Before “Glee,” there was “[title of show],” the little tuner that could. A musical comedy about two guys writing a musical comedy sounds like navel-gazing tosh, but this winning Broadway bagatelle by Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell, now at Celebration Theatre, captures the spirit of daring to hope you can actually get paid to do what you love.

New Yorkers Jeff (Jeffrey Landman) and Hunter (Micah McCain) are treading water (i.e. watching “Doc Hollywood” on cable) when they realize the deadline for New York Musical Theatre Festival is fast approaching. The boys decide to write an original musical in three weeks, enlisting semi-employed actresses Susan (Jennifer R. Blake) and Heidi (Carey Peters), as well as a keyboardist (Gregory Nabours). 

Soon they’re folding events and asides from their lives into the score, and voila, their untitled show becomes an irreverent take on creating a musical--laced with tranny jokes and pop culture snark. The songs of “[title]” track the process and its vicissitudes: the terror of the blank page (“An Original Musical”), self-doubt (“Die Vampire, Die!”), and a giddy hymn to trusting your instincts (“Nine People’s Favorite Thing”).  Not all of it lands, but the cozy Celebration production sells the 100-minute musical with gusto: This show is more refreshing than Universal’s Jurassic Park water plunge. (At the very least, the line is shorter.) 

The problem with using every little happenstance of your life is that those details may not stand the test of time. And the quintet is more fun struggling than facing the perils of success; gravitas doesn’t suit them. But director Michael A. Shepperd keeps the comedy coming fast and sharp, while Ameenah Kaplan’s choreography doses with visual wit. Landman and McCain make a silly, snappy odd couple, and Blake tears into the (minimal) scenery with lunatic ferocity. Peters belts as beautifully as she underplays Heidi’s self-deprecation.

“[title]” is a product of the YouTube era—low-tech, sketch-style, self-referential, rife with insider chat. Its creators worried their show would be limited to a niche audience. True, this musical will only appeal to anyone who, in some area of their lives, is running down a dream. Small crowd. 

--Charlotte Stoudt

“[title of show]” Celebration Theatre, 7051B Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends September 5. $30. Contact: 323-957-1884 or www.celebrationtheatre.com Running time: 100 minutes. 

Photo: Top row, left to right: Jennifer R. Blake and Carey Peters; bottom row, left to right: Jeffrey Landman and Micah McCain. Credit: David Elzer.

Whether writing about gay men ("Sordid Lives") or battered women ("The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife"), Del Shores has advocated being true to -- and standing up for -- oneself. With "Yellow," he too will have to live by that advice. 

At the Coast Playhouse, his new play, the first in seven years, is likely to knock fans off of their bearings, even if they've been paying attention to his gradual shift toward drama. Laughs, once so abundant, mingle more than ever with tears. Will his crowd stick with him?

"Yellow" is set in Vicksburg, Miss., where a high school football coach (David Cowgill) tends to go misty-eyed with happiness when in the midst of his family. He and his good-humored therapist wife (Kristen McCullough) are parents to a football golden boy (Luke McClure). Their daughter (Evie Louise Thompson) can be a pill, but her drama-queen tantrums are fairly entertaining. She pals around with a sweet kid (Matthew Scott Montgomery) who's almost always in residence, escaping a fundamentalist mother (Susan Leslie) he can never seem to please.

This cozy existence -- nicely symbolized in the suburban affluence of Robert Steinberg's set and warmth of Kathi O'Donohue's lighting -- is about to be shattered and the family's faith, in several senses of that word, tested.

Sean Hayes, who is nominated for a Tony Award and hosting the CBS awards telecast Sunday night, talked to television writers on a conference call Wednesday, and one of them was T.L. Stanley from our sister blog, Showtracker.

Hayes said he plans to keep the show -- whose presenters and performers include Green Day, Denzel Washington, Cate Blanchett, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lea Michele and Matthew Morrison from "Glee" -- moving briskly. Betty White, who has been everywhere this year, won't appear because she is working in a new sitcom Hayes is producing, "Hot in Cleveland."

Hayes said of Kristin Chenoweth, who plays Fran Kubelik to his Chuck Baxter in the revival of the Burt Bacharach and Hal David musical "Promises, Promises": "She's an extraordinary talent and an amazing human being who's been such a huge support system for me. She makes it very easy to fall in love with her on stage every night." Hayes is up for best actor in a musical.

Chenoweth came out swinging after a writer for Newsweek magazine said Hayes, who played the gay character Jack on the TV series "Will and Grace" and recently came out himself, turned "Promises, Promises" into "unintentional camp" by playing a heterosexual leading man.

But his paen to Chenoweth was all he would say on that subject.

For Showtracker's full story, click here.

Above: Hayes in "Promises, Promises." Credit: Joan Marcus

Tony and Oscar winner Joel Grey will direct a 25th-anniversary staged reading of Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart" on May 17 at the Geffen Playhouse. The performance will benefit the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center.

