Free drama of popular protest rocks London stage

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(This story contains graphic language)

By Barbara Lewis

LONDON (Reuters) - The spirit of the Arab Spring has found theatrical expression, with the help of one of Britain's celebrated iconoclasts, at a venue next door to the capital's mayor.

Mark Ravenhill, made famous by his 1990s debut play "Shopping and Fucking," has written a modernized version of German playwright Bertolt Brecht's "The Mother," which examines an early 20th-century protest that has taken on contemporary force.

In keeping with Brecht's popularism, there is no entry charge and by the end of the season on September 4, this fable of uprising against oppressive authority will have been performed to more than a quarter of a million people for free.

"There is renewed interest in what happens when people protest and demonstrate," Ravenhill told Reuters of his decision to revive the play.

Ravenhill's first play Shopping and Fucking stirred controversy because of its sexually violent content, but was hailed for its expose of rampant consumerism and as a prime example of the British "in-yer-face-theater" of the 1990s.

Since then, he has worked on a range of projects, including sell-out performances at this summer's Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland, and he is writing a libretto for an opera to be staged in Oslo.

For Ravenhill, Brecht has particularly wide resonance and could speak to the Middle Eastern and North African countries that have protested against their governments, beginning with uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt at the start of this year.

"Brecht's plays really travel. They have a fable-like quality," said Ravenhill. "You can really imagine an Arab audience understanding The Mother."

In addition to providing the text, Ravenhill will act one of the play's characters for the final performances of the season.

UNCONVENTIONAL CONTEXT

For him, The Scoop open-air theater next to London Mayor Boris Johnson's City Hall headquarters on the south bank of the River Thames was a particularly appropriate venue.

"It was written to be taken outside the conventional context," said Ravenhill of The Mother, in which a mother, initially politically neutral, becomes a forthright champion of the socialist cause.

"The idea it is totally free creates a really special atmosphere. You get a different audience and you get a different attitude."

The London-based Steam Industry Free Theater Limited, producer of the performances, said the audience has included many who have never before been to the theater, which can be a middle-class bastion.

Provided it can continue to drum up funding in a climate of deep cuts, especially to the arts, the Steam Industry will next year celebrate its 10th season of delivering critically acclaimed free theater at The Scoop.

"There's not a penny available yet there's the expectation we will pull something impressive out of the bag," said Phil Willmott, artistic director of the project.

So far, he said pockets of sponsorship and public donations had been enough for the free theater to keep going "by the skin of its teeth."

Next August's plan to stage the "Oresteia" trilogy, written by Aeschylus, to a non-paying audience many of whom will probably know little about classical Greek drama, could be the most ambitious project yet.

It will again be highly topical as it will coincide with London's 2012 hosting of the Olympic Games, another pillar of classical Greek culture.

The trilogy celebrates "the ethos from which the games were born with the epic Greek drama cycle of the people," said Willmott.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

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Carey Mulligan on NY stage in Bergman adaptation

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By David Rooney

Tue Jun 7, 2011 6:42pm EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - With four characters in a single setting and action unfolding over 24 hours, Ingmar Bergman's Oscar-winning 1961 film "Through a Glass Darkly" is a natural fit for stage adaptation, at least physically.

The result -- running through July 3 at the New York Theater Workshop -- is dour and short on insight, but it provides a powerful role for the talented Carey Mulligan to harness her dueling forces of strength and fragility.

Mulligan's last appearance on a New York stage was in the superb 2008 Broadway revival of "The Seagull," opposite Kristin Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard. That was before her breakout performance in "An Education," which has led to steady screen work. It's admirable to see this young actor continuing to test herself, and stepping into Harriet Andersson's shoes as one of Bergman's psychologically anguished heroines certainly qualifies as a challenge.

The material was adapted by Jenny Worton, an artistic associate at London's Almeida Theater, where the play premiered last summer in a different production to mixed critical response.

Director David Leveaux has done a fine job summoning the stark emotional terrain of the film. There's no substituting the atmospheric effect of landscape in the work of Bergman and his cinematographer Sven Nykvist. But set designer Takeshi Kata and lighting chief David Weiner have crafted an austerely beautiful canvas on which to plot the descent into madness of Karin (Mulligan).

While critic Stanley Kauffmann described the film as "a study in varying shades of gray," Kata's bleached-wood set expands that color palette to include murky yellows and washed-out blues. Weiner's lighting is soft and shadowy, acquiring harder edges as the drama darkens.

