Comedy on the Menu

Stockholders of LAVCO, a company headquartered in Oxnard with manufacturing plants around the Third World, gather for their annual office party at the Thousand Oaks Holiday Inn. Things are proceeding smoothly--if anything, everybody seems to be overly solicitous--until after the salad course, when the chief financial officer makes a startling announcement.

That’s the premise of “Your Pink Slip Is Showing,” the first local production of the Los Angeles-based Play House Professional Acting Company. Billed as “an interactive comedy,” it’s environmental theater with dinner--closer to “Tony and Tina’s Wedding” than one of those audience-participation murder mysteries, and lots of fun.

The “party” is full of the kind of office intrigue that either reminds you of where you work or makes you thankful that you’re your own boss--in other words, anybody who works in an office will identify with something that goes on here.

Producer-director Stu Levin has given most of his characters purportedly humorous names--Joe Bloe is one; John LaVatorre (pronounce all four syllables) is the company’s founder. LAVCO manufactures paddles that--it’s said--are used to push pimentos into stuffed olives. (Fans of British humor may be reminded of the Flanders & Swann routine in which olives are stuffed in a ceremony similar to a bullfight, with the pimentos at the end of spears, thrust into the fruit. Well, maybe they won’t.)

Giving away further plot details would spoil the fun, but let it be known that the cast--Kevin Kern, Ruthie Austin, Brett Elliott, Deborah Levin, Julius Tennon, Derrick Medina and Jennifer Grimes--work amid the audience, some members of which are thrust directly into the action, in a non-embarrassing way. And, though food isn’t the theme of this column, it was pretty darned good last weekend.

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DOCS AMOK IN MOORPARK: More characters with “funny” names show up at the Moorpark Playhouse’s latest production. Its title notwithstanding, “E.R. . . . With the Dastardly Doctor Devereaux” has nothing to do with the hit television series “ER” other than its medical theme.

This show--the Playhouse’s best production in some time--and its several original songs were written by Billy St. James and Debbie Wilson with, one suspects, a couple of extra numbers inserted by director Linda Bredemann.

Dr. Dogbreath Devereaux (Damian Gravino) heads the Hanover D. Cash Clinic, whose main mission seems to be the extraction of money from its patients and the widow Cash (Candice Crow), whom the dastardly Devereaux is conspiring to marry and murder, assisted by evil Nurse Hatchet (Kathi Janca Gravino).

A melodrama wouldn’t be complete without young lovers, here personified by Wendy March (Michelle Mak)--a nurse with a dark secret--and Doctor Phil Good (John Gaston). Wendy’s best friend is literal-minded nurse Ivy Dripp (Pat Newbert); a stripper (Aspasia Alexander) and fringe religious leader (Gerald Vandiver) further the action, along with various characters played by Fred Hamel, Gina Lopez, Jordon Krain and Peter H. Brothers.

The cast is consistently fine under director Bredemann, musical director Kurt Fries and choreographer Adrea Gibbs, but special mention should be given to Playhouse stalwart Damian Gravino and young Michelle Mak. Making her Moorpark debut, she may become that all-purpose, lovely voiced ingenue the group has been missing.

Incidentally, Gravino and other members of the cast are set to perform in the Camarillo Community Theatre’s upcoming production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” to be directed by Adrea Gibbs.

“Your Pink Slip Is Showing” continues Saturday evenings indefinitely at the Cork Restaurant of the Holiday Inn, 495 Ventu Park Road in Thousand Oaks. Doors open at 6:30; hors d’oeuvres are served at 7; and the show begins at 7:30. Admission of $44.95 includes a four-course dinner served with choice of entrees (vegetarian on advance request), nonalcoholic beverage, tax and tip; a cash bar is available. For reservations (mandatory) or more information, call (818) 981-6549.

“E.R. . . . With the Dastardly Doctor Devereaux” continues through March 21 at the Moorpark Playhouse, 45 E. High St. in Moorpark. Performances are at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday evenings, with matinees at 3 p.m. Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. All tickets are $12. For reservations or more information, call 529-1212.