Time to play ball at the Pasadena Playhouse?
There is a USC baseball connection in the Pasadena Playhouse's recent announcement that Michele Dedeaux Engemann has been appointed chair of the organization's board of directors.
Dedeaux Engemann is the daughter of the late Rod Dedeaux, who coached the Trojans baseball team for 45 years, winning 11 national championships. The USC baseball field was named after the former coach. Dedeaux Engemann (who majored in drama at USC and is very active in university affairs) and her husband, Roger, established the USC Baseball Hall of Fame and continue to support USC sports.
Given that link, the Fabulous Forum wonders if the Pasadena Playhouse might hit one out of the park by creating a Diamond Series of plays. Here's a possible lineup.
-- “Damn Yankees”: The 1955 musical with songs by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, based on the novel “The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant.” Long-suffering Washington Senators fan Joe Boyd says that he'd sell his soul if the team could have a star home run hitter -- and the devil promptly cuts a deal. The show went into extra innings, running for more than 1,000 performances on Broadway.
-- “Take Me Out,” by Richard Greenberg. The 2003 Tony Award winner for best play. Greenberg, an avid Yankees fan, imagines Darren Lemming, star center fielder of the world champion New York Empires, giving a press conference to announce that he is gay. Not all his teammates take it well, especially Shane Mungitt, a bigoted relief pitcher with more than a passing resemblance to John Rocker.
-- “Back Back Back,” by Itamar Moses, is currently having its world premiere production at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre. It closes this weekend. Three of the main characters come together as teammates on the late-1980s Oakland A’s, and two of them have reminded critics of -- who else? -- Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco. The first high-profile play about baseball’s steroid scandals.
-- “Rounding Third,” by Richard Dresser. Two dads coach their sons’ Little League team together in the 2002 play. One, the father of the team’s star, wants to win at all costs; the other, whose son is an on-field klutz, goes by it’s-how-you-play-the-game. Deeper personal issues fuel their comic clash.
-- “Bleacher Bums”: Actor Joe Mantegna had the idea for this 1977 play, written in collaboration with other members of Chicago’s Organic Theatre Company -- including fellow cast member Dennis Franz of “Hill Street Blues” fame. A gaggle of Chicago Cubs fans watch from the cheap seats, bantering and betting as the Cubbies duke it out with the Cardinals; what historic sporting futility has brought together, will anyone put asunder?
-- “The Magnificent Yankee”: Oops, this 1946 drama by Emmet Lavery doesn’t celebrate Ruth, Gehrig or DiMaggio, but Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. And don’t tell Tommy Lasorda that when the Artful Dodger steals in “Oliver!” he isn’t sliding nimbly into second base, but picking the pockets of early 19th century Londoners in Lionel Bart’s 1960 musical based on Charles Dickens’ classic novel, “Oliver Twist.”
-- Mike Boehm
Top photo: In 2004, former USC baseball coach Rod Dedeaux posed with memorabilia from his 45 years at the university. Credit: Los Angeles Times
Inset: Michele Dedeaux Engemann.
