GLENDALE : 60 Dads to Ham It Up Onstage in PTA Benefit

Scott Rader--who at 6 feet, 5 inches tall and 270 pounds is built like a large football player--looks superb in a pink tutu.

So says fellow actor Gordon Morris, who joins Rader and about 60 other Verdugo Woodlands Elementary School dads in performing eight songs and six dance numbers for the 47th annual Father’s Follies, “Curses--Foiled Again!”

A cross between vaudeville and slapstick, the follies not only allow fathers to act somewhat like their 7-year-olds, but also raise the bulk of funds for the elementary school’s PTA budget.

Last year’s show netted about $8,000 for the PTA--close to 75% of the organization’s annual budget. Funds are drawn from ticket sales and business advertisements printed in the show’s playbill.

Tickets are $3 at the door for tonight’s 8 p.m. performance, which will be staged in the Glendale College Auditorium, 1500 N. Verdugo Road.

Morris, who has the lead in this year’s production, said that although he has no acting experience, assuming the role of Boss Plaid--the show’s villain--was easy.

“I’ve always been a ham at heart,” said Morris, whose fifth-grade son, Eric, 10, attends Verdugo Woodlands.

Other dads, some of whom have performed in the follies for 15 or 20 years, also enjoy the month and a half of rehearsals and general clowning around that accompany the yearly production, Morris said.

“Curses--Foiled Again!” was written by Glendale College faculty member Jill Benone--who has scripted and directed the follies for more than 20 years. The play features Boss Plaid plying his “dirty tricks” in an effort to take over the Verdugo Woodlands Valley.

The Boss tries to convince school administrators to spend their money on golf courses rather than school improvements. He’s “foiled” in his quest for power, however, by Dick Daring and a cast of fathers posing as fourth-graders.

After the Boss utters the show’s final line, “Curses-foiled again,” fathers hurry to change into multilayered skirts and fishnet hose to perform the show’s finale-a racy French can-can.