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Frank D. Gilroy's 1968 play "The Only Game in Town" isn't as well-known as his Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Subject Was Roses," but it does have the cachet of being turned into a film with Elizabeth Taylor and Warren Beatty.
The differences between the 1970 film and Gilroy's original script are not the reasons director Audrey Marlyn Singer chose the play, which opens Friday night at North Hollywood's Actors Forum Theatre.
"It's a play that I've liked for many years," Singer says, "and it's a challenge to direct. I like the idea of that challenge."
On a more interior level, Singer says that she identifies with the play's milieu, which describes the story of a Las Vegas dancer who is the mistress of a wealthy, married man, but whose life is altered when a poor, gambling pianist moves in with her.
"I was a dancer myself," Singer explains. "I always wanted to be a dancer in Las Vegas. It's a lifestyle that sounds very glamorous and exciting. And then you find out that everybody, no matter where they live, has the same problems. They have to face the same daily chores, and decisions and choices."
She says that it was important when directing the play to keep the mood honest, so that these characters seem alone, as if the fourth wall is really there.
"The Only Game in Town" is a slight...