Comedian’s ‘Laughter’ Celebrates the Gray Crowd

He’s 60. He’s bald. He’s divorced. And he has a thing for younger women.

Comedian Sammy Shore, the creator of the Comedy Store (which went to his ex-wife, Mitzi, in their divorce), promises to bare everything in his life in “Beyond the Laughter, Beneath the Smile,” a new show he tested out in Palm Springs in February. The show will have its San Diego premiere at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company’s small theater tonight through April 7. It is produced by the Spectator Corp.

“It’s a story about me as a stand-up comedian getting older and accepting that that’s the way it is, but also saying that we’ve got plenty of time left,” said Shore on a rehearsal break at the theater.

Shore sets the show in his own living room, complete with pictures of his family on the wall as well as the people he’s worked with over the years: Sammy Davis Jr., Julio Iglesias, Tony Orlando, Elvis Presley.

The only part that’s fictional is the narrative that drives the show, he said. His best friend calls, asking him to a Temple dance because he wants him to meet this blond, blue-eyed Jewish girl. What the show is really about, however, is Shore talking to the audience while he sits in his apartment, getting ready to meet this girl, curling his hairpiece and working up his courage.

“There are so many people at this age who have given up, and there’s no one speaking up for them. There’s no older comedian who saying ‘Let’s celebrate the gray crowd.’ I want to take this piece around the country to community theaters and to the homes. I’m not looking to get rich, I’m looking to take this message to the people and say, ‘Hey it’s not too late. Let’s get off your butts.”

Shore also wants to take the show to Chicago, Boston, Cincinnati and, eventually, Off-Broadway.

He admits that the show, because of its relentless honesty, is also a nightly challenge.

“It’s a real catharsis,” he said. “It’s like I go through two hours of therapy. I’m emotionally drained. I got nothing to hide, but it’s about 30 minutes to an hour before I can see anyone after the show.”

Stephen Kimbrough, last seen here as Emile de Becque in Starlight Musical Theatre’s “South Pacific” back in 1987, also opens with a one-man show tonight, but for one-night only.

He performs “Sweet Singer,” a dramatic musical about Charles Wesley, poet, activist and founder of the Methodist Church, at 8 p.m. in the Brown Chapel on the Point Loma Nazarene College campus.

Kimbrough, known as an opera singer and soloist as well as musical theater performer, got the idea for his show after providing some narrative in his recital of hymns by Charles Wesley, including the famous “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” at a concert at the John’s Street Methodist Church in New York City.

In the audience were Robert Wright and George Forrest, who wrote the book and lyrics for the musical version of “Kismet,” which Kimbrough performed in Vienna in 1978, as well as the current Broadway hit, “The Grand Hotel.”

“Robert Wright said to me after the performance, ‘You know, Stephen, there is a musical story in this man’s life. Whatever you do, you must go on with this,”’ Kimbrough said on the phone from Point Loma.

“At that point, I had not had the idea of writing a musical drama about the man. But here he was, an 18th-Century gentleman who was a radical opponent of slavery and was mobbed and often stoned, working with the homeless and the indigents and with coal miners’ children who had no education. He was one of the most prolific and published poets in the English language and yet had such anonymity as a human being.”

Though Kimbrough is a Methodist he does not see the work, which he has toured with since 1985, as a religious piece and indeed, resists any description of himself as a religious singer.

After singing Methodist hymns, he goes to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where he will sing songs by Jewish composers as part of the exhibition “Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany. His performance is at 8 p.m. Monday.

The Golem, a 2,000-year-old Jewish story about a man-made creature brought to life, has long been thought to be the inspiration for stories such as “Frankenstein” and modern day realities such as robots.

How better, then, to tell the story using man-made creatures such as puppets?

That was the idea behind Mark Levenson’s script for “The Return of the Golem,” a presentation produced by Levenson and performed by the Oregon Puppet Theatre. The 10-year-old company will make its San Diego debut with this show at the M. Larry Lawrence Branch Jewish Community Theatre at 8 p.m. Saturday for one night only.

Levenson, one of the four puppeteers behind the scenes who will be manipulating the show’s 48 puppets, said he has worked on a variety of puppet shows over the last 20 years, including folk tales, historical stories and selections from Hans Christian Andersen.

But “The Return of the Golem” seemed a particularly apt choice for puppet theater.

“I wanted to do ‘Golem’ with puppets because there’s an essential unreality to the creature,” he said on the phone from his office in Portland, Ore. “On stage, if the Golem is an actor in a monster suit, it’s tougher to accept the reality of what you’re seeing. But a puppet has no other reality than what it appears to be. It allows people to accept the reality that we’re trying to create him.”

The Golem puppet, which is 9 feet tall, does promise to be imposing.

The show will be preceded tonight with Paul Wegener’s 1920 silent film version of the story, “Der Golem,” at 7:30 p.m., to be presented with live piano accompaniment, and will be followed Sunday with a family puppet making workshop at 1 p.m. and 1:45 p.m., also at the JCC.

PROGRAM NOTES: How do you follow up murder at “Murder at Cafe Noir,” the last offering at the Mystery Cafe at the Imperial House Restaurant? For actress Lee Allison, who played the vamp, Sheila Wonderly, in the show, the next step has turned out to be producing, acting and directing in the upcoming double-bill at the Marquis Public Theatre. Allison performs in Tennessee Williams’ “The Two-Character Play” and has directed an original one-act called “Amidst the Alien Corn,” an adaptation by Barbara Nector of her poem, “Home for Ma’s Funeral.” The show, a rental, begins Friday and will play Fridays-Sundays until March 30. . . .

The still-homeless Performing Arts Theatre for the Handicapped (PATH) will hold auditions for able-bodied and disabled performers Saturday (3/9) for a variety showcase from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 7664-A El Camino Real in La Costa. The show, written by Michael McLeod, will be performed for the benefit of Scripps Hospital’s rehabilitation center in Encinitas. . . . The Old Globe Play Discovery Program continues with the Jack Heifner comedy “Bargains” at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Cassius Carter Centre Stage.