Houston News Blog

​Plus-size comic Loni Love is coming to Houston this weekend as part of the Comedians of Chelsea Lately tour.

Even though Love has had a successful stand-up career for more than six years now, her frequent appearances during the round-table sections of the late-night talk show hosted by Chelsea Handler on the E! network have given her an increased profile. (During a round-table section of the nightly show, Handler and three guest comics discuss the day's news, with a decided theater-of-the-absurd spin.)

But while audiences may think they're getting to know Love from her time on Chelsea Lately, she says fans will find a different Loni Love on stage during her stand-up show.

"My stand-up is totally different from the round table because at the round table, you're given a topic and you respond to that," she tells Hair Balls. "But stand-up is more about me, what I believe and think, and what's important to me. That's the reason I like stand-up because I'm more able to express myself. I can talk about my attitude about men, my religious views, things like that. I think people will be like, 'Wow! I didn't think that she was this way.' That's what exciting about stand-up for me."

As one of only a handful of non-white comics to appear more or less regularly on Chelsea Lately, Love often finds herself acting as a de facto spokesperson for African-Americans. In a similar manner, Jo Koy, who is of Filipino heritage, is tagged as "the Asian guy."

It's a position Love embraces. "I think it's important to discuss race," she says. "Both Jo Koy and I have mainstream audiences, and it's good for them to try to understand who we are. We try to squash the stereotypes, and we do that by making fun of them. For instance, people think that all black women are sassy. That's stupid. We're individuals like everyone else. We make fun of those ideas, on the show and in stand up, because it shows people how silly it all is.

Photo by Margaret Downing

Brad Fleischer, Mark Bly and Rajiv Joseph

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The male lead blows out one of his eyes with a firecracker. The scene plays funny, for the most part.

The female lead slices her stomach open to get rid of everything that's been troubling her. As sad and horrific as this is, people laugh. And they're supposed to.

Playwright Rajiv Joseph is a fan of gore, but says that wasn't what inspired him to write Gruesome Playground Injuries, his two-actor, one-act play now on view at the Alley Theatre starring Selma Blair and Brad Fleischer

It was the relationship between the two characters that led to the gore, not the other way around, he insists. "By having injuries like this and having this sort of bloodletting on stage, it provides a unique lens to look at relationships and love and the kinds of drama that can exist over the course of a lifetime between two people," he tells Hair Balls.

And humor is necessary to this process, to give the audience a chance for relief from the extreme seriousness of the dark parts of this dark comedy, Joseph says.

Dramaturg Mark Bly, who also sat in on the interview, was the initial big champion of the play, taking it to Gregory Boyd, artistic director of the Alley. Bly also insists that it wasn't the gore per se, but the uniqueness of the way the two characters respond to each other that intrigued him. "This story is a love story but not any kind of a love story that I've ever encountered. I was immediately drawn to it and the fact that it defies any conventional notions of love stories," Bly says.

"This is about two people who have feelings toward each other but they're trying to find a vocabulary, a way of talking about it, and this extraordinary playwright has found this very unique vocabulary about scars and injuries and in the case of one of these individuals, he just happens to love her a bit more at different points in time than she loves him and he needs to get her attention and his way of getting her attention is to signal through the scars and injuries his love."

Photo by Margaret Downing

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Selma Blair playing Kayleen picks at the blood on on fellow actor Brad Fleischer's face -- an action designed to be both comic and in keeping with the title of the terrific new, two-actor play now on the Alley's Neuhaus Stage -- Gruesome Playground Injuries.

It's always a big step for someone whose best-known work is on the movie screen (Hell Boy, Hell Boy 2 and Legally Blonde), to suddenly do live theater -- but for Blair, it's bigger than most.

She's scared to go onstage, but she picks a show when she shares 90 continuous minutes of duty with Fleischer who plays Doug. She's not a big fan of ick, but gore and vomit are crucial parts of the plot of this dark comedy by playwright Rajiv Joseph.

Blair and Fleischer, who most recently starred in Joseph's play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (and who, if you Google, you can see in a guest role of Timmy the soldier on Jericho), sat down with Hair Balls to answer a few questions between shows. They're relaxed and clearly friends; knew each other before this play, and seem in some (but not all) ways close to the characters they play: the outgoing and athletic Doug who gives too much for love and the more tightly-wound Kayleen who loves and cares, but perhaps not as much, and who cuts herself.

