Old Globe’s McMurtry to Star in Gaslamp Debut

Old Globe Associate Artist Jonathan McMurtry will make his Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company debut in David Mamet’s “A Life in the Theater,” April 2-May 10.

The show, which tells the story of an aging actor advising a younger actor, is 15 years old, but it has never been done in San Diego. It will replace the Gaslamp’s previously announced production “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” at the Hahn Cosmopolitan. Will Roberson will direct.

McMurtry, a San Diego resident who has worked at the Globe for more than 30 years, is fresh from a successful run as the fellow making a killing burying Civil War dead in “Noah Johnson Had a Whore . . .,” which closed Sunday at the South Coast Repertory Theatre. Speaking from an office at the South Coast Rep, he said he has turned down offers at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and the San Diego Repertory Theatre to take on the role at the Gaslamp of the aging actor.

McMurtry said the opportunity to co-star with his old friend David Ellenstein--currently starring as Scoop Rosenbaum in the Gaslamp production of “The Heidi Chronicles”--made this project irresistible. The two actors did the play together in a staged reading in Los Angeles about eight years ago. Both men said in separate interviews that they have talked about doing a full production of the piece ever since. When an extension of “The Heidi Chronicles” caused the cancellation of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” Ellenstein brought the project to the Gaslamp’s attention.

“I’ve always wanted to play that role and I particularly wanted to play it with David, and here it is,” McMurtry said. “I think it’s a wonderful play and a wonderful part and we’ve talked about doing the play off and on over the years, so I figured it must be a sign. It’s certainly ironic. Things don’t usually happen to actors that way.”

Ellenstein said part of the play’s fun stems from seeing Mamet’s parodies of plays that the actors are doing: snippets of a mock-Chekhovian piece, an Elizabethan duel, a World War I drama, a Civil War segment, a French Revolution play.

Another part of the fun will be the possibility of drawing on their real-life friendship.

“There are some similarities,” Ellenstein said. “When we first became friends, I was 18 and Jonathan was a mentor. Our relationship has changed as I’ve become my own actor and director. We’ve got a lot of things to bring to this.”

Actually, McMurtry said the friendship goes back even farther, to when Ellenstein was just a little boy and Ellenstein’s father directed him in a production of “Hamlet” at the Arizona Theatre Company.

“I’ve just kept in touch with the Ellenstein family. The whole Ellenstein family are actors and David is my favorite,” McMurtry said.

The Centro Cultural de la Raza is putting increased attention on presenting theatrical events this year. “A lot of people seem to be asking about it,” said Eloise de Leon, Centro’s performing arts coordinator. “It’s something that is relevant to the Latino community and educational to people of other ethnic identities.”

The lineup begins Friday with “Intimate Text-Ure,” a performance art piece by the Publik Kulture Ensemble, in which five male artists address what it means to be male in today’s society. Next up is Teatro Alto, a San Diego State University-based group that will perform Carlos Morton’s “El Jardin” and Luis Valdez’s “Los Vendidos” on March 6 and 7. Native American performance artist Stephanie Heyl presents “HairPullArmFlutterSlapShow” on March 13. Actress Ruby Nelda Perez performs “A Woman’s Work,” a multi-character monologue March 20 and 21. All shows are at 8 p.m. Call 235-6135.

J. Sherwood Montgomery, who has worked for decades as a local actor, director, designer and educator, has a new permanent position as artistic director at Coronado Playhouse. The playhouse, which Montgomery attended as a boy, has been a community theater for its 46 years of existence, but it now has other ambitions. It plans to build a new theater space with two stages: one for community theater, the other for professional work.

“One of the reasons I’ve come aboard is that it’s going to happen and I’m going to make it happen,” Montgomery said. “I’ve opened six theaters in my career, so I have some idea about what it’s like. We also want to make sure we have good relationships with other theaters. We’re going to be looking for repertoire that isn’t being served--lighter fare, things that are sophisticated with a comedic tilt.”

Along those lines, Montgomery will open Moss Hart’s “Light Up the Sky” on Saturday, directed by San Diego Comic Opera Company artistic director Leon Natker.

Coronado’s eclectic eight-play season also features some San Diego premieres, including “The Pinchpenny Phantom of the Opera,” a parody of “The Phantom of the Opera,” played by four actors in the setting of a very cheap opera company, June 6-Aug. 22; a new play, “Smart Aleck,” about drama critic Alexander Woollcott (to be played by Montgomery), Sept. 5-19, and the rarely done Cole Porter musical “Out of This World,” featuring the song “From This Moment On,” Oct. 31-Dec. 5.

Montgomery said his hope is to open the new space in time for the company’s 50th anniversary. In the meantime, he makes no apology for the Coronado Playhouse’s current community theater status.

“I think there’s a very strong need to have a semiprofessional niche that’s in between collegiate work and professional work--not only to help people on their way to their professions, but for people who must do theater as an avocation because they have families to support. And that doesn’t mean they don’t have a long and abiding talent for what they do.”

PROGRAM NOTES: The Milwaukee-based Great American Children’s Theatre Company added another Thursday performance to its March 2-6 production of “The Wind in the Willows” at the Spreckels Theatre to accommodate children on the waiting list. More than 14,000 local youths are expected during the course of the run. Maurice Stein, who has made masks for “The Planet of the Apes,” created the masks for Mr. Toad, Mole, Ratty and Badger. For tickets, call 1-800-852-9772. . . .

Steve Gunderson will leave “The Heidi Chronicles” on March 1 to understudy one of the actors in the “Forever Plaid” tour of Japan. Dan O’Connor will replace him through the end of “The Heidi Chronicles” run.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

SIX-WOMAN HIT ‘BEEHIVE’ TOURS ‘60S SOUNDS

Whatever weird harmonic convergence “Suds,” “Forever Plaid” and “Six Women With Brain Death” struck with San Diego audiences, “Beehive,” the new six-woman hit at The Theatre in Old Town, seems plugged into it, too. The show is nothing heavy, but it’s great fun from the moment the women appear with their beehive hairdos and hair spray and start singing a host of hits through the ‘60s, swiftly changing clothes and styles in the process. Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday, through March 15. At 4040 Twiggs St., San Diego. Call 688-2494.