May

THE PRODUCERS' L.A. SWING, AN ORWELLIAN AFFAIR, AND A BOB HOPE CENTURY

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

1

Brainiacs Susan Sontag, Andrew Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Christopher Hitchens, et al. descend on Wellesley College to toast (where there is Hitchens, there is drinking) the George Orwell centennial.

2

Entertainment. Part Two: Broadway's monster hit The Producers opens in L.A., with Martin Short and Jason Alexander, and Fox releases the X-Men sequel.

3

New York's Mary Boone Gallery, which has displayed luminaries such as Eric Fischl and Barbara Kruger, continues showing the ethereal blocks of subdued color by Eric Freeman. Gallery murmuring, expensive eyewear.

4

The Look of Love— fresh interpretations of classic songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David—opens on Broadway. Always something there to remind you.

5

Literary-hipster alert: James Frey reads his addict memoir, A Million Little Pieces, at L.A.'s Book Soup today, and (sometime this month) Riverhead Books publishes the paperback of Gary Shteyngart's satirical novel, The Russian Debutante's Handbook.

6

Eighty-one international, fourperson teams bushwhack, mountain-bike, paddle, and dangle their way through the islands of Fiji, in the USA Network's Eco-Challenge: Fiji, Hi from Survivor producer Mark Burnett.

8

Trevor Nunn directs Natasha Richardson in Pam Gems's new version of Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea, at London's Almeida. (Young woman married to middle-aged doctor has secret yearnings. She is Norwegian.)

9

The 10th Anniversary Race to Erase M.S., Century City, Calif. This year's co-chair: Tommy Hilfiger.

10

Around the turn of the century, Laton Alton Huffman traveled out West with his homemade 50-pound camera. His photos are on view at Fort Worth's Amon Carter Museum.

11

While Washington, D.C.'s Corcoran Gallery enters Day No. 2 of unreleased Robert Frank photos of postwar England, the nearby Arena Stage preps tomorrow's benefit show, "Dr. Thunderfinger," featuring Kitty Kelley.

13

The divine Bea Arthur turns 77. Acid wit has a moment.

14

"Diana Vreeland: From Fashion Magazine Editor to Special Consultant to the Costume Institute" is a lecture at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. (Note to staff: Legs must look slippery and delicious!)

15

Jazzbird Dee Dee Bridgewater sends some smoke out at Columbus, Ohio's Southern Theatre.

16

Can they sustain the high level of excellence? The Matrix sequel released yesterday; today, the folks from NPR's This American Life perform in Portland; nd—perhaps most critically—Tori Spelling turns 30.

17

Just opened: a show of paintings by pioneering modernist Maurice Prendergast at N.Y.C.'s Adelson Galleries, and the 130-year-old Cincinnati May Festival.

18

Closing today: the Vermeer show at the Prado (northern lighting and maidens), the Titian show at London's National Gallery (crimsons, scarlets), and Off Broadway's Tony n' Tina's Wedding (tuxedos, cannoli).

19

Tuscany Can Be So Transporting: Elizabeth Ashley, Molly Ringwald, and Jayne Atkinson star in the Broadway adaptation of Enchanted April, which opened April 29.

20

From Madame Gres's Greekinspired draping to Gianni Versace's chain-mail togas: N.Y.C.'s Costume Institute's look at the classical influence. Through August; opened May 1.

22

Things Being What They Are—'which sounds like a companion play to Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things, but is actually a new play by Wendy MacLeod—at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre.

23

One Down, One to Go: Minneapolis's Guthrie Theater gets ready to close Three Sisters tomorrow, and Warner Bros, releases The In-Laws, starring Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks.

24

Ten artists from around the globe interpret the Hudson River in Minetta Brook's show "Watershed," in and around Beacon, N.Y.

25

Transcendentally Shagadelic: Mike Myers turns 40, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 200.

26

Guy Bourdin, the fashion photographer who worked for French Vogue from the mid-50s to the mid80s, continues his moment in the sun at London's Victoria and Albert Museum through August.

28

PBS: four-time Oscar winner Charles Guggenheim's documentary Berga: Soldiers of Another War, about a Jewish soldier he met who died in a German salt mine during W.W. II.

29

Bob Hope turns 100. Jokes are told. Tf

30

Washington, D.C.'s Corcoran Gallery opens "The Eyes of History 2003: An Exhibition of Award-Winning Photographs by White House Photojoumalists."

31

Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center unveils a new building designed by Zaha Hadid.