The play bounces back and forth in time as the audience learns of one injury after another that each of the leads incurs from the time they meet at age 8 to when they are both 38.

​Today's your last chance to see Cirque Mechanics' Birdhouse Factory. An international cast of circus stars formerly with Cirque de Soleil, the Moscow Circus and Pickle Family Circus, Cirque Mechanics include contortionists, acrobats, clowns, and dancers.

The Birdhouse Factory story is a simple one. A group of workers trudge away in a factory, victims of the mind-numbing repetition of constructing widgets. Then a bird accidentally flies into the factory and everything changes. Inspired by the bird, workers slowly start to come alive again, approaching their meaningless tasks with a sense of humor, even joy.

The piece takes its cues from Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry murals and the illustrations of Rube Goldberg. Birdhouse, with its timeless story of rejuvenation, seems as if it could be set early in the Industrial Revolution or somewhere in the near future. 7:30 p.m. Miller Outdoor Theatre, 100 Concert Drive, Hermann Park. For information, call 281-FREE-FUN or visit www.milleroutdoortheatre.com. Free.

The Spotlight on Contemporary Greek Cinema Showcase is winding down, with its last screening on Sunday. Friday Alexis Kardaras's Guinness is showing at 7 p.m., which follows a greedy gambler whose search for a case of gold leads him to a tavern in the middle of nowhere. Instead of his hoped-for treasure, he finds the bar owner's unhappy -- and lonely -- wife.

Photo by Margaret Downing

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The Mary Poppins house was brought in by truck and moved into the Hobby Center in two big pieces starting Wednesday morning. First the top was suspended from the ceiling and then the bottom slid in under that. It was a majestic sight, a feat of well-practiced engineering.

Well, Hair Balls is taking that last part on faith, actually, since by the time the media was called in to look at the amazing moving house, it had already been moved in ahead of schedule. Lesson learned: union backstage folks move at their own pace and no one tells them what to do.

So, we stared at it the house for a while or so during which time the bannister was nailed into place and innumerable light checks were done. Finally, after about 30 minutes, we were told the house was going to move! Get our cameras ready!

And then they turned out the lights and went on coffee break.

​The Classical Theatre Company's well-received production of Hamlet comes to a close on Sunday; it's a show we highly recommend.

An original one-man adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy, Hamlet stars Guy Roberts, who adapted the piece and also co-directed with John Johnston. During the ninety-minute production, Roberts plays eighteen different characters. (A few scenes and minor characters have been cut, but Hamlet's story remains intact.) Roberts manages to jump from one character to another with just a toss of his head or a change in his voice, making it easy for the audience to keep up.

The production's stage set is simple: there's just a cot, a couple of chairs and a sink onstage. Oh, and a toilet.

Originally from Texas, Roberts splits his time between the U.S. and the Czech Republic where he is Artistic Director of the Prague Shakespeare Festival. Roberts was last in town during the Houston Shakespeare Festival.

Classical Theatre Company's a small troupe and they mount just a few shows a year, but don't let CTC's size fool you. They produce energetic, well-done work few other small companies would dare attempt. 7:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday. and Sunday. HITS Theatre, 311 West 18th Street. For information, call 713-963-9665 or visit www.classicaltheatre.org. $7 to $15.

Photo by Jerry Jackson

​When he's not busy being one of the most astute critics of today's political culture for The New York Times, Frank Rich is part of an occasional Q&A road show where he interviews Stephen Sondheim for appreciative audiences.

The two are coming to Houston October 25 for An Evening With Stephen Sondheim (Note to Rich: You need a better agent for your billing).

Rich, the former theater critic of the Times, leads Sondheim -- with the help of audience questions -- through a wide-ranging conversation about the composer's shows, his thoughts on theater, and anything else that comes up.

We talked to Rich about the event.

Frank Rich -- Basically this started when Steve got an invitation in Portland, Oregon, where he'd never been, in the spring of `08, and they wanted him to come speak and he doesn't want to give a speech. And I had interviewed him for the Times magazine and once on stage....Other people were interested and we turned it over to a lecture agent who I've used in recent years. It's a matter of who's interested, and around very complicated schedules for both of us, so we can only do it sporadically and this is the first one we've done in a while. We're doing one other city back-to-back with it, Seattle, but it's not part of a tour beyond that.

