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The story of how Louis & Keely ‘Live’ at The Sahara reached its current incarnation is almost as compelling as the turbulent couple of the title. In 2008, when the two-person show was selling out at Los Angeles equity-waiver venue Sacred Fools, director Taylor Hackford caught a performance and approached co-author and star Vanessa Claire Stewart (who plays Keely Smith) about beefing up the storyline. A year later, they opened at the Geffen in a run that was extended multiple times. Critics raved, though not about Hackford’s changes. The team parted company when the show closed, but

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Actor French Stewart is now a dad! He and his wife Vanessa Claire Smith welcomed a baby girl, People reports.

Helene Claire was born on June 28. "She was born six weeks early and could be held in the palm of your hand," Stewart told the magazine. "We named her after my lovely mother. My sister is also a Helene. There are five wonderful Claires in Vanessa's family so the tradition of it is very special for us."

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A play about the comic and tragic life of actor Buster Keaton, "Stoneface" was the big winner at the 34th Annual L.A. Weekly Theater Awards on Monday night. The show, honoring the best in Los Angeles theaters housing 99 or fewer seats, was hosted by the comic troupe Lost Moon Radio and held at The Avalon Club in Hollywood. The awards are voted on by critics for the L.A. Weekly, headed by theater editor and critic Steven Leigh Morris.  "Stoneface," presented last year at Sacred Fools Theater, went on to win five awards, including best director, best ensemble, best production design and best video/projection design. The show starred French Stewart as Keaton and was written by Stewart's wife, Vanessa Claire Stewart, a contributor to Backstage. It was recently announced that the show will be moving to the 600-plus-seat Pasadena Playhouse as part of their 2013-14 season.  Also a...

The Pasadena Playhouse Sheldon Epps, Artistic Director and Elizabeth Doran Executive Director announced their 2013-2014 season today. The season will include a revival of the longest-running Broadway musical revue, Smokey Joe's Cafe featuring the musical masterpieces of the legendary team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller Stoneface The Rise and Fall and Rise of Buster Keaton, by Vanessa Claire Stewart and starring French Stewart '3rd Rock From the Sun' which enjoyed a successful run at Sacred Fools Theatre Company this past summer Above the Fold a new drama by Bernard Weinraub, about the world of journalism in the digital age, which received a Hothouse at The Playhouse staged reading in 2012 Noel Coward's rarely produced A Song at Twilight, directed by Art Manke, who recently directed The Playhouse's hit revival of Coward's Fallen Angels and a theatrical surprise production that will be selected and directed by Playhouse Artistic Director Sheldon Epps,...

I’m wary of plays that deal with historic movie figures or incidents. If they’re overly glib, or play fast-and-loose with the facts, I lose patience pretty fast. I didn’t feel that way about Vanessa Claire Stewart’s Stoneface: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Buster Keaton, which has been held over at Los Angeles’ Sacred Fools Theatre. If you’re in Los Angeles I encourage you to see it. Stewart, who wrote and costarred as Keely Smith in the entertaining stage presentation Louis and Keely: Live at the Sahara, was inspired to learn about Buster Keaton after learning that actor French Stewart harbored a strong desire to play the great comedian. (They are...

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Back Stage puts a spotlight on Los Angeles-area acting schools and coaches, and career dispatchers offer advice on how to choose the best acting classes for you.Los Angeles Acting Schools and Coaches A list of Los Angeles-area stage and film acting schools, teachers, and coaches organized by category and alphabetically.Career Dispatch Writers Confess Why They Chose Acting Classes Stephen Tobolowsky, McKinley Belcher III, and Vanessa Claire Stewart explain how to choose the best acting classes for you.

"Who am I anyway? Am I my résumé?" That lyric from "A Chorus Line" always haunted me as an actor. I feel like I've always been searching for my "type," and that's part of the reason I've somehow perplexed both casting directors and agents. Breakdowns usually sort themselves into easy boxes: Girl next door? Leading woman? Punk rock girl? Oddly, at one point or another I've been all of these things. My demo reel looks absolutely schizophrenic. It shows me as everything from a rocker chick to a pregnant lesbian to a famous lounge singer from the '60s. I'd like to say there's a part of me that's all these things. I can see why casting directors would be confused.So the answer to the "Chorus Line" question is no. I am not my résumé. Hi, I'm Vanessa Claire Stewart, and I hate auditioning. There, I said it. Socrates says "Know.

The 2010 L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation Award nominees were announced last night at The Autry National Center for the American West in Griffith Park. Several winners of last year's Ovation Awards, including Jake Broder and Vanessa Claire Smith, presented the 2010 nominations. The Theatre at Boston Court was the most highly nominated theater company, garnering 17 nods. Among the company's nominated productions are "Oedipus el Rey" and "The Twentieth Century Way."Center Theatre Group followed closely behind with 16 nominations, while the Geffen Playhouse took 12. The brand-new "Ovation Honors," a series of awards recognizing theater excellence outside of the standard categories, have been given out for the first time this year. Ovations Honors awardees include "The Who's Tommy" for video design and "The Gogol Project" for music composition for a play.   The complete list of nominees is as follows:Best SeasonCabrillo Music Theatre"The Andrews Brothers""Cinderella""Guys and Dolls""Little Shop of Horrors...

This is the Pure Movies review of Chase the Slut, screening as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. The film stars Vanessa Claire Smith, Michael Kirby, Danika Sudik, Lance Arthur Smith and Philip Wofford and is directed by Ryan Denmark. Chase the Slut is one of those low, low budget films that you often never see outside of film festivals; a quirky screenplay with decent acting performances, shot on lower end film equipment that you just know would have been better if someone had just given the poor director some more money to do something with it.

We delightedly announce the 2009 Garland Awards, voted on by the Southern California theatre critics of Back Stage. Congratulations to the recipients. Your work touched us, made us think, made us proud to support the bustling, vibrant, inventive community that is Southland theatre. The critics who voted are Paul Birchall, Jeff Favre, Hoyt Hilsman, Travis Holder, Wenzel Jones, Iris Mann, Eric Marchese, Dany Margolies, Dink O’Neal, Brad Schreiber, Madeleine Shaner, Les Spindle, Neal Weaver, and Jennie Webb. Collectively we saw hundreds of shows in 2008, whether we were reviewing or not. This is true devotion to theatre. Under our voting system, each Garland winner was named on at least three critics' Best of 2008 lists. Each critic listed up to five nominees for each category except performance, up to 10 nominees for performance in musical productions and 10 for straight plays. Lists, minus the winners, are here Critics List. This year we present two...

When 39-year-old Louis Prima met 16-year-old Keely Smith in 1949 in a Las Vegas nightclub, it led to a passionate but ill-fated marriage and a long-lasting singing partnership. Their work influenced the evolution of pop musical styles -- jazz, swing, big band -- of the 1950s and beyond. Some say their collaboration marked the birth of the lounge-act craze.Flash forward to 2006 and another nightspot where another prodigious partnership emerged from a chance meeting. Actor-writer Vanessa Claire Smith, a member of L.A.'s Sacred Fools Theater Company, was preparing to move back to her home state of Louisiana following career disappointments. Shortly before her departure, she was waitressing at M Bar in Hollywood when actor Jake Broder performed his solo show Lord Buckley in Los Angeles. Smith had all but given up on her dream of playing Keely Smith in her long-planned bio-musical about the duo, but that night she...