In Mike Reiss’s comedy, Rubble, Alvin, an aging comedy writer with one last shot at a network meeting, is trapped under rubble by an LA earthquake.

It’s a strange enough idea for a play, something Samuel Beckett might have dreamed up between his tramps waiting for Godot and Krapp recording his last tape. It becomes surreal, at least it will when it is performed in a benefit for the Provincetown Theater this weekend, when Alvin is played by none other than comedy writing legend Bruce Vilanch.

“It’s a crazy idea for a play: It’s Becket meets Book of Mormon meets The Simpsons,” said the show’s director, James Valletti. “It’s a really dark and funny look at the entertainment industry from two people who know it all – the good and the bad – really well. Mike has been a writer on The Simpsons from the very first episode and is still there today and Bruce has written comedy for everything from The Oscars to his own cabaret act. They’ve lived it, so they’re perfect for making the show come alive – even from under a pile of rubble.”

Those coming to the show to see Vilanch share Hollywood stories and gossip like he does in his cabaret act (which he will be performing at the Post Office Café on Commercial St. from August 22 – August 24) will find a very different character trapped under the trash at the theater benefit. “I approach Alvin like I would any acting part,” Vilanch said in an interview with Color Magazine. “When I write comedy for somebody else, I have to write it in their voice. Material I write for Whoopi won’t work for Billy Crystal, mainly because he’s not a black woman. The same applies to playing an acting role. I can’t be Bruce Vilanch in the show; I worked with the writer and the director to create the character of Alvin.”

Still, both Vilanch and Valletti admit there were times during the rehearsal process when the actor and the character were not as distinct as they imagined. “There’s a great line in the play…Alvin is trapped under all this rubble and has no idea how, or if, he will get out, and he’s musing about the size of cupcakes and how they’ve gotten smaller yet more expensive. It’s delightfully absurd to hear, especially when Bruce says it.”

“I do love that line,” Vilanch admitted. “There are many of the lines in the show that I love. The mix of a man in such an absurd situation thinking of such mundane things is just very, very funny.”

Bruce Vilanch in “Rubble” by Mike Reiss at the Provincetown Theater Aug 22 at 7 PM. Tickets are $75-$100.

7 PM Lecture with Mike Reiss about “The Simpsons” and “Queer Duck”

8 PM Cocktails with Mike Reiss and Jerry Adler

9 PM Staged Reading of “Rubble”

10:30 PM Talkback with Bruce Vilanch

For more information, visit http://provincetowntheater.org. Tickets benefit The Provincetown Theatre Foundation.

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The post Bruce Vilanch in “Rubble” by Mike Reiss at the Provincetown Theater Aug 22 at 7 PM first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

By ELISABETH VINCENTELLI
Last Updated: 11:44 PM, August 7, 2013
Posted: 10:25 PM, August 7, 2013

It’s hard to believe there isn’t a metaphor lying around under “Rubble” — a comedy about a TV writer stuck in a pile of debris after an LA earthquake. After all, it’s by TV writer Mike Reiss and stars TV writer Bruce Vilanch.

But Reiss — a longtime mainstay on “The Simpsons” and the creator of “The Critic” and “Queer Duck” — denies any hint of an agenda.

“I just wanted to write about someone trapped in rubble,” he says. “I don’t want people to think it’s autobiography. Even for New York theater, that would be self-indulgent. It’s not my life — it’s my worst nightmare.”

As for Vilanch, the show’s star, he seems less startled by the subject than by being in the New York International Fringe Festival, where the show premieres Saturday.

“I didn’t realize how exotic the Fringe is,” says Vilanch, who’s as famous for his red glasses as he is for writing gags for the Oscars. “First of all, you learn 7,000 pages of dialogue for five performances spread over three weeks. This is like doing ‘Rigoletto’! It’s insane! And you have half the rehearsal time because everybody is working in between their other stuff.”

Reiss was moonlighting, too. First there’s “The Simpsons”: He’s been there on and off — more on than off — since Day 1, when he was a staff writer. He became showrunner for Seasons 3 and 4, which is when the series truly gelled around such classic episodes as “A Streetcar Named Marge” and “Krusty Gets Canceled.”

Lately, though, the 53-year-old’s been scaling back.

“I go to Los Angeles on Wednesday to work on ‘The Simpsons,’ and I fly the red-eye back on Thursday,” says Reiss, who lives in Midtown. “A great week is a week where I spend less than 24 hours in LA.”

And then there’s his career as a prolific kid-lit author — a line of work that somehow led to his stage career.

A few years ago, Reiss, married and childless, was lecturing about his books at the University of Connecticut when someone suggested he write a play about Connecticut, “because it hadn’t been done before.”

So he did.

“It was so easy because it was untouched territory,” says Reiss, who grew up there. “I talked about the state and its personality. And its lack of personality.”

“I’m Connecticut” received positive reviews. Emboldened, Reiss wrote “Rubble” and sent it out to a whole bunch of people.

Then, he waited.

“Nobody said ‘I hate it,’ ” he reveals. “They just didn’t respond at all. Except this one guy named James Valletti, who’s a friend of a friend of my brother-in-law’s dentist. I sent it to him, that’s how desperate I was. But he loved the play and made it his life mission to stage it.”

Not only did Valletti get the show into the Fringe, he also roped in Vilanch, a choice Reiss happilyendorsed.

“I thought we’d get a free rewrite out of him but he hasn’t changed the lines!” Reiss says. “Yet he finds all this comedy where there was no comedy. He reminds me of Jackie Gleason — he’s so physically funny, with that giant expressive face.”

Vilanch, 64, is no stranger to acting. He performed in the off-Broadway solo “Bruce Vilanch: Almost Famous” and played Edna Turnblad in “Hairspray” on the road and on Broadway. Even that didn’t quite prepare him for the specific challenge of “Rubble.”

“Bette Midler sat there for 90 minutes in her Broadway show, but I told her that she at least had a couch and pillows to fluff,” he notes. “I sit, too, but surrounded by heaps of boxes. I kind of resemble a barge floating to Staten Island.”

“Rubble” opens Saturday at the Players Theatre, 115 MacDougal St., with performances through Aug. 25. Information and tickets at 866-468-7619.

The post Inside The “Rubble” first appeared on We Got Bruce!.