13 Musical

Center Theatre Group’s production of "13," a musical about the tribulations of early adolescence, and Stephen Adly Guirgis' gritty drama "In Arabia We'd All Be Kings," a look at down-and-outers in a Hell's Kitchen bar, took top honors for outstanding production and tied for most wins in the 39th annual Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards, announced Monday night at the El Portal. "13," by children's book author Dan Elish and composer Jason Robert Brown, was seen at the Mark Taper Forum.

What do you do when you're young, talented, not famous and bent on writing musicals in a market in which it takes a Broadway producer several million dollars and a regional theater anywhere from $150,000 (at the Gaslamp) to $500,000 (at the La Jolla Playhouse) and often more to take a chance on anybody?

It's not as if Jennifer Jason Leigh isn't a known quantity, not like the kind of intense, edgy, nervous work she specializes in has not been seen and appreciated up to now. But, even with all that as a backdrop, what she accomplishes in "Georgia" tears you apart. Unlike performers desperate to try something out of their range, Leigh takes a more difficult, more rewarding route.

What do you do when you're young, talented, not famous and bent on writing musicals in a market in which it takes a Broadway producer several million dollars and a regional theater anywhere from $150,000 (at the Gaslamp) to $500,000 (at the La Jolla Playhouse) and often more to take a chance on anybody?

Guitarist Peter Sprague owns a comfortable home in Del Mar, but when he wants to write music or bed down for the night, he retreats to a tiny, gnomish cabin in his back yard. Sprague is an ambitious, driven artist, but his amenable, soft-spoken demeanor, latter-day hippie outlook (he's a vegetarian and longtime surfer) and preference for shaggy locks and bare feet temper this drive into a calm, unselfish force.

A few paparazzi were loitering on the hot concrete outside of Chelsea Handler's talk show studio in West L.A. last week, waiting for pop diva Christina Aguilera to emerge so they could take her picture. But they weren't sure their idling would pay off. "Her walking with a coffee cup is basically worth nothing," said Bobby Rachpoot, a photographer for Bauer Griffin. "Unless she is with a new boyfriend. That would be like $100,000. " In the wake of a tough year, it seems Aguilera's stock has plummeted.

TV or not TV. . . . VITAL SIGNS: The networks are about to resurrect cultural history--Jim and Tammy Bakker, the Beach Boys and "Green Acres." All will be the subjects of special shows during the monthlong May ratings sweeps, which begin Thursday. But wait--there are also Frank Sinatra, Joe Cocker and Richard Nixon if you look elsewhere than the networks, which more and more people are doing.