This is a remarkable video in the annals of popular culture.

The 24-minute excerpt is from a 1964 BBC-TV discussion that’s largely between Orson Welles and Peter O’Toole talking about Shakespeare, theater and mostly Hamlet.   I suspect I could stop right there and just jump right to the video.  Making it all the more notable (if that's possible), though, is that its timing comes around the time when O’Toole was doing his infamous production at the National Theatre, attention-getting for its uncommon interpretation of the role and directed by Laurence Olivier.  (There’s a third actor involved in the conversion who I don’t know, though perhaps others reading this do, a veteran actor named Ernest Milton.) 

To be clear, "remarkable" doesn't mean always riveting.  There’s a great deal of pretentiousness here, and smug self-satisfaction -- though that's part of its fascination.  And eye-rolling as it sometimes gets, it is always fascinating. However, it just overwhelms with history and fascination, and even insight. A New Yorker magazine remembrance of O'Toole after his passing even referenced this video,  and the article notes how remarkable it is, among other things, that "O’Toole seems willing and able to discuss seventeenth-century Catholic doctrines of the afterlife."  (Welles, too.)  Mr. Milton seems mostly willing to discuss theater.
 
Adding to the sometimes-challenge of this is the surprisingly lousy camerawork, though at a certain point, who cares?  This is theater history, and I'm just glad it exists.  Even if you only watch 5-10 minutes, it's so richly worth it.  And you might well stick around for the whole thing.  And to round out matters and give full credit to everyone involved, the show is Monitor, and the host is Huw Wheldon.  A thanks to Clarence E. Jones III for the heads-up about this.

Here's a fun sketch from The Late Late Show where James Corden and Benedict Cumberbatch reminisce about their rivalry performing on stage back in London.

There are good things and bad things about living in Los Angeles.  It's not anywhere near my favorite place to live, but there are plenty of terrific things, and so I just focus on those as much as possible.  Two nights ago, I discovered one of the Really Good Things about living in Los Angeles.

This is sort of a tale about that -- just on the good side of "Nyah, nyah, nyah," but it's impossible to tell this without a touch of that coming through.  But mainly it's a heads-up for people who living in Los Angeles who might want to get tickets -- REALLY SOON before they're gone.
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But first, I have to say that I don’t know how on earth it slipped under the wire for me.  However, I just found out about it totally by accident yesterday.  But this is the notice I saw --

Tickets for "Henry IV," staged by Tony Award winning director Daniel Sullivan, featuring Tom Hanks in his Los Angeles stage debut as Shakespeare's greatest comedic character Sir John Falstaff, with Harry Groener as Northumberland, Hamish Linklater as Hal, and Joe Morton as Henry IV.
 
Yes, seriously.

I don’t begin to understand how this was kept under the wire, almost to the point of being a secret.  I’ve told a bunch of people last night – all theater fans, all in the film and TV Industry – and not one of them knew about it.  I didn’t find out about it – and as I said, only by chance -- until after I got back from Chicago.  (I get a daily mailing about theater in Los Angeles.  I almost never check it, because it doesn't change that much from day to day and sometimes I even think about unsubscribing, since I check it so rarely.  But every once in a while I decide to take a look, and on Monday night I just decided to open the one that came in.  And there was the news.  In fact, I didn't even see it at first.  Initially, I merely scrolled down the list of shows and checked one out, but it didn't offer much information.  And then, off to the side, my eye caught a small notice.)  And so, though tickets had gone on sale a few days before -- and two weeks before to patrons of the Shakespeare Center that's putting this on -- it was so under the wire that tickets were still available. 

How on earth does this stay a secret???  For that matter, how on earth are there still tickets, in a small, outdoor venue (about 600 seats) with a limited-run of just 24 performances ???  Mind you, I’m not complaining.  Because it’s so little known, that’s how I was able to get tickets.  And am able to tell friends and readers here about it.  So, thank  you, L.A. for being clueless.  But – how utterly bizarre. 

Just inexplicable.

