Featuring a score by James L. Mellon and Scott De Turk and a book by Mellon, Lizard begins performances at North Hollywood's NoHo Arts Center July 13 with an official opening July 21. The limited engagement, also directed by Mellon, will play through Sept. 3.
David Eldon co-stars in the piece, which is based on Dennis Covington's 1991 novel. The cast also includes Curtis C., Bryan Coffee, Laura Coyle, Melanie Ewbank, Shannon Ferreira, Janet Fontaine, Brandon Ford Green, J.R. Mangels, Bob Morrisey, Cortney Wright and Jonathan Zenz.
The creative team for Lizard comprises Craig Siebels (set design), Luke Moyer (lighting design), Shon LeBlanc (costume design), Scott DeTurk and Jonathan Zenz (sound design), Robin McWilliams (hair and make-up design) and Scott Ramp (make-up and prosthetics).
Lizard, according to press notes, "revolves around a boy named Lucius Sims. With his sea-green eyes more displaced than most people’s and a nose deformed at birth, Lucius, or 'Lizard' as he is called by his friends at the Leesville State School for Retarded Boys, looks and feels like a freak due to his reptilian features. So when Callahan, a shoe salesman from up North arrives and claims to be his father, Lizard takes a chance. Believing that his father is dead, he escapes from his miserable life at the reformatory and into the madcap world of Callahan’s traveling theatre troupe and their ragtag production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest."
James Barbour has been seen on Broadway in Assassins, Urinetown, Jane Eyre, Carousel, Beauty and the Beast and Cyrano. Off-Broadway he was seen in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Milk and Honey, and his regional credits include Back From Broadway, Enter the Guardsman, The Great God Brown and Adrift in Macao. Barbour's screen credits include "The District," "Just Shoot Me," "Sex and the City," "The Tell Tale Heart," "Waiting for Lefty" and "Twinkle Toes." The NoHo Arts Center is located at 11136 Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood, CA. Tickets, priced $30-$35, are available by calling (818) 508-7101. For more information visit www.thenohoartscenter.com.
