Los Angeles' Tiffany Theatre is scheduled for demolition this year, but the two-theatre complex is taking a starry final bow, March 12-30, with Alan Bennett's Talking Heads. The evening of seven monologues will feature filmdom's Annette Bening, Kathleen Chalfant, Tyne Daly, Swoosie Kurtz and Daniel Davis.
Bening, who graced L.A.'s Geffen in Hedda Gabler in 1999, is an obsessive-compulsive cleaner dealing with a murder in The Outside Dog, while Chalfant (Wit, Angels in America) plays a minister's wife questioning the existence of God and finding Him in the arms of an Indian shopkeeper in Bed Among the Lentils. Daly (Gypsy) is a reclusive woman who finds her way out into the wide world in Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet.
In A Lady of Letters, Kurtz's piece, a nosy spinster winds up in jail after pushing into business not her own and for the first time in her life makes friends. Davis (Wrong Mountain) stars as middle-aged Graham, still living with his mother, who is put out by an old suitor who comes to claim her in A Chip in the Sugar.
Brenda Wehle performs The Hand of God, set in a failing antique shop. In Her Big Chance, Valerie Mahaffey plays Leslie, an actress who takes her "big chance" when it comes no matter what it means.
Bennett's Talking Heads scripts were first made for the BBC, but have since been staged many times. He is the author of Forty Years On, The Lady in the Van and his Oscar-nominated The Madness of King George. Tickets are $30-$40. The Tiffany Theatre is located at 8532 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. For reservations, call (310) 289-2999.
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Since its birth in 1985, The Tiffany has been home to up-and-coming stars and popular local productions including Nite Club Confidential (a 14-month runner that starred the then-unknown Scott Bakula); A Shayna Maidel; Oleanna, which starred Kyra Sedgwick; Marvin's Room with Mary Steenburgen and Jean Smart; Laughing Wild, Christopher Durang's L.A. stage debut; Give 'Em Hell, Harry, which starred Jason Alexander; and Bermuda Avenue Triangle, in its pre-Off-Broadway run with Bea Arthur.
— By Christine Ehren
