Update
Anthony Bean's Ethopian Theatre is seeking a technical director, set designer, and, stage manager, for its upcoming theater season. All are paid positions. For an interview appointment, call Lloyd Watts, (504) 897-3229

Christian Middleton's new Acting Company Theatre Group, Inc. (ACT) is seeking actors for an upcoming production of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. Actors should send head shots and resumes to:ACT, Inc., 1108 Adams St. New Orleans, La. 70118. 

News
It’s Back!!! … ‘Ball’ bounces back, and, just in time to jump-start Mardi Gras season!
Ricky Graham’s long running comedy, “AND THE BALL AND ALL” makes its inevitable comeback January 5th. “In time for Twelfth Night parties”, says Graham.  It’ll be at the True Brew Café Theater, starring Becky Allen as Frances Trepagnier, captain of the Mystic Krewe of Terpsichore. Roy Smith, of the Producers’ Circle, says, “Ball will be joined in February on heretofore dark nights at True Brew by GREATER TUNA, starring Graham and Michael Bennett, playing the denizens of Tuna, Texas … 11 roles each!”
The “Ball” box office opens December 15th.
Telephone (504) 524-8440

Writer-actress, Lisa D’Amour, is interested in hearing from anyone who actually saw dancers Nita and Zita perform. The Hungarian sisters (real names: Flora and Piroska Gellert) lived in New Orleans from the 1930s until their death in the ‘80s; and, performed on Bourbon Street, at the old Roosevelt Hotel’s Blue Room, and in the Faubourg Marigny.  D’Amour, Kathy Randels, and Anne Liese Juge, are performing a Nita and Zita performance.
Piece scheduled to bow as a Work In Progress at Zeitgeist in December.
Call D’Amour at (504) 219-9756, or e-mail her at

Theatre
MIKKO PRESENTS WHOSE LITTLE BOY ARE YOU? JONATHAN KLINE’S CHRISTMAS
At Le Chat Noir, 715 St. Charles Ave. (504) 581-5812.
Storyteller Kline performs “four twisted holiday stories” with original music by Composer
Eric Laws. Directed by Mikko Macchione.
Performances at 11 p.m. thru December 8th.

ROACHOPERA also at Le Chat Noir, marks the return of poet-performer Chris Champagne’s
audacious, comic cabaret, a topical, political revue that takes scattershot aim at local and statewide targets.  Champagne, as professional crank, Numa Schexnaydre (shex-snider)
doing a New Orleans yat rant.
Expect lots about local reaction to the Presidential Election.
Tickets $10.

LATE NITE CATECHISM still going strong … can’t stop ‘Sista’ now with Christmas upon us!
Our town’s number 1 nun still continues to lead an adult catechism class where the audience becomes her students.  Careful … she might convert ya!
Tickets: Thursday and Sunday shows $20.  Friday and Saturday shows are $25.00
Telephone 1-(504) 522-2081

The Jefferson Performing Arts Society has LA TRAVIATA scheduled late January, 2001.
And, H.M.S. PINAFORE is to perform in late March, 2001.  They are still looking for roles to fill.
Any baritones out there? A baritone is needed to play the principal role of Captain Corcoran.
Call Diana Ricca, 1-(504) 885-2000, to schedule an appointment.

Film
SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE
Nibble on … ahhhh, go ahead, take a big bite of this one when it opens in the U.S. on December 29, 2000. The brilliantly written (Steven Katz) original screenplay is the first production by Nicolas Cage’s Saturn Films. It premiered at the Director’ Fortnight of the Cannes International Film Festival 2000. It took Grand Prize at the Festival d'Avignon; and, was featured at this years’ Telluride Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival and the New Orleans Film Festival.
Without a doubt in my mind, we have in SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, one of the greatest renditions of a vampire ever.  Willem Dafoe performs the role of actor Max Schreck in the making of the 1921 Vampire movie NOSFERATU. It is Willem Dafoe’s single best performance of his career.  Oscar material? Best Supporting Actor? Yes, yes … it must be. How could it not?

