Performer reincarnating 32 divas at Onyx Theatre
The news release certainly catches your eye: "What do you do when you're a male musical theater performer with a big belting voice and an affinity for Broadway's greatest leading ladies?" it asks. "If you're resourceful, you create your own one-man 'woman' musical."
That's just what Alan Palmer has done in the off-Broadway imported show "Alan Palmer's Fabulous Divas of Broadway," playing through the weekend at the Onyx Theatre. It's 32 divas, 20 songs, one person, 85 minutes. Palmer will be reincarnating the usual suspects: Ethel, Carol, Liza, Angela, Julie, Judy, Chita, Patti. Curtain's at 8 tonight and Saturday; 5 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $20-$30. Onyx owner Mike Morse continues to try to fill his stage with different shows at different times to make maximum use of his 96-seat theater (more info: Onyxtheatre.com).
Kennedy Center president Michael Kaiser had plenty of interesting stuff to say Saturday at his Smith Center-sponsored talk at the Historic Fifth Street School. But what jumped out at me were his remarks about marketing. He noted that while actors spend a lot of time training, and choreographers keep on top of the world of dance, theater marketers tend to have almost no expertise.
Apparently, it's easier to find creative minds than business ones -- at least in the world of theater. Translation: Everyone wants to do a show, but few have any interest in figuring out how to get people to come and see it.
Kaiser's book, "The Art of the Turnaround," offers a list of do's and don'ts in marketing, based on his lifelong experiences with success and failure.
If you, like many Las Vegans, are a Utah Shakespearean Festival-goer, then a recent news conference held on the Cedar City grounds is likely to be of interest.
Two festival "stars" soon will be attempting a very different kind of role. David Ivers and Brian Vaughn, among the most popular performers to appear at the annual summer and fall event, have been named artistic directors of the Tony Award-winning company.
The pair have long since proven themselves as actors, but it's uncertain what they will bring to the ailing organization as behind-the-scene folks.
The University of Nevada, Las Vegas' theater department just bid farewell to its last graduate playwriting class. The program was begun in 1989 by Jerry Crawford and at one time had two full-time professors catering to the needs of nine students. (Disclosure: I was one of those students. It was academic heaven.) Needless to say, budget cuts and new expensive celebrity faculty members who spend most of the year elsewhere contributed to its demise. There is talk, though, that the film department will be trying to incorporate playwriting into its curriculum. "I am sad to see the old program go," Crawford commented, "as it was the first and most outstanding Master of Fine Arts program we had here for a period of time."
Anthony Del Valle can be reached at DelValle@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas NV 89125.
