She takes this comedy vehicle and drives
Cozort is slick, strong in Charlotte production
JULIE YORK COPPENS
Theater Writer

He's talented. Likable. Incredibly cute.

His next role could make him an A-list Hollywood hunk -- if only he weren't gay.

In his outrageous industry satire "The Little Dog Laughed," playwright Douglas Carter Beane examines the plight of an actor in the closet and the agent determined to keep him there.

The comedy was a modest Broadway hit in 2006, most memorable for the Tony-winning performance of Julie White as Diane, possibly the sharpest ten-percenter ever to don an Armani pantsuit. In the Actor's Theatre of Charlotte production previewing this weekend, the agent role is played by Blowing Rock-based actor Kim Cozort, last seen at ATC as wronged wife Stevie in "The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?"

"She has so many layers," Cozort says of her character, whose concern for Mitchell, her most promising client, obviously has a self-serving edge. But that doesn't mean it isn't sincere. When Mitchell's private life threatens to go public, Diane stops at nothing to keep certain details out of the picture and to keep his career-making offer on the table. She's protecting his reputation, his professional future -- and, of course, her own cut.

"She sees his life one way, and he sees it another," Cozort says. "That's part of the conflict here." On the other hand, she points out, Mitchell wants to be a star as much as Diane needs him to be.

Cozort and the production's director, Dennis Delamar, are longtime friends and fellow actors.

"I find her a great match for Diane's strength and charisma," Delamar says of Cozort. "As a slick Tinseltown agent, Diane is a wheeler and dealer, a calculated and gleeful barracuda who is determined to get her way in Hollywood, taking no hostages. Kim has the ability to show a woman with a spine of steel who can take center stage, get in your face and make things happen. She can also make you laugh."

Brian Robinson, featured in "The Pillowman" at ATC last fall (also directed by Delamar), plays Mitchell in this Charlotte staging; two newcomers from Davidson College, Glynnis O'Donoghue and Ian Bond, play the conniving young catalysts in Mitchell's behind-the-scenes drama: Alex, a male prostitute, and Ellen, his occasional girlfriend.

Beane's play, Delamar says, "makes us question what drives us most in life: money, ego, sex, love, or something we call happiness?"

And it provides a killer vehicle for the right actress, in the role of Diane.

"She plays the game so well, but the audience gets let in on the game a little," Cozort says. "You do have to root for her." PREVIEW

The Little Dog Laughed

A closeted gay actor attempts to come out in this outrageous Hollywood satire by Douglas Carter Beane. Mature.

WHEN: Previews 8 p.m. today and Saturday. Show opens 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and runs various times through April 26.

WHERE: Actor's Theatre of Charlotte, 650 E. Stonewall St. ADMISSION:

$15 for previews; $23-$28 for regular run; ; 7:30 p.m. April 16 performance is pay-what-you-can.

DETAILS: 704-342-2251; or www.actorstheatrecharlotte.org.