The cast will include Lisa Kudrow, Dylan Walsh, Tate Donovan, Clark Gregg, Jon Tenney, David Eigenberg, Dan Bucatinksy, Tim Bagley and Alec Mapa.

"The Normal Heart" -- Kramer's harrowing look at the early years of the AIDS epidemic -- premiered at New York's Public Theater in April 1985. Grey starred in the production later that year.

The reading, which is being presented by the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center's Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center and actor David Youse, will benefit its Jeffrey Goodman Special Care Clinic, which provides free and low-cost treatment for HIV/AIDS patients.

Tickets for the show, which begins at 8 p.m. at the Westwood playhouse, can be purchased at www.lagaycenter.org/thenormalheart.

-- Karen Wada

Photo: Lisa Kudrow will appear in the staged reading of "The Normal Heart." Credit: Jason Kempin / Getty Images

-- New treasures: Patrons helped to buy five works for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in this year's Collectors Committee Weekend -- what LACMA director Michael Govan has called "the 'American Idol' of the museum world." (Los Angeles Times)

-- Prize winners: Octavio Solis' dark family drama, "Lydia," which appeared at the Mark Taper Forum in spring 2009, the movie "A Single Man" and the Fox series "Glee" were among the winners at the 21st annual GLAAD Media Awards-Los Angeles, presented by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. (Theatermania)

-- Oops: The National Gallery in London will display more than 40 fake paintings it has mistakenly purchased over the years, including some whose technique has stirred admiration among gallery curators. (Independent)

-- Pricey pieces: An emerald brooch owned by Russia's Catherine the Great and a 39.5-carat diamond ring that once belonged to former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos will be the star attractions in a Christie's jewelry sale in New York. (Reuters)

-- Speaking of Imelda: A song cycle, "Here Lies Love," about Marcos -- recorded by former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne in collaboration with English DJ and beat architect Fatboy Slim and singers such as Natalie Merchant and Cyndi Lauper -- reportedly has piqued the interest of New York's Public Theater as possible material for a musical. (NPR)

-- Troubled times: The beleaguered head of the Aspen Music Festival says a no-confidence vote may be proposed against him during an upcoming meeting of the Colorado festival's trustees and faculty. (Aspen Times via ArtsJournal)

-- Distinguished career: Howard Dodson plans to retire next year after more than a quarter of a century as the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York -- the leading institution of its kind. (New York Times)

Also in the Los Angeles Times: Gustavo Dudamel faces high expectations as he leads the L.A. Philharmonic through a jam-packed spring and summer; music critic Mark Swed reviews Shen Wei Dance Arts' “Re- (I, II, III)” at the Orange County Performing Arts Center; theater critic Charles McNulty reviews the world premiere of "Girlfriend" at Berkeley Rep.

-- Karen Wada

Photo: Stephanie Beatriz and Carlo Alban in Octavio Solis' "Lydia" at the Mark Taper Forum. Credit: Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times

Musicals are like people. Some are lively and outgoing, others are quiet and inward-looking. "The Story of My Life," performed by two actors in just 90 minutes, is most definitely the latter, which goes a long way toward explaining why it was so out of place a year ago on Broadway, where it opened and closed in four days.

It seems right at home, however, in L.A.'s small-theater scene, presented by the Havok Theatre Company at the Lillian.

Script writer Brian Hill and composer-lyricist Neil Bartram tell a tale that is, by turns, mournful, sprightly and shimmering. Tom, a celebrated, still-youngish author, is struggling to write a eulogy for his friend Alvin. Something went wrong between them, and as Tom retraces their lives back to boyhood -- with help from the materialized Alvin -- he watches for moments of separation.

As embodied by Robert J. Townsend, Tom has the preppy good looks that make for a great book-jacket photo, and an easy charm to match. Chad Borden's Alvin is quirky and funny, the sort of person who would have been teased mercilessly in school but grew up to be entertainingly fascinating.

Their experiences together -- the inspiration for much of Tom's writing -- are relived in a ghostly bookstore of the mind (set by Tom Buderwitz). The recollections set it aglow (lighting by Steven Young).

Concealed behind the scenes, Michael Paternostro, at the keyboard, conducts a three-piece ensemble that also includes reeds and cello. Layered atop them, Townsend's voice is like a horn; Borden, another reed.

For a show about life's subtleties, this one sure uses a sledgehammer -- especially in all the symbolism it gleans from "It's a Wonderful Life." Still, director Nick DeGruccio keeps most everything feeling grounded as Tom and Alvin explore the complex and sometimes uncomfortable moods of love and creativity.

-- Daryl H. Miller

"The Story of My Life," Lillian Theatre, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends April 4. $34 and $38. (818) 505-1875 or www.havoktheatre.com. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes. 