Hair Balls -- Its kinda odd, your coming here, because Houston for a Sondheim fan is so bad -- it can be years and years between productions and even then it's always Forum or Sweeney Todd, it seems.

As you well know if you've been reading our sister blog Rocks Off (and Lord knows you should be), U2 is in town tonight.

The new tour requires something like 90 huge trucks to cart around the massive stage they use so as not to detract from the quiet beauty of their ballads. Or to keep the people in the cheap seats entertained, we're not sure.

At any rate, it's the biggest show at Reliant Stadium since Wrestlemania 25 came to town, unless you count the Texans' implosion against Jacksonville.

Wrestlemania knows how to put on a gargantuan, raucous show just as well as U2. But how do they compare? Thank God it's Wednesday, which means it's time for the Midweek Match-Up, where life's mysteries are reduced to convenient chart form.

You only have a few more chances to catch the stage plays Red Light Winter, Southern Rapture, and Meet Me in St. Louis.

Southern Rapture, currently closing at Stages Repertory Theatre on Sunday, is a comedy based on a true story.

When the Charlotte Repertory Theatre staged Tony Kushner's Angels in America in 1996, it caused quite a stir. Artists, audiences, and community groups found themselves grappling with the question: Can you really say that on stage? The showdown between Charlotte Rep and Concerned Charlotteans, a group led by one Reverend Joe Chambers, reached absurdity before it was all over, which proved to be perfect comedic fodder playwright Eric Coble.

Stages Producing Artistic Director Kenn McLaughlin directs a cast featuring Houston actors Rutherford Cravens and Sally Edmundson. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday. 3201 Allen Parkway. For information, call 713-527-0123 or visit www.stagestheatre.com. $26 to $36.

Red Light Winter, the first production ever by Horse Head Theatre Company, closes this Saturday. Houston Press arts writer Troy Schulze appears as Matt, Amy Burn is Christina and Drake Simpson is Davis. The two men are former college roommates, one a successful book editor, the other a struggling playwright. The pair encounter an Amsterdam prostitute with tragic results. Press materials for the show say "emotions are propelled in a tragically wrong direction, creating an end sequence that rips out your heart with rage, disgust, pity, and complete stupor." Alrightly then. Unsurprisingly, Horse Head Theatre Company warns the show contains nudity and explicit language. 8 p.m. FrenetiCore Theater, 5102 Navigation. For information, call 512-350-6156 or visit www.horseheadtheatre.org. $10 to $20.

​For part of last night's performance of Thornton Wilder's Our Town at the Alley Theatre, audience members were paying more attention to a row of center seats a few rows up from the stage.

Actress Selma Blair  (Hellboy, Hellboy 2, Legally Blonde and NBC's Kath & Kim) who is in town to star in the Alley's upcoming world premiere of Gruesome Playground Injuries (October 16 through November 15) came in to watch the show.

And stayed for the entire production. So it wasn't just a courtesy visit. Understandable since the Alley crew was hitting its marks throughout the night, led by actor James Black who struck the perfect tone as the stage manager.

Also in attendance with Blair, according to a friend of Hair Balls (because Hair Balls wasn't exactly certain), was Gruesome's author, Rajiv Joseph. The friend told us Joseph has been sitting in on all the readings of his upcoming premiere and that this was going to be the breakout play of the season.

​Opera in the Heights is presenting its final performance of Il Tabarro and Pagliacci this Saturday. The shows, by Giacomo Puccini and Giuseppe Adami respectively, premiered in the 1890s but still have a heck of a punch. Houston Press arts writer D. L. Groover said of the shows, "Puccini and Leoncavallo's tuneful melodramas both deal with wifely adultery and the consequences when the husband finds out. The end results are the same, no matter what century. It's powerful stuff." Opera in the Heights, 1703 Heights Boulevard. For information, call 713-861-5303 or visit www.opera-in-the-heights.org. $35 to $45.

If you haven't seen "No Zoning: Artists Engage Houston" over at the Contemporary Museum of Arts Houston, get there before it closes this Sunday. The exhibit is a look at what happens to a city when no zoning or land use ordinances are in place. (CAMH touts the "No Zoning" as "the first museum exhibition to consider the current and past efforts of regional artists working in the urban environment.)