And Hanks aside, it’s a good cast, with a terrific director.  About a year-and-a-half ago, I wrote here about seeing the world premiere of a dark, political satire by Jon Robin Baitz, Vicuna, about a character loosely based on Trump. It was wonderful, though I saw it literally the night after the election. And it was the weirdest experience I've had in the theater.  (I'm acquaintances with Baitz, and he acknowledged that the whole thing was weird.)  Anyway, I bring this up because Harry Groener -- who plays 'Northumerland in this Henry IV -- starred as the Trump-like character in that play, and he was terrific.
 
The show runs from June 5 through July 1.  I got a couple of tickets last night.  A fair amount of tickets seem to still be available (most off to the side, though not all), and they aren’t cheap, but a bit less than Hamilton.  Mostly $149 or $169.  Some nights are a little more ($189) and a few performances MUCH more ($500 -- I'm guessing those are fundraisers for the organization).  The outdoor venue, as I noted, is pretty small.  It's located in the Japanese Gardens on the West Los Angeles VA grounds.  (Near Jackie Robinson Stadium, where UCLA plays baseball, if you know the area.)

If you’re interested, you can get more information and tickets here. 

One of the good things about living in Los Angeles.

Over the weekend, I saw three movies and an opera.  Here are some brief reactions.
 
Lady Bird – Written and directed by actress Greta Gerwig, who's has other screenplays to her credit. I liked it all the way through, and loved much of it.  But I didn’t “loooove” it as much as many reviewers because (for my taste) it was more episodic than I prefer, and for a character study, the characters don't change much.  But one doesn’t have to “looove” something to still like it a lot and admire it.  And I enjoyed it very much.  And though Saorise Ronan is getting the deserved star attention, Laurie Metcalf in particular is great.
 
Geostorm – Utterly popcorn silliness, but well-produced, great effects, and to its credit only about 90 minutes, not a long, drawn-out epic like so many of these try to do to give themselves more "heft."  This accepts that it's just light-hearted folderol and so it zips through without being overbearing and pretentious.  And as a result I thought it was fun to watch and then move on.
 
Roman J. Israel, Esq. – Written and directed by Dan Gilroy, who also made the well-crafted and eerie, Nightcrawler.  Very good, though it is a little slow for a while to get going, taking about an hour for the first substantive plot turn, being largely character-driven up to that point.  But (and this is critical) it’s never boring during this first hour because Denzel Washington is so utterly terrific. I was absolutely fascinated by the character that's being developed, so going along for the ride until things turn was a pleasure.
 
And then I went to the L.A. Opera on Sunday to see Verdi’s Nabucco because Placido Domingo was in it.  I’m not a big opera fan (though oddly I’m okay listening to it), but this was enjoyable, and this Domingo guy has a future in him.  Mark my words.  I think it was also the first opera I've seen with super-titles, which I know have been around for a while. But that's how few operas I go to.  Though a little distracting, they certainly make a big difference for following things.  Combined with reading the plot beforehand, it sure helps.  Anyway, I'll be curious to see what this Domingo fellow does next.

By the way, back to Roman J. Israel, Esq., there's a terrific trailer that gets across much of why Denzel Washington is to tremendous in the role -- but it also gives away some of the big plot twists, so I'm not going to post it here.  This short clip doesn't do his full work justice, but it does give a sense of it.  The scene comes near the beginning, where he has been working as the hard-working grunt in a three-person law office for a great many years, doing the research and court filings for the firm's owner, whose daughter has just told Roman he had a massive heart attack.

Last night, I went to see the play Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz, which I'd wanted to see for a long time, at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, which I'd wanted to get back to after a long time.  Both were well-worth the wait.

Robbie Baitz is a wonderful writer who I've never met but we exchanged a great many emails during the last Writers Guild Strike.  He created the TV series Brothers and Sisters, and wrote the play Vicuna which I saw in its world premiere production in Culver City last November, and wrote about here.  (It was probably the most bizarre experience I've ever had in the theater.  The play is a very funny, but dark, scathing and ultimately very-serious satire of an outlandish character who is clearly based on Donald Trump running for president.  What began its life no doubt as a comic, but bleak cautionary tale of such a ludicrous idea, its life took a complete turn when I saw it the day after Trump won the presidential election.  As I describe in the article, it was an utterly odd and otherworldly being in the theater that night.  I mentioned this to him, and he said pithily how odd it was all been, as you might imagine.  Profoundly difficult as it was to watch that night, I suspect the passage of time -- while still difficult to watch, but not as raw  -- has given the play an added richness.)

