By contrast, the
Long Beach Opera in California, a small company that focuses on new works in unusual venuesAuit closed this season with Ricky Ian GordonAAEs AoOrpheus and EuridiceAo staged in a swimming poolAuannounced earlier this month that it was operating in the black, gaining subscribers and even slightly increasing its annual operating budget.
In attendance were such operaphiles as DON JOHNSON (looking as sexy and svelte as he did in his Miami Vice days]; Shakespearean actor MICHAEL YORK, who recently headlined Strauss Meets Frankenstein with the
Long Beach Opera; JOSH GROBAN, the 27-year-old baritone who is changing the face of classical music; and another great comedian, MARTIN SHORT, who was enthusiastic in his praise of Woody's versatility.
If Roht's wide-ranging brand of off-kilter musical theatre has occasionally rubbed shoulders with the operatic, it's hardly a surprise that he's begun to land gigs in the opera world proper: choreographing for
Long Beach Opera, directing a triptych of Offenbach one-acts at Bard College's 2006 SummerScape festival in upstate New York, and this past summer performing, despite his lack of classical training, alongside seasoned opera singers from New York City Opera at Symphony Space.
* Costume/scenic designer Yevgenia Nayberg of Sherman Oaks, Calif., has designed for such theatre and opera venues as the Eclectic Company Theatre and the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles, and
Long Beach Opera and the Open Fist Theatre Company in Hollywood.
He has worked extensively at Los Angeles-area theatres, including the Mark Taper Forum, Actor's Gang, ASK New Works Festival, Los Angeles Theater Center and
Long Beach Opera.