Play about filthy lucre revived for 2017 theater season

Alaska playwright Dick Reichman's play "Money" will lead off the just-announced 2017 season at Cyrano's. The play about a flim-flamming wealth adviser who collides with a drug-using girl from the streets — and his conscience — debuted in 2002 with Jerry Harper in the lead role.

ADN critic Catherine Stadem said the play "pushes button after button — satirizing our age of so-called enlightened investment, our unquestioning faith in 'financial planners,' our confusion between 'need' and 'greed.'" She also felt that the two-hour play lagged toward the end, an opinion shared by this member of the audience. But Reichman will have had plenty of time in the last 15 years to tweak or even overhaul the script.

The job of rewriting something, even (or especially) when the plot and key lines are already in place, can be daunting, but equally daunting is the task faced by the main character, the seller of dubious investments. He is on stage the whole time and must manage long, long stretches of pitches and soliloquies. Harper (born Gerald Harlan Harper) was widely admired for his stage acting. He died in 2005. In the upcoming production the role will be taken by another of the city's better performers, David Haynes. "Money" will run from Jan. 20 to Feb. 12.

Other plays in the lineup, in order of presentation, are Noel Coward's "Private Lives," the one-woman "Erma Bombeck: At Wits End" by Alison and Margret Engel, "The Great American Trailer Musical" by Betsy Kelso and David Neels, the Dungeons and Dragons-inspired "She Kills Monsters" by Qui Nguyen, Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" and a pair of holiday season shows, "Fancy Nancy: The Musical" and "Our Friends, The Enemy." The first is drawn from a popular children's book series. The second, written in 2015, is based on a historical Christmas truce between British and German soldiers in World War I, an event that also served as the source for the 2011 opera, "Silent Night."

Young dancers sought

The Elton John musical "Billy Elliot" will be presented on the Atwood Stage Feb. 14-19, and the Anchorage Concert Association and Plan B Entertainment are looking for some kids who can dance and sing. The casting call specifically seeks "female dancers ages 8 to 12 of all vocal ranges and ethnicities." Auditions will take place at 1 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 1, at Alaska Dance Theatre. More information is available at anchorageconcerts.org/about/local-auditions.

CD release party Thursday

Two CDs will have their coming out party at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 1. "This Winter Wild" and "Elements and Elementals" by local musicians Kathleen Bielawski and Peggy Monaghan are the works — we think respectively. But in fact the two have collaborated in the past and we expect some crossover in the new CDs as well. Just a guess.

Coloring in the Big Apple

We're not quite sure what to think about the adult coloring book craze, particularly why they're listed as nonfiction regardless of the subject matter or treatment. But one such book has hit No. 2 in the regional nonfiction best-seller list, so we must acknowledge that there's an audience. The latest to come to our attention is the "NYC Subway Coloring Book" by former Anchorage folks Mike Mense and Bonny Headley, with drawings based on photographs taken in the New York City Subway Stations. It's available at the New York Transit Museum, but you can also snag one by phone during business hours (Mondays-Fridays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. EST) at 718-0694-5663.