Clayton Library director named

The board of directors of the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum has named Cynthia Hudley, a UC Santa Barbara education professor, as interim executive director, succeeding Avery Clayton, the son of the library's founder who died at age 62 after suffering a heart attack Thursday.

The board also announced that it is beginning a search for an executive director to oversee one of the nation's largest independent collections of African American historical material.

Hudley, the board's vice president, was a longtime Clayton family friend. "Given her education background and that she was familiar with the collection and knew Mrs. Clayton and Avery,  there isn't anyone more qualified for carrying on our mission during this period," said Evelyn Davis, a library spokesperson.

A photographic look back at L.A.'s Harlem Renaissance

The exhibition "Central Avenue and Beyond: The Harlem Renaissance in Los Angeles" focuses on life along the storied thoroughfare that once was the heart of black L.A. But its organizers couldn't resist illustrating ways African American culture flourished in other parts of the city as well.

"We hope to open people's eyes a little," says Sue Hodson, curator of literary manuscripts at the Huntington Library in San Marino, where the show opens this weekend. "Everyone tends to think the Harlem Renaissance took place in one spot; however, Los Angeles was among many urban centers teeming with activity." Central Avenue, she adds, "was ground zero for African Americans for years -- not just for jazz, which was a huge force, but for every kind of artistic and cultural enterprise. We wanted to take a longer view and look at all this and also what was happening elsewhere in town, not just during the '20s and '30s but into the '50s."

The photo at right shows Marie Dickerson Coker, who  was born in Tulsa in 1906 and moved to Hollywood to sing, dance and play the piano and bass. While performing in a Culver City club in the 1920s, she met two African American aviators who promised to take her up in their plane. She loved it so much she decided to learn to fly herself. One of the first black female pilots, Coker joined L.A.’s circuit of air circuses in which performers thrilled crowds with daredevil stunts.

Click here for Karen Wada's story and photos.

Photo: Marie Dickerson Coker and a dance partner in about 1920-30. Credit: Mayme A. Clayton Library.

Theater review: 'Songs for a New World' at International City Theatre

"It's about one moment" runs the key motif in "Songs for a New World." Actually, Jason Robert Brown's 1995 theatrical cabaret is all acute moments, keenly delivered in the ingratiating International City Theatre production under Jules Aaron's airtight direction.
 
   The implicit theme is community as eternal counter to American turbulence, yet Brown's marvelous story-songs carry individual points. Since its WPA Theatre premiere directed by Daisy Prince, "Songs" has become a regional staple in various takes, such as Jon Lawrence Rivera's environmental, 9/11-centric interpretation in 2003.
 
   Musical director Brent Crayon, who conducted that acclaimed staging, commandingly repeats here. His expert combo nails Brown's rangy eclecticism, as does a perfectly pitched cast, vocally lush, dramatically fluid.
 
  

New works set for second season of CTG's DouglasPlus

Plays about love and Big Pharma, magicians, a son’s death in Iraq and life at the post office are part of this fall's DouglasPlus series of new works, which the Center Theatre Group will announce today.

Artistic director Michael Ritchie introduced the series at the Kirk Douglas Theatre last season in an attempt to break away from traditional programming and production constraints. The emphasis is on material in development at CTG, with a nod to local artists. Shows are presented for limited runs at reduced prices.

The lineup for the Culver City theater includes four commissions.

T.R. Knight preps for his musical debut

Now that T.R. Knight has left ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” he’s decided to do something completely different. The 36-year-old actor is making his professional singing debut in Center Theatre Group’s revival of “Parade,” based on the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager accused of the 1913 rape and murder of an Atlanta girl. The show -- which has a score by Jason Robert Brown and a book by Alfred Uhry -- opens Sunday at the Mark Taper Forum.

Knight has a long history on the stage. He made his first appearance when he was 5 at the Guthrie Theater in his native Minneapolis. He later worked in the Guthrie company and on and off-Broadway, earning a Drama Desk nomination for a 2003 production of Anto Howard’s “Scattergood.”

