BENEFIT OFFERS UNIQUE CHANCE TO SEE STARS.

Byline: EVAN HENERSON

>LA.COM 

When a performance is only for one night, the possibilities are limitless.

Stars who wouldn't otherwise be available can carve out the time. Plays or musicals that would be thought fiscally unwise to stage become intriguing possibilities.

Anjelica Huston can play Norma Desmond or John Mahoney can take on Oscar Wilde's gorgon dowager Lady Bracknell. Heck, if it's just for one night -- assuming the cause is just -- an actor will often undertake a role for which he would never otherwise be considered, perhaps deliberately making a fool of himself.

One-night staged readings and concert benefits are a veritable cottage industry in Los Angeles and New York, where the pool of available actors is deep and the lure of a short commitment for a worthy cause is enticing.

Actors you typically see on the big screen or on TV are on a stage, big as life. Sometimes they're singing. More often than not, they're holding a script.

The experience isn't filmed or repeated. There are no do-overs, and a flub can be as memorable as a perfectly nailed speech or song. If you're not in the audience that night -- usually at a not insubstantial fee -- you've missed it.

Last year in a benefit for his Culver City-based theater company, the Actors' Gang, Tim Robbins lined up Morgan Freeman, Don Cheadle, Marisa Tomei and Eva Mendes. Tom Waits supplied the music.

On Saturday, in a benefit reading of Daniel Berrigan's "The Trial of the Catonsville Nine" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, Robbins will join Martin Sheen, Sandra Oh, Beau Bridges, Mike Farrell and Camryn Manheim. The beneficiaries will again be the Actors' Gang as well as the Office of the Americas.

The cast and director Gordon Davidson -- who directed the original Broadway production -- will have a single day to prepare Berrigan's drama about a group of people who burned service records at a Maryland draft office in protest of the Vietnam war.

But Robbins isn't especially worried about being letter perfect. In fact, part of the lure of a single-shot performance is its spontaneity.

"I'm a pretty good cold reader," says Robbins. "This won't exactly be cold, but it will be chock-full of great dialogue about and great questions about war."

Where an A-list celeb would command an enormous fee for doing a film -- and many don't do stage roles -- a starry gathering with little or no paycheck is a different animal, particularly if an organization like the Actors Fund of America or Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is the beneficiary.

According to Center Theatre Group's Neel Keller, benefit participants -- both on and off stage -- quickly get into the "let's put on a show" spirit of the event.

"You get to have fun in a way that you don't do writing grants," Keller says. "It gets people excited, and it takes on huge proportions."

Some benefits really are one-offs. Others are part of a company's annual calendar as a regular fundraising component. Center Theatre Group's annual Salon at the Taper brings Michael Feinstein and a group of celebrity singers to go through a composer's songbook. Other companies routinely round up stars for private one-night benefits.

They're no cakewalk to assemble. Between securing and preparing a venue like the Kodak Theatre, coordinating food and booze for a reception or post-show meet-and-greets with the cast, the preparation can be extensive.

And with ticket prices potentially in the thousands, the payoff can be big. A 2003 reading of the screenplay of "All About Eve" at the Ahmanson Theatre with Calista Flockhart and Stockard Channing took in $300,000 in a single night for the Actors' Fund of America.

"Actors are the most generous people in the world, particularly to us," says David Michaels, director of special events for the western region of the Actors' Fund. "When they come together for only about a week, and then they go in and hear the orchestra or see the stage for the first time, it creates a pressure and an excitement in the most positive way."

"I think you have to go for it, emotionally not hold back," adds Robbins. "It is a performance, so of course you know no one will be getting up in front of people without practicing. Professional actors are not going to come out with egg on their face."

In this town, you need never look far to find a theater-related benefit. Saturday's reading of "Catonsville Nine" will be followed, a couple of weeks later, by a concert benefit of William Finn's "Falsettos" (for the Actors' Fund) Sept. 8 at the Wilshire Theatre of Beverly Hills featuring "Seinfeld" alum Jason Alexander -- a frequent benefit participant -- along with Vicki Lewis and Malcolm Gets.

On Sept. 17, the rarely staged Tim Rice and Bjorn Ulvaeus musical "Chess" comes to the Ford Amphitheatre with Broadway veterans Susan Egan, Kevin Earley and Matthew Morrison performing in support of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

"Chess" took on a different dimension when the death of original director/choreographer Jim Alexander caused producer Brian Purcell to step out of the cast and take over the directing chores and see the project through in his friend's memory. Cindy Robinson, Alexander's widow, is among the cast.

"We had spent a month and a half planning when Jim tragically passed away," says Purcell. "I said, 'We're either going to let this fall apart or really go for the gold and do what Jim wanted.'

"People have been coming out of the woodwork both on the acting and the production side," he continues. "So many things have been donated just based on who Jim was."

Other one-night events are born of happier circumstances. In 2004, as the NBC comedy "Frasier" was winding down, the core cast members of the series were sitting around the set when someone had an idea.

Between cast members Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce, Jane Leeves, Peri Gilpin and John Mahoney, the "Frasier" cast could easily slot into the casting demands of Oscar Wilde's comedy of manners, "The Importance of Being Earnest."

Given the various performers' stage backgrounds and ties to CTG, a one-night reading of "Earnest" titled "Frasier Gone Wilde" came together at the Mark Taper Forum with CTG's new play development fund getting the proceeds.

Actually, the "Frasier" quintet didn't entirely fill the "Earnest" cast. Special guests were needed to round out the ensemble, including Kirk Douglas, who took a part as a manservant.

"That cast had the idea, they wanted to do it, and it came together very easily and successfully," says Keller, who was not involved in "Frasier Gone Wilde." "That one was blessed."

"No matter how time intensive all preparations are, there's an element of improvisation, doing them for only one time with no real dress rehearsal, no tech rehearsal and no preview," Keller continues. "That's the fun of putting on a really big show with really talented people and not being exactly sure what's going to happen."

Evan Henerson, [phone]

[e-mail]

THE TRIAL OF THE CATONSVILLE NINE

>Where: Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City.

>When: 8 p.m. Saturday.

>How much: $250. [phone] or www.theactorsgang.com.

FALSETTOS

>Where: Wilshire Theatre Beverly Hills, 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills.

>When: 8 p.m. Sept. 8.

>How much: $30 to $250. [phone], Ext. 58, www.actorsfund.org.

CHESS

>Where: Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. E., Hollywood.

>When: 8 p.m. Sept. 17.

>How much: $35 to $200. [phone] or www.fordtheatres.org.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

David Hyde Pierce, left, John Mahoney, Brian Bedford, Peri Gilpin and Kelsey Grammer, with John Rubenstein on piano, did a one-night reading in 2004 of "The Importance of Being Earnest," which they titled "Frasier Gone Wilde." Proceeds went to the Center Theatre Group.

>CRAIG SCHWARTZ