NOSFERATU director F.W. Murnau (John Malkovich) is struggling to make his silent classic,
NOSFERATU in Eastern Europe. Obsessed with making this the most authentic vampire movie ever, he makes a ‘pact with the devil’; employing a Real Vampire, Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe). Murnau explains to the crew that he is the ultimate of the new breed … the “method actor” … trained by Stanislavsky himself.  Schreck will appear only in character; and only at night. 
The Pact?  If Schreck delivers a great performance; and keeps his unseemly urges under control, Murnau has promised him the delectable neck of the film’s star, Greta (Catherine McCormack).
Schreck lives up to only one of the above.
Dafoe’s Schreck is simultaneously terrifying, pitiful  and comical. 
He enters the character, then the man, Dafoe, melts away.  We are left with a centuries old vampire: a once noble human transformed so long ago into a blood consuming monster that he can no longer recall his origins. He’s gone so long that he can’t remember how to turn others into creatures like him. He doesn’t even recall how to enter a victims bedroom, ala vampire style. Instead he fumbles, loudly, at turning the knob; and gets caught; sheepishly slinking off.
His goblets are gone, no longer does he have servants. Instead he’s a vulture, a rat … living on scraps of blood: a ferret, a rat, a bat in the night … he drains
(a terrific sound effect has a bat swooshing above the audience toward the screen only to get caught in mid-air by Schreck, who proceeds to devour it as the Director and Writer witness the event).
I’m drained!
Please, get an early seat! Don’t miss the opening credits; for as they roll, you are taken on a mesmerizing, microscopic, an ‘“Iris-in”-directs-F.W.Murnau’ journey, inside and about an elaborate art deco pattern.  So enthralling, spellbinding, you’ll not want to come out of that … howbeit, you must, for a truly great film begins to embrace you. A must-see by all genre fans.  A must see for all serious drama fans.  A must see by everyone that loves film!

Speaking of Mardi Gras!  Fat Tuesday is February 27, 2001
Talk about all the world being a stage! The Greatest Free Show on Earth is back for its annual run (believe me, Brazil and Venice pale beside this Bacchanalian, luminous, OH … THE LIGHTS!, the brilliance, bedazzling, bewitching, enchanting, Show-of-Shows. The first parades will roll approximately two weeks before Mardi Gras Day.
Greek names pretty much rule as names for Mardi Gras Krewes go:
Aphrodite, Adonis, Chaos, Muses, Olympia, Isis, Poseidon!
And, just like Ricky Graham’s play’s title, “AND THE BALL AND ALL”, each Mardi Gras Krewe has a spectacular, staged ball!
Now, if you can’t come to the Mardi Gras, try this web site: www.nolalive.com
There you can view it via a fixed video camera at such sites as Bourbon Street (it’s gonna be packed, with wall-to-wall bead throwers/catchers and marvelous/funny costumes).
Go on! Give it a try, now … just to get in some practice!

Auditions
Lori Bennett's North Star Theatre in Mandeville, LA  has snagged the rights to ANTON IN SHOW BUSINESS, the latest opus by the Actor's Theatre of Louisville's mysterious playwright Jane Martin, seen at ACT's New Play Festival 2000. "This play is great fun and it's all about the theater", says Bennett. "The premise involves a production of Chekhov's 'The Three Sisters' in San Antonio starring a blonde bombshell TV actress. I couldn't stop laughing". Auditions for ANTON will be Dec. 10 at 5 p.m. and Dec. 11 at 7 p.m. at the theater, 347 Gerard St. in Mandeville. ANTON has an all-female cast of seven. "Three of the women play multiple roles and every role is challenging and fun", says Bennett. Actresses are asked to bring a head shot and resumé.  ANTON IN SHOW BUSINESS opens Jan. 19, 2001 at North Star. For more information, call Bennett at 1-504-624-5266. Mandeville is a picturesque community; and, an 'easy-riding' 24 miles across the sea (Lake Pontchartrain) to the North of New Orleans. 

© 2000 Steve&Lucille Esquerré ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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