Richard Hoover

Richard Hoover was in New York, designing a $32-million movie ("Rucker") and the set of an off-Broadway musical revue ("The Thing About Men"). But at the moment, his thoughts were on his most recent project in Hollywood: a $40,000 Actors' Gang production, "The Mysteries," which opened Saturday. Told that his listener would soon visit the set of "The Mysteries," which was still being built as he spoke, Hoover had one simple request: "If you've got any lumber, bring it over."

The Mysteries: Director-adapter Brian Kulick's exploration of medieval mystery plays (and their antecedents) is wildly inventive, and Richard Hoover creates a striking setting. Act 1 presents Old Testament sagas drawn from the British York, Wakefield and Chester cycles, closing on the Nativity. Act 2 brings New Testament accounts reenvisioned by 20th century authors Borislav Pekic, Dario Fo and Mikhail Bulgakov, ending with a York Cycle summation.

The Mysteries: Director-adapter Brian Kulick's exploration of medieval mystery plays (and their antecedents) is wildly inventive, and Richard Hoover creates a striking setting. Act 1 presents Old Testament sagas drawn from the British York, Wakefield and Chester cycles, closing on the Nativity. Act 2 brings New Testament accounts reenvisioned by 20th century authors Borislav Pekic, Dario Fo and Mikhail Bulgakov, ending with a York Cycle summation.

Richard Hoover was in New York, designing a $32-million movie ("Rucker") and the set of an off-Broadway musical revue ("The Thing About Men"). But at the moment, his thoughts were on his most recent project in Hollywood: a $40,000 Actors' Gang production, "The Mysteries," which opened Saturday. Told that his listener would soon visit the set of "The Mysteries," which was still being built as he spoke, Hoover had one simple request: "If you've got any lumber, bring it over."

Richard Hoover, production designer for the Depression-era drama "Cradle Will Rock" about the staging of an ill-fated musical, began his career in theater. In fact, he met "Cradle" director Tim Robbins in a 1989 L.A. theater production of Bertolt Brecht's "The Good Woman of Setzuan" and has worked with him on several projects since, including "Bob Roberts" and "Dead Man Walking." But "Cradle's" visual style is perhaps the most dramatic of Hoover's films.

A newly discovered life form that froze on Earth about 30,000 years ago has apparently been alive since then and started swimming as soon as it thawed, according to a NASA scientist. The microscopic organism -- a bacterium called Carnobacterium pleistocenium -- probably flourished in the Pleistocene Age, Richard Hoover of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama reported Wednesday. That would make it a contemporary of woolly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers.

"Schools Hurt by Shortage of Counselors" (Aug. 7) highlights a problem in California schools that is only getting worse. While other states such as Arkansas and Florida mandate counselors in the schools, California does not. School counselors are expendable in this state and exist at the whim of local school boards, superintendents and principals. Unfortunately, this state of affairs exists at time when students face more crises and impediments to learning than ever before. Child abuse, broken homes, alcohol/drug abuse, teen pregnancy, gang violence and suicide, the second leading cause of death for youth ages 10-19, to name a few. Further, college-bound young people are finding less help available when they really need it. RICHARD HOOVER Executive Vice President California Assn.

We doubt that either Dr. Oz or Andrew Wakefield will be proudly displaying these honors on their mantelpieces: Both received "Pigasus Awards" this April 1 from the  James  Randi  Educational  Foundation for the dubious honor of being among the "5 worst promoters of nonsense. " Dr. Mehmet Oz got the "Media" Pigasus. The foundation explains why he won the prize: "Dr. Oz is a Harvard-educated cardiac physician who, through his syndicated TV show, has promoted faith healing, 'energy medicine,' and other quack theories that have no scientific basis.

Unbridled flimflam energizes "Alagazam," freaking out in the late-night slot at the Actors' Gang. Director Brent Hinkley and a demented cast devour Adam Simon and Tim Robbins' tent-show vaudeville with fearless perversity. Reworking the authors' 1985 "Slick Slack Griff Graff," "Alagazam" wraps carnival circuitry around a symbolist post-World War II America.

Two men are adrift on a rooftop in the ocean. They are strangers to each other who speak different languages--hostile and wary men in military fatigues, from different countries. Survival depends on their ability to communicate, to work together. Will they? With slapstick humor and poignancy, "Robinson and Crusoe," a timely absurdist fable for children at Barnsdall Art Park's Gallery Theatre, reveals the superficiality of sociological barriers to human connection.

Richard Hoover, production designer for the Depression-era drama "Cradle Will Rock" about the staging of an ill-fated musical, began his career in theater. In fact, he met "Cradle" director Tim Robbins in a 1989 L.A. theater production of Bertolt Brecht's "The Good Woman of Setzuan" and has worked with him on several projects since, including "Bob Roberts" and "Dead Man Walking." But "Cradle's" visual style is perhaps the most dramatic of Hoover's films.

Did you enjoy "Sheen's Korner" on UStream on Saturday? There may be a lot more coming on HDNet very soon. ( Hollywood Reporter ) And maybe AMC? The creator of "The Walking Dead" really wants Sheen on his series. ( Hollywood Reporter ) "Rango" lassos the highest weekend gross so far this year. ( Los Angeles Times ) At age 76, most people are slowing down, but Japanese porn star Shigeo Tokuda is getting busy. ( Los Angeles Times ) Phil Collins has decided to quit the music scene altogether.

A report claiming to find remnants of alien life in meteorites has been broadly dismissed by scientists after its publication Friday in an eccentric online journal. The report was written by Richard Hoover, an engineer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. He had sliced open a couple of small meteorites, looked at them under a microscope and seen what he thought were the fossils of tiny bacteria called cyanobacteria. Hoover wrote his report, concluding that life is common throughout the universe.