His musical resume, however, is much thinner. He last sang in a show in college (playing Squire Dap in “Camelot”). So why is Knight taking the plunge -- especially when he knows all eyes are on him, this being his first gig since he hung up his scrubs in June?

“It was a huge challenge,” he says. “It felt like a good thing to do. A good scary thing.”

To prepare for the production, Knight has studied with vocal coach Eric Vetro, whose clients include Tony winners Hugh Jackman and Marissa Jaret Winokur, Bette Midler and the stars of “High School Musical 3.” He also has worked extensively with “Parade” musical director Tom Murray. Knight credits them, as well as director Rob Ashford, with helping him enhance his technique and adapt to the multitasking that musical theater requires: “You are trying to learn five things at once, like singing when you’re supposed to do steps and move your arms and legs.”

“I’m constantly figuring stuff out,” says Knight. “It’s exhausting, my brain is packed, but it feels great.”

For more about Knight and “Parade,” read my story in Sunday's Arts & Books.

You can also see Knight in a video from the production.

-- Karen Wada

Photo credit: Mark Boster/ Los Angeles Times

Sammy Davis Jr., revived

   

For his new musical, "Sammy," Leslie Bricusse knew he needed to find a special performer to play his old friend, Sammy Davis Jr. While many names came up, his choice was Obba Babatundé, a Broadway and Hollywood veteran who, as it turns out, was introduced to Bricusse by Davis himself. "Sammy brought Obba by my house years ago," says Bricusse, whose show will premiere Friday at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. "Sammy was Obba's mentor, so Obba understands him very well. You would not believe it wasn't Sammy up there at times."

Babatundé was a young performer working with Liza Minnelli when he met Davis in Lake Tahoe in 1978. "We got to know each other well because he followed us on this tour where we would close and he would open," says Babatundé. "He taught me a lot about life and the business." Over the years, they stayed in touch. Babatundé received acclaim for originating the roles of C.C. White in "Dreamgirls" and Jelly Roll Morton in "Jelly's Last Jam" and for his work in the HBO movie "Miss Evers' Boys." Davis rode the ups and downs of the last decade of a career that saw him go from vaudeville child star to world-famous entertainer. He died in 1990 at 64.

In "Sammy," Bricusse touches on Davis' triumphs as well as the controversies and conflicts that dogged him as he defied racial barriers and social taboos and indulged in a reckless lifestyle that eventually caught up with him.

In L.A. arts this fall, tech adds style and substance

In the theater, as in life, technology has been around long enough for us to have learned two lessons: It works best when there's a point behind it and you can have too much of a good thing.

The trick, as with all matters of art -- especially new art -- is figuring out the difference between excess and inspiration.

This fall, we can see productions by three very different companies hoping to reach that delicate balance by using technology both wisely and well.

California Institute of the Arts, a hot spot for art-tech innovation, is presenting "AH!" -- "an interactive opera no-opera" -- which begins Wednesday at REDCAT, the college's downtown theater. An international cast that includes nearly a dozen composer-performers and a percussion-playing robot will explore the origins of language, music and culture. They also are trying to redefine the idea of what a performance is, including when it begins and ends. You can, for instance, visit the "AH!" website and start participating now, and get a sample of "AH!" in the video above.

The venerable Los Angeles Opera is spending $32 million to present Wagner's "Ring" -- much of it on technology to keep up with the wild imagination of auteur Achim Freyer. To bring Freyer's vivid visions to life, "Siegfried" -- which opens Sept. 26 -- will offer up plenty of new tricks as well as new uses for the light tubes and super-raked deck and turntable made famous last season by the first two installments of the gods-and-gold saga.

The tiny multimedia performance group Cloud Eye Control will put on its biggest show in L.A. when "Under Polaris" opens Oct. 14 at REDCAT. This fanciful tale about a scientist rushing her precious cargo to the North Pole is really about the magical, awkward ways in which everything in life -- notably people and technology -- come together. The show blends live performance, video projection, electronic music and animals (including a dancing polar bear and the Caribou God) created by actors, animation and puppetry.

