Scott Rabinowitz set his hip-hop adaptation of Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona, 2G's, in a hot night club called Club Milan. Now the show returns to Los Angeles at a hot night club, the Martini Lounge in Hollywood, July 30. The piece opened at the Sacred Fools Theatre May 18 and ran through June 17, selling out its final shows.

Rabinowitz has retained Shakespeare's text but has set the play in a modern-day disco in Milan where there is as much cross-dressing as double-crossing. 2G's is the second of recent hip hop adaptations of the Bard - The Bomb-ity of Errors, a four man rap version of The Comedy of Errors, ran for six months Off-Broadway.

Rabinowitz is no stranger to Shakespeare. In recent years he has directed Timon of Athens for Sacred Fools, Othello and King Lear for the Pasadena Shakespeare Company. As an actor, he portrays Ross on the CBS daytime soap "The Young and the Restless."

The 2G's cast includes Carla Jo Bailey, Herschel Bleefeld, Ameena Kaplan, Scott McShane, Peter Anthony Moore and Tangelia Rouse, among others. The choreography is by hip-hop aficionado Joe Hernandez-Kolski, with SFX lighting by Norman Gilmore and costume design by Elif Inanc with Mary Hayes.

Tickets are $15. The Martini Lounge is located at 5657 Melrose Avenue. For reservations, call (323) 993-7247 or e-mail [email protected]. -- By Willard Manus
Southern California Correspondent
and Christine Ehren