Lisa Chess

Television producer David E. Kelley has known producer-director Michael Pressman for a long time. So he had to admit that he was surprised when Pressman told him and other friends last year that he had decided to turn his recent adventures in L.A. theater into a movie -- written, directed, financed by and co-starring himself. "Most people said, 'You're crazy,' " Kelley recalls. "But," he adds, "they didn't say, 'Don't do this.' The reaction was, 'You're crazy, but good for you.'

The explosion of reality TV shows has changed the face of the entertainment business, not always in predictable ways. Some of the most creative people in Hollywood are jumping aboard this bandwagon in their own fashion, hatching television shows and movies that blur the line between truth and fiction. Instead of merely pandering to viewers' voyeuristic impulses, they tease this bizarre craze.

The explosion of reality TV shows has changed the face of the entertainment business, not always in predictable ways. Some of the most creative people in Hollywood are jumping aboard this bandwagon in their own fashion, hatching television shows and movies that blur the line between truth and fiction. Instead of merely pandering to viewers' voyeuristic impulses, they tease this bizarre craze.

Television producer David E. Kelley has known producer-director Michael Pressman for a long time. So he had to admit that he was surprised when Pressman told him and other friends last year that he had decided to turn his recent adventures in L.A. theater into a movie -- written, directed, financed by and co-starring himself. "Most people said, 'You're crazy,' " Kelley recalls. "But," he adds, "they didn't say, 'Don't do this.' The reaction was, 'You're crazy, but good for you.'

"Frankie & Johnny Are Married" is a bittersweet, wryly amusing "dramatic fiction" about producer-director Michael Pressman's true-life tribulations while trying to stage the play "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune." Pressman had decided that, after a decade of marriage, he and his wife, actress Lisa Chess, should at last work together in the theater, where they both started.

Michele Palermo's "The Sisters 3" at the Coast Playhouse is a send-up of Chekhov's "The Three Sisters" that shoots for wacky but woefully misfires. The play is set in a Burbank diner owned by boozy Marcelle (Palermo), spacey Isabelle (Heather McClurg) and sweet-but-lonely Gabrielle (Lisa Chess), who gained fame as child actors on the long-running '70s sitcom "The Sisters 3." Adult life hasn't been kind to the siblings, reduced to waiting tables in their '70s-themed restaurant.

Since her last appearance at the Hollywood Bowl in 1998, Natalie Cole has published an autobiography, executive-produced a TV story of her life and released an album of greatest hits, many of which will be heard when she returns to the Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Natalie Cole with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., L.A., 8:30 p.m. $3 to $85. (323) 850-2000.

The first Other Venice Film Festival, a weekend event at the Electric Lodge, is designed to call attention to the presence of filmmaking activity in the community. Charlie Chaplin introduced his beloved Tramp character in his second two-reeler for Mack Sennett in "Kid Auto Races at Venice" (1914), and Venice has been a favorite location for movies ever since, most notably Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil" (1958).

Erica Jong's first and best-selling novel, "Fear of Flying," opened with a sexual fantasy set in a train. It was ribald, imaginative, refined and on target. Give or take a few particulars, it illuminated a universal flight of female fantasy. "Women's Sexual Fantasies," the Women-in-Theatre collection of seven new playlets on the subject, goes after the same thing at the Cast Theatre, but with a much less vigorous imagination.

At first glance, "Legacy: The Story of a Family," at the Hudson Backstage Theatre, seems to be a playwright's play. Michele Palermo takes obvious pleasure in the crafting of traditional family drama, in the stoking of a dramatic flame burning in the hearts of the three Catalano siblings reluctantly brought together to hear their powerful father's will.

Paul Mazursky and Michael Elias are preceded by their reputations in "The Catskill Sonata," now in its world premiere at the Hayworth. Mazursky is arguably best known for directing such offbeat comedies as "Moscow on the Hudson" and "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," whereas Elias co-wrote such goofy films as "The Jerk" before segueing into half-hour television comedy. In this instance, it's best to put your preconceptions aside.

Friday After Freedom Drama Vitagraph With: Mic Tomasi, Greg Satamian, Sophie Chahinian The idea: Cultural tug of war set in Glendale as a young Armenian American is torn between his tightknit community and finding his own way. Writer-director: Vahe Babaian * So?