Comedy

The Bard is coming to Newport Beach for two nights in July to showcase both the tragedy and comedy of William Shakespeare's work. The Arts Commission is hosting the 10th annual Shakespeare by the Sea with performances of "King Lear" and "Much Ado About Nothing" July 9 and 10, respectively, at the Bonita Canyon Sports Park. Both performances begin at 7 p.m. with pre-show activities starting at 6:45 p.m. Attendees should bring blankets, beach chairs and a picnic dinner.

Tom Titus You may think you know where playwright Sarah Ruhl is taking you with "The Clean House," now in its West Coast premiere at South Coast Repertory, but don't bet on it. Ruhl's circuitous comedy invites the audience to sit down, hang on and keep their head and arms inside the seat, as a group of imaginative performers under the tutelage of director Kate Whoriskey conducts the guided tour through some heretofore...

TOM TITUS Reviving a comedy written more than 70 years ago could be fraught with peril, since times and tastes have changed any number of times since the Depression years of the early 1930s. Some plays simply don't stand the test of time. "Holiday," written by Philip Barry several years before he grabbed the brass ring with "The Philadelphia Story," is such a vehicle. Its plot, somewhat daring for its time, is a bit archaic today, which means a theater group requires a superlative company to bring such a chestnut into the here and now. Fortunately, the Newport Theater Arts Center has such a company.

South Coast Repertory will premiere Tony-award winning playwright Richard Greenberg’s new comedy, “The Injured Party,” on the Julianne Argyros Stage during the 11th Annual Pacific Playwrights Festival in May. The comedy centers on “The Gates,” a famous art exhibit installed in New York Central Park in 2005. “ A season that includes a new Greenberg play is always exciting for us here at SCR — and for the American theater,” said artistic director David Emmes.

June Casagrande Pay no attention to that man behind the desk -- that dignified, intelligent-looking guy signing autographs at Borders Books, Music & Cafe. That's just Dan Castellaneta. And, make no mistake about it, Dan Castellaneta is not Homer Simpson. Hence the title of his new comedy CD, "I Am Not Homer!" The recording of comedy sketches performed with wife Deb Lucasta is titled as a tongue-in-cheek ode to Leonard Nimoy's book, "I Am Not Spock."

A pair of Pulitzer Prize winners will highlight the 2001-02 lineup at the Newport Theatre Arts Center, while a mixture of old and new offerings dot the schedule for Orange Coast College's upcoming season. The Pulitzer awards belong to Alfred Uhry's "Driving Miss Daisy," scheduled to open Jan. 25, and Horton Foote's "The Young Man From Atlanta," set to debut March 22. The latter will be a local premiere, while "Miss Daisy" was glimpsed recently at the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse.

Few movie categories can go as wrong as romantic comedy done badly. And “When in Rome” starts with a ridiculous premise that quickly gives way to mind-numbing stupidity. To be sure, Josh Duhamel is handsome and almost real as the primary male in the lame story. And Kristen Bell is lovely as the female star looking for love when she picks up five coins from a magic fountain in Rome. But then the five men who threw the coins in the water instantly become pathetic drooling dogs hopelessly in love with her. They all follow her back to New York and make stalking a woman for laughs a new element in the peculiar plot.

Rowan Atkinson has made a nice living for himself as the stumbling, bumbling Mr. Bean, a modern English version of Charlie Chaplin. He parades across the screen with minimal dialogue and loads of slapstick physical comedy. In “Mr. Bean’s Holiday” there’s no shortage of pratfalls and assorted silliness that manages to produce many chuckles and laughs. In a classic mix of comedy themes, Mr. Bean is a fish-out-of-water, innocent abroad on a vacation-gone-bad who is also falsely accused of a heinous crime.

Over the last four decades, Neil Simon has firmly established himself as the king of America's comedy playwrights, but not until the late 1980s did he give vent to pure, unadulterated farce. Before that, his closest approach to this genre was the third act of "Plaza Suite" more than 30 years ago. With "Rumors," however, Simon's patented one-liners link up with uproarious sight gags in a convoluted plot that requires repeated viewings to truly sort out. It's also a rarity in the Simon canon -- a true ensemble comedy, with the good stuff spread quite democratically among its eight principal characters, and containing nearly as much dialogue in the key of F as your typical David Mamet opus, something Simon has shied away from in the past.

When S. Marc Jordan was 29, he debuted on Broadway in the 1960 musical "Do Re Mi." Forty-five years later, he'll reprise his role as Wolfie when the Musical Theatre Guild presents "Do Re Mi" on Sept. 19 at the Alex Theatre in Glendale. A Glendale resident, Jordan jokes that 3,000 miles and years away from his original performance, he's really still in the same place, but it isn't true. For the seasoned entertainer whose career has spanned six decades, a dozen Broadway productions, television and film, he's actually come full circle.

