Theater Audiences

Halloween isn't just for kids anymore. The line between creative partying and theater is becoming blurred as adults continue to shed their inhibitions and dress up in their favorite fantasy. The closest real theater gets to this is "Tamara" and "Tony n' Tina's Wedding," where audiences can fantasize themselves as a character even on nights when the ghosts aren't out. But there's a popular phenomenon presenting Halloween's theater-meets-party spirit all year round.

When it came to designing this year's Oscar sets, Derek McLane didn't have to look far for inspiration. McLane, a Tony Award-winning set designer who has crafted the scenery for such Broadway shows as "33 Variations," "I Am My Own Wife," "The Heiress" and the upcoming "Breakfast at Tiffany's," stole an idea from his own New York apartment - an installation of 35 industrial lamps on a wall, each in its own cubbyhole, backed by an antique mirror....

"If you want to get a message out, nothing travels faster than word of mouth." --Sermon, from gospel play "Your Arms Too Short to Box With God" * It is a clear, warm night in the Crenshaw district, and a steady stream of cars is being waved into parking lots at the rear of a handsome row of shops on Degnan Street.

Bill T. Jones won his second Tony Award for choreographing "Fela!," a musical about the late Nigerian Afrobeat singer, composer and political activist Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Jones, 59, also cowrote the book and directed the high-energy show about the government's crackdown on his commune. "Fela!" comes to the Ahmanson Theatre on Tuesday and runs through Jan. 22, 2012. Were you familiar with Fela's music before this project? Yes, I was. Fela was very important to a lot of us in the '70s, maybe not as important as Bob Marley.

Gordon Davidson sinks into a couch in his office beneath walls filled with posters for plays he has recently produced at the Music Center's Mark Taper Forum: "Angels in America," "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992," "Black Elk Speaks." Nearby, artworks from earlier shows bear witness to his three decades in Los Angeles theater: "Terra Nova," "Children of a Lesser God," "Zoot Suit."

The signs are all there, on banners, buses and the Cahuenga Pass electronic billboard--the Hollywood Bowl season has arrived. There will be fireworks almost every weekend, appearances by the likes of Simon Rattle and Dr. John, Frederica von Stade and Patti Labelle, Benny Carter and John Williams--a wall-to-wall summer of country, rock, jazz, pops and classical programming. But with all of that comes the eye-rolling ambivalence that haunts this famous attraction.

Rush hour is earlier--and a little more costly--than it used to be at the Mark Taper Forum. Center Theatre Group's public rush program now offers $12 Taper tickets two hours before the show begins. Until the Taper season began last month, the rush tickets cost $10 and went on sale just 10 minutes before curtain time. Jim Royce, CTG's marketing and communications director, cited several reasons for the changes. The 6 p.m.

The producer of Agatha Christie's thriller "The Mousetrap" predicted Monday that the world's longest-running play would never close. As the classic whodunit embarked on its 55th year, producer Stephen Waley-Cohen said he couldn't see an end in sight for the popular London tourist draw. "On first night, Agatha Christie said she thought it might get a nice little run. Now it's an institution," he said. "I don't see why it shouldn't run forever."

LOS ANGELES theater audiences have an oddly contradictory reputation. Perhaps because this is a town where the famous may be spotted hiding behind sunglasses at the car wash or a favorite out-of-the-way sushi bar, theater-goers can be remarkably blase when one of those same actors turns up onstage. It's bad taste to be too impressed. And perhaps because this is a community of actors -- successful, aspiring, undiscovered -- L.A.

Worlds are colliding. The worlds of theater and television, that is. There have been near-misses before, theater translated to the small tube, and sitcom-flavored scripts presented in theaters. The current innovation, which opened Friday at Hollywood's newest 99-seat plan venue, the Egyptian Arena Theatre, is called "Cheap Talk."

Is Katie Holmes helping "All My Sons" pull in potent grosses on Broadway? Last week, the revival of the Arthur Miller drama was the highest-grossing play on Broadway, with $684,002 for its first full week of eight preview performances at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. It played to nearly 98% capacity at the 1,052-seat theater. The revival -- starring John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest, Patrick Wilson and Holmes -- opens officially on Oct. 16. It has a top ticket price of $116.50 with premium tickets topping out at $300 for certain performances.

More than a quarter century ago, the critic Robert Hughes called the public's response to Modern art "the shock of the new." The role of art was to stimulate ideas, provoke thought, challenge ways of seeing. Today, we are experiencing a different, troubling phenomenon: a popular culture that embraces the comfort of the familiar. Americans discovered the hard way that we don't like surprises.

AS patrons who tend to like their opera long and blustery take their seats at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion this week, it's not surprising to see an occasional look of concern as some round-faced moppet plops down on the seat next to them, ready to see L.A. Opera's "Hansel and Gretel." Theater-going comes with a set of expectations for most people. Opera even more so.

Broadway had a lot to be thankful for during Thanksgiving week -- most notably record grosses for several of its most popular shows. "Wicked" took in a mammoth $1.7 million, a new Broadway record. It broke the house record at the Gershwin Theatre, one of Broadway's largest playhouses, where "Wicked" grossed $1.6 million during the week between Christmas 2005 and New Year's 2006. Another record was set at the August Wilson Theatre, where "Jersey Boys," the Four Seasons musical, grossed $1.

The producer of Agatha Christie's thriller "The Mousetrap" predicted Monday that the world's longest-running play would never close. As the classic whodunit embarked on its 55th year, producer Stephen Waley-Cohen said he couldn't see an end in sight for the popular London tourist draw. "On first night, Agatha Christie said she thought it might get a nice little run. Now it's an institution," he said. "I don't see why it shouldn't run forever."

APPARENTLY, ancient theater is not Greek to us: Euripides' tragedy, "Hippolytos," the inaugural production at the Getty Villa's new outdoor theater, drew capacity crowds of 450 for all 15 paid performances (at $38 a pop) during its September run, reports Villa spokeswoman Tracy Gilbert. But no expansion of the annual series is planned. Still treading gingerly, given conditions set by the L.A.

T he things they do. A study in two parts: Exhibit A: If you're a Hollywood producer with a big, expensive movie like Penny Marshall's "A League of Their Own," you do all of the usual things to attract audiences, like hit the TV talk shows and grant magazine interviews.

"I like it that the play is comedy, that it's farce, that it has pathos, that it's stupid, that it's sophomoric--and it's Shakespeare too," said Jack Grapes of his and Bill Cakmis' "Circle of Will," currently at the Zephyr Theatre. Early, speculative Shakespeare, one hastens to add. "It's about the young Will Shakespeare (played by Grapes) and the young Richard Burbage (Cakmis), before any of Will's plays get off the ground," Cakmis said.

Talk about giving away the plot: On Oct. 19, thousands of seats will come gratis at more than 50 stage companies in Los Angeles and surrounding counties. From Ventura to Anaheim, from Venice to Upland, the national "Free Night of Theater 2006" promotion will mean freebies for 5,000 or more playgoers in Southern California; the same terms are expected to apply at 500 theaters nationwide.

LOS ANGELES theater audiences have an oddly contradictory reputation. Perhaps because this is a town where the famous may be spotted hiding behind sunglasses at the car wash or a favorite out-of-the-way sushi bar, theater-goers can be remarkably blase when one of those same actors turns up onstage. It's bad taste to be too impressed. And perhaps because this is a community of actors -- successful, aspiring, undiscovered -- L.A.