Monday, June 30
THE LIFE OF REILLY

These days, David Granville works on community development matters for the City of Buffalo, but in the early 1990s he happily toiled in the world of theater. Among his jobs was a stint as assistant to Charles Nelson Reilly when the popular comic actor was directing a production of Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow at Shea’s, starring Metropolitan Opera star Roberta Peters. It was an experience Granville still treasures. In the year or so before his death in 2007, Reilly toured in The Life of Reilly, a one-man autobiographical show he co-wrote with Paul Linke. On Monday, Granville is presenting the motion picture made of one of the very last performances of that show. Reilly was a Tony-winning Broadway actor, drama teacher, and respected director as well as the comedic celebrity who enlivened television games shows. In his show, he gracefully and wittily recounted adventures in a life that was marked by elements of “American Gothic” and youthful heartbreak, including an institutionalized father, a bigoted mother, and the isolating anxiety of being young and gay in the early 1940s. Granville calls this a “pay-what-you-can preview” of the forthcoming DVD of the movie, so the admission price is contingent on a person’s budget and impulse.

—george sax

8pm. Market Arcade Film & Arts Center, 639 Main Street (855-3022/dipsontheatres.com).