A Critic Tests the Waters as a Playwright

Connie Monaghan makes the switch from critic to playwright with the Jan. 7 opening of her romantic comedy “Love or Something Out on Highway 97” at the CAST Theatre.

“Bud is an ex-con and Archie is his former cellmate,” the writer said of her characters. “Bud falls for a woman named Sal, who happens to shoplift--a lot. She in turn is concerned with conjuring up the ghost of her ex-husband.”

Monaghan, who’s been a critic at the L.A. Weekly since last March, chose eastern Washington (near Walla-Walla prison) as the play’s setting. She was born in Tacoma and grew up in the region. “There’s a feeling of endless wheat fields,” she noted of the area.

“The highway is set along the valley where all the Washington apples and pears and cherries come from. It’s really a nowhere place where people end up on their way to somewhere else.”

The characters, too, aren’t strangers to Monaghan. “I had plenty of friends who were involved in petty crimes,” she said candidly. “The people in this story aren’t hardened criminals; they have schemes for making a million bucks. One of my inspirations was ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’: a couple who have all these hopes they’re going for. So it’s not a hard-boiled, realistic thing--it’s more like a dreamy landscape.”

The play marks Monaghan’s first since she became a reviewer. Doesn’t having a play done at a theater she potentially also might cover create a problem?

“I never review things at the CAST because of a personal friendship with (CAST artistic director) Diana Gibson,” she explained, adding that she had also worked at the CAST on occasion. Another place she won’t review is the Padua Hills Playwrights’ Festival, where a couple of her plays were staged before she became a reviewer.

“I’ve had a lot of trepidation about other critics seeing ‘Love or Something Out on Highway 97,’ ” she admitted, “because we (all) have very different tastes. So it’s hard being on the other side of the fence. But doing this certainly made me reappreciate all the work that goes into a production. It’s a lot easier for me being on the critic’s end of things than being a practicing playwright.”

John DiFusco directs.

RINGING IN THE NEW YEAR: Shakespeare Festival/LA will host its second annual benefit next Sunday with a reading of “Twelfth Night” at the Pasadena Playhouse’s Balcony Theatre. The cast includes Edward Asner, Dana Delany, Harry Groener, Val Kilmer, Rue McClanahan and Roger Rees. Tickets: $100-$175. Information: (213) 489-1121.

Emily Loesser arrives at the Westwood Playhouse Jan. 9 in the English-language Yiddish musical “Yiddle With a Fiddle,” based, logically enough, on the 1936 film “ Yidl Mit’n Fiddle. “ The book, about a destitute young woman who disguises herself as a boy to take to the road and earn a living as a musician, is by Isaiah Sheffer, with music by Abraham Ellstein.

Italian playwright Edoardo Erba is in residence at Stages Trilingual Theatre, where his one-act “The Night of Picasso” will have its English-language premiere Jan. 10, followed by Erba’s full-length “Porco Selvatico” later in the month.

Mark Lee’s new play, “Pirates,” described as an examination of sexist stereotypes in academia, opens at South Coast Repertory Jan. 11. And on Jan. 12, the San Diego Old Globe will offer the Southland’s first production of Jerry Sterner’s gritty send-up of greed and big time wheeler-dealers in “Other People’s Money.”

By Jan. 17 comes something of an opening night bottleneck. Robert Morse comes to the Henry Fonda Theatre with his Tony Award-winning performance as Truman Capote in Jay Presson Allen’s one-man show, “Tru.”

Philip Kan Gotanda’s “The Wash,” developed in the Taper’s 1985 new works program (and made into a feature film last year) opens at the Taper. Nobu McCarthy and Sab Shimono play an Asian-American couple whose 40-year marriage has hit the rocks.

In Hollywood, “The Vortex,” Noel Coward’s brittle satire of London drawing rooms, country-house weekends and hidden addictions opens at the Doolittle Theatre. This is directed by Robert Allan Ackerman and stars Stephanie Beacham and Rupert Everett. And Lillian Garrett’s new play, “The White Rose,” about the Nazi put-down of a student revolt (shades of Tien An Men Square) comes to the San Diego Old Globe.

No less than three openings also crowd a busy Jan. 20. Gary Morris, who played the role of Jean Valjean in the Broadway company of “Les Miserables” a few seasons back, returns to the role in the touring production of the musical, which opens at the Pantages for a 4-week run. Gary Bohlke’s “Double Cross,” billed as “a scheming tale of lies and deceit” set in affluent rural Virginia, opens at the Pasadena Playhouse. A. J. Antoon directs.

And “A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening” (at the Coast Playhouse) aspires to be just that: a celebration of the movie music of Harold Adamson and Jimmy McHugh--from the people who brought you “Blame It on the Movies” 1 and 2.