Susan Rubin

What they really want to do is direct--and write, sing, act, produce, choose the cast, do a little hoofing and, if necessary, move the sets and wash the costumes. Laural Meade, 32, writer of the play-with-music "Harry Thaw Hates Everybody," currently onstage at downtown's Los Angeles Theatre Center, says she learned during her student years first at Occidental College, then as a UCLA master's student in playwriting, that the best way to get a play on its feet is to do it yourself.

Breaking the Rules What Is Contemporary Art? Susan Goldman Rubin The Museum of Contemporary Art, $14.95

Susan Rubin, 40, recounts her own counterculture-era adventures in a one-woman performance piece, "Sarah's Story: Tripping on the Belly of the Beast," now starting an indefinite run at the recently moribund Los Angeles Theatre Center. "The burden (of reopening LATC) is mostly psychological," Rubin says over coffee on the back porch of the Hollywood Hills home she shares with her musician-writer husband, Charlie Degelman.

A playwright named Susan Rubin strides into Canoga Park High School, steeling herself for what lies ahead. She has a track record to maintain. No excuse-spouting, class-ditching teenagers, no matter how desperate their circumstances, are going to keep her from reaching her goal: In 12 weeks, each of the three dozen 10th-graders she's about to confront will turn in a full-length play.

Breaking the Rules What Is Contemporary Art? Susan Goldman Rubin The Museum of Contemporary Art, $14.95

A playwright named Susan Rubin strides into Canoga Park High School, steeling herself for what lies ahead. She has a track record to maintain. No excuse-spouting, class-ditching teenagers, no matter how desperate their circumstances, are going to keep her from reaching her goal: In 12 weeks, each of the three dozen 10th-graders she's about to confront will turn in a full-length play.

A free concert reading of the musical "club termina" by cancer survivor Susan Rubin will be presented by the Indecent Exposure Theater Company and the Breast Cancer Fund in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, at the Los Angeles Theatre Center on Oct. 25 at 8 p.m. Reservations: (213) 485-1681.

Thank you for the wonderful article "A Shocking Lyricism" (Aug. 27). As the administrator of the Playwrights in the Schools program, I'm very proud of the talented and imaginative student writers at Canoga Park High School, and of playwright-teacher Susan Rubin, who refuses to allow a single student to slip through the cracks. A.S.K. Theater Projects makes this program available to schools free of charge. Five schools from the L.A. area are participating, including Westchester, Venice, King-Drew, and Monterey high schools.

Susan Rubin's "Mysteries in a Silver Box," an Indecent Exposure Theatre Company production at Los Angeles Theatre Center's Theatre 4, tries hard to subvert the English drawing-room mystery genre with a comic flair, but it's mostly a flaccid piece that fails to engage or excite.

Susan Rubin's musical about four breast cancer sufferers at the L.A. Theatre Center, titled "Club Termina," could have been subtitled "Female Bonding in the Afterlife." Set in a kind of limbo--with booze, no less--the story skitters surrealistically among topics such as cancer, abuse, discrimination, mysticism and the importance of family. Old hands at this after-death stuff, Marilyn (Denise Dowse) and Trudy (Beverly Leech) rehearse a nightclub act in a murky cellar cabaret.

What they really want to do is direct--and write, sing, act, produce, choose the cast, do a little hoofing and, if necessary, move the sets and wash the costumes. Laural Meade, 32, writer of the play-with-music "Harry Thaw Hates Everybody," currently onstage at downtown's Los Angeles Theatre Center, says she learned during her student years first at Occidental College, then as a UCLA master's student in playwriting, that the best way to get a play on its feet is to do it yourself.

Susan Rubin, 40, recounts her own counterculture-era adventures in a one-woman performance piece, "Sarah's Story: Tripping on the Belly of the Beast," now starting an indefinite run at the recently moribund Los Angeles Theatre Center. "The burden (of reopening LATC) is mostly psychological," Rubin says over coffee on the back porch of the Hollywood Hills home she shares with her musician-writer husband, Charlie Degelman.

The first show to relight any part of Los Angeles Theatre Center for more than a one-night run (since the resident company collapsed last month) has been announced. "Sarah's Story: Tripping on the Belly of the Beast" will open on Dec. 2 in the smallest theater within the municipal complex, 99-seat Theatre 4. It's slated to stay for at least eight weeks.