There's a Sunday morning sort of feeling at the Pantages Theatre these days as "The Color Purple" visits town with "American Idol" winner Fantasia Barrino in the central role.

The reports about her Broadway appearance in the musical in 2007-08, toward the end of its run, are all true. Performer and character disappear into each other, emerging as something achingly real yet bigger, more wondrous than life. Her rise through the third season of "Idol" might have signaled that she is a singer of rare talent, but it is as Celie, a woman slowly awakening to her inner magnificence, that she explodes like a supernova.

This is not to say that Fantasia, who is widely known by just her first name, makes a showy star turn. Quite the opposite: She extends her gift humbly, like an offering placed lovingly into the devotional basket at a Sunday service.

The performers in a nondescript circus are surprised when a learned gentleman approaches their manager to seek employment as a clown. The man has no performing experience but quickly strikes on a laugh-a-minute idea: to be on the receiving end of the other performers' slaps. Humiliation looms.

Cheery, eh? This deeply pessimistic setup comes courtesy of the deeply pessimistic playwright Leonid Andreyev in his play "He Who Gets Slapped," written in the crumbling final days of czarist Russia. Recontextualized and somewhat rewritten by longtime L.A. director Pavel Cerny, it is presented as "Circus Welt" at the Whitefire Theatre.

Cerny relocates the action to Germany in 1933, as Hitler snuffs out competition and consolidates power. Correspondingly, the circus performers become a microcosm of the groups persecuted by the Nazis: The dashing bareback rider is a communist; the lady lion tamer is Jewish; two of the clowns are gay; and so on. As the atrocities of the larger world invade the companionable little world of the circus, the situation presents itself for audience comparison to any number of events throughout history.

It's an intriguing idea, as is the decision to launch each of the play's four acts with chilling 1933 news updates performed as satirical clown routines. But Cerny lacks the production resources and acting talent to bring his vision fully, hauntingly to life.

Among the ambitiously large cast of 19, those who come closest to delivering what is asked of them are Stephanie T. Keefer as the lion tamer who is at once fierce and sad; Kurt Hargan as a foolish, impoverished count accessorized with Charlie Chaplin-ish bowler hat and cane; and Joshua Grenrock as the slap-happy truth-teller in clown's guise. But those cast as Nazis, in particular, lack credibility, depriving the tale of menace.

-- Daryl H. Miller

"Circus Welt," Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. 2:30 and 7:30 Sundays only; ends Feb. 14. $25. (866) 811-4111 or www.theatermania.com. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.

Photo: From left, Joshua Grenrock, John Moskal and Kurt Hargan.  Credit: Daniel Cerny

"Brokeback Mountain," the 2005 Oscar-winning film adaptation of the Annie Proulx short story, helped to open the closet door on gay life in the American West. Four years down the road, L.A.'s Autry National Center is taking the next logical (if belated) step by rummaging through that closet and sharing its findings with the public.

"Out West," which kicked off at the Autry on Sunday, will explore the roles of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people in frontier history. Over the next 12 months, the museum will host a series of panel discussions, lectures, performances and a gallery tour to highlight some of its historical discoveries.

The museum is still finalizing dates but it said that one installment in the series, set to take place in May, will feature items from the museum's collection that have hidden gay histories, including a set of "buffalo" chairs that date back to the first half of the 19th century.

Gregory Hinton, who conceived and organized the program for the Autry, said that the museum is treading potentially sensitive territory by agreeing to host "Out West." He noted that the museum rejected earlier suggestions for the program's title for being (among other things) too hard-hitting or political.

You can read the entire story here. 

-- David Ng

Photo: Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in "Brokeback Mountain." Credit: Kimberly French / Focus Features

Monday's new productions around the country of  “The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later”  revisit not only the first Tectonic production but also an ambitious experiment of the WPA’s Federal Theatre Project in the 1930s. The Federal Theatre Project ran from 1935 to 1939, created both jobs and low-cost theater, and on Oct. 27, 1936, initiated simultaneous productions of “It Can’t Happen Here,” based on Sinclair Lewis’ novel, in 22 major cities.

“We asked: What if we did that with 100 theaters?” says Tectonic’s executive director, Greg Reiner. “People told me we’d never get 100, and we’re now at 150, including all 50 states and eight foreign countries. We believed in the power and importance of this work, and sure enough, other people were as inspired as we were.”

The initial Laramie Project, about the murder of gay student Matthew Shepard, fueled much of that excitement. “The Laramie Project” has already had more than 2,000 amateur and professional productions.  “A couple times a month there is a high school production banned or protested, or somebody is fired for doing it,” says Reiner. “It is still considered controversial, which is another reason we saw the need to tell the story again.”

For Barbara Isenberg's full look at this week's project, to be seen at several SoCal venues, read Sunday's Arts & Books section, or click here.

Photo: Co-writer Moises Kaufman, at New York's Lincoln Center

Credit: Jennifer S. Altman/For The Times