Beth Winsten

/—

/---)

Willy Holtzman

movie released by Warner Brothers
in 1971, Summer Of '42 is a com-
ing-of-age story about a young boy
who finds romance with a married
woman during the height of World
War II.
"It's about male fantasy and post-
adolescence," says Kirshenbaum, who
was born and raised in New York City
and earned his undergraduate degree
at the University of Michigan.
After acquiring the rights to the
Academy Award-nominated film,
Hunter Foster, who currently appears
in Footloose on Broadway, re-wrote the
dialogue, telling basically the same
story with minor variations.
"Together, we chose which moments
we wanted to musicnlize and I wrote the
lyrics and music," says Kirshenbaum.
The score is a cross between big band,
swing and contemporary musical theater.
I listened to a lot of Benny Goodman,
Glenn Miller and the Andrews Sisters
before I began composing."
Kirshenbaum and Foster, who both
live in New York, met while they were
students at U-M.

— Alice Burdick Schweiger

For tickets to Ann Arbor's
"Festival of New Works," run-
ning May 21-June 20, call the
University of Michigan League
Ticket Office at (734) 764-0450.
Admission is $8 per staged
reading. Performances are at 8
p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and
at 2 p.m. Sundays at the
Trueblood Theater in Ann
Arbor. Friday and Saturday per-
formances are followed by artist
and audience talkbacks. On
June 4, the first annual "Arthur
Miller Award for Dramatic
Writing" will be presented at a
performance of Hearts. Arthur
Miller is expected to attend.

WSIMSZSZMOMET VZSMONAREMSMONal

xt?Nse.1/4.4.11*
•

David Kirshenbaum

If they're old enough
to get married, they're
old enough to get their
own Jewish News

Its Like ... Evan Handler

The critics and audiences liked Its
Like, You Know ..., the cunning come-
dy about L.A. that just ended its run
on Wednesday nights on ABC, though
there's no word yet on whether it's
been picked up for next season.
And there was certainly plenty of
press on actress Jennifer Grey —
mocking herself and her nose job —
and on Seinfeld writer Peter Mehlman,
who created another "show about
nothing" — only this time on the
West Coast.
Less was written about Evan
Handler, who portrayed Shrug, a char-
acter who shoulders the responsibility
of being a rich kid with a paucity of
excuses for his lifestyle.
In fact, life hasn't always been easy
for the actor. Time on Fire: My
Comedy of Terrors became his serio-
comic calling card after the 1996
autobiographical book based on his
hit Off-Broadway play about over-
coming leukemia was published.
It was the randomness of a killer
disease that forced the star of a nation-
al touring company of Biloxi Blues to
confront his own blues. Cancer had
scripted its own role for the actor, one
that would have him in and out of
doctors' offices, running out of time
but not giving up on life.
Postscript to the disease: Handler
wrote the book, which became a play
— "which I still do in a shortened ver-
sion at health care conferences" —
which is being made into a movie.
The actor was heartened by those
who befriended him during his illness.
"I still see my life, the fact that I'm
alive, as a kind of crazy community
project. I like to be around so that the
people who helped out can see their
work. Their blood runs in my veins.
Literally. I have my life because other
people pumped some of theirs into
me," he says.
Was there a greater force at work in

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1999

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91