The setting is a remote Baltic island on which a family has gathered for its annual summer holiday, in the hope of mending frayed bonds. Fresh from a stint in a psych hospital, schizophrenic Karin proclaims it "the most wonderful place on Earth," insisting, "Everything will be perfect this holiday." Yeah, right.

Her widowed father, David (Chris Sarandon), is a successful but second-rate novelist whose convivial demonstrations of warmth can't mask his cold self-involvement. Her sexually confused 16-year-old brother, Max (Ben Rosenfield), grasps for his father's approval by aping the role of tortured artist, writing plays that David criticizes without even reading them. And her loving but ineffectual husband, Martin (Jason Butler Harner), is a doctor who knows his optimism concerning Karin's condition is unfounded.

While Karin strives to be the knot that holds the family together, her unraveling begins when she reads David's diary. His account of her late mother's illness mirrors her own state. Yet David confesses, with shocking candor, that first-hand observation of the spiral of madness might provide the inspirational spark his books are lacking.

At that point, the voices in Karin's head start growing louder, drawing her to a wall in the attic. Behind it she believes is a way station between worlds, where people await God's arrival and look to her to make it happen.

There are four compelling performances here. In the Chekhovian role of the writer incapable of fully experiencing life or feeling real emotion, Sarandon's characterization is a somber study of guilt without shame. Harner's Martin is wrenching in his helplessness, firing up in a terrific scene in which he rips into David and points up parallels in the writer's personal and artistic failings. Newcomer Rosenfield is particularly strong, pummeled internally by the raw confusion of adolescence and the pain of non-communication.

But the play belongs to Mulligan's Karin. Rarely still for long, she goes from bursts of manic activity to violent mood swings to catatonic spells and moments of exalted serenity. The performance is volatile yet restrained, poignantly underscored by a hopeless yearning to recreate the perfect family that exists only in her head. She weighs the damage she is causing to the people who love her against the spiritual release she intuits beyond the attic wall, and when her choice fails her, a crushing look of defeat clouds Mulligan's face.

Worton stumbles in the climactic scene, however. In place of Andersson's shattered account in the film of seeing God as a stony-faced spider, the writer keeps plugging away at familiar dysfunctional-family notes. Bergman's film was part of a trilogy about loss of faith, but in this context, Karin's religious hysteria remains merely a vestige of her madness, stripped of metaphysical meaning. The attempt to explain away her illness as a hereditary condition fed by the family's history of denial and withheld affection seems banal.

If the bleak play is more affecting in individual scenes than as a whole it's no fault of the production. But even when the writing lets her down, Mulligan's haunting performance is riveting.

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By David Rooney

Tue Jun 7, 2011 6:42pm EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - With four characters in a single setting and action unfolding over 24 hours, Ingmar Bergman's Oscar-winning 1961 film "Through a Glass Darkly" is a natural fit for stage adaptation, at least physically.

The result -- running through July 3 at the New York Theater Workshop -- is dour and short on insight, but it provides a powerful role for the talented Carey Mulligan to harness her dueling forces of strength and fragility.

Mulligan's last appearance on a New York stage was in the superb 2008 Broadway revival of "The Seagull," opposite Kristin Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard. That was before her breakout performance in "An Education," which has led to steady screen work. It's admirable to see this young actor continuing to test herself, and stepping into Harriet Andersson's shoes as one of Bergman's psychologically anguished heroines certainly qualifies as a challenge.

The material was adapted by Jenny Worton, an artistic associate at London's Almeida Theater, where the play premiered last summer in a different production to mixed critical response.

Director David Leveaux has done a fine job summoning the stark emotional terrain of the film. There's no substituting the atmospheric effect of landscape in the work of Bergman and his cinematographer Sven Nykvist. But set designer Takeshi Kata and lighting chief David Weiner have crafted an austerely beautiful canvas on which to plot the descent into madness of Karin (Mulligan).

While critic Stanley Kauffmann described the film as "a study in varying shades of gray," Kata's bleached-wood set expands that color palette to include murky yellows and washed-out blues. Weiner's lighting is soft and shadowy, acquiring harder edges as the drama darkens.

The setting is a remote Baltic island on which a family has gathered for its annual summer holiday, in the hope of mending frayed bonds. Fresh from a stint in a psych hospital, schizophrenic Karin proclaims it "the most wonderful place on Earth," insisting, "Everything will be perfect this holiday." Yeah, right.

