An original stage play that had its premiere in Los Gatos in August 1993 is scheduled for a 10-week engagement at a theater in Southern California. San Jose playwright Michael Norman Mann's play Box 27 was first performed on the stage of the Los Gatos Cinema as a Tangelo production. It ran again in San Francisco at the New Conservatory Theater. There, the play caught the attention of a New York production group, which gave Mann his first New York showing at an off-off-Broadway theater in June 1995. Now, the Actors Forum Theater of North Hollywood will launch its new season Sept. 6 with Box 27. Mann is the author of several more plays, including Godot is Dead, which also played the Los Gatos Cinema stage before that theater was remodeled as a two-screen house.
Box 27 revolves around a poker game and deals with a gays-in-the-military theme. Mann is frank about the reviews he's received. "I got destroyed [by critics] in San Francisco, but it was a poor production," he said. "In New York it was scheduled for three nights and ran nine. The reviews were mixed." In L. A., his play will open in what he says is "a beautiful theater, not those black boxes I've had." The theater is in the NoHo district, as the North Hollywood area is labeled. He's working on a script for TV. Mann's wife, Kathi Fanelli-Mann, is a Los Gatos interior designer.
SHOWING a talent for dance since the age of 3, Olivia Goode, 14, daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Goode of Los Gatos, has been accepted for enrollment as a ninth-grader to study ballet at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. Olivia attended River Glen Immersion School in San Jose and took Loma Prieta Independent Studies. She has trained under Kristine Elliott and other dance teachers. The North Carolina school makes performance an integral part of its training program and presents some 300 shows a year. Quite a number of its alumni have gone to score in theater, films and music.
A YOUNG local artist, Christina Lee Kirk, whose background includes schooling in both California and Norway, has her drawings and paintings on view at the Los Gatos Meadows Gallery, 110 Wood Road, to June 4. Kirk finds time for her art and hobbies like gardening and photography when she's not serving as a waitress in the Meadows dining room. Christina's mother is an immigrant from Norway. Christina made her first trip to that country when she was a year old and her California-born father and the family moved to Norway, returning to California in 1981. On independent trips to Norway, Christina absorbed Norwegian art and folklore.
ONLY a year after the end of World War II, the 1946 graduating class of Los Gatos High School went out into the world. On June 8 members will meet for a reunion at the Toll House Hotel. Phone Eva Tatum, 358-1498, for information.
SMALL world: On a flight from Chicago to New York, Los Gatos Yacht Club Vice Commodore Rich Horton sat next to a passenger from Champaign, Ill., who said he was transferring to a place in California called Los Gatos. Turned out the man had stayed at the Toll House on business trips and and dropped in at Number One Broadway. Horton mentioned that Number One was the LGYC hangout and, after the usual amazement on hearing Los Gatos had a yacht club, Horton's new friend said he and an associate were sailors, so the LGYC will be getting four new members, two men and their wives.
KLAUS Cruise: Klaus and Yvonne Pache, owners of the Plumed Horse in Saratoga, will be hosting a 10-day cruise through the Panama Canal to the Caribbean and Mexico Nov. 7-17, arranged by Travel Advisors of Los Gatos.
A STRAY buff-sand-white male cat caught the attention of Mickey DiPietro in a Los Gatos parking lot. The animal couldn't use its hind legs. DiPietro took it to the Johnson Veterinary Hospital 524 N. Santa Cruz Ave., where it was recovering. The owner can call the hospital, 354-9530.
THEY worked but they had fun, too. Members of Cub Scout Pack 556 of Los Gatos planted oak trees and hauled wood chips for the paths at Novitiate Park, under the guidance of veteran Scout leader Vic Collard of Pack 539. The day ended with a hot-dog lunch at the Scout Hut behind Los Gatos High School.
SUE DUNN, coordinator for the 1996 Fiesta de Artes, to be held August 24-25 at Los Gatos Shopping Center on N. Santa Cruz Avenue, met with members of Los Gatos Kiwanis Club to discuss plans for the event which Kiwanis is sponsoring. It will include A Taste of Los Gatos booths and a wine-tasting. Dunn, former membership director of the San Jose Museum of Art, is owner of Signature Productions, a special-events company.
Kiwanis members will be managing a steak-sandwich booth for the Strawberry Festival June 1-2 at the Civic Center.
OFFICERS and police volunteers will be honored at the seventh annual Police Recognition Dinner May 17 at La Rinconada Country Club. Cocktails are at 6 p.m. and dinner at 7.
EIGHT of Bruni Sablan's portraits of jazz greats, including Charley Parker, Billie Holiday and others, will be on display at headquarters of 3COM Corporation in Santa Clara through June 4.
JUNE brides, or those planning nuptials any other month for that matter, can register for bridal gifts at Maria's Antiques, 112 N. Santa Cruz Ave. French and Italian potteries are featured.
A VISIT to Forbes Mill Museum and the current exhibit, "A New Look at Old Los Gatos", gives an idea of what a difference technological changes make. Among the items displayed are some old typewriters. I remember my mother typing two-fingered on a high-banked Oliver and then an Underwood and Woodstock. It's easier nowadays!
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, May 15, 1996.
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