Other Desert Cities was written in 2011 and was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Play, and won one of its stars, Judith Light, the Tony as Best Featured Actress.  It's a terrific play with many of the same attributes of Vicuna -- thoughtful, crisp dialogue, very funny, and turning extremely serious.  It centers around a daughter returning to the family home for the holidays, as she's about to publish a book about a difficult time in the family's life.  It really is very funny, but deals with edgy family issues that break apart in the second act.  But it's handled with such craft that the whole thing is engrossing and a pleasure.

The whole cast of five actors were excellent, with an interesting bit of casting.  The matriarch is played by Ellen Geer, theater founder Will Geer's daughter, and the character of her daughter in the play is played by her own real-life daughter, Willow Geer.  Also standout was Mark Bramhall as the father.  And Rafael Goldstein as the brother and Melora Marshall, who plays the children's aunt -- and in real life is Willow Geer's aunt -- were excellent, as well.  (And lest anyone question my judgement here, this is the rave review from the Los Angeles Times.)

As much fun is the venue itself.  

The Theatricum Botanicum is a complex in the wooded area of Topanga Canyon started in 1951 by actor Will Geer, best known for his role as the grandfather on The Waltons, but who had a long career acting and as a political activist.  He was a member of the Group Theatre in New York, and traveled the country entertaining at government work camps with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Burl Ives.  He was blacklisted in the early 1950s for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.  Its worth noting that he began his early living studying to be a botanist, getting his Masters degree in the subject at the University of Chicago.  The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum carries that sensibility of all its interests to its grounds.

A slight digression.  This was my first time back to the grounds in several decades.  It's a bit of a drive, around 40-45 minutes, and it also fell a bit off my radar, though I'd always intended to go back, liking the venue so much.  My last visit was memorable.  I'd had a first date with a very pretty girl I liked, but it almost didn't come off.  I'd been in great pain earlier in the day, and in fact one of my superiors at Universal Studios sent me home from work, in fact threatening to beat me up if i didn't leave.  I was still uncomfortable at home, but really wanted to go on this date, and I drove us out there.  I remember the night well -- it wasn't a play, but a concert -- Burl Ives, of all people, and discomfort aside, I loved it.  I suspect I wasn't at my best that evening, what with the agonizing pain earlier in the day, and alas we didn't have a second date.  Making it all the more challenging was that she lived way out in Pasadena, so I had to drive her 40 minutes back home and then I returned another 40 minutes back to my apartment.  I was okay, but barely, with gritted teeth.  And that night, I slept about two hours.  Though there was a lot of writhing while I was awake.  What I learned the next day when describing the symptoms to my dad who was a doctor is that...well, I had kidney stones.  (For those who don't know, this has been described as the closest a man can come to experiencing the pain of child birth.)  The moral of this story, as I've often told people, is that it shows how far a guy will go to have a date with a pretty girl.

So, this was the return to the place.  As I walked up the path, I felt like shouting out, "I'm back!  Did you miss me?!!"

There are a few picnic areas on the grounds, a small performance venue, a snack shack, and up ahead a ways on the left (in the photo above) there is a Shakespeare Garden, where Will Geer planted every flower mentioned in a Shakespeare play.  They put on a repertory program of about six plays every season, including one or two Shakespeare productions, and have educational events, family events, classes and more.  This year's schedule comes to an end tonight, but they'll start up again next June.  You can read more about it at the link at the top of this article.

The centerpiece is, of course, the main stage, which is an outdoor amphitheater.  I'm going to guess it seats about 750.  The lower tier is wooden benches and backs (oak perhaps? I'm not good at that sort of thing), which were surprisingly comfortable.  The upper tier is cement.  There are backs, but they're recessed a bit.  I tried it out, and it was actually fine, thought the wooden are far better.
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The environment is wonderful.  It feels reasonably intimate, and the acoustics are good -- and it's a pleasure to see a play without microphones.  That's no small feat, given that it's outdoors, so you don't have baffling to improve the sound, and the seating goes up a ways, so voices have to carry.  And all the while, the actors are competing with the sound of crickets in the night, and any traffic that may be passing by on Topanga Canyon Road.