Her widowed father, David (Chris Sarandon), is a successful but second-rate novelist whose convivial demonstrations of warmth can't mask his cold self-involvement. Her sexually confused 16-year-old brother, Max (Ben Rosenfield), grasps for his father's approval by aping the role of tortured artist, writing plays that David criticizes without even reading them. And her loving but ineffectual husband, Martin (Jason Butler Harner), is a doctor who knows his optimism concerning Karin's condition is unfounded.

While Karin strives to be the knot that holds the family together, her unraveling begins when she reads David's diary. His account of her late mother's illness mirrors her own state. Yet David confesses, with shocking candor, that first-hand observation of the spiral of madness might provide the inspirational spark his books are lacking.

At that point, the voices in Karin's head start growing louder, drawing her to a wall in the attic. Behind it she believes is a way station between worlds, where people await God's arrival and look to her to make it happen.

There are four compelling performances here. In the Chekhovian role of the writer incapable of fully experiencing life or feeling real emotion, Sarandon's characterization is a somber study of guilt without shame. Harner's Martin is wrenching in his helplessness, firing up in a terrific scene in which he rips into David and points up parallels in the writer's personal and artistic failings. Newcomer Rosenfield is particularly strong, pummeled internally by the raw confusion of adolescence and the pain of non-communication.

But the play belongs to Mulligan's Karin. Rarely still for long, she goes from bursts of manic activity to violent mood swings to catatonic spells and moments of exalted serenity. The performance is volatile yet restrained, poignantly underscored by a hopeless yearning to recreate the perfect family that exists only in her head. She weighs the damage she is causing to the people who love her against the spiritual release she intuits beyond the attic wall, and when her choice fails her, a crushing look of defeat clouds Mulligan's face.

Worton stumbles in the climactic scene, however. In place of Andersson's shattered account in the film of seeing God as a stony-faced spider, the writer keeps plugging away at familiar dysfunctional-family notes. Bergman's film was part of a trilogy about loss of faith, but in this context, Karin's religious hysteria remains merely a vestige of her madness, stripped of metaphysical meaning. The attempt to explain away her illness as a hereditary condition fed by the family's history of denial and withheld affection seems banal.

If the bleak play is more affecting in individual scenes than as a whole it's no fault of the production. But even when the writing lets her down, Mulligan's haunting performance is riveting.

Baloane

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By David Rooney

Tue Jun 7, 2011 6:42pm EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - With four characters in a single setting and action unfolding over 24 hours, Ingmar Bergman's Oscar-winning 1961 film "Through a Glass Darkly" is a natural fit for stage adaptation, at least physically.

The result -- running through July 3 at the New York Theater Workshop -- is dour and short on insight, but it provides a powerful role for the talented Carey Mulligan to harness her dueling forces of strength and fragility.

Mulligan's last appearance on a New York stage was in the superb 2008 Broadway revival of "The Seagull," opposite Kristin Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard. That was before her breakout performance in "An Education," which has led to steady screen work. It's admirable to see this young actor continuing to test herself, and stepping into Harriet Andersson's shoes as one of Bergman's psychologically anguished heroines certainly qualifies as a challenge.

The material was adapted by Jenny Worton, an artistic associate at London's Almeida Theater, where the play premiered last summer in a different production to mixed critical response.

Director David Leveaux has done a fine job summoning the stark emotional terrain of the film. There's no substituting the atmospheric effect of landscape in the work of Bergman and his cinematographer Sven Nykvist. But set designer Takeshi Kata and lighting chief David Weiner have crafted an austerely beautiful canvas on which to plot the descent into madness of Karin (Mulligan).

While critic Stanley Kauffmann described the film as "a study in varying shades of gray," Kata's bleached-wood set expands that color palette to include murky yellows and washed-out blues. Weiner's lighting is soft and shadowy, acquiring harder edges as the drama darkens.

The setting is a remote Baltic island on which a family has gathered for its annual summer holiday, in the hope of mending frayed bonds. Fresh from a stint in a psych hospital, schizophrenic Karin proclaims it "the most wonderful place on Earth," insisting, "Everything will be perfect this holiday." Yeah, right.

