‘Sweeney,”Heiress’ offer good entertainment

This is a good weekend for great scripts.

The Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Performing and Visual Arts is winding up its run of "Sweeney Todd," composed by Stephen Sondheim, the man some say made the American musical grow up. There are those who still classify musicals as mindless entertainment. And even though there's nothing wrong with "mindless" (especially when we're talking about Cole Porter or Noel Coward mindless) it's difficult to imagine how after decades of Sondheim's serious works, any intelligent person still could think of musicals as frivolous.

In this 1979 thriller, the master brings to life a story about a 19th-century London barber who seems bent on killing half the city to reek vengeance for his murdered wife. The score is so layered, you can't listen just once. I'd argue there's as much depth in Sondheim at his best as in many classical novels. Musicals get a bad rap. ...

Then there's Ruth and Augustus Goetz's "The Heiress," opening at the Nevada Conservatory tonight, which is an excellent adaptation of Henry James "Washington Square." For maximum pleasure, I recommend you read both the book and script.

And Las Vegas Little Theatre is continuing its run of David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Rabbit Hole." It's a sweet but unsentimental look at how a family deals with the loss of a child. ...

And speaking of LVLT, the folks there hosted a memorial Saturday for well-known local director Ken Feldman, who died Sept. 26 after a short illness at the age of 73. LVLT board member Paul Thornton noted, "Ken always kept track of the money. And I guarantee you, if it wasn't for that, you wouldn't be sitting in the seats you're in now." A good-sized crowd paid tribute to Feldman, whose last production was the critically acclaimed "Jake's Women" at LVLT. But Feldman made a point of working with many theater groups, and the memorial crowd seemed to be from just about every troupe in town. The service was a reminder of how certain audience members and performers form a bond over the years. They seem like "family" even if they've never actually met one another. ...

Frequent Vegas performer and resident Shawnn Slaughter has an interesting Web site (runshawnnrun.com) that chronicles his training for the March 3 Los Angeles Marathon. He's trying to raise funds for both Los Angeles and Vegas AIDS organizations. When not performing, Slaughter is a Clark County substitute teacher who specializes in autism.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at DelValle@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.