(There are no crickets during the daytime matinee performances, though traffic might be a little heavier, though it's still not the busiest of roads.  Nighttime does get pretty chilly in the canyon, especially later in the season, but I chose an evening performance between the daytime there can get warm during the summer.  At least if it's chilly, you can bundle up.  And it wasn't that bad.  A sweater and light jacket was fine.

What I particularly like is that you are indeed out there in the woods.  The background is the forest.  And that tree you see on stage -- it's not a prop.  It's a tree growing on the spot.  They built the stage around it.
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Anyway, it was a wonderful play, terrifically performed and a great theater environment.  It only took me a couple decades to get back -- and no, I don't think it was psychosomatic reasons that kept me away... -- and I look forward to back next season.  Or at least not in a few decades.

This is a yowza.  I mean, seriously, this is a serious yowza.  Even if you don't like theater or Broadway but care at all about popular culture, literature or history, stick with me here.  It's -- there is some really special yowzarosity here.

This is a recording of the 1960 Tony Awards.  By itself, that would be special enough -- because this is before it was even a national broadcast but was only shown in New York.  Though the results were anticipated nationally, with Broadway in its Golden Age, the broadcast itself was pretty much a local secret.  But that's not even close to why it's so special. 

In fact, in many way, this is not especially good television.  It's very dry, a bit stilted and there's no entertainment,  just a presentation of awards.  And half a century later, there will be people on stage here who most audiences won't recognize.  Though make no mistake, it's still great history, and there are a lot of seriously impressive presenters and winners.  Just for starters, it's introduced at length by Henry Fonda.  But that's not the point here.  The point is that, among all the dryness and great highlights, there are these two particular moments that are particularly special.  One will be most-special to lovers of theater, though I think it will still hold meaning for many others.  But it's the second one that leaps out above everything.

For me personally, aside from all that, the reason I especially wanted to watch this 1960 Tony broadcast when I saw it existed is because of its connection to what readers of this site know is perhaps my fave musical, Fiorello!, with a score by my recent pal Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock.  What I knew from the date is that this was the year that Fiorello! tied with The Sound of Music for Best Musical.  (And get this, one of the shows that didn't win was Gypsy.  That's how great this year was.)  I really wanted to see that.  As a result of it winning, though, what is so special in this broadcast is who gives the acceptance speech for Fiorello!  It's the show's director, who is one of the legends in theater history -- George Abbott!  At the time of this broadcast, the 72-year-old Abbott was already a legend -- but what's remarkable is that he lived for another thirty-five years, passing away at the age of 107, and still working (albeit as a consultant) until he was 100.  So, it is a complete historical joy to see his speech, which comes around the 44:00 mark.  (Later in the broadcast he wins for Best Director, but his speech is very short.  Basically, "It's nice to be up here again.")  George Abbott, for goodness sake.

But as wonderful as that is, and it's pretty wonderful, it's the other moment that is the topper.  The Tonys decided to give a special award that year to honor a unique and beloved revue, A Thurber Carnival, which was based on short stories by James Thurber, probably one of the two greatest humorist in the history of U.S. literature, along with Mark Twain.  (For those who haven't read his work, check out "The Night the Bed Fell" or Fables for Our Time, or know that the recent movie, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was loosely based on his story.)  And because of that...the award they give here is to -- yes, James Thurber!!!  I'm going to guess that as renowned as Thurber is, whether you've read him or just heard of his work, most people today have never seen James Thurber or even heard him speak.  And this is your chance.  And the thing is -- he's absolutely terrific.  Not just charming and whimsical, as you'd hope he'd be, but also wonderfully serious for a reason I won't give away.  But the warm, lovely speech turns bluntly pointed, yet is so very understated that it's all the more impactful.  As you watch it, I'll just remind you  to keep in mind when this ceremony occurred, and its time in history. Anyway, if all you want to see in this broadcast is Jame Thurber, that's plenty enough, and it comes around the 25:45 mark, so you can jump directly to it.  (You should also know that Thurber was near-blind at this point in his life, which is why he's being lead around by his friend and the revue's director Burgess Meredith, who also gets an award.)

