Victory Theatre

BURBANK -- The Victory Theatre's world premiere of Lee Murphy's comedy "Monkey Grass," directed by Maria Gobetti, opens March 30. In 1995, Murphy received the Theatre L.A. Ovation Award for best writing of a world premiere play for "Catch A Falling Star" produced by The Victory. It is the first play of a trilogy about a Texas family. "Monkey Grass" is the second in the series. Letha Messbaum, is the Hollywood producer of the mega-hit action adventure films "Die" and "Die Harder."

Karen Apostolina The entertainment business, by nature, is not conducive to stable, long-term relationships often favoring style over substance. But somehow, Maria Gobetti and Tom Ormeny, owners of the Victory Theatre Center in Burbank, have ignored this fact for 25 years, brazenly producing art for art's sake. As "The Vic" marks its 25th anniversary in March, Gobetti and Ormeny will also celebrate a quarter-century of marriage. How? By doing exactly what they've done for 2 1/2 decades -- opening a new play!

Dink O'Neal, Enjoy! BURBANK -- If faced with the weighty responsibility of having inadvertently affected world history for the worse, what would you do? Such is the dilemma of five participants in "The War Game" playing at Burbank's ironically named Victory Theatre. Authors Ashley Scott Meyers and Jeffry E. Stein have crafted a story reminiscent of "Twilight Zone" episodes wherein the mundane often leads to the catastrophic. Gathering in a Los Angeles-area home, a quintet of weekend gamers prepare for a risk-like contest in which World War II is recreated and determined by the roll of dice and the movement of miniature armed forces.

Joyce Rudolph Victory Theatre co-founder receives Doolittle Award BURBANK -- Tom Ormeny, co-founder of the Victory Theatre in Burbank, has received the Theatre L.A.'s James A. Doolittle Award for Leadership in Theatre. Ormeny co-founded and built the Victory Theatre in 1979 and continues today as its artistic co-director with his wife, director and acting coach Maria Gobetti. The theater has produced more than 50 world premieres. Recently, Ormeny wrote and produced the play "Life on the Line," which premiered at the Victory.

Joyce Rudolph Burbank blues band in Verizon festival BURBANK -- Burbank vocalist Jessie Payo and her blues band Jessie and the Raindogs have been selected to perform as part of the Verizon Music Festival on Sunday in Old Pasadena. Jessie and the Raindogs will perform at 1 p.m. at Central Park. This free concert is from noon to 7 p.m. The band will share the stage with international artists David Clayton-Thomas with Blood, Sweat and Tears, Me'shell Ndegeocello, and many more.

Providence High School?s Drama Department presents ?Godspell? at 7:30 p.m. today and 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the auditorium, 511 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank. Performances continue at 7:30 March 15 and 2:30 p.m. March 16. Tickets are $15, $10 students, and $5 children under 8, seniors age 55 and older and special needs audience. For more information, call (818) 846-8141, Ext. 408. ? A Noise Within presents William Shakespeare?s ?Henry IV, Part I? opening at 8 p.m. tonight at the theater, 234 S. Brand Blvd.

Jose Ruiz, Weekend BURBANK -- David Mamet's work always stimulates discussion -- even arguments, and this archetypal play, "Oleanna," is controversy personified to the core. The Little Victory Theatre in Burbank has mounted this gritty presentation of the familiar story where a pompous college professor is accused of sexual harassment by a female student. Her accusations to the tenure committee cause him to lose his job, the home he is about to buy, presumably his family and in the end, the existence he had worked to build over the last 20 years.

Getting back into the dating scene "when you're 100 years old - or might as well be," isn't for shrinking violets. Neither is breast cancer, losing your beloved husband unexpectedly, watching two brothers deal with mental illness, and hoping the bikini top that you're expected to wear for a commercial audition will cover your mastectomy prosthesis. Veteran stage and screen actor Annie Abbott shares her years of hard knocks and success, love, loss and new love with high-octane spirit and a great deal of humor in her new one-woman show, “Giving Up Is Hard to Do,” at the Victory Theatre Center in Burbank.

The Victory Theatre Center 's one-man show “Who's Your Daddy?” written by and starring Johnny O'Callaghan is heading to New York - a first for the Burbank company. The play is directed by Tom Ormeny who shares artistic co-director billing with wife Maria Gobetti. After the show's run at the Burbank theater in 2011, it went to the Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland, Maria Gobetti said. Then the producers auditioned the play in New York and the Irish Repertory Theatre heard about the auditions, asked to read the script and chose to produce it. It opens April 22. “So it's just really really wonderful because they have such a good reputation,” she said.

Send DATEBOOK items to Burbank Leader, 221 N. Brand Blvd., 2nd Floor, Glendale, CA 91203 or fax to (818) 241-1975. Submissions must be received two weeks before publication. ONSTAGE ?A Christmas Carol,? a musical adaptation of the holiday tale by Charles Dickens, continues at Glendale Centre Theatre, 324 N. Orange St., Glendale. Mario Di Gregario stars as Ebenezer Scrooge. Tickets range from $21 to $28. The play closes Dec. 23. For reservations, call (818) 244-8481 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

TODAY Burbank Certified Farmers Market is from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. rain or shine every week at Orange Grove Avenue and Third Street. A portion of the proceeds benefit the Providence Saint Joseph Foundation. Electronic Benefit Transfer Golden State Advantage Cards are accepted. For more information, call (818) 845-6851. The Burbank Historical Society and the Los Angeles Cinema Club will show ?How To Make Home Movies That Even Your Friends Will Watch? for free at 2 p.m. at the Gordon R. Howard Museum, 1015 W. Olive Ave., Burbank.

Playwright A.R. Gurney explores the different personalities that make up a family in “The Dining Room.” The play consists of several vignettes about people who come together across the table spanning from the 1930s to the 1970s. Six actors in the Interact Theatre Company’s production, opening today at the Victory Theatre Center, will tackle the challenge of portraying multiple personalities — and ages, said actor Matthew Ashford. “This play is an actor’s dream,” said actress and choreographer Tracy Powell, who is president of Interact.

Much like the classic television show “Hogan’s Heroes” mined all the humor possible from something as truly awful as life in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp, “My Old Friends,” currently running at the Victory Theatre in Burbank, mines all the humor possible from something as truly awful as life at the Golden Days Retirement Hotel, circa 1979. As the title implies, the main characters are old, and they are friends. But the play’s title isn’t really about how well nine residents bond together to overcome the patronizing and suppressive attitude of the never-seen, always-present hotel director, Mrs. Stone.