LOS ANGELES -- Sondheim & Jazz: Side by Side tops the bill of theatre attractions scheduled by UCLA Performing Arts Center for its 1999-2000 season.

Sondheim's music and lyrics will be explored Jan. 22, 2000 at Royce Hall by such jazz and cabaret stars as Terence Blanchard, Oscar Castro-Neves, Jackie Cain and Roy Kraal, Eddie Daniels, Kurt Elling, Maureen McGovern, Charles Mims, Terry Trotter Trio, Ernie Watts and others.

The high priestess of performance art, Laurie Anderson, will return to Royce Hall Oct. 20 with the West Coast premiere of her new music theatre piece, Songs and Stories From Moby Dick. In this multimedia spectacle, co-commissioned by UCLA, Melville's dark world of obsession and redemption is chanelled through a late 20th century sensibility.

On Jan. 28, 2000 writer/performer Rinde Eckert and composer Steve Mackey will bring their off-beat musical theatre work Ravenshead to Freud Playhouse. Eckert delivers a tour-de-force performance based on the true story of a modern-day mariner who goes crazy at sea.

The Siti Company, headed by Anne Bogart, will bring its production of Cabin Fever to the Freud April 25, 2000. The company's new work explores theatre's potential to strengthen our ties to one another in an age of computers, television and mega-malls. For tickets and information call (310) 825-2101.

-- By Willard Manus
Southern California Correspondent