A Fresh Start for Theatre of N.O.T.E.

Everything’s coming up new for Theatre of N.O.T.E. (New One-Act Theatre Ensemble): a new artistic director, a new home--and a new season, opening Wednesday at the Friends and Artists Theatre in Hollywood.

“Theatre of N.O.T.E. has been floating around the last five years,” said Joseph Megel, who became artistic director last September. “We’re about one-acts, short-form dramas, what I call ‘chamber theater.’ We thought, ‘Why not produce a season?’ ”

Megel eventually hooked up with producer-director Sal Romeo; the two will now share the Friends and Artists space, with Theatre of N.O.T.E. performing on Wednesdays and Thursdays in what Megel calls “an eclectic mix of things.”

On tap: “Absurdist Plays and Children’s Stories,” consisting of Jean Tardieu’s “The Information Office,” Eugene Ionesco’s “The Lesson” and four Ionesco children’s stories (April 5-May 11); an adaptation of Richard Brautigan’s “Sombrero Fallout--A Japanese Novel” (May 24-June 28); Karin Spritzler’s “Bed” and Grubb Graebner’s “Arroyo Repo” (July 12-Aug. 17); a set of as-yet-unchosen one-acts (Aug. 30-Oct. 5) and “It Comes With the Plumbing,” with concept by Megel, score by Geof Morgan (Oct. 18-Nov. 30).

“We’re doing traditional one-acts--such as Ionesco--that don’t get enough play,” Megel explained. “And with our playwrights workshop, we’re definitely inspired by new one-acts.” “Plumbing” is a more extended work “and is probably more accessible than our more abstract pieces.”

In terms of casting, Megel promises non-traditional choices (“I want things like normally-hearing roles to be played by deaf actors”), yet eschews a blatantly political ideology: “On my radio show (KPFK’s “Morning Magazine”), we talk about the homeless, El Salvador. My feelings about politics and theater is that all theater makes a statement; you don’t need to bring in politics. Politics just exists . Sure, I want to do pieces about racism, homophobia. But what I look for is good theater--because good theater will express those things.”

DORIAN SINGS: Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” goes the rock musical route in “Shades of Grey,” a 14-actor, six-musician, 20-song production, opening Friday at the Matrix Theatre in West Hollywood. Franni Burke wrote the music, Judy Gibson directs.

“I’ve been absolutely faithful to Oscar Wilde in terms of story structure and character--I even included a couple of Wildean quotes,” said lyricist/book writer Laird McClure. “The first act takes place in a New York nightclub, the second act on a sound stage in L.A. It starts in the early ‘50s and progresses through the ‘80s--told through the eyes of three female backup singers. Dorian himself is a composite superstar figure: a little Elvis, a little Springsteen, a little Michael Jackson . . . “

In preparation, McClure--who’d originally planned the piece as a movie--looked up the reviews of every theatrical production done on this theme, including the ill-fated “Dorian” (with a female lead), which played locally in 1986. “People were using gimmicks,” he said. “The moral of the story is (that) extreme vanity leads to self-destruction--a very timely theme, very Hollywood.” In that spirit, McClure adds, “This is not a normal (smaller theater) production. I have eight gowns that cost over $5,000. It is a big show.”

The production is dedicated to Roy Orbison, who invested in the show just before his death last year.

CRITICAL CROSSFIRE: “My Daddy’s Serious American Gift,” John Ford Noonan’s drama of an 11-year-old girl trying to hold her family together, has opened at the Tiffany Theatre. Jerry Heymann directs. Said Sylvie Drake in The Times: “It is (Richard) Jordan’s snake-charmer performance as the complex, lying, infuriating Jason that keeps this play going. The man is full of classic contradictions--scared and brutal, tender and violent, contrite and aggressive.”

In the L.A. Weekly, Tom Provenzano wrote: “Noonan’s aggressive melodrama suffocates with its message about parental immaturity . . . Heymann directs his extremely skilled actors with such an oppressively heavy hand that the entire production becomes a long, stifling endurance test.”

From Tom Jacobs in the Daily News: “There are some good moments between the daughter and her parents . . . Unfortunately, this three-way relationship, which is the heart of the play, gets pushed aside and nearly forgotten.”

Bristled Richard Stayton in the Herald Examiner: “Telling the story from a child’s perspective may explain Noonan’s peculiar leaps in emotional logic. However, it doesn’t excuse them . . . What (this play) needs are readings and rewrites, not a ‘world premiere.’ ”

Said Daily Variety’s Amy Dawes: “Though its milieu is rather unadventurous, featuring the daily travails of white middle-class New York dwellers, its style and structure are admirably clever, some of its characters indelible . . . Jordan is richly authentic as Jason.”