Her widowed father, David (Chris Sarandon), is a successful but second-rate novelist whose convivial demonstrations of warmth can't mask his cold self-involvement. Her sexually confused 16-year-old brother, Max (Ben Rosenfield), grasps for his father's approval by aping the role of tortured artist, writing plays that David criticizes without even reading them. And her loving but ineffectual husband, Martin (Jason Butler Harner), is a doctor who knows his optimism concerning Karin's condition is unfounded.

While Karin strives to be the knot that holds the family together, her unraveling begins when she reads David's diary. His account of her late mother's illness mirrors her own state. Yet David confesses, with shocking candor, that first-hand observation of the spiral of madness might provide the inspirational spark his books are lacking.

At that point, the voices in Karin's head start growing louder, drawing her to a wall in the attic. Behind it she believes is a way station between worlds, where people await God's arrival and look to her to make it happen.

There are four compelling performances here. In the Chekhovian role of the writer incapable of fully experiencing life or feeling real emotion, Sarandon's characterization is a somber study of guilt without shame. Harner's Martin is wrenching in his helplessness, firing up in a terrific scene in which he rips into David and points up parallels in the writer's personal and artistic failings. Newcomer Rosenfield is particularly strong, pummeled internally by the raw confusion of adolescence and the pain of non-communication.

But the play belongs to Mulligan's Karin. Rarely still for long, she goes from bursts of manic activity to violent mood swings to catatonic spells and moments of exalted serenity. The performance is volatile yet restrained, poignantly underscored by a hopeless yearning to recreate the perfect family that exists only in her head. She weighs the damage she is causing to the people who love her against the spiritual release she intuits beyond the attic wall, and when her choice fails her, a crushing look of defeat clouds Mulligan's face.

Worton stumbles in the climactic scene, however. In place of Andersson's shattered account in the film of seeing God as a stony-faced spider, the writer keeps plugging away at familiar dysfunctional-family notes. Bergman's film was part of a trilogy about loss of faith, but in this context, Karin's religious hysteria remains merely a vestige of her madness, stripped of metaphysical meaning. The attempt to explain away her illness as a hereditary condition fed by the family's history of denial and withheld affection seems banal.

If the bleak play is more affecting in individual scenes than as a whole it's no fault of the production. But even when the writing lets her down, Mulligan's haunting performance is riveting.

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Elaine Paige in rare U.S. stage foray with "Follies"

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By Robert Windeler

Sun May 29, 2011 9:49pm EDT

NEW YORK (Back Stage) - In 1964, 16-year-old Elaine Bickerstaff auditioned for her first professional musical straight from drama school, and she didn't get the part.

Her teacher was so sure that Elaine was right for the show -- "The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd," on its pre-Broadway British tour -- that she urged a name change and a stealthy second audition.

Desperate for a marquee-worthy name, Elaine leafed through the telephone book. She decided that the pages themselves were more interesting than any name printed on them, added the "i" for extra flair, and an unrecognized Elaine Paige was cast in the show.

Paige has sung onstage for a living ever since and is currently appearing in the star-studded Kennedy Center revival of "Follies" in Washington, D.C. She made her West End debut in "Hair" in 1968. In 1972, she was in the chorus of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Jesus Christ Superstar" and became a star as the pair's "Evita" in 1978. She introduced "Memory" in Lloyd Webber's "Cats" and has been the first lady of British musical theater to this day. Lloyd Webber says "She has a 'belt' voice in areas where no self-respecting angel will ever dare to tread and she has the heart to use this God-given voice in a way that imbues it with true emotion."

Surprisingly, Paige has done relatively little work in America until recently. She attributes this to being so closely identified as "an Andrew Lloyd Webber girl, so involved in his work." (She did finally make her one and only Broadway appearance as a Norma Desmond replacement in the composer's "Sunset Boulevard" in 1996.) In 2004, she sang 18 performances as Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd," for the New York City Opera.

WEARING TWO HATS

After seeing the 1987 Lincoln Center revival of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes," starring Patti LuPone and directed by Jerry Zaks, Paige decided to buy this quintessential American musical for herself to take to London. "I remember coming out of the theater beaming from ear to ear and the feeling of being uplifted by this wonderful, wonderful musical," she says. "I knew that I wanted to play the part of Reno Sweeny in London. I also knew that the only way to do that was to produce it myself. If you wait around for others to offer you roles, you could wait around forever."

