Las Vegas Little Theatre on to something with playwright chats

Las Vegas Little Theatre is beginning to do something on a regular basis that I hope other troupes will imitate: inviting well-known playwrights in for an audience chat.

Last weekend it was Bert V. Royal, whose "Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead" has been causing a bit of a stir since its 2004 premiere. The script throws Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" characters into a whirlwind of teenage angst. Two males even wind up having sex, though neither is certain he's gay. Names are never mentioned, but those with even a casual relationship with the comic strip will have no trouble sorting out who is supposed to be who.

"It's my first play," the 30-year-old former casting director said, "and it's a little rough around the edges. I wanted to write something that wasn't cerebral and had a lot of heart."

The surprising thing about Royal's script isn't that it's clever -- you expect cleverness -- but that it does indeed have a lot of heart.

"I developed a crush on Charlie Brown," he said. "I thought he was so sexy. It's very weird, but the show gets done a lot in the South; in the Bible Belt."

Royal said the various productions he's attended have taught him not to be too strict in how he sees his work. "I used to give actors line readings. A director once asked me not to come to rehearsals. Now, I learn a lot from the actors. I saw things in the (Little Theatre) production that I'd never seen before."

"Dog Sees God," by the way, has been having such good ticket sales that extra performances have been added Thursday, May 30 and 31. It's well-worth the trip. ...

Stephen Sondheim has a reputation for being accessible, considering the extent of his fame, and a Meadows Middle School student can now attest to that. Thirteen-year-old Amanda B. Marks, president of her drama club, sent a note to the composer inviting him to Meadows' recent production of "Into the Woods." Sondheim soon responded in kind, politely declining, but thanking her for an "articulate" letter. ...

There's a newly updated edition of "The Ultimate Scene and Monologue Sourcebook" that budding actors probably will find valuable. It's a well-organized listing (edited by Ed Hooks) of more than 1,000 scenes, with brief synopsis, analysis and cast breakdown. (No dialogue, though.) It's no substitute, of course, for actually reading the plays, but it's a good start. ...

The Senior Adult Theatre at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas is continuing through Sunday its run at the Paul Harris Theatre of A.R. Gurney's "The Dining Room." The troupe is made up mostly of people who either discovered the thespian bug late in life, or whose business/personal responsibilities prevented them from pursuing it. New members are always welcome.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at DelValle@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125. He also blogs at reviewjournal.com/blogs/vegasvoice.