I'll note, as well, that If you do stick around through Thurber's speech and then Meredith's, the next presenter is Vivian Leigh.  That's the kind of show it is.

As I said, much of this broadcast is bone dry, so most people might prefer to jump to some of the other highlights. For those folks, I'll give you a bit of a road map.

Another good moment is when Jackie Gleason wins as Best Actor in a Musical for Take Me Along which comes at 59:00.  (Readers here with good memories will recall that I've written about this show a few times and posted several songs, most notably here and here.).  

There's also a very nice sequence with Helen Hayes presenting an award at 56:00. (I was going to say, "the legendary," but this video is so overloaded with such folks that it would become redundant.  For instance -- ) Not long after that, Mary Martin wins for Best Actress in The Sound of Music, which comes at 1:01:15. (Again, how great a season is this?  She beats Ethel Merman in Gypsy., which may be the most famous performances by an actress in Broadway history.  Boy, those were the years...).  . 

Jumping back to earlier in the broadcast, there is a Fiorello! moment I particularly liked, though I think many may find historically interesting, regardless.  At the time he was cast to play the title role in Fiorello!, Tom Bosley was an unknown actor, but he moved out of obscurity when he won Best Supporting Actor in a Musical.  Of course, 15 years later he would come to greater fame playing the father 'Howard Cunningham' on Happy Days. But his performance and Tony win for Fiorello! is the springboard that brought him his first major attention and launched his career, and his thrilled-speech comes at 37:00. 

There are other highlights, but those are the ones which most stand out.. Mainly however, it's those first two segments that I know those with sense of theater and literature and history will utterly love.  They're sort of amazing to see.

Most especially James Thurber.  And if couple minutes is all you jump to and watch -- this is still a yowza.  James Thurber!

I was sorry to read about the the passing today of the great playwright Sam Shepard, at the age of 73. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his play Buried Child and wrote other works that included True West, Fool for Love and Curse of the Starving Class.  He later returned to his very-early days of acting and had a successful career at that, getting an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in The Right Stuff portraying Chuck Yeager.  His many other films included Days of Heaven, Resurrection, Baby Boom, Black Hawk Down and Steel Magnolias. 

I worked with him on one movie, the very little known Bright Angel, which was based on two short stories by the acclaimed author Richard Ford.  It was a solid, small independent film that had a very good cast for such a tiny, unknown movie that included Dermot Mulroney (who was the star), Delroy Lindo, Bill Pullman, Mary Kay Place, Valerie Perinne, Burt Young, Lily Taylor and Benjamin Bratt in what might have been his first movie, along with Sam.  And it was in one particular instance dealing with Sam Shepard that was perhaps my finest moment as a movie publicist.  (Which I suppose is not saying a lot, given that movie publicity is not filled with fine moments...)

In the film, Sam played a small, but important supporting role (I think as Dermot's father, though I wouldn't swear to that at this point), so he wasn't at the filming location in Montana all that much, maybe a few days.  Sam was a nice-enough fellow, willing to chat, though taciturn and a bit distant, seeming to prefer the quiet and being alone, there to do his job.

At one point, a video crew hired by the company came up to Montana to shoot for two days and get material for putting together an "electronic presskit," the EPK  They timed their visit to be there specifically when enough of the actors would be around, but most especially Sam Shepard.  He would be on the set filming during their second and final night, when we were out on a big field all evening until the wee hours of the morning, a ways outside of our base residence of Billings.

All was fine as the video team was getting their interviews and behind-the-scenes footage...but with one tiny hiccup. The night they showed up on the set, Sam absolutely refused to do an interview.  Nope, no way, doing a video interview was not for him, no, absolutely not.  I'm not sure if he was against all publicity (I suspect that wasn't the case), or if it was just because this was such a small role and he didn't want it made to seem otherwise, or maybe because it was to be videotaped, rather than a more simple print interview.  I did sense that he wasn't a publicity hound and was reticent to do publicity in general, but mainly was adamant about not doing publicity specifically for this.  Not at all, nothing.  Sorry.  Nope.  I asked a few times, as politely as possible, but the answer was always a blunt, polite, but crusty, "No."  