I inherited an appreciation for slapstick humor from my father. Back in the late 1960s and early '70s, he and I enjoyed watching "The Carol Burnett Show" on TV. We roared at comedy sketches featuring Carol, Harvey Korman and Vicki Lawrence, but our favorite cast member was Tim Conway. We particularly loved Conway's character The Old Man. Remember him? Possessor of a disheveled gray mane, he had an expressionless facial mask, spoke with a mumble and walked with a shuffling gate.

The Bard is coming to Newport Beach for two nights in July to showcase both the tragedy and comedy of William Shakespeare's work. The Arts Commission is hosting the 10th annual Shakespeare by the Sea with performances of "King Lear" and "Much Ado About Nothing" July 9 and 10, respectively, at the Bonita Canyon Sports Park. Both performances begin at 7 p.m. with pre-show activities starting at 6:45 p.m. Attendees should bring blankets, beach chairs and a picnic dinner.

The metropolitan business office occasionally crops up as a subject for musical comedy — those that spring immediately to mind include "Promises, Promises" and "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. " To that short list now must gleefully be added "9 to 5," the top-grossing movie comedy of 1980, which has morphed into two television series and, currently, a Broadway show, the touring version of which currently is entertaining audiences at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts . That three-decade-old flick was undoubtedly the highlight of Dolly Parton's acting career, and she's actively involved in this one as well, composing both the music and the lyrics.

NEWPORT BEACH — The 2011 Newport Beach Film Festival concludes Thursday night with "A Beginner's Guide to Endings," a dark comedy about making the most of the time you have left in life, at the Regency Lido Theatre. The closing night gala, hosted by Riviera magazine, will follow at 8 p.m. at Lido Marina Village. The village was transformed into "Riviera Village" for festival as Lido Goes Pop! temporary retailers took over long-vacant office spaces. "A Beginner's Guide to Endings," written and directed by Jonathan Sobol, follows what may be the last days in the lives of three brothers who were unknowingly signed up for dangerous drug-testing by their gambler father.

COSTA MESA — Nicolas Juarez used his cell phone for light as he moved around the darkened theater. Meanwhile, members of his cast and crew scuttled backstage as they quieted themselves for the start of the dress rehearsal. Juarez took his place in the audience, then watched the show that had meant so much to him back in high school unfold as the students stepped onto the stage Tuesday night. "When I was a student, it was the first chance I ever got to say something," said Juarez, 22. Juarez, a 2006 graduate of Estancia High School, was preparing for his directorial debut this weekend.

If looks — or thoughts — could kill, most of the cast of "Killjoy" would be on the floor before the end of Act I in this darkly comic revival at the Newport Theater Arts Center. And the audience would die laughing. Playwright Jerry Mayer — who's written for such television classics as "M A S H," "All in the Family" and the Bob Newhart and Mary Tyler Moore shows — turned to playwriting late in his career and this script, with its plethora of punch lines, reflects its TV sitcom heritage.

Every good comedy team has a straight man and a comic. The straight man is the logical and patient half of the duo; the comic is the jokester who pulls the plug after the straight man sets him up. Abbott was the straight man to Costello, as George Burns was to Gracie Allen, and as Hardy was to Laurel. And now that Costa Mesa politics has become the local branch of Comedy Central, the city's supply of comics is emerging loud and clear. I'm pleased to be playing straight man to the most recent of the comics to make a Daily Pilot headline.

When Thomas Edison electrified America in 1882, he hardly could have known the benefits his invention would have for mankind. And, as it turned out, womankind. South Coast Repertory is presenting an exhilarating example of the latter achievement with its latest offering, Sarah Ruhl's "In the Next Room. " Lest anyone be unaware of the subject matter, she subtitles it "or the vibrator play. " The centerpiece of this 21st century envisioning of a late 19th century breakthrough is, indeed, a vibrator — or, as it's also called, "an electro-massage machine for curing disease at home.

The blockbuster-bound “Letters to Juliet” will shut down the Newport Beach Film Festival tonight, followed by a closing night gala in the Via Lido Courtyard. Shot on location in Northern Italy, the romantic comedy features heavy-caliber stars like Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Redgrave, Christopher Egan and Gael Garcia Bernal. “It’s most certainly going to be a huge crowd-pleaser,” said Erik Forssell, director of programming for the Newport Beach Film Festival.

A Southern California improv comedy troupe, Cherry Spitz, plans to perform for free at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Atlantis Lounge in the Campus Village Housing Community Center at UC Irvine, 1061 W. Peltason Drive. “We are hungry,” said member Eric Wargo, “hungry to perform and hungry for food. They will be feeding us.” Wargo is unemployed, but he and the other troupe members usually have regular jobs. The group usually charges $5 at the door, and most of the earnings go toward furthering the troupe and supporting the theater, said Tim Gale, one of the group’s founders.