LOS ANGELES -- Last Chance to catch Scottish playwright Sharman MacDonald's 1984 play, When I Was a Girl, I Used to Scream and Shout, ending its run at the Odyssey Theatre April 11.

The show was originally scheduled to have its Los Angeles premiere Jan. 16 at the Odyssey. However, numerous push-backs set the show's opening nearly a month later: Feb. 13. The show, directed by Elina deSantos, then changed its final date from March 7, then March 21, to March 28. Then the play extended its run through April 11.

Production spokesperson Jerry Charlson told Playbill On-Line not one, but two cast members were battling this winter's brutal flu, so for several weeks, the show's schedule was day-to day.

Among the ailing was lead actress Carol Kane (of TV's "Taxi" and filmdom's "The Princess Bride"), who replaced Sally Kirkland early in the rehearsal process.

Also featured in the cast are Shannon Branham, Dylan Kussman and Rachel Singer. The producers are Ron Sossi and David Mills. Scream and Shout was MacDonald's first play and had a well received staging in New York in 1998 by the John Montgomery Theatre Company. It premiered in Scotland and won her the Evening Standard's award for Most Promising Playwright. Her first play, The Winter Guest, was made into a film in 1996 with Emma Thompson and her mother, Phyllida Law.

In 1997, MacDonald was commissioned to write the libretto for a new opera, "Hey, Persephone," with music by Deirde Gribbin. It was performed in Scotland this past summer.

Scream and Shout is about "sex, lies and laughter and is set on a Scottish beach in 1983," notes a company press release. "The four characters of a 1996 turning point return to the scene of 'the dirty deed' and the story of 'the girl who got out' unfolds."

The Odyssey is at 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. Call (310) 477-2055.

-- By Willard Manus
Southern California Correspondent
and David Lefkowitz