Faces to Watch in ’95 : We’re Counting on Them : THEATER

Some of them you know. Some you don’t. But the following artists, entertainers and executives have one thing in common: We’re counting on each to mae a significant impact or difference in their respective fields this year. Sure, there will be thers who make a splash, but after we talked with dozens of people who work in entertainment and the arts, these were the names mentioned most often. You might say that Jim Carrey was a face to watch in ‘94, and you would be right. But, based on “Ace Ventura,” “The Mask,” and “Dumb and Dumber,” Carrey’s ’95 should bear watching. Another pair of familiar faces--Jay Leno and David Letterman--appear on our list. Why? Haven’t we looked at these guys enough? Well, truth be told, how do you know what’s going to happen to them this year? Fame can be sooooo fleeting.

Nicky Silver

Playwright Nicky Silver’s “Pterodactyls” opens at South Coast Repertory on March 17, bringing Southern California the first taste of the 34-year-old’s famous wicked wit. The play focuses on a family in suburban Philadelphia near Silver’s childhood home. When it opened Off Broadway in 1993, David Richards of the New York Times announced that it was “time to take (Silver) seriously”--the play won the Kesselring and Oppenheimer prizes. Silver’s “Free Will and Wanton Lust” won the Helen Hayes Award for best new play in Washington last year.

Silver’s “Raised in Captivity” opens in New York next month, and a commercial production of his “The Food Chain” is expected to open in New York later in the year. Some of his other intriguing titles: “Liars, Pinheads and Geeks,” “My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine,” “Fat Men in Skirts.”