books. However, we are watching a black and white movie, or so it seems. The set is painted in shades of gray, the actors wear black and grays, and they sport white makeup and white gloves. The two skilled actors in this scene tear through what is probably several pages of dialog with comfortable skill and ease. My eye kept going back to the tall woman (the man's sister or wife, never quite figured that out), when suddenly it dawned on me. "She" was Terry Ray, the playwright and star of Palm Springs' longest running play, Electricity. The doctor, played by Steve Rosenbaum, was the director of Electricity so I had seen him onstage at the Q & A's which followed the three times I saw the show. Of course they were at ease performing across from each other. Soon a youngish boy (Joseph Portoles) comes in the see the doctor, confessing that he has been roughed up by some men. The doctor's daughter (Jaqueline Lopez) enters and we learn that there may be issues in her marriage to Rolly (Jason Reale). Frank Catale makes an appearance as Rolly's father, and eventually Rolly himself shows up. The whole production is visually a film noir. That style of film started a decade after this play was written, but director Robbie Wayne has mined the style delightfully. The actors play with a stylized intensity, but it never extends to melodrama. I'm a great fan of B&W films and I immediately felt at home with the niche. A highlight was Jason Reale's Rolly. His dark hair is combed back and he sports a pencil-thin moustache, a perfect look for the period. His darting eyes and insecurity would tell the balcony that he has a secret, and we can pretty accurately guess what that secret is. Things get interesting in the second act which is set in Rolly's mansion, a triumph of deco design by Matthew McLean. Rolly's butler (Art Healy) brings in two of Rolly's queenie friends (Terry Ray as a male this time and Johnny Pelto) to meet with Rolly and they enthuse about the upcoming drag ball. Then Rolly's architect friend Grayson (an almost unrecognizable Nick Wass) stops by to show Rolly some plans he has drawn. Rolly expresses his sexual interest in Grayson, but Grayson tells him "Nah, I don't swing that way." Rolly also confesses that he has never slept with his wife so Grayson plans to tackle that role, asking the wife to accompany him to the opera. The butler then appears in a much more festive coat as he arranges the Rolly Mansion for a big party of drag queens. It's all fun - until it isn't. Mae West's script was surprisingly prescient in that many of her themes resonate today, but the ending was seemingly added to placate the censors. Top marks (as always) go to artistic director Robbie Wayne. His vision of the whole story as a black and white film noir was highly effective and brought to life by very lush settings by Matthew McLean and costumes by Bill Kates. The cast was universally strong, with especially high marks being set by Terry Ray and Jason Reale. Alexa Ottoson, Laura Martinez-Urrea, and Kevin O'Shaughnessy rounded out the dramatis personae, and several names overlap the acting and technical pages. The production is described as "A Mae West Double Feature," though the second play, Sex, wasn't performed the first week. Frankly, The Drag runs about an hour and forty-five minutes which is plenty, but the first week audience was invited to return to see Sex the following week (and when's the last time you received an invitation for that?). I plan to see that show, and suspect that one play at a time is plenty for me. My days of double features at the cinema are long gone. The Mae West Double Feature continues through June 10 at Desert Rose Playhouse, 611 S. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs (the former Zelda's Nightclub, close to Revivals). Tickets and further information are available at www.desertroseplayhouse.org  |
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