She took director Zaks with her to London, but found the experience "quite difficult, wearing two hats at one time, just exhausting, and probably not something I would ever do again. I remember having internal fights with myself about creative things as the artist and with the producer's hat on worrying about costs. I found that to be quite taxing." The production was a success, however, and the Queen Mother, a Porter fan, paid a visit.

Paige came to New York just last summer to make a duets album, "Elaine Paige and Friends," with producer Phil Ramone. While she was making the recording, Paige's agents brought up "the possibility of my working in the theater again, which was not something I was seeking particularly at this point in my life. Now I'm involved with my concert tours, traveling the world at my own speed and booking them about a year in advance. All the stage shows I did ran and ran, and committing to eight performances a week for years on end now seems daunting."

But then Paige was offered the role of Carlotta Campion in "Follies." "As a cameo in a short run, it really interested me," she explains. "Getting to sing 'I'm Still Here,' one of the great classics in musical theater, was the clincher."

RESEARCH IS FUN

Paige began her preparations by "Googling the song's references that we Brits wouldn't be quite au fait with: 'Abie's Irish Rose,' 'Five Dionne Babies,' 'Beebe's Bathysphere,' and several more. Obviously J. Edgar Hoover is fine, and commie, pinko tool ... stinko by my pool' we understand. As an actor I immerse myself in the era we're in, which here is America from the 1930s to 1972, to create a backstory for my character. That's part of the fun of being an actor, that you get to do all that research."

While still at home in London, Paige reunited with dialect coach Joan Washington to get just the right American dialect for Carlotta's limited dialogue and one song. Thanks to her weekly radio program, "Elaine Paige on Sunday," now in its sixth year on BBC Radio 2 (and available and archived online), "I have a rather large listenership in America," she says.

So far that hasn't translated to playing large halls in the U.S. "I'd love to do some concert work here, but it seems tricky to put that into place -- quite why, I'm not sure. I have been offered cabaret, but that's not really what I do, I don't really know about it, and I'm not used to small rooms."

So after "Follies" ends its run June 17, Paige is off to big venues in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and perhaps New Zealand, a circuit she plies "every couple of years, interspersed with concerts in Scandinavia and elsewhere. One circles the Earth, follows the sun, that's the idea."

At 63, Paige is "just trying to find the time to get everything in and still have a life. Every now and again I get a little world-weary and look forward to being in one place, being still, working on one thing. You get to a place where you do need some down time, to get inspired again, but you also can't stop and just do nothing. You have to crank yourself up and start again. Home is always home, but I also love to travel, so I've got the perfect job, really."

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

By Robert Windeler

Sun May 29, 2011 9:49pm EDT

NEW YORK (Back Stage) - In 1964, 16-year-old Elaine Bickerstaff auditioned for her first professional musical straight from drama school, and she didn't get the part.

Her teacher was so sure that Elaine was right for the show -- "The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd," on its pre-Broadway British tour -- that she urged a name change and a stealthy second audition.

Desperate for a marquee-worthy name, Elaine leafed through the telephone book. She decided that the pages themselves were more interesting than any name printed on them, added the "i" for extra flair, and an unrecognized Elaine Paige was cast in the show.

Paige has sung onstage for a living ever since and is currently appearing in the star-studded Kennedy Center revival of "Follies" in Washington, D.C. She made her West End debut in "Hair" in 1968. In 1972, she was in the chorus of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Jesus Christ Superstar" and became a star as the pair's "Evita" in 1978. She introduced "Memory" in Lloyd Webber's "Cats" and has been the first lady of British musical theater to this day. Lloyd Webber says "She has a 'belt' voice in areas where no self-respecting angel will ever dare to tread and she has the heart to use this God-given voice in a way that imbues it with true emotion."

Surprisingly, Paige has done relatively little work in America until recently. She attributes this to being so closely identified as "an Andrew Lloyd Webber girl, so involved in his work." (She did finally make her one and only Broadway appearance as a Norma Desmond replacement in the composer's "Sunset Boulevard" in 1996.) In 2004, she sang 18 performances as Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd," for the New York City Opera.

WEARING TWO HATS

After seeing the 1987 Lincoln Center revival of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes," starring Patti LuPone and directed by Jerry Zaks, Paige decided to buy this quintessential American musical for herself to take to London. "I remember coming out of the theater beaming from ear to ear and the feeling of being uplifted by this wonderful, wonderful musical," she says. "I knew that I wanted to play the part of Reno Sweeny in London. I also knew that the only way to do that was to produce it myself. If you wait around for others to offer you roles, you could wait around forever."

