Cooking up a comedy in Delaware(1)

From:The News Journal
Date:09/12/2004
By GARY MULLINAX

Imagine 'The Odd Couple,' toss in a sex-change operation, mix well in Wilmington, serve 'Partners' on Broadway!

A veteran sitcom writer and two actors familiar from their work on television are eager to get the new play they're working on to Broadway.

But the road from Hollywood to New York City will have a stop in Wilmington, where they will work "Partners" into final shape in its world premire.

The comedy will open the Delaware Theatre Company's new season this week. If things go well here, the Wilmington company will have its name attached to a Broadway show.

"We wanted to do this first production to get the play in shape someplace outside New York and not have everybody breathing down our necks," said Allan Katz, who wrote for "M*A*S*H," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and other classic sitcoms.

The show also could move from here to off-Broadway in New York, and then to Broadway. Or, of course, it might not get to New York at all. A lot depends on how things go here.

The stars are eager to get back to New York, too, at least for a while. Both have spent many years in Hollywood. Alan Rosenberg has been a regular on such shows as "L.A. Law," "Chicago Hope" and "The Guardian" (as Alvin Masterson). Vyto Ruginis has been a guest star on TV shows ranging from "Law & Order" to "The Practice" to "Ally McBeal." Both also have worked in films.

You'd probably recognize the faces if not the names.

Adding to the star power, Rosenberg's wife, Marg Helgenberger of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," is expected to be in Wilmington for the opening Saturday.

Rosenberg and Ruginis play three characters, Norm, Jack and Jackie. Jack, an idealist who wanted to be an architect, and sloppy, cranky Norm are longtime partners in a low-level knockoff fashion business who bicker throughout Act 1. Ruginis, who plays Jack, comes back as Jackie after an offstage sex-change operation late in the first act. Maybe the partners will get along better in Act 2.

Sort of like Neil Simon with a twist. A big twist.

"I started thinking about how people say the best relationship they ever have in a marriage is when they started off as best friends," Katz said. "If you could be married and your wife had the same interests and rhythms you did and understood your business and at the same time you had the husband-and-wife sexual aspect to it, wouldn't that be a perfect relationship?"

Ruginis and Rosenberg have been best friends for 25 years, which got Katz to thinking the other day.

"If Vyto ended up in real life getting a sex-change operation, I think they would end up being a couple," he said with a laugh.

Not a chance, says Rosenberg.

"No matter what Vyto chooses to do with his life, we will not be a couple," said the 53-year-old actor. "That's just out of the question."

Remember, this guy is married to Marg Helgenberger.

Katz said the germ of the idea appeared years ago when he was watching Johnny Carson's talk show.

"Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau were guesting after they had done 'The Odd Couple' for years," he said. "They were joking around and Carson asked if they had the same relationship with their wives. They said, no, guys have a different relationship with their wives."

Regional theaters serve as launching pads

Professional regional theaters have originated Broadway shows increasingly in recent years. Money is one reason. Katz said he would need about $1.5 million to open the show on Broadway. Here he can do it for about $700,000.

Katz has a friend who knows Bill Shea, head of the Delaware Theatre Company board. The board liked the idea of taking on a co-production targeted for Broadway, but could come up only with part of the money required. This is a six-actor play, a large cast by Delaware Theatre Company standards. Katz's New York producer, Bill Haber, added "enrichment" money to complete the budget.

Haber is crucial to this production in more ways than one. He's the established Broadway producer whose name and connections can smooth the way for "Partners." Now the show does not have to lure a New York producer to come see it in Wilmington. The producer is already on board.

"Partners" will be the first Delaware Theatre Company production under new producing director Anne Marie Cammarato. She is overseeing the production from her own company's point of view.

"Credit for having a world premi鋨e carries a lot of weight in the theater world," she said. "It's great for our audiences to have an investment in a play that has a life beyond Wilmington."

But she is also mindful that regional theaters are sometimes criticized for emphasizing commercial projects like "Partners" at the expense of more high-minded productions.

"We have to find a balance within our season and occasionally we might find it within one play," she said.

Cammarato also pointed out that some in the Wilmington audience might find "Partners" a bit risqu? not just for the sex-change theme but also for copious use of the F-word.

"I don't think people are offended by 'The Odd Couple,' but this play they might be," she said.

Katz knows that's a risk. But he thinks the problem will disappear when people actually see the show. He noted that it is not about homosexuality. "Even for somebody a tad homophobic, it has nothing to do with that."

He also cited the experience of a Delaware Theatre Company board member.

"When she read the first draft, she was very vocal against it. She said she didn't know if they should open the season with a play with that language and that subject matter. But in the first couple of days after we got here we did a reading for the board, and she was laughing harder than anybody."

On the other hand, Katz is leery of too much laughing. He sounds like a man who doesn't want his play to be tagged with a "just like a sitcom" label.

"If a couple of stand-up comics were doing this, it might feel like wall-to-wall jokes," he said. "But these guys are seasoned actors who fill every moment of this thing. They make what might be read as a joke into reality. Some will be brought to tears."