More than 15 local artists and teams of artists, most of which have been engaging their environments in the '80s, have installations in the show. There are representations of several Houston sites, including Cleveland Turner's Flower Man House in the Third Ward (a mock-up graces the CAMH's front lawn) and notsuoH, the downtown hangout Jim Pirtle founded in the '90s. Other participating artists include The Art Guys (Michael Galbreth and Jack Massing), Mary Ellen Carroll, Rick Lowe, and Ben Tecumseh DeSoto (who just won Best Photographer and Best Art Exhibit in the Press' Best of Houston Awards). 5216 Montrose. For information, call 713-284-8250 or visit www.camh.org. Free.

Photo courtesy of Theatre Under The Stars, photo by Bruce Bennett Photography

​Anneliese van der Pol was a big star on You're So Raven. If, unlike my teenage daughter but like me, you never watched that particular Disney Channel TV sitcom, the news is something of a so-what. Stage musicals and plays love to bring in names from TV or the movies as a draw to build audience.

However, van der Pol's bonafides look better the further you look in her resume. The Dutch-American grew up in community theater in California (she left Holland when she was 6). She made it to Broadway as the last Belle in Beauty and the Beast. More recently she was in the Off-Broadway production of Vanities, A New Musical. Theatre Under the Stars thought enough of her to sign her up for Meet Me in St. Louis, putting her in the big role -- Esther Smith -- the one immortalized on film by Judy Garland.

And Thursday, on press night, she seemed more than up to the part, even though, as she told Hair Balls, TUTS gave her only two weeks to learn her role. Her voice was strong (she did especially well with "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" -- which she says she delights in the opportunity to sing since she's Jewish), she got around on her steps fairly well and she seems to genuinely enjoy the comedic aspects of her role. She even successfully negotiated a 45-second costume change during the trolley song. ("Three people are helping me backstage and then I run on.")

There were a few glitches Thursday -- early on the mikes weren't catching all the actors' lines and actor Zach Frank, who played Lon Smith, didn't quite get his feet back under him at the end of the forward flip in one group dance number.

But nothing like the night before - when the Smith house went all HAL 9000 on the cast, according to van der Pol.  

Photo by Joan Marcus

​In high school in her home state of Florida, Ashley Brown "thought" she wanted to be on the volleyball team. "In the middle of it, I hated it. I hated every minute of it because I was horrible, but my mom made me finish out the year," she says.

She never learned how to spike the ball really well or cover the court. But she did get a lot of experience in perseverance -- which played out pretty well for her as she worked her way up from small town choir member with absolutely no New York connections to starring as Mary Poppins on Broadway.

In fact, Brown initiated the role on Broadway and is now touring with the national road company, on its way to Houston in just three weeks.

This is the third Disney project for her. She came through Texas on the national tour of On the Record (a Disney review) in 2005 and later that year she debuted on Broadway when she took over the role of Belle in Beauty and the Beast.

"I was such a Disney baby growing up, always watching the movies," Brown says. "Being able to create the role on Broadway has been amazing."

Photo by Joan Marcus

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Anyone who's seen the classic Mary Poppins movie with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, knows it for its catchy songs, the flying nanny that is Mary Poppins, and some exuberant dancing.

In the stage version of the musical of the same name, now on its way to Houston thanks to Broadway Across America, Mary isn't the only leading role up in the highest heights. In Act II, the actor playing Bert the chimney sweep also gets to soar during the "Step in Time" number.

British actor Gavin Lee originated the role of Bert on the London stage. A year and a half later he was on Broadway for a two-year stint in the role, was a 2007 Tony nominee for Best Leading Actor in a Musical, and now he's on national tour. Not bad for someone who never thought he'd get to New York City, let alone travel to all parts of the United States.

"I do this trick on wires with a harness. It involves me walking up the sides of the theater, the stage, and tap dancing upside down on top of the stage, singing in the middle and then I come down the other side," he says.

"But once I didn't come down the other side. I just stopped. I stopped in the middle upside-down, sung my line and then I didn't move any more. 

"Oh my God. I'm stuck 40 feet in the air, upside down on two thin wires. I'm not moving and I'm supposed to be dancing on the floor."

You know what the whole Enron scandal was missing? We mean, besides the utter lack of accountability on the part of the politicians who enabled it.

It was missing songs. And dance! There was a parody musical of sorts in Houston a while back -- our wife still has the coffee mug from it -- but it didn't really take off.

Now there's a show that seems to be turning into a big hit in the London stage world, and rumors have it possibly coming to Broadway.