(I didn't try to do an interview for my own written purposes, but I didn't think I really had to, and so didn't want to push him for it, preferring to put my efforts into the video interview.  During his time there, I had chatted with him briefly a few times and got some off-handed replies that were very helpful, which I marked down after walking away, and also picked up random comments from standing with him as he talked with the director about the movie, so I could just use those in fleshing out the production notes I was writing.) 

His refusal to do a video interview was causing great stress for the "EPK" crew.  Though he wasn't the star, and it was just a small role, he was still the most-famous name in the movie.  And he was the reason they were there that night.  And they knew they couldn't go back to the production company and say that, "Sorry, no, we didn't get anything from Sam Shepard" and justify what they were paid.  (And I knew, having been around on movie sets as a publicist long enough, that to cover their rear I'd no doubt be the one blamed for it all, how the unit publicist just was no help and couldn't get Sam Shepard to talk to them.)  They were able to get some behind-the-scenes footage of him when acting, but that wasn't remotely good enough.  And as the pitch-black night went on and got later and later, they got more and more concerned.  They'd ask me to try again, but there was a limit I could do -- it seemed that pushing any farther than I had risked pissing off Sam Shepard, and not only might he shut down, but I'd be reamed out for mucking up the set.  I'd keep my eye on him, seeing how his mood was, go over to chat and listen for any crack in the exterior, but I could tell that the answer was no, period.

And then I had my Great Revelation.

I explained it to the video crew -- I said I knew from chatting with Sam since he'd arrived in Billings that he was a massive admirer of Richard Ford's works, and in fact that was one of the main reasons he agreed to be in the movie, in such a small role.  I said to the video director that I thought it was remotely possible that Sam might be willing to answer a couple questions on camera specifically and only about Richard Ford, to help promote a fellow-writer's works.  If I could get him to do that, would that be enough for the video?  The guy lit up -- that would be great, it would work, and besides, "Once I get him on camera, I'm sure I can get him to talk about some other things."  If he couldn't though, he would be really happy to get anything with Sam Shepard on video.

So, I kept an eye on things, picked my moment when it seemed all was low-key, and went over to Sam who was sitting alone, off to the side.  It was probably about 2 AM at this point.  I laid out my thought to him, might he be willing to talk about Richard Ford -- and Richard Ford only -- to the video crew for about three minutes?  To get some well-deserved attention on the novelist?  And to my utter relief, Sam said yes, he'd be absolutely fine answering a couple questions about Richard Ford on camera.  O huzzah!

When I told the video director, he was overjoyed.  They set up their camera, asked their few questions about Richard Ford and -- exactly as he anticipated -- once he got Sam talking on camera, he was politely able to stay pleasant and conversational and keep Sam chatting.  And in the end, they got about 15 minutes of Sam Shepard on video.

Afterward, the video director was in heaven.  It seemed like he was beaming so much that it shined through that very dark Montana night.

Just to finish things up, here's a short trailer for the movie.  It really wasn't a "thriller" like the narrator says, but far more a character study of people impacted by their challenging circumstances, although there was plenty that was tense throughout in the edgy story.  And all the better, you'll also get to see scenes here from that dark night out on the field.  And a bit of Sam.

The other day when writing about going to the Muppet organization's Puppet Up! improv event, I forgot to mention my favorite ad lib --
 
One of the Muppets that they use is a hot dog.  (In fact, they sell it in the courtyard beforehand.)  There was one improv sketch with four of these hot dog Muppets – one was a maid, another a doctor, one a cowboy, and the last just like this hot dog below.  At one point in the sketch when things were getting loopy, this fourth hot dog started looking around at the other three, seeming to be a bit lost, and then suddenly jumped in, “Hey, I didn’t realize we were supposed to wear costumes.”

And hey, as long as we have Puppet Up! on the table, here's another video from the folks.  This is a less-intimate environment than at their home studio, but takes place at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.  (As such, it's a well-produced video, so you get a good sense of the experience, seeing the performers in action, but also the results on the big monitor.)  It's all enjoyable -- and that's Brian Henson, Jim Henson's son, in the first sketch, performing as the warthog -- but the second improv sketch that begins about at the 3:10 mark is particularly fun, especially for this very appreciative Aussie audience.

