On Friday, May 2, the Malibu Stage Company will light up Malibu’s skies when it begins a six-week run of Moss Hart’s comic spoof of the theater world he adored, “Light Up the Sky.” Hart directed his play when it opened on Broadway in 1948. Appropriately, his son, Christopher, who has produced and directed a number of plays in Los Angeles and is the interim artistic director of the company, will direct the local outing. As the icing on the cake for Malibu’s opening night (a $150 per seat tax deductible black-tie benefit for the company, which also includes a champagne supper catered by Richard Chesterfield), Moss Hart’s seemingly indestructible widow, Kitty Carlisle, will be here for the evening. Now 92, Carlisle maintains a schedule that would intimidate a person half her age. The day following the Malibu opening she will be returning to New York where she is starring in a revue. She also has been touring the country in a one-woman play, “My Life on the Wicked Stage,” in which she talks about all the people she’s known, and sings a dozen numbers.
Playwright, director, producer and actor, Moss Hart was fascinated by the stage and theater people all of his life. He wrote his first play in 1921 when he was 17; it was a flop and he spent the next year as a Macy’s floorwalker. It wasn’t long before the young playwright hit his stride and, in 1937, he and his collaborator of a decade, George S. Kaufman, won the Pulitzer Prize for “You Can’t Take It With You” (it was soon made into an Oscar-winning film by Frank Capra). Together, Kaufman and Hart would write some of the best-loved American comedies of the 20th century: among them “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” “Once In a Lifetime” and “Merrily We Roll Along.” Hart also wrote more than a dozen plays and musicals on his own among them, “Lady in the Dark,” “Light Up the Sky” and “Winged Victory,” and directed some of the biggest Broadway hits of the era including “My Fair Lady.” He wrote several screenplays as well, most notably, “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” and the 1954 Judy Garland/James Mason version of “A Star is Born.” He died in 1961.
Throughout his professional life Moss Hart denied that the outsized, flamboyant characters in his play, set in Boston’s Ritz Carlton Hotel before the tryout of a new play by a fledgling writer, were based on real-life models. But, of course, he really wasn’t kidding anyone at the time. The producer, Sidney Black, in “Light Up the Sky” was almost certainly based on Billy Rose. The two playwrights-the young and sincere Peter Sloan and sleekly sophisticated Owen Turner-were equally obvious stand-ins for the young Moss and his later, more experienced persona. The director was based, in all likelihood, on the legendary Guthrie McClintic, husband of Katherine Cornell. And the actress Gertrude Lawrence probably inspired Stella, the leading female character. Even more tantalizing, there also has been speculation that Stella may have been based on Carlisle’s own mother. In any event, Kitty Carlisle played the part often on summer circuits in the 1960s and ’70s.
Although Chris Hart has chosen to cast his play with lesser-known actors than those who starred in his Ahmanson theater production of “Light Up the Sky” a decade and a half ago (when Peter Falk played the producer Sidney Black) they are “all stars” he said in a recent interview.
“It is a classic comedy set in Broadway’s golden era. There is something timeless about it.”
Chris’ theatrical career commenced in New York where he won two Tony nominations for producing Andrew Lloyd Weber’s “Song and Dance” and Athol Fugard’s “Blood Knot.” After moving to Los Angeles, he produced an NBC TV series based on his father’s “You Can’t Take It With You,” before turning to writing and directing, which has won him numerous awards.
Future plays that the Malibu Stage Company is considering for production this season include Joe Besecker’s “Tennessee in the Summer,” Warren Leight’s “Side Man,” Oren Safdie’s new play “Jews and Jesus,” St. John Hankin’s 1905 play “The Return of the Prodigal” and Aldous Huxley’s “The Gioconda Smile.” The company is always on the lookout for new plays and directors for consideration.
Following the opening night benefit, performances of “Light Up the Sky,” priced at $20, will take place on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and on Sundays at 3 p.m. Previews will take place April 30 and May 1. The Malibu Stage Company is located at 29243 Pacific Coast Highway, just northwest of Heathercliff. For information call: 310.589.1998.