She took director Zaks with her to London, but found the experience "quite difficult, wearing two hats at one time, just exhausting, and probably not something I would ever do again. I remember having internal fights with myself about creative things as the artist and with the producer's hat on worrying about costs. I found that to be quite taxing." The production was a success, however, and the Queen Mother, a Porter fan, paid a visit.

Paige came to New York just last summer to make a duets album, "Elaine Paige and Friends," with producer Phil Ramone. While she was making the recording, Paige's agents brought up "the possibility of my working in the theater again, which was not something I was seeking particularly at this point in my life. Now I'm involved with my concert tours, traveling the world at my own speed and booking them about a year in advance. All the stage shows I did ran and ran, and committing to eight performances a week for years on end now seems daunting."

But then Paige was offered the role of Carlotta Campion in "Follies." "As a cameo in a short run, it really interested me," she explains. "Getting to sing 'I'm Still Here,' one of the great classics in musical theater, was the clincher."

RESEARCH IS FUN

Paige began her preparations by "Googling the song's references that we Brits wouldn't be quite au fait with: 'Abie's Irish Rose,' 'Five Dionne Babies,' 'Beebe's Bathysphere,' and several more. Obviously J. Edgar Hoover is fine, and commie, pinko tool ... stinko by my pool' we understand. As an actor I immerse myself in the era we're in, which here is America from the 1930s to 1972, to create a backstory for my character. That's part of the fun of being an actor, that you get to do all that research."

While still at home in London, Paige reunited with dialect coach Joan Washington to get just the right American dialect for Carlotta's limited dialogue and one song. Thanks to her weekly radio program, "Elaine Paige on Sunday," now in its sixth year on BBC Radio 2 (and available and archived online), "I have a rather large listenership in America," she says.

So far that hasn't translated to playing large halls in the U.S. "I'd love to do some concert work here, but it seems tricky to put that into place -- quite why, I'm not sure. I have been offered cabaret, but that's not really what I do, I don't really know about it, and I'm not used to small rooms."

So after "Follies" ends its run June 17, Paige is off to big venues in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and perhaps New Zealand, a circuit she plies "every couple of years, interspersed with concerts in Scandinavia and elsewhere. One circles the Earth, follows the sun, that's the idea."

At 63, Paige is "just trying to find the time to get everything in and still have a life. Every now and again I get a little world-weary and look forward to being in one place, being still, working on one thing. You get to a place where you do need some down time, to get inspired again, but you also can't stop and just do nothing. You have to crank yourself up and start again. Home is always home, but I also love to travel, so I've got the perfect job, really."

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

By Robert Windeler

Sun May 29, 2011 9:49pm EDT

NEW YORK (Back Stage) - In 1964, 16-year-old Elaine Bickerstaff auditioned for her first professional musical straight from drama school, and she didn't get the part.

Her teacher was so sure that Elaine was right for the show -- "The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd," on its pre-Broadway British tour -- that she urged a name change and a stealthy second audition.

Desperate for a marquee-worthy name, Elaine leafed through the telephone book. She decided that the pages themselves were more interesting than any name printed on them, added the "i" for extra flair, and an unrecognized Elaine Paige was cast in the show.

Paige has sung onstage for a living ever since and is currently appearing in the star-studded Kennedy Center revival of "Follies" in Washington, D.C. She made her West End debut in "Hair" in 1968. In 1972, she was in the chorus of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Jesus Christ Superstar" and became a star as the pair's "Evita" in 1978. She introduced "Memory" in Lloyd Webber's "Cats" and has been the first lady of British musical theater to this day. Lloyd Webber says "She has a 'belt' voice in areas where no self-respecting angel will ever dare to tread and she has the heart to use this God-given voice in a way that imbues it with true emotion."

Surprisingly, Paige has done relatively little work in America until recently. She attributes this to being so closely identified as "an Andrew Lloyd Webber girl, so involved in his work." (She did finally make her one and only Broadway appearance as a Norma Desmond replacement in the composer's "Sunset Boulevard" in 1996.) In 2004, she sang 18 performances as Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd," for the New York City Opera.