Enron, it's unimaginatively called, and it's directed by a guy who's done well-reviewed productions of Macbeth, Oliver! and King Lear.

Playbill's description is pretty sparse:
 

Based on real-life events and using music, dance and video, Enron explores one of the most infamous scandals in financial history, reviewing the tumultuous 1990s and casting a new light on the financial turmoil in which the world currently finds itself.

The big question: Who's playing our favorite Houstonians?

​The national touring production of the musical comedy Grease, being presented by TUTS, is taking its final bow on Sunday. Emily Padgett and Eric Scheider play the star-crossed lovers Sandy and Danny, but it's Allie Shultz as Rizzo and David Ruffin as Kenickie who steal the show. American Idol winner Taylor Hicks appears as the Teen Angel, who appears in a dream sequence giving beauty school dropout Frenchy some advice. 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday. For information, call 713-558-2600 or visit www.tuts.com. $24 to $79.50.

Maybe it's a coincidence, but there's a lot of killing in Killdozer Productions' The Pillowman. The Brothers-Grimm-on-crack show, written by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh (The Beauty Queen of Leenane and The Lieutenant of Inishmore), is a look at Katurian, a writer who specializes in stories about violence against children, and his brother Michal. After a series of child murders that closely resemble Katurian's stories, he's brought in for questioning by police. In the next room is Michal, waiting his turn at being interrogated (read: tortured). The story unfolds in twists and turns, each darker than the last one, and by the end of the play, killing children almost makes sense. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Express Theatre, 446 Northwest Mall. For information, call 832-561-1601. $10 to $12.

Photo courtesy runtofthelitter.com

​Eight years ago, we wrote of former Houston Oiler safety Bo Eason, who was premiering at Stages Theatre a searing autobiographical one-man play about his life and career.

Runt of the Litter was a fascinating, well-written, nicely acted look at the dark forces that drove Eason to the NFL, and the sometimes twisted relationships he had with his parents and his brother Tony, an intensely private Super Bowl quarterback for the New England Patriots.

Since then, the play went to Off-Broadway, where it got strong reviews from The New York Times and other papers.

Tonight Eason opens a 30-city tour of the play in Seattle.

His spokesperson, Breanne Davis, tells Hair Balls Eason will be doing 100 performances across America. So far Houston's not on the list; in fact most of the stops are in smaller cities.

Photo courtesy TUTS

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Turns out Dominic Fortuna, who deftly plays the WAXX DJ Vince Fontaine in the national road company of Grease now at the Hobby Center, was a former contestant on the reality show Grease: You're the One that I Want! -- the reality series that searched the United States for budding stars to put in the lead roles of Danny and Sandy for the 2007 Broadway revival.

He drove five hours to the Chicago audition from his home in northern Michigan, drove home the same night and came back the next day for a call back. Fortuna made it to the semi-finals before being cut. "They said I was too old," he told Hair Balls.

But director Kathleen Marshall and especially playwright Jim Jacobs (who co-wrote the books, music and lyrics for Grease and who was a judge on the reality show) said they'd like to find a spot for him in the musical.

He didn't get the original revival nod -- Fortuna says with two novice leads Marshall wanted someone with Broadway experience for the Fontaine role -- but he did get the call about two years later, debuted on Broadway and hit the road last November.

"It hasn't stopped since," he says.

And there's no way he's going to disrespect American Idol winner Taylor Hicks, who comes on in the second half to play the Teen Angel.

Photo courtesy TUTS

​When Taylor Hicks descended from the heavens (from above a burger bar) in the national touring production of Grease at Hobby Center Tuesday night, the roar from the crowd was like the landing of the Beatles on American soil. Several ladies (sorry, didn't see any guys do this) jumped out of their seats and danced to his number.

And the American Idol winner from Season 5 did a perfectly fine job. His voice was strong, the silver glitter in his suit matched his hair and his sense of humor came out throughout the "Beauty School Dropout" number.

He even came back for an encore performance after the show was over, taking us, as an announcer put it: "from 1959 to 2009!" He showed up in the lobby after the show to sell CDs and sign autographs. So everybody got their money's worth.

But Taylor Hicks was not the only one getting the audience squirming in their seats Tuesday night.

Photo courtesy Houston Family Arts Center

​On a Labor Day weekend you might have other things on your mind that Art-with-a-capital-A (Such as, say, football-football-football), so you're lucky that there's not a huge list of shows closing this weekend that you only have one last chance to enjoy.

