AND THE CANON WILL BE HEARD FROM NO MORE.Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Writer Her voice gone, her primary artistic venue on the verge On the Verge (or The Geography of Yearning) is a play written by Eric Overmyer. It makes extensive use of esoteric language and pop culture references from the late nineteenth century to 1955. of shuttering for good, Susan Dietz drinks hot tea and offers a bit of perspective. And this one's a whopper Whopper - WarGames . ``I think I'm coming to the conclusion,'' says Dietz, the head of Beverly Hills' Canon Theatre The Canon Theatre is a historic theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. History The Canon Theatre began as the Pantages Theatre in 1920 as a combination vaudeville and motion picture house. Designed by the great theatre architect Thomas W. for more than two decades, ``that I should be doing theater in New York There are many famous theaters in New York, most notably the Broadway theatres in New York City.
It's a good thing for local theatergoers that realization was so slow in coming. After all, the Philadelphia native founded the drama department at Studio City's Harvard School long before it became Harvard-Westlake, served a four-year stint running the Pasadena Playhouse The Pasadena Playhouse is a historic theatre located in Pasadena, California. History The Playhouse's history began in 1917 when actor/director Gilmor Brown began producing a season of plays at an old burlesque house, which he renamed the Savoy. , and brought tons of diverse programming to the Canon and other local stages - from ``Love Letters'' to ``The Vagina Monologues,'' from ``Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You'' to the L.A. premiere of ``The Last Night of Ballyhoo bal·ly·hoo n. pl. bal·ly·hoos 1. Sensational or clamorous advertising or publicity. 2. Noisy shouting or uproar. tr.v. .'' A five-performance concert run of William Finn's ``Elegies'' opening Friday marks the final event at the Canon this weekend on the heels of the New York-bound ``Kathy and Mo'' reunion, which closed last week. The parcel of land on which the playhouse sits will eventually be developed as a hotel. ``It's something I knew has been coming for 20 years,'' says Dietz. ``The land used to belong to Gucci. When I took the lease over 20 years ago, they wanted to build a hotel then. ``I never had a lease. I had a handshake deal with Gucci. Once they got their OKs from the city, they were going to let me know. They would close me in the middle of a run. That was sort of unspoken. Now a company called the Athens Group is going to build a gorgeous hotel. This is 20 years after Gucci tried to build one, and the city wants the bed tax.'' Given the dwindling dwin·dle v. dwin·dled, dwin·dling, dwin·dles v.intr. To become gradually less until little remains. v.tr. To cause to dwindle. See Synonyms at decrease. landscape for commercial theaters, Dietz doesn't figure to find another venue to program, and even with plans to develop or transfer new productions in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of and internationally, the longtime Sherman Oaks resident isn't packing up and heading East. ``I'm not going to live in New York. You don't have to anymore,'' she says. ``You can go there for a month to get a show up, and everything else is done via e-mail and the Internet. You can get the stage managers' reports and the box-office reports by e-mail. It's really easy to do it long distance.'' Dietz plans to put all of the box-office records and press clippings stored in the Canon's offices into storage. She'll take home three or four seats from the Canon. ``That will be my little shrine,'' she says. And she'll hardly be idle. She's producing a benefit for the Acting Company at the Coronet Theatre The Coronet Theatre is a longstanding Los Angeles theatre. Many Hollywood stars have played there, and it has been home to several important premiere productions. More than 300 plays have been produced at the Coronet. . Lorna Luft's solo show, ``Songs My Mother Taught Me'' - which played an extended run at the Canon - is headed for London. She'll produce Christopher Durang's musical ``Adrift in Macau'' off-Broadway in the spring and has plans for a musical version of the film ``Dangerous Beauty'' a few years down the line. The film of the solo play ``Call Waiting,'' which Dietz produced, is looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. a distributor. ``She'll go on, she'll get a great job and hopefully produce other things which are triumphant,'' says Peter Schneider, former head of Disney Theatricals, who has co-produced with Dietz. ``I think any artist who loses a creative center will be lost on some level, but something like this allows you to reinvent your life on another level and go in a different direction.'' Evan Henerson, (818) 713-3651 evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): photo Photo: ``I'm coming to the conclusion that I should be doing theater in New York and movies in L.A.,'' says Susan Dietz, head of the Canon Theatre for over 20 years. Evan Yee/Staff Photographer |
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