WEARING TWO HATS

After seeing the 1987 Lincoln Center revival of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes," starring Patti LuPone and directed by Jerry Zaks, Paige decided to buy this quintessential American musical for herself to take to London. "I remember coming out of the theater beaming from ear to ear and the feeling of being uplifted by this wonderful, wonderful musical," she says. "I knew that I wanted to play the part of Reno Sweeny in London. I also knew that the only way to do that was to produce it myself. If you wait around for others to offer you roles, you could wait around forever."

She took director Zaks with her to London, but found the experience "quite difficult, wearing two hats at one time, just exhausting, and probably not something I would ever do again. I remember having internal fights with myself about creative things as the artist and with the producer's hat on worrying about costs. I found that to be quite taxing." The production was a success, however, and the Queen Mother, a Porter fan, paid a visit.

Paige came to New York just last summer to make a duets album, "Elaine Paige and Friends," with producer Phil Ramone. While she was making the recording, Paige's agents brought up "the possibility of my working in the theater again, which was not something I was seeking particularly at this point in my life. Now I'm involved with my concert tours, traveling the world at my own speed and booking them about a year in advance. All the stage shows I did ran and ran, and committing to eight performances a week for years on end now seems daunting."

But then Paige was offered the role of Carlotta Campion in "Follies." "As a cameo in a short run, it really interested me," she explains. "Getting to sing 'I'm Still Here,' one of the great classics in musical theater, was the clincher."

RESEARCH IS FUN

Paige began her preparations by "Googling the song's references that we Brits wouldn't be quite au fait with: 'Abie's Irish Rose,' 'Five Dionne Babies,' 'Beebe's Bathysphere,' and several more. Obviously J. Edgar Hoover is fine, and commie, pinko tool ... stinko by my pool' we understand. As an actor I immerse myself in the era we're in, which here is America from the 1930s to 1972, to create a backstory for my character. That's part of the fun of being an actor, that you get to do all that research."

While still at home in London, Paige reunited with dialect coach Joan Washington to get just the right American dialect for Carlotta's limited dialogue and one song. Thanks to her weekly radio program, "Elaine Paige on Sunday," now in its sixth year on BBC Radio 2 (and available and archived online), "I have a rather large listenership in America," she says.

So far that hasn't translated to playing large halls in the U.S. "I'd love to do some concert work here, but it seems tricky to put that into place -- quite why, I'm not sure. I have been offered cabaret, but that's not really what I do, I don't really know about it, and I'm not used to small rooms."

So after "Follies" ends its run June 17, Paige is off to big venues in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and perhaps New Zealand, a circuit she plies "every couple of years, interspersed with concerts in Scandinavia and elsewhere. One circles the Earth, follows the sun, that's the idea."

At 63, Paige is "just trying to find the time to get everything in and still have a life. Every now and again I get a little world-weary and look forward to being in one place, being still, working on one thing. You get to a place where you do need some down time, to get inspired again, but you also can't stop and just do nothing. You have to crank yourself up and start again. Home is always home, but I also love to travel, so I've got the perfect job, really."

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"Point Break" stage parody subject of lawsuit

birou notarial

By Eriq Gardner

Fri May 20, 2011 7:44pm EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - If you're staging a theatrical adaptation of the 1991 film "Point Break" and can't get Keanu Reeves to play a federal agent who goes undercover as a surfer, what do you do? The answer is partly the subject of a lawsuit.

Playwright Jamie Keeling had her own solution to this problem. Feeling the role should be played by actors who are untrained and unrehearsed, Keeling had audience members try out the role by reading cue cards. The trick was a success, and was one of a few elements that made a parody version called "Point Break Live!" a success as it toured the nation.

But the producer of the live version, New Rock, stopped paying Keeling royalties. It repudiated an agreement it had with Keeling, taking the position that Keeling had no right to her script since it was based on the film.

Keeling then sued, saying she registered a copyright on her script with those added elements.

In response, New Rock told a New York federal court last month that Keeling was attempting "to turn copyright law upside down by alleging exclusive copyrighted ownership of a parody without ever getting permission for such derivative copyright ownership from the owner of the work that is being parodied."

On Tuesday, New York federal judge Thomas Griesa rejected that argument and said the lawsuit could go forward.

Want proof that copyright laws can get pretty complicated when it comes to issues like parody? Judge Griesa noted: "Creators of derivative works often register their own copyrights--without permission from the holder of the original copyright--and then sue those who create later derivative works from the same original but whose later derivative works are alleged to be too similar to the earlier derivative work and thus infringe on the earlier derivative work."

