Cabaret Musical

Do a search for "Teri Hatcher" on your Web browser, and you'll hit a cyber-avalanche. More than 40 Web sites--"Teri Forever," "A Tribute to My Idol," "Totally Teri"--spewing out thousands of pages of celebrity worship.

William Roy, a cabaret performer who also served as an accompanist and musical director for a number of leading entertainers, has died. He was 75. Roy died Tuesday in West Palm Beach, Fla., of respiratory failure after a series of small strokes, said Wayne Hosford, his companion of 11 years. A native of Detroit, Roy began singing on a children's radio show at the age of 3. From there, he performed on "The Lone Ranger" and "The Green Hornet" radio shows, which were broadcast from Detroit.

A year ago, if you had asked knowledgeable Los Angeles theatergoers which local space should host the first stop for the national touring production of director Sam Mendes' grimly re-imagined "Cabaret," hardly anyone would have suggested the Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills. Compared to the much smaller nightclubs where "Cabaret" was playing in New York, the 1,910-seat Wilshire would have struck most observers as too big and stodgy.

A year ago, if you had asked knowledgeable Los Angeles theatergoers which local space should host the first stop for the national touring production of director Sam Mendes' grimly re-imagined "Cabaret," hardly anyone would have suggested the Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills. Compared to the much smaller nightclubs where "Cabaret" was playing in New York, the 1,910-seat Wilshire would have struck most observers as too big and stodgy.

William Roy, a cabaret performer who also served as an accompanist and musical director for a number of leading entertainers, has died. He was 75. Roy died Tuesday in West Palm Beach, Fla., of respiratory failure after a series of small strokes, said Wayne Hosford, his companion of 11 years. A native of Detroit, Roy began singing on a children's radio show at the age of 3. From there, he performed on "The Lone Ranger" and "The Green Hornet" radio shows, which were broadcast from Detroit.

Even if life is a cabaret (old chum), the Hollywood Bowl definitely isn't . With nearly 18,000 seats on a hillside facing a half-buried architectural saucer, it's obvious that this amphitheater is no intimate, atmospheric boite , and titling the Wednesday pops concert "A Cabaret" represented the first of the evening's miscalculations.

Robot Land, a $600-million theme park celebrating famous science fiction cyborgs and motion picture androids, is expected to open in South Korea in 2013. > Photos: Robot Land theme park rides and attractions Located about an hour west of Seoul in the coastal city of Incheon, Robot Land would feature 11 rides, seven attractions and eight shows on 190 acres. Dubbed the world's first robot theme park, the oft-delayed Robot Land would compete for visitors with the world's 10th busiest theme park ( Everland )

The San Francisco Chronicle last Sunday ran 10 wrenching pages on "AIDS and the Arts," a special report on men prominent in the San Francisco arts community who have died or are suffering from AIDS. The article estimates that 60 men of note--mostly in their 30s and 40s--have died. About 50 of them were profiled, with photos of 21 published, plus discussion of other men who are ill. It was, said entertainment reporter/critic Edward Guthmann, the "most painful" assignment of his career.

Kevin Kaufman and John Everest's uneven cabaret musical revue "American Twistory" is a fractured American history lesson set to music, with six exuberant ensemble members (Paul Ainsley, Cindy Benson, Lauri Johnson, Hope Levy, Bret Shefter and Craig Wasson) harmonizing and mugging with minimal props at the Cinegrill.

*** Rufus Wainwright, "Rufus Wainwright," DreamWorks. Although he's the offspring of folk singers Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, 23-year-old Rufus Wainwright's sensibility leans closer to cabaret and musical theater. Nearly every track on his debut is couched in grandiose orchestrations, and his lyrics convey an abiding, uncynical faith in love that would sound mawkish were it not for his skills as a songwriter and arranger.

Do a search for "Teri Hatcher" on your Web browser, and you'll hit a cyber-avalanche. More than 40 Web sites--"Teri Forever," "A Tribute to My Idol," "Totally Teri"--spewing out thousands of pages of celebrity worship.

Even if life is a cabaret (old chum), the Hollywood Bowl definitely isn't . With nearly 18,000 seats on a hillside facing a half-buried architectural saucer, it's obvious that this amphitheater is no intimate, atmospheric boite , and titling the Wednesday pops concert "A Cabaret" represented the first of the evening's miscalculations.

Under agreements approved by the City Council, two community-based theater groups will stage productions at Brea's Curtis Theatre. A total of 64 performances are planned, which will constitute the majority of the 1995-96 season. Prism Productions, which staged the counterculture musical "Hair" at the city-owned theater last season, plans to present "Cabaret" and "Follies" this season. "Cabaret," a musical set in a Berlin nightclub before World War II, will open Sept. 15 and run through Oct. 8.

There's a lot of talent on display in "Nicholas DeBeaubien's The Hunchback of Notre Dame," an original production by Sacred Fools Theater at the Heliotrope--but it is largely wasted on a patchwork that even snippets of comic invention can't save. Larry Larson, Eddie Lee, Rebecca Wackler and John Kohler co-wrote this incipient satire, which lampoons the destruction of a work of literature by a talentless interpreter.