But there are two things in now-or-never mode.

Eclectic Compilations at the Galleria Lazzara is described as "a self defined exhibit featuring the artists Bryan Dominguez, Bethany Robert, Jennifer Pod, David Moore, and Gabriel Mack. Art that consist of mixed media. Objects that were once rejected, possibly due to its inability to function on the level it was created; it has been collected to regain a purpose to create a sense of freedom from emotions, status quo, and the past."

The gallery is at 5400 Mitchelldale.

Photo courtesy A.D. Players

Steel Magnolias

​A whole bunch of theater presentations are ending their runs this weekend, so get on out there if you want to see them.

The Wiz, which has been drawing huge crowds to the Miller Outdoor Theater and has extended twice, absolutely, positively must close this weekend. Be aware you might encounter some long lines in trying to get the free tickets for covered seats, and sitting on the hill can get a little tough too. But it's free, the Ensemble has put together an energetic, classy production, and maybe the heat won't be that bad.

If wacky zaniness is more your speed, then you might want to get to Radio Music Theater's The Story of Burford, Category 5. "You'll love experiencing the lighter side of a Category 5 hurricane hitting Houston," the company's promos say, and who are we to argue? Tickets are $24 and more information is available at their website.

Also closing this week: Steel Magnolias at the A.D. Players, and, at Stages, The Tamarie Cooper Show: Journey to the Center of My Mind (In 3-D!)

Photos courtesy of Galveston Island

​Last year, after the all-round drenching and destruction that the Strand Historic Landmark District in Galveston took on in Hurricane Ike, the annual presentation of the Dickens on the Strand was a shadow of its former self.

Three months wasn't nearly enough time to recover from all the wind and water, but local residents rallied anyhow whether for love of tradition or tourist dollars (or both) and put on a show anyhow to keep the string alive.

This year, the 36th, the Galveston Historical Foundation has announced, it will return the show to its former days of glory and once again be, full-scale. That means on Saturday, December 5 and Sunday, December 6, all manner of Victorian-garbed creatures will be walking a 10-block area along Strand and Mechanic streets.

Photo courtesy of the Alley Theatre

Brian Brynes (left) demonstrates stage combat on the Alley Theatre's Hubbard Stage.

​All you people out there who've spent years fencing with empty paper towel rolls and plastic swords, this is your chance to pick up techniques and strategies from the real players -- actors who fence on stage at the Alley Theatre.

Actor Brian Byrnes -- who has employed his love of fighting into roles at the Alley's Cyrano de Bergerac, Othello and The Pillowman -- will lead the charge at the open house from noon to 4 p.m. this Sunday at the theater at 615 Texas Avenue.

"Brian will demonstrate how we choreograph and present fights for the stage; the movement involved whenever we have fights on the stage," said Lauren Pelletier, the Alley's public relations associate.

Not a fight fan? There will also be backstage tour, theater games with the Young Performers Studio, face painting and a close-up look at costumes. And more, according to Alley Managing Director Dean R. Gladden:

Photo by George Hixson

​What were you doing when you were seven months pregnant? (Question intended for women only.)

One thing you probably weren't doing: scrambling madly to stop a wildly leaking roof only minutes before you were going onstage for a 90-minute bout of dancing, singing and dashing around.

Tamarie Cooper, Houston's favorite comedienne, has semi-revived her old Tamalalia series with The Tamarie Cooper Show: Journey to the Center of My Mind (In 3-D!) at Stages Theatre. It's the same type of raucous, demanding show she's done in the past, except this time she's toting around a supporting actress, a soon-to-be daughter named Rose.

And on Friday, when a cold front brought some vicious storms downtown minutes before the curtain, Cooper and her cast were scrambling to minimize the damage. Eventually three rows were blocked off, much to the dismay of some of the sellout crowd.

"It felt like we were back at the Axiom," she tells Hair Balls. That former rock club had the structural quirkiness you'd expect from a former rock club, but apparently Stages isn't much better in a stiff rain.

Photo courtesy TUTS

​Each week Last Call for Art presents shows and exhibits that are closing, meaning you only have the weekend to get off yer butt and go see them. When there are a half-dozen or more things shutting their doors at once, deciding which to see can be difficult.

This week, not so much.

Only one big piece of Art is in the "See it NOW or miss it forever" stage: TUTS's production of The Color Purple.