For more about these shows click here to read my story in Sunday's Arts & Books. 

-- Karen Wada

Related:

The Times' Fall Arts Preview
   
    

Lend me a tenor ... or a bass

When the great Italian bass Ruggero Raimondi ruptured his Achilles tendon a few weeks ago, he joined a long line of opera singers sidelined by illness or injury just before they were to take the stage.

Raimondi, 67, was set to make his Los Angeles Opera debut in Donizetti's "L'Elisir d'Amore," which opens Saturday. Instead, he is recovering from surgery and cheering on his replacement -- Italian baritone Giorgio Caoduro -- whom the company had hired as Raimondi's cover (opera's version of an understudy).

By having a cover ready to go, L.A. Opera escaped the last-minute casting scramble that has provided fodder for countless tales of great saves, near-misses and flops.

Raimondi has his own favorite replacement story:

Years ago, he says, he was at home in Bologna when he got a call from the formidable Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan.

"I need you to do 'Don Carlo' in Salzburg," Karajan told him.

"Fine. I can be there tomorrow."

"No, I need you tonight. The plane is already coming."

Raimondi says he went, as requested. "When Maestro Karajan asks," he explains, "you don't say no."

As it turns out, Raimondi was rewarded for his troubles with a bit of serendipity. After the show, his parents came backstage to greet him.

"They were on vacation and decided to see an opera without knowing I would be singing." Raimondi says. "Life can be so wonderful."  

Read more about how opera companies cope with casting changes in my story in today's Calendar here.

-- Karen Wada

File photo of Ruggero Raimondi

Ruggero Raimondi has to drop out of LA Opera's 'Elixir of Love'

Those who've been awaiting the L.A. debut of Ruggero Raimondi will have to wait a little longer.

The venerable Italian bass was supposed to make his first appearance with the Los Angeles Opera as Doctor Dulcamara on Sept. 12 in the season opener, Donizetti's “L’Elisir d’Amore” (“The Elixir of Love”). But the company has just announced that the 67-year-old singer ruptured an Achilles tendon during rehearsal and must withdraw from the production.

In his place, Italian baritone Giorgio Caoduro will assume the role of Dulcamara.

“Ruggero Raimondi, one of the great Italian basses of all time, has been a treasured colleague and friend of mine for several decades,” Plácido Domingo, the general director of L.A. Opera, said in a statement. “Naturally, we are very disappointed that an artist of his stature had to leave the production, but we wish him a speedy recovery and hope to re-engage him for his L.A. Opera debut in the future. In the meantime, we are fortunate to have been able to engage Giorgio Caoduro to make his company debut as Dulcamara. He has already built up a truly impressive list of achievements in his young career."

'Re-Animator's' Jeffrey Combs' not-so-gory past

Given that Jeffrey Combs seems to have spent much of his film and television career fending off zombies or zooming through space, you might think he grew up reading gory comics and building toy rockets.

Wrong. "This all found me -- I didn't find it," says Combs, who has appeared in more than 40 horror movies, including the 1985 splatter classic "Re-Animator" and played a variety of notorious aliens on "Star Trek" TV spinoffs. "Fans think you must do this because you're crazy about it. What happened to be on is what I'd watch as a kid."

One exception: "I did relish the original 'Star Trek' show."

Combs, 54, started out on the stage -- he did Shakespeare at the Old Globe in San Diego -- but ended up a horror hero after he starred in Re-Animator" as a medical student who brings the dead to life with decidedly mixed results.

These days, Combs is combining his love of theater and his penchant for playing characters from the dark side in the one-man show "Nevermore...An Evening With Edgar Allan Poe," which runs at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood through Sept. 26. 

The production -- which has received rave reviews -- grew out of Combs' portrayal of Poe in a 2007