The acclaimed play August: Osage County by Tracy Letts is coming to Los Angeles. It'll be at the Ahmanson Theater starting next month and spilling over into the following month.
Why am I telling you this? Because I have two tickets for it I can't use, on account of I'm going outta state for the Mid-Ohio-Con. They're pretty good seats — center of the second row of the mezzanine — and they're for October 6, a 7:30 performance. Anyone wanna buy 'em off me for the face value price of $120?
You see the guy on the left in the above photo? Never mind the clown on the right. That's me. But the guy on the left is Chuck McCann, one of the funniest and most creative humans in this hemisphere. For those of you who remember Chuck's legendary kids' show on local New York television in the sixties, no more need be said. The rest of you came to know him from his movie roles, his hundreds of TV appearance, his commercials, his cartoons, his...oh, heck. If you told me that Chuck had donned a tu-tu and danced the Swan with the Joffrey, I'd hesitate to dismiss it as unlikely. The guy's done everything...and judging from the fan worship I witnessed this year at Comic-Con, most people know that.
But what they might not know is that today's his birthday. So...much affection and a big, candle-studded cake to one of my favorite people.
It's also the birthday of another one of my favorite people, cartoonist supreme Scott Shaw! But we have a one-birthday-post-a-day rule here. So sorry, Scott. Maybe next year.
A couple of folks sent me this. It's the Salute to Sesame Street from the Daytime Emmy ceremony the other day...a nice eleven minute segment, though you can zip past the opening remarks if you don't have the eleven minutes.
At the end, the Muppeteers come out for bows. The gent operating Cookie Monster is, I believe, David Rudman, and it's nice to see him get on camera. It's regrettable though that Caroll Spinney is mostly hidden. Spinney has been performing Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird since Sesame Street started — the only Muppet guy of his era still filling a role he originated. Someone else, obviously, is in the Big Bird suit on the Emmy stage but that's Spinney holding Oscar, straining to be seen. He deserved a special ovation.
September 3, 2009
