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Access Atlanta > Blog > Archives > 2007 > March > 01 > Entry
Actor’s nightly Camelot comes in ‘Spamalot’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Sunday, Americus native Christopher Gurr (center, in picture) will celebrate his one-year anniversary in the touring production of “Spamalot” at the Fox Theatre. And since he just signed a six-month extension on his contract with the show, it’s safe to assume that he’s not yet bored with playing Sir Bedevere and cross-dressing nightly as Dennis Galahad’s mother.
“No matter what kind of mood you’re in when you get to work, when you smear mud on your face and strap on huge boobs, it’s hard to remain in a bad mood,” Gurr told Buzz on Thursday.
For the actor, getting paid to re-create the same “Monty Python” material he used to do for free with his friends behind the gym outside Americus High School is a dream job.
“It’s the reason I showed up to the audition,” he explained. “I had been directing and probably hadn’t auditioned for anything in 12 years. But the opportunity to do ‘Python’ stuff is pretty hard to pass up.”
Especially when Python alum John Cleese provides the recorded voice of God in the show. Said Gurr: “I tell people that I get to act every night with John Cleese.”
Gurr has high praise for the Fox audiences as well. “Since I’m a Georgia boy, I’m especially proud to say that this city has been the best Python audience we’ve had so far in the run. And from that first musical joke in the overture, we’re backstage listening to the crowd each night. Southerners have always had such a great sense of the absurd.”
In the closing moments of the show, King Arthur (played by Michael Siberry) localizes the musical each night when he name-drops Atlanta icons Ted Turner, Coca-Cola and Zoo Atlanta’s newest star, Mei Lan.
Explained Gurr: “We change them up in each city, and we keep what gets the big laughs. I thought including the baby panda here was pretty inspired!”
“Spamalot” runs through Sunday.
Power to the series
The 1998 book “Powerchicks: How Women Will Dominate America” by former Georgia state legislator Matt Towery predicted that women would become the power brokers of the 21st century.
It seems the time has come for “Powerchicks.” We have House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton — and a couple of female Hollywood producers who are planning to make a TV series based on Towery’s book.
Brittany Lovett and Stephanie Koff — working on a pilot for a Fox TV medical drama called “The Cure” — have bought TV and movie rights to Towery’s book.
Towery said the TV series will be a fictionalized version of his book, which told true stories of women’s rise to power.
In addition to writing books, Towery also is a Republican pollster who publishes the online political newsletter InsiderAdvantage.
Money for book fest
Mega-selling thriller writer James Patterson hasn’t been to the Decatur Book Festival. But he was impressed enough by what he’s heard to donate $5,000 to the annual celebration of books.
The festival is one of 39 winners of the 2006 James Patterson PageTurner Awards to be announced today. Other winners — sharing a total of $500,000 — include an elementary school principal who got his students excited about reading by skydiving out of a plane and a New Orleans literary festival undaunted by the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina.
The Decatur Book Festival, sponsored by the AJC, drew about 50,000 people to lectures, book signings, cooking demonstrations, poetry readings and children’s events last year. Organizers promise the festival will have bigger venues to accommodate the crowds when it returns on Labor Day.
Patterson has sold an estimated 130 million copies of his many novels, detective series and thrillers for young readers.
Docket update
Bobby Brown is once again a free man today. The 1980s-era pop star has paid $19,000 in late child support and court fees and was freed after spending three nights in the Norfolk County jail in Massachusetts.
Brown was released Wednesday night and was scheduled to appear Thursday in Norfolk Probate and Family Court.
Phaedra Parks, Brown’s Atlanta attorney, said the singer has been struggling to meet monthly payments to Kim Ward, the mother of two of his teenage children. Brown and Whitney Houston, who also have a daughter together, are divorcing after 14 years of marriage.
Foxy free — for now
Rapper Foxy Brown has been warned by a New York judge that her next probation offense would be her last. Brown was allowed to remain free Thursday after she pleaded guilty to violating probation by leaving New York without permission.
Brown was arrested Feb. 15 during a fracas at a beauty supply store in Pembroke Pines, Fla. Police charged her with resisting an officer and simple battery.
Lawyers for the Department of Probation and the Manhattan district attorney’s office urged Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Melissa Jackson to jail the 27-year-old rapper. Both, in effect, called her incorrigible.
But Jackson said, “If she pleads guilty to leaving the jurisdiction without permission, I will allow her to continue on probation with the condition that on the next violation, she’s getting resentenced.”
On Thursday, the judge told Brown she had to have a counseling session at least once a week for the next year.
Jackson told Brown’s lawyer, New York State Sen. John Sampson, “If your client could have impulse control, she’d be fine.”
Overscene
Seven magazine publisher Brandon Lewis and editor Amanda Daniels celebrating the launch of the new men’s magazine at the Palm in Buckhead, with Hawks legend Dominque Wilkins (right), world champion boxer Roy Jones Jr., 790/The Zone’s Steak Shapiro and Ryan Stewart and V-103 and “Atlanta & Company” personality Ryan Cameron Wednesday night.
Celebrity birthdays
Bluegrass musician Doc Watson is 84. Author Tom Wolfe is 77. Author John Irving is 65. Singer Lou Reed is 65. Singer Jon Bon Jovi of Bon Jovi is 45. Actor Daniel Craig (“Casino Royale”) is 38. Singer Chris Martin of Coldplay is 30. Actor Robert Iler (“The Sopranos”) is 22.
Contributing: Kirsten Tagami and news services.
If you have a tip, call 404-526-2749. Or fax 404-526-5509. Or e-mail: buzz@ajc.com.
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