The Wicked Stage

by Rob Kendt

I wonder, how does the cast of Charlie Victor Romeo--the plane-crash docu-play that electrified audiences at UCLA last year--get around? The show is busy touring the world; next stop Perth, Australia. They travel by plane, of course, said Alisa Regas at Pomegranate Arts, which manages the show from New York, where it originated. "They usually talk to the pilots and the flight attendants," said Regas, noting that the show--which reenacts real-life cockpit disasters from the texts of black-box transcripts--has been popular fare with airline industry audiences, who see it in part as a primer on crisis situations and in part as a tribute to heroes who went missing in action, if you will. Indeed, one retired pilot, Al Haynes, whose harrowing 1989 rescue of a United DC-10 that lost its No. 2 engine and all its hydraulic systems is one of the show's dramatic high points, is traveling proudly with the cast for some of its U.S. dates. Regas admitted that the post-Sept. 11 jitters did lead to some rescheduled performances. But after the initial shock, she said, "Some people who were on the fence before are now saying, 'Now more than ever we need to see this.' " Haynes is among the encouraging voices and will go with the show to Scottsdale, Tucson, and Sioux City. Have the cast members--who form a troupe called Collective: Unconscious--thought about dramatizing the flights of last year's fateful September morning? As Regas mentioned, the black-box recordings from those planes have little to tell--and, more to the point, Charlie Victor Romeo is more about "human and machine error," not terrorist-related crashes. We'll leave that territory to the cheesy TV movies.

• Performance artist/actor Ann Magnuson has been added to the roster of artists who will perform at Theatre of NOTE's next "performance marathon," coming up this Saturday, Jan. 19, from 1 p.m. "till dawn Sunday." Other artists scheduled for this annual feat are Paul Zaloom, who will preview excerpts from his new puppet show Punch and Jimmy; Luis Alfaro, marking a return gig (will he jam a carton of Twinkies in his mouth this year?); actor Ryan Cutrona (billed in press materials as "classical actor," though we've only seen him do Padua stuff); someone named Joey Strange, who'll be performing a "blood-letting/baptism ritual (not for the squeamish)." Music acts include a reggae band, Appalachian folk rock, Hawaiian hula dancing, Dr. Suess, swordplay, and, according to the flier, an appearance by no less a personage than Judy Garland. Reservations not required. Kitchen sink not included. (323) 856-8611.

• For the record: Fynsworth Alley has released a recording of the Pasadena Playhouse production of Do I Hear a Waltz?, with Alyson Reed, Anthony Crivello, and Carol Lawrence. I found the production, under the loving care of director David Lee, a more worthy revival of a neglected Richard Rodgers score than the currently held-over hit Flower Drum Song, a fine but featherweight confection. Flower Drum is more likely to go to Broadway (after some tune-ups), but Waltz? was the real thing. At least we have the CD, which one colleague calls "fantastic--better than the 1964 Broadway cast album." The Celebration Theatre's queered Pinafore!, another held-over hit from 2001, is also reportedly making a cast album.

• Corrected: Last week I called the Colony Studio Theatre's upcoming production of Side Show its "West Coast premiere." In fact it's the show's L.A. premiere; the West Coast premiere was at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto in October, 1998. I should know--we gave it several Garland Awards (back when we had more than one critic in the Bay Area).

• Uncorrected: My favorite Christmas card came from the communications director of a large organization we cover regularly, who wrote, "A pleasure working you."