On Saturday, I went to the Puppet Up! - Uncensored event that those of you who read Mark Evanier's site have seen him rave about for a while.  It's put on by the Jim Henson organization (or more properly their Henson Alternatives division) and takes place once or twice a year at their Hollywood studio.  This is an old facility that in its early incarnation was Charlie Chaplin's studio.  It seems to seat about 250, and though general admission they assign tables when you arrive.  So after visiting in the courtyard for a while, I headed off to my table front-and-center, and Mark and his group went off to theirs.

It's a bit difficult to describe well, since it's unique.  Basically it's improv with Muppets.  Though they also have some prepared material and re-create a couple of classic Muppet sketches from the past.  (For our show, it was "I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face" and "Java.")  It's all done out in the open, so you can see the work being done by the actors, but there are monitors, as well, in case you want to watch like on television.  They begin the evening with a very funny film about the history of puppetry.  And there's even some digital puppetry tossed in there, as well.

(You can read more about it and check out some behind-the-scenes videos here on their website.  And also probably get on their mailing list to let you know when they're dong their next show.)

It's awfully entertaining and very well done.  There's no video (at least yet) of last night's who, but I've found a couple videos where they do the same premise as two sketches on Saturday, just with totally different results.  Though the show has "Uncensored" in the title, and there is definitely off-color material, it's not a raunchy night, were the actors do their best to be as dirty as possible.  Rather, they go for fun and creativity, but being "uncensored" frees them up if that's where they scene most-properly goes.

This first is introduced by host and the evening's director Patrick Bristow (who is an actor, and you may recognize him from the Ellen show when she had a sitcom).  It's an improv Film Noir, where the audience shouts out suggestions for what the various foundations will be.  We had a Film Noir, as well, so clearly that's one of their go-to premises.

As host Bristow says (and the audience shouts with him) when calling the next group of actors waiting off the the side to perform, "Puppet up!!"

This was probably my favorite premise of the night.  Not that some other sketches weren't funnier, but I like the idea behind this the most, and it was nothing I'd seen at an improve night.  Host Bristow explains the premise, but the video misses some of the opening, and so it might not be fully clear.  Bristow has gone into the audience to find a couple -- most likely married.  He then asks them questions about how they met and their first date, and then the Muppet actors have to improv that first date.  Making it particularly fun is a nice twist, where the two real-life subjects get to ring a bell or hit a buzzer when the improv actor get something "right" or "wrong" about the date.  My only quibble here is that on Saturday the sketch went much longer and was a long hoot.  This is more of a short hoot...

​Puppet Up!

I'm planning a trip to back Chicago in next month, so I wanted to check what theater is going on in the city, since it's usually so vibrant.  There are some interesting productions, including the Lyric Opera putting on a My Fair Lady (which is probably a wonderful stage, though I thought it was an odd choice when they announced it last year), and the Court Theatre putting on Harvey, one of my favorites.  And two of their companies that have won Tony Awards for Best Regional Theaters have interesting productions -- the Goodman Theatre has Pamplona with Stacy Keach as Ernest Hemingway and the Lookingglass Theatre is putting on Moby Dick.  (This must be their year for doing adventure shows about the ocean, since later in the season they have a stage version of, of all things, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  No word yet if they will be providing the audience scuba gear.)

But it's another of the city's Tony winners for Best Regional Theatre, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater which has a play that most intrigues me.  Not just for what it is, but that it's an ideal venue for it.  A stage adaptation of the Oscar-winning film, Shakespeare in Love.  This isn't a premiere -- it opened in the West End of London, and played at the Ontario Shakespeare Festival in 2014.  But as far as I know it's the first production in the U.S.  The stage version was adapted by Lee Hall, whose many works include the films War Horse and Billy Elliot, which he adapted for the stage musical.

I don't know if I'll be able to make it to any of these shows -- or elsewhere -- since my schedule isn't all worked out yet.  But here's a trailer of sorts of Shakespeare in Love, which got a very nice review by the Chicago Tribune's , critic who had also seen the show in Canada and hadn't liked the staging there but found this version much more lively.