Spacey skips awards to attend Arab play
SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates – Kevin Spacey skipped the Screen Actors Guild awards, which handed him a win for his wildly popular role on “House of Cards,” to watch 34 young actors from across the Arab world perform a play as part of his foundation’s Home Grown initiative supporting local talent.
The cast, all 25 years old or younger, hail from war-torn Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Iraq and other corners of the Middle East. For many of them, the play marked the first time they had ever left their home countries or been given support to hone their craft.
Abduljabbar al-Suhili, 25, from Sanaa, Yemen, is returning from the intensive workshops held in the United Arab Emirates to a country without a president. Yemen has been plagued by power outages, al-Qaida attacks, rebel Houthi advances and widespread political instability. Dabbling in the arts is considered a luxury, and acting is not seen as a serious profession, he says.
“The state bodies are preoccupied with the constitution, the transitional phase and security and stability because of the political situation there,” he said.
But for two weeks, al-Suhili had a chance to escape that. He and the other aspiring actors were flown to the emirate of Sharjah in the UAE in an all-expense-paid program with the nonprofit Middle East Theatre Academy, a joint initiative launched in 2011 with the Kevin Spacey Foundation (KSF) and Emirati businessman Badr Jafar, whose family runs a Sharjah-based petroleum and gas conglomerate.
Alaa Zadh, the blue-eyed, raven-haired star of the play, said that despite a long history of theater and acting in her home country of Syria, the civil war has made it especially difficult for artists to earn a living or carve out a space for expression.
She said what Spacey did was “throw the rope to others.”
“I didn’t feel like it was two weeks and I don’t want them to end. I am very happy. I am part of a family,” Zadh said.
Domingo to sing in Woody Allen show
Placido Domingo will take on his 146th role when he sings the title character of Giacomo Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi” in a Woody Allen production on Sept. 12, the opening night of the Los Angeles Opera 2015-16 season.
Allen will return to direct his staging, which premiered in 2008, the company announced Tuesday. Domingo will conduct the second half of the double bill, a revival of Franco Zeffirelli’s 1996 production of Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci” featuring Marco Berti as Canio.
The 74-year-old Domingo, the LA Opera’s general director, has shifted from tenor to baritone parts in recent years. He is scheduled for his role debut as Don Carlo in Giuseppe Verdi’s “Ernani” at New York’s Metropolitan Opera beginning March 20.
The birthday bunch
Actor-dancer John Ronald Dennis is 90. Actor Nicholas Pryor is 80. Actor Alan Alda is 79. Actress Susan Howard is 73. Singer Sarah McLachlan is 47. Singer Joey Fatone Jr. (’N Sync) is 38. Singer Nick Carter (Backstreet Boys) is 35. Actor Elijah Wood is 34.