It’s hard to believe that 16 years have gone since “Backstage at the Geffen” began to share its fairytales.
This year’s bash should be extra special with longtime resident and acting legend Dick Van Dyke getting the honors. He will be feted by friends and neighbors like Malibu’s Mel Brooks, Barbra Streisand and James Brolin, as well as honorary co-chairs George Lucas, Mellody Hobson, J.J. Abrams and Carl Reiner, to name a few. The famed song and dance man is noted for some of Hollywood’s most memorable movie scenes. His CV includes family classics like “Mary Poppins” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
Dick was born Richard Wayne Van Dyke in West Plains, Mo. Although he’d had small roles beforehand, Van Dyke was launched to stardom in the 1960 musical “Bye-Bye Birdie,” for which he won a Tony Award. As for television, he took on the role of Rob Petrie on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” along with Mary Tyler Moore and Rose Marie.
“Backstage at the Geffen” is the theater’s annual fundraiser. It’s a light-hearted look at what goes “behind the scenes” before theatergoers take their seats.
Originally constructed in 1929, the the quaint and cozy Spanish colonial building that is now the Geffen Playhouse was one of the first 12 structures in Westwood, Los Angeles. It was built as a Masonic clubhouse to serve UCLA students and alumni, and remained as such for nearly four decades, until the Masons sold it in the early 1970s to local business owners Donald and Kristen Combs.
The Combs family restored many of the building’s original design elements, including the central courtyard and tile fountain, and reopened the building to the public. The new space included a location of the Combs’ furniture store, an Italian restaurant and a theater they dubbed the Westwood Playhouse.
In 1994, the Combs family donated the theater to UCLA under the premise that it would remain a theater in perpetuity and Gilbert Cates, founder of the UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television, assumed development. Cates, who for years had been advocating that Westwood have its own world-class theater, took on the project wholeheartedly and began rallying the local arts and entertainment community for support.
After pooling resources, fundraising and putting together a board for the burgeoning nonprofit organization, Cates renamed the theater the Geffen Playhouse in honor of entertainment mogul David Geffen’s generous founding gift. The new playhouse officially opened its doors in 1995 with John Patrick Shanley’s “Four Dogs and a Bone,” starring Brendan Fraser, Elizabeth Perkins, Parker Posey and Martin Short.
The curtain call takes place May 19.