Quick Takes - April 26, 2011

Restoration on the range

The cabin in northcentral Kansas where “Home on the Range” was written is badly in need of repairs, and Kansans are stepping up to try to save it.

Brewster Higley wrote the six-verse poem “My Western Home” at the cabin in Smith County in 1872. It was later put to music and renamed “Home on the Range” and became the Kansas state song.

The Wichita Eagle says that supporters have raised more than $2,000 but that it will take up to $100,000 to rebuild the cabin in an authentic manner.

—Associated Press

Reopening of Bolshoi in sight

Russia’s venerable Bolshoi Theater — which survived fires, a Nazi bombing and Lenin’s order to close it down — is almost ready to reopen after years of reconstruction and will look just as it did during the czarist era.

The theater will be finished in October in its original 19th century design, with restored czarist insignia, embroidered silk tapestry and acoustics-improving fir and papier-mâché panels, subcontractor Summa Capital said Monday.

The rectangular building — home of the world-famous Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera — also will have its original violin-shaped auditorium.

In 2005, the theater closed for a reconstruction that state auditors now say has cost at least $660 million, surpassing the original estimate 16 times. Productions continued at a nearby auxiliary theater.

—Associated Press

Two dancers leave production

The all-star ballet production “Tour de Force II” at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa has lost two of its stars.

A spokeswoman for the Segerstrom said that Russian dancers Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev have withdrawn from Thursday night’s production as a result of commitments with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow.

As a result, the production will drop the Gioacchino Rossini piece, “Pas de Deux” by Leonid Jacobson, from the program.

Organizers are also working on finding replacements for the “Don Quixote” pas de deux that was also supposed to feature Osipova and Vasiliev.

“Tour de Force II” consists of highlights from famous ballets as well as more recent works.

—David Ng

Injured onstage, actor returns

An actor seriously injured at the Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” returned to work Monday, only four months after he plummeted 35 feet from an onstage platform.

Christopher Tierney, 31, suffered a fractured skull, a fractured shoulder blade, four broken ribs and three broken vertebrae on Dec. 20 when he tumbled in front of a shocked preview audience. Taken away from the theater on a stretcher, the actor had to wear a back brace and had eight screws put in his back.

“I feel amazing,” Tierney said before reporting for rehearsals at Foxwoods Theatre. He said the accident in December didn’t give him second thoughts about rejoining the stunt-heavy show: “I’m ready to put on the harness right now and fly around.”

The pins were removed three months early and Tierney said he had been itching to return but had to get doctors to sign off first. He said he was 85% to 90% fit.

Asked if he was nuts to return after being hurt so badly, Tierney responded with a laugh. “Yeah, slightly,” he said. “I come back because I love it. I love being onstage. I love my cast.”

—Associated Press

NBC’s comedy ‘Reiser’ canceled

Granted, “The Paul Reiser Show” got off to a slow start, attracting only 3.4 million viewers to its April 14 premiere. Mitigating factor: It was on opposite Fox’s “American Idol,” television’s most popular series.

But when 30% of those people didn’t return for the second episode, NBC moved quickly and canceled the comedy with the former star of “Mad About You.”

Starting this week, NBC said it would fill the slot — 8:30 p.m. Thursdays — with reruns of “The Office” for the final month of the season.

—Lee Margulies

Levi Johnston book due in fall

Levi Johnston is promising to set the record straight about the Palin family.

Touchstone Publishing has a fall publication date for Johnston’s book, “Deer

in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin’s Cross-hairs.”

Johnston fathered a child with Bristol Palin, the daughter of the former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, when they were teenagers. The couple broke up after the birth of their son, Tripp, and reconciled briefly.

—Associated Press