Nurtured to life by Oprah Winfrey, the show -- which earlier had to cancel performances due to Hurricane Ike -- won praise from Hair Balls for its powerhouse performances.

There are two performances apiece on Saturday and Sunday. Check the TUTS website for more details.

​We wrote earlier about our various attempts to see the Ensemble Theater's free production of the The Wiz in Hermann Park.

Incredibly long lines for covered parking, and packed conditions on the hill, defeated our attempts to enjoy the spectacle.

And now we know why, officially: The Ensemble says an amazing 22,000 people came to see the two performances.

"Record numbers stood in line as early as 6:00AM Saturday morning for tickets to the pavilion area, although the box office didn't open until 10:30AM. The show started at 8:00PM, but by 4 o'clock people could be seen with lawn chairs and blankets vying for a good viewing spot on the hill," the theater announced.

​In the never-ending battle to get people to come see live theater, the Free Night of Theater project began five years ago in three cities.

Now it's coming to Houston.

Nationwide, over 65,000 free tickets were given away in 120 cities...which kinda makes you wonder what took Houston so long.

But beggars can't be choosers, and we should just be happy. Janel Badrino of the Houston Arts Alliance tells Hair Balls that all the answers everyone has -- what shows, what theater companies, how to get tickets -- will be answered soon.

"Around Labor Day we'll start putting information on our website," she says. Scheduling details are still being worked out.

Photo courtesy TUTS

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Just like its main character Celie who overcomes all odds, the national tour of The Color Purple came to the Hobby Center this week and soared in sound and spectacle -- despite a few sound and lighting glitches during opening night -- ultimately redeemed by its strong message and dramatic use of light and dance.

Last year's two-week stand was shortened to one with the arrival of Ike, so there were a lot of people left waiting for this Tuesday night's opener.

Standouts were Celie (of course) played by Kenita R. Miller. Short of stature and armed with a powerful voice, Miller made the perfect Celie who, raped by her "father," is forced to give up her two babies and then handed over to the odious "Mister" who treats her abominably and calls her ugly.

​My daughter Harriet is four and is a huge Wizard of Oz fan, so I thought she would enjoy taking in the Ensemble Theater's free production of The Wiz at Miller Outdoor Theatre Saturday night. (We skipped the brutal line for covered tickets.)

I had heard that showtime was 7 p.m. and since my apartment is only a few blocks from the park, we decided to make an afternoon of it. She put on her bathing suit and her sparkly red tennis shoes and we headed down to the park at about five. After an hour or so of playing in the fountains between the cenotaph and the pedal-boat lake and a few minutes of trying to feed the obese, indifferent ducks, we rode the train and then headed over to the hill to stake out a spot.

By then it was a little past seven. We needed dinner, and in a lapse I would soon keenly regret, I had forgotten to bring some food from home or an outside restaurant. Any restaurant would have done. I order the two of us nachos, a Frito pie, and a hot dog, and in the end, only the Frito pie proved remotely edible. The hot dog was gray and lukewarm and rested in a bun that was stale as a week-old cheeseball; the nachos were of the sort only Beavis and Butthead could love. There are gas stations all over Houston that serve better food than that crap, and Hermann is Houston's signature urban park. This shoddy prison fare is the best Hermann can do? And how did these jokers get the license for the concession there?

Photo by Margaret Downing

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Hair Balls decided to take in the free showing of The Wiz at Miller Outdoor Theatre this weekend. The show has been in an extended run at the Ensemble Theatre (not for free) but, for two nights only, transferred over to the city's outdoor and free stage for the vox populi.

Free tickets to covered seating are distributed from the Miller box office starting at 10:30 a.m. each day of the show. Hair Balls and company got there before 10:30 a.m. to find out, alas, that we were idiots.

The line stretched all the way around the sides of the theater and into the park beyond. Optimistic as ever, we took our place in the queue, waiting and hoping that a) tickets would stretch really far or b) that a huge chunk of the line ahead of us would drop out.

After a while, a security guard on a golf cart rode over to our sector (by now there were many more people standing behind Hair Balls), asked for our attention and informed us that based on their experience, it was extremely unlikely that any of us past the first 200 would get tickets. Each person in line is entitled to four tickets.

As Hair Balls started mentally reviewing how many covered seats there were, the guard went on to say that other seats were reserved for the corporate sponsors who help pay for the whole thing. Ah.