Stagefright	by Javier

Henry Winkler (pictured above) starred as the Fonz in the popular 1974-84 sitcom Happy Days which was created by Garry Marshall. Now, the Fonz is back (although without Winkler) in Happy Days: The Musical! Over the past few years, Marshall, together with Paul Williams, has been working on a musical version which was further developed this past summer at Goodspeed, where it had a sold-out run. It just opened at Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey and is now set to embark on a national tour. Winkler, who turns 62 in a couple of weeks, is happy that the Fonz legacy goes on.

Maureen Porter, Nan Wade, Joyce Carolyn and Michael Vargovich will all be making their Kavinoky Theatre debuts in the upcoming production of A.R. Gurney’s Crazy Mary, which opens November 9. Directed by Paul Todaro, the production will also star Norm Sham.

Caitlin Coleman and Rebecca Elkin will play the female characters in BUA’s production of Douglas Carter Beane’s The Little Dog Laughed, which is scheduled to open January 5 at the Alleyway Theatre. The two male characters are yet to be cast.

Subversive Theatre, in a co-production with the New Phoenix, will bring Clifford Odets’s Waiting for Lefty to the stage January 10 to February 3, 2008. Directed by Kurt Schneiderman, the production will star, among others, Richard Lambert, Joe Giambra, Keith Elkins, Lawrence Rowswell, Tom Scahill and Bill Schmidt. The play has been number one on the list of plays Schneiderman has wanted to direct, ever since he first read it while he was a 14-year-old student at Studio Arena’s summer theater school.

Brother Augustine Towey will direct the Western New York premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers which will be presented November 16-18 at St. Joseph’s University Church on Main Street. This Opera Sacra production will star Brendan Powers, Jenifer Hollands-Greene, Andrew Delo, Tom Doyle, Casey Denton, Phil Jarosz and Kevin Kennedy. With music direction by Debi Overton and choreography by Tom Ralabate, the production will also feature the Western New York Children’s Choir and the Buffalo Choral Arts Society.

UB’s Department of Theatre and Dance will present the musical City of Angels at the Drama Theatre, November 14-18. Featuring music direction by Nathan Matthews, the production will be directed by New York-based Erica Gould and will star Kelly Jakiel, Travis Tabor and Tim Voit. Gould is one of the founders of The Fire Dept., a New York nonprofit theater company founded in 2006. She recently directed both the world premiere and workshop productions of Neil LaBute’s autobahn. Incidentally, LaBute’s The Shape of Things will be presented at the Black Box Theatre, October 24-28, directed by the department’s chair, Robert Knopf.

Buffalo State Theater Department kicked off its season last week with the acclaimed Paula Vogel play The Baltimore Waltz, directed by Donn Youngstrom. The season will continue with Antigone (November 8-17), directed by Drew Kahn, and the musical Hair, directed by the legendary Andre DeShields (March 13-22). Hair just recently celebrated its 40th anniversary with a concert staging at the Delacorte Theater in New York’s Central Park.

It is a big time for community theater celebrations. The Amherst Players just kicked off their 60th Anniversary Season and now the Towne Players kicks off their 50th on October 19 with the dark mystery/romance Laura, featuring Alaina Renee Miller, Jodi Cook, Heather Violanti and Michael O’Hear.

Stage and TV star George Grizzard (pictured below) died October 2 at the age of 79. Grizzard was the original Nick in Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1962. His last stage appearance was this past winter in Paul Rudnick’s Regrets Only, in which he starred opposite Christine Baranski, playing a successful fashion designer who becomes a gay activist. One of his most memorable TV appearances is probably playing Blanche’s husband in The Golden Girls, in a dream sequence that also featured Sony Bono and Lyle Wagoner.