When playwright Keith Reddin (Rum and Coke, Life During Wartime) heard Disney and ABC refer to their merger as "a great synergy of the people creating entertainment and the people disseminating the entertainment," he knew he had the topic for a satirical comedy. Synergy, which had its world premiere at the Alley Theatre in 2001, will be read for Los Angeles' Theatre Works radio series Feb. 6-10 at the Skirball Cultural Center. Richard Kind ("Spin City," "Mad About You") and three-time Emmy nominee Jobeth Williams ("Frasier," "Baby M.," "The Big Chill") star.
When Synergy's heroine Deb arrives at her dental date in hell (literally!), she meets a Dean Martin-ish Satan, who trades her soul for the opportunity to gather the souls of others. Where better to begin her quest than at...the Walt Disney Corporation.
Williams is Deb, the hapless soul searcher with Kind as the Brat Pack Devil, who thinks of the Bible as "the longest bad review in history." Also featured in the cast are Alan Mandell (Endgame, Waiting for Godot) as Sidney, Jeffrey Donovan (New York's A View from the Bridge, Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight as Roland, Rosalind Chao ("Star Trek: The Next Generation," "I Am Sam") as Jade, Michelle and Joey Slotnick ("Boston Public," "The Single Guy") as Marc.
Tickets are $10-$40. Skirball Cultural Center is located at 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. For reservations, call (310) 827-0889.
All TheatreWorks theatre productions are recorded for future broadcast on public radio, on XM Satellite Radio and are sold on the L.A. Theatre Works homepage at http://www.latw.org. In the past 11 years, productions have won several awards including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Gold and Silver Awards, three Sony Awards, the Writer's Guild of America's Best Comedy Award and the 1999 Audie Award for Best Dramatic Production from the Audio Publishers Association. Their recording of The Prisoner of Second Avenue, featuring Richard Dreyfuss and Mason, was recently nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Comedy Album. — By Christine Ehren
