Multimedia, Site-Specific ‘Happy End’

Celebrating the centennial of composer Kurt Weill’s birth, the Museum of Contemporary Art will present “Happy End” in a site-specific production that will roam through the galleries of the Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo, Feb. 23-27 and March 1-5.

The production will blend live-action, film, video/slide projections, puppetry, masks and shadow play, under the direction of Randee Trabitz. Weill’s music will be live, prerecorded and sampled, with contemporary arrangements by singer-actress Weba Garretson’s Eastside Sinfonietta. The instrumentation will include Farfisa organ, pump organ, vibraphone, bass, banjo, woodwinds and drums.

As many as 250 theatergoers will see each performance, said Julie Lazar, the museum’s director of experimental programs. Although professional actors will participate, the venue and the style of presentation will allow the production to be classified as performance art, which falls outside the domain of the stage actors’ union, Actors’ Equity. However, Lazar added, the museum will pay union scale to the actors.

Weill collaborated with Bertolt Brecht on “Happy End” in 1929, a year after their groundbreaking partnership on “The Threepenny Opera.” The show involves a Salvation Army missionary and a gangster, which may sound like “Guys and Dolls” but which preceded the more famous show by several decades.

Information: (213) 621-1752 or call the MOCA box office at (213) 626-6828.