David Selby will appearing in the L.A. Theatre Works audio theatre production of On the Waterfront on December 11, 12, 13 at 8:00pm and December 15 at 4:00pm and 7:30pm at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.

For those unfamiliar with L.A. Theatre Works, they record radio dramas in front of a live audience for eventual broadcast on NPR. Some titles are also available on audio cassette and compact disc.

There's a link to purchase tickets to On the Waterfront on my David Selby site.

Having the Festival over Labor Day weekend is going to make attending a major inconvenience, if not an impossibility, for me because of my dual role as a graduate student and an associate instructor.

Associate Instructor contracts at my university begin on August 15 every year, and we are expected to be in town and available for meetings with faculty members, administrators, etc., and there generally is some last minute wrangling with the bookstore and the reserve desk at the library over texts. The semester begins on Labor Day itself (because this particular university does not observe that holiday).

My friends and I typically arrived in New York on Tuesday or Wednesday and spent a few days in Midtown Manhattan taking in the sights before heading down to Lower Manhattan for the Fest at the WTC Marriott. When the initial dates were announced, we were planning a similar sort of trip, spending the initial days in Midtown and Lower Manhattan before heading to Brooklyn.

Such an extended vacation in New York, which I was truly looking forward to following 9/11, will no longer be possible for me as I cannot take what would be almost a week away from the university once my contract officially starts.

A quick Friday morning through Sunday morning trip would be an option, except that airfare for weekend departure and arrival dates is bound to be astronomical, especially on a holiday weekend, and it seems ridiculous to me to sink such a large sum of money into a quick trip to see the interior of the Brooklyn Marriott when what I had been looking forward to was visiting Lower Manhattan.

Frankly, I think the Fest should've been scheduled in Lower Manhattan again simply because I despise the notion of being driven out of an area by terrorists and contributing to the economic damage they have caused by not doing business with the hotels, restaurants, and merchants in the area. This was part of why it was so important to me this time around to have some time in the city prior to the Festival. I was adamant about spending some money in a store in that area, regardless of what hotel was chosen for the Festival.

However, I really don't care where in the Greater New York area the Fest is held. It could be in Newark for all I care. The major problem is Labor Day weekend. I could make it on any other weekend during the summer, but not that weekend, which really isn't the summer for most people who go to or work at a school anyway.

The Newport Waterfront Irish Festival is also annually held on that weekend. I suspect that probably makes the waterfront fairly crowded and the Black Pearl a little difficult to manage.

And that Monday is the official move in date for new students and freshmen at Salve Regina. If you've never been near a college on move in day, pack the Excedrin and watch carefully for people driving the wrong way down one way streets and blocking the flow of traffic while their beloved children haul out all the finest audio and video equipment for their rooms. ;-)

And how many people will be unable to come because they have kids who have already started school, are about to start school, or college aged kids who have to be TAKEN to school over that weekend?

I'm assuming that this was the absolute ONLY weekend they could agree on, with the hotel and all the performers, because it's an appallingly poor choice.

Have to agree wholeheartedly with Raineypark on this one. The university where I am a grad student doesn't get Labor Day off in the first place (which is just wrong), so that is the first day of classes for the semester.

Assuming that I get the teaching contract extension that I would need to afford to attend the Fest in the first place, I will need to be at the university at that time in order to teach.

And the air travel situation is going to be utterly ridiculous, so the Festival is pretty much out of the realm of possibility for me now.

I've added a link to the Backstage.com review of Mame to my site.

As with the L.A. Times review, this one is devoted to comparing the two simultanenous productions in the area, favoring the Musical Theatre West version over the Cabrillo Music Theatre, with one notable exception:

With one exception, the individual performances at MTW are also more effective. Cabrillo's David Selby plays Mame's Southern-gentleman husband Beauregard Burnside with an irresistible Rhett Butler flair, while MTW's Amick Byram (a late replacement for Perry Stephens) proves capable but not charismatic.

If you'd like to read the whole review, you'll find a link on my site.

Okay, this may be sacreligious but---

-- does David look YOUNGER or is it the theatrical make-up? Or are my eyes still out of focus?

He REALLY looks young--and really good-- in all these recent pix.  

His hair was dyed a very light brown. It actually looks darker in a lot of the photos than it really was, and some of the gray is still visible.

As for the makeup, it looked to me like he had wiped it all off, and I was up in his face.

This is the second time I've seen him following a performance when he was really on his mark and he knew it too, and he just positively glows . . . or maybe his face was just reflecting Midnite's glow and my glow. LOL

Mmm!  Yeah - pretty colors in that dress.  What I wanna know is...what are they saying?  Is she grabbing his sleeve?  Can't tell.

Yes to the grabbing his sleeve question, though that was either right before or right after the picture was shot.

As to what was being said at precisely that moment . . . could've been talking about my teaching gig, could've been making a wisecrack, could've been shushing him for going on about my web site to everyone in earshot, or could've been talking about the recent nastiness I had with AOL over something related to the site.

I was not pointing at my middle and saying, "Do you think this dress makes me look fat?" That much I can say for sure.