The Set List

Largo Primps For Its Closeups

Largo, one of my favorite venues since it opened in 1992 and was booking acts like the Wild Colonials and Love Jones, will shutter its 120-seat Fairfax Avenue location after a final comedy show Monday and open June 2 at the Coronet Theater space on La Cienega. Aimee Mann, who will release an album June 3, will be the first performer.
Move is motivated by wanting to get away from the bar business and having more space.
“You get tired of turning people away,” Largo owner Mark Flanagan said while we toured the new space Wednesday afternoon. The news has been out there for a little while, but the renovations taking place in the two performance spaces make it clear this will quickly become a reality.
Since Flanagan took over as sole owner in 1996, Largo has been known as a haven for singer-songwriters, such as Fiona Apple, Grant Lee Phillips and Nellie McKay, as well as comedians.
The Coronet has been a legit theater since it was built in the mid-1940s and once housed the West Coast offices of Rodgers & Hammerstein. The bar space next door, the former Coronet Pub, is slated for renovation and reopening as well.
New venue boasts two performances spaces — a 280-seat theater and a smaller room that can accommodate up to 70 — as well as a lobby space and a courtyard. The stage from Largo will be placed in the Little Room as it is being called. Unlike the current venue, it will not serve food beyond pastries and gelato and will only have a beer and wine license for the smaller room. Tickets will be sold as they are now, via a phone reservation system, and through a box office that is expected to be open in the afternoons.
“Different is good,” said Jon Brion, the composer-performer whose Friday-night residency, which has lasted 12 years, will continue in the new home dubbed Largo at the Coronet. “Here it is obvious that (the evening) is about the performance. It will be more focused.”
Coincidentally, as the doors on the original Largo are closing, a documentary on the venue will be starting to make the festival rounds. “Largo” has been accepted at the Los Angeles Film Festival — screening June 22 —  and the Times BFI London Film Festival.
The trailer:

Mellencamp's 'Ghosts' Bound For Atlanta

The Stephen King-John Mellencamp musical "Ghost Brothers of Darkland County" will premiere in the spring of 2009 at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the musical is set in 1957 and centers on a  legend about the strange deaths of two brothers and a beautiful young girl 40 years earlier in the fictional town of Lake Belle Reve, Miss.
Alliance artistic director Susan V. Booth calls it "a theatrical piece with music." Peter Askin, who helmed John Cameron Mitchell's "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" off-Broadway, will direct.

Bauhaus Leader Explores Edie Sedgwick In A Stage Musical

David J of Bauhaus and Love & Rockets has written and will direct a musical based on Andy Warhol's muse Edie Sedgwick.
"Silver For Gold (The Odyssey Of Edie Sedgwick)," described as part one-woman show/part rock concert, opens March 6 at the Met Theater in Hollywood.
World premiere stars  Monique Jenkinson (aka Fauxnique) as Edie and Steven Price (founder of the Ronin Ensemble) as Norich, the wounded healer. "Silver For Gold" traces her rise and eventual downward spiral. The staging is described as "avant-garde minimalist."
David J, who has a new Bauhaus album coming out March 4, is also in the show's band, which features  Neel Hammond on viola and violin, David Raven on percussion and Michael de Winter on guitar and backing vocals. The demo on the play's MySpace page has a definite Velvet Underground feel.
Production runs through March 16 and will be preparing for an off-Broadway run in the fall.

Unlikely Listening Between the Scenes

writes some fascinating music for the theater and his between-scene music in the Geffen Playhouse's production of Wendy Wasserstein's "Third" grows progressively intriguing as the evening wears on. Play takes place during the course of a school year, beginning with breezy autumnal themes that teeter toward new-age stream of conscious composing. Guitar and acoustic bass are the key instruments with  strings adding textures, as the drama develops and winter sets in, Roth's music ushers in moods that not only echo the previous scene but hint at the action about to come. It is music that deserves a future.

Pop Acts Dot L.A. 'Color Purple' Cast

Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child and “American Idol 3” finalist LaToya London will appear in L.A. in the Ahmanson Theater presentation of "The Color Purple." Performances begin Dec. 13.

Kodak Presents A Little Silhouetto Of A Man

If this tribute band is good enough for Dubai, Malaysia and Turkey, it must be perfect for the Kodak Theater.
“Queen – It’s A Kinda Magic,” a stage show that features 30 Queen tunes but apparently no story, comes to Los Angeles Oct. 5 and Orange County on Oct. 6. Show also stops at towns where Buck Owens tribute bands usually play: Sacramento, Fresno Bakersfield and San Diego
Not to be confused with “We Will Rock You,” the futuristic all-Queen tuner that played London and Las Vegas, this vaguely described show is a “theatrical event (that) creates the 1986 world tour of Freddie Mercury and Queen, taking audiences back in time to experience the passion of Freddie Mercury, the amazing guitar solos of Brian May, the thundering rhythms of Roger Taylor and all those unbelievable Queen harmonies.” (John Deacon apparently gets little love).
The Toronto Sun called QIAKM “flawless.” Show has the approval of Mercury’s former personal assistant, Peter Freestone.
Craig Pesco plays Freddie.

Tuner Time For Ty

Remember Ty Taylor, the mohawked singer who appeared positioned to win the role of lead singer for INXS when the band decided to do an "American Idol"-like contest to replace Michael Hutchence? Well "Rock Star" is long forgotten, along with Marty and Mig and whoever it was who won the contest. JD somebody, right? Somehow, though, Ty is memorable - and not just because he played a character named Britney Spears in the Las Vegas production of "We Will Rock You." Taylor, now singer and guitarist in Dakota Moon, returns to the musical theater on Sept. 17 at the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Benefit at the Ford Amphitheater in L.A. Taylor will play Freddie in "Chess," the musical penned by Tim Rice, Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus.

'Mask' the Musical Gets Pasadena Premiere

Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, authors of legendary hits such as "You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling," "Walking in the Rain" and "On Broadway," have written the music and lyrics for the stage adaptation of the film "Mask," which will premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse on March 14.
"Mask" screenwriter Anna Hamilton Phelan has written the book.
"Mask," as if anyone needs to be told, was Cher's third well-received film in the early to mid 1980s. She played the biker mother whose son has a disfigured face.
In the coming season, the Pasadena Playhouse will first present "Ray Charles Live! – A New Musical." It opens Nov. 9.