Holy passage of time! It was forty years ago this month that Batman first aired on TV (Frank Gorshin as The Riddler was the first guest villain). Burt Ward (pictured above) who played Robin, the Boy Wonder, was 20 years old at the time. Prior to the TV show, Ward’s only experience working with actors was as an apprentice at the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania back in 1963. Now mostly retired from acting, Ward dedicates much of his time to his charitable foundation, Gentle Giants Rescue and Adoptions, which helps rescue “gentle giant” dogs. Incidentally, while obituaries for the great American actress, Shelley Winters, recalled that she replaced Celeste Holm on Broadway in the original Oklahoma, most neglected to mention her star turn as a villain on the original “Batman”; she played Ma Parker in 1966.

John Henry Redwood’s No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs is set to open at the Paul Robeson Theatre on February 10th. Set in North Carolina in 1949, the production will star Renita Shadwick, Ozzie Lumpkin, Brian Taylor, Verniece Turner, Guy Wagner, and June L. Saunders Duell. The play is being directed by Ed Smith (past artistic director of the PRT) who is returning to Buffalo after a long absence.

All is set to go for the Buffalo premiere of A.R. Gurney’s The Cocktail Hour, directed by David Lamb starring Anne Gayley, Peter Smith, Lisa Ludwig, and Paul Todaro in the parts created in the original 1988 New York production by (respectively) Nancy Marchand, Keene Curtis, Holland Taylor, and Bruce Davison. The play was one of Time magazine’s “Ten Best Plays of 1988.” Gurney’s comedy opens March 3rd at the Kavinoky.

Victor Morales will star as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof which opens February 18th at the Lancaster Opera House, presented by Coop’s Spotlight Productions. The fourth Broadway revival of the classic musical just closed a few weeks ago in New York starring Harvey Fierstein and Rosie O’Donnell. Fierstein is now on his way to Las Vegas where he will be reprising the role of Edna Turnblad in the musical Hairspray for a twelve week engagement for which he is reportedly being paid 2 million dollars. The musical opens in February at The Luxor.

The fabulous Lynne Kurdziel-Formato returns to Artpark this summer to direct The Full Monty. The musical version of the popular movie is set in Buffalo. Rumor has it that Tom Owen will play one of the leads. Prior to that, Owen will be reunited with In Concert fellow performers Mary Kate O’Connell, Pamela Rose Mangus, and Tom Doyle in the O’Connell & Company production of The Lounge, an original musical revue which opens March 2nd.

Vincent O’Neill will play Inspector Truscott, replacing the previously announced Paul Todaro in the Irish Classical Theatre Company’s production of Joe Orton’s Loot, which opens on April 22nd, directed by Robert Knopf. The company had a great success a couple of years ago with another one of Orton’s plays, What the Butler Saw. That time, director Todaro had to step in for an ailing O’Neill, who was playing Dr. Prentice.

Just Buffalo Literary Center is offering a six-week playwrighting course taught by Kurt Schneiderman. The course runs February 21st – March 28th, Tuesdays from 7 to 9pm.

Rebecca Ritchie has finished her Memory Garden, a new two-character play written for Manny Fried and Roz Cramer, which will be produced by The Gerald Fried Theatre Company in Sarasota at the end of May. The production will then travel to Williamstown in June and to Buffalo in the fall. Fried’s play, The Dodo Bird, will be presented by Road Less Traveled Productions May 18th – June 14th at the New Phoenix Theater. Directed by Scott Behrend, the production will star Gerry Maher, Greg Natale, Dan Walker, and Jermaine Cooper.

Organic Movement of the Chair and Pitcher by local playwright Tim McPeek is the winner of this year’s Eric Bentley New Play Competition, which is held by The New Phoenix Theatre Company. McPeek is the director of the local theater group Blue Garotte. The play will be presented April 13th – May 7th, designed by Franklin LaVoie, and directed by Robert Waterhouse. The national competition received nearly fifty entries this year.

Next from BUA, the Buffalo premiere of Valhalla, the latest comedy from Paul Rudnick who also wrote Jeffrey and The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told. Directed by Chris Kelly, the production will star Eric Rawski, Katie White, Caitlin Coleman, Rick Lattimer, and Marc Sacco. Valhalla opens February 24th.

The End, a staged reading of selected scenes from the movie Apocalypse Now has been extended for another weekend, January 27th and 28th. Presented by Morphine Hearts in association with Torn Space, the reading takes place at the Adam Mickiewicz Literary Center.