Spamalittle

Not exactly Dead Parrot: The Musical, but close; new season lineups promise star turns

Comments (0) By Elaine Liner Thursday, Jun 28 2007

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Since it's the Music Hall at Fair Park, the sound quality is awful, however. On opening night, the voice of the Lady of the Lake came through the speakers like she was singing underwater. Microphones cut in and out. Loud fuzz and feedback obliterated lyrics. This venue subjects patrons, more than 3,000 at every performance, to audio quality worse than that of the average Greyhound bus station. In the last song in Spamalot, they sing "Life's a piece of shit." So is the Music Hall's sound system.

Dallas theaters are winding up their current seasons and starting to work up a lather about what they'll be doing next. Three shows look particularly intriguing—not for the plays but for who'll be playing what. Contemporary Theatre of Dallas has locked up dynamic actress-singer Denise Lee for the starring role of Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, running January 25 to February 17. The re-creation of one of the jazz singer's final performances will be directed by Phyllis Cicero. CTD also is wooing hot Dallas actor Clay Yocum to star as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire next summer. Yocum, a stunner in WaterTower's Take Me Out, recently played a featured role in that theater's Parade. He's a natural for angry-brooding-sexy-muscular Stanley. They could sell his ripped T-shirts as souvenirs.

Joan Marcus

Silly, dumb and cheesy: That would be Spamalot.

Details

Monty Python's Spamalot continues through July 8 at the Music Hall at Fair Park, 214-631-ARTS.

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Streetcar will be directed by René Moreno, but before he does that, he will return to the stage for the first time in years to star in Kitchen Dog Theater's much-anticipated January production of Shakespeare's Richard III. Since an accident years ago that damaged his spinal cord, Moreno's used a wheelchair, a device that could be employed with great effect in a villainous role usually portrayed as a limping hunchback. Actor and Kitchen Dog company member Ian Leson will direct.

WaterTower has snagged regional premiere rights to Lynn Nottage's award-winning Intimate Apparel. The drama about an early 20th-century black woman's long-distance romance with the man of her dreams is scheduled to open at the Addison theater next May.

Theatre Three's theme for next season is shows with movie tie-ins. In September they'll produce the Dallas premiere of the R-rated comedy-thriller Popcorn by British comedian-writer Ben Elton. Set on Oscar night in Hollywood, the play finds a director of ultra-violent films embroiled in a series of murders inspired by his work.

Dallas Theater Center, in transition next season from departed artistic director Richard Hamburger to new guy Kevin Moriarty, will stage David Mamet's profane drama about real estate and male bonding, Glengarry Glen Ross, in October. A three-night run of Hamburger's new project, an all-marionette Sound of Music, will premiere at DTC in early November. Wouldn't it be funny—a real Pythonesque touch—if they used live actors for "The Lonely Goatherd" scene?