That's a mouthful, but essentially it means that someone who creates a parody can sue someone else who also is doing a parody.

New Rock claimed that doing a parody was merely a "fair use" to a copyright infringement claim, but Judge Griesa has more respect for the parody genre, saying that parodies are indeed copyrightable so long as they are original.

The next step in the case may be to figure out whether recruiting audience members to play Keanu playing Johnny Utah passes muster. The next next step may be staging a live version of this case.

(Editing by Zorianna Kit)

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

By Eriq Gardner

Fri May 20, 2011 7:44pm EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - If you're staging a theatrical adaptation of the 1991 film "Point Break" and can't get Keanu Reeves to play a federal agent who goes undercover as a surfer, what do you do? The answer is partly the subject of a lawsuit.

Playwright Jamie Keeling had her own solution to this problem. Feeling the role should be played by actors who are untrained and unrehearsed, Keeling had audience members try out the role by reading cue cards. The trick was a success, and was one of a few elements that made a parody version called "Point Break Live!" a success as it toured the nation.

But the producer of the live version, New Rock, stopped paying Keeling royalties. It repudiated an agreement it had with Keeling, taking the position that Keeling had no right to her script since it was based on the film.

Keeling then sued, saying she registered a copyright on her script with those added elements.

In response, New Rock told a New York federal court last month that Keeling was attempting "to turn copyright law upside down by alleging exclusive copyrighted ownership of a parody without ever getting permission for such derivative copyright ownership from the owner of the work that is being parodied."

On Tuesday, New York federal judge Thomas Griesa rejected that argument and said the lawsuit could go forward.

Want proof that copyright laws can get pretty complicated when it comes to issues like parody? Judge Griesa noted: "Creators of derivative works often register their own copyrights--without permission from the holder of the original copyright--and then sue those who create later derivative works from the same original but whose later derivative works are alleged to be too similar to the earlier derivative work and thus infringe on the earlier derivative work."

That's a mouthful, but essentially it means that someone who creates a parody can sue someone else who also is doing a parody.

New Rock claimed that doing a parody was merely a "fair use" to a copyright infringement claim, but Judge Griesa has more respect for the parody genre, saying that parodies are indeed copyrightable so long as they are original.

The next step in the case may be to figure out whether recruiting audience members to play Keanu playing Johnny Utah passes muster. The next next step may be staging a live version of this case.

(Editing by Zorianna Kit)

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

By Eriq Gardner

Fri May 20, 2011 7:44pm EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - If you're staging a theatrical adaptation of the 1991 film "Point Break" and can't get Keanu Reeves to play a federal agent who goes undercover as a surfer, what do you do? The answer is partly the subject of a lawsuit.

Playwright Jamie Keeling had her own solution to this problem. Feeling the role should be played by actors who are untrained and unrehearsed, Keeling had audience members try out the role by reading cue cards. The trick was a success, and was one of a few elements that made a parody version called "Point Break Live!" a success as it toured the nation.

But the producer of the live version, New Rock, stopped paying Keeling royalties. It repudiated an agreement it had with Keeling, taking the position that Keeling had no right to her script since it was based on the film.

Keeling then sued, saying she registered a copyright on her script with those added elements.

In response, New Rock told a New York federal court last month that Keeling was attempting "to turn copyright law upside down by alleging exclusive copyrighted ownership of a parody without ever getting permission for such derivative copyright ownership from the owner of the work that is being parodied."

On Tuesday, New York federal judge Thomas Griesa rejected that argument and said the lawsuit could go forward.

Want proof that copyright laws can get pretty complicated when it comes to issues like parody? Judge Griesa noted: "Creators of derivative works often register their own copyrights--without permission from the holder of the original copyright--and then sue those who create later derivative works from the same original but whose later derivative works are alleged to be too similar to the earlier derivative work and thus infringe on the earlier derivative work."

That's a mouthful, but essentially it means that someone who creates a parody can sue someone else who also is doing a parody.

New Rock claimed that doing a parody was merely a "fair use" to a copyright infringement claim, but Judge Griesa has more respect for the parody genre, saying that parodies are indeed copyrightable so long as they are original.

The next step in the case may be to figure out whether recruiting audience members to play Keanu playing Johnny Utah passes muster. The next next step may be staging a live version of this case.

(Editing by Zorianna Kit)

Cost aparat dentar