Meanwhile, Thiessen remains a writer in demand, with commissions from the Manitoba Theatre for Young People (an ecological musical he is penning with local composer Olaf Pyttlik), Shaw Festival (stage adaptation of Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage) and one for Leonard Nimoy, the one-time Spock from TV's Star Trek.

He was in Los Angeles recently for a reading of his commissioned play Saving Grace, which Nimoy's wife Susan is directing. She also helmed his play Shakespeare's Will in L.A. three years ago and Thiessen formed a friendship with the couple.

"They are generous and talented people," he says. "Leonard is just a good Jewish boy from Boston. He's filled with emotion, not like Spock at all.

"I did hear him say 'fascinating' once and that made my ears perk up."

More here.

- On a different note, you are currently producing “Shakespeare’s Will” by Canadian playwright, Vern Thiessen, starring Jeanmarie Simpson as Anne Hathaway. The play is directed by your wife, Susan Bay Nimoy. Why did you choose this particular play?

- The play was brought to us by the actress Jeanmarie Simpson who for a long time has been the artistic director of the Nevada Shakespeare Festival. She is a very wonderfully accomplished theatrical actress, whom we’ve known for some time. We have a house in Northern California and we’ve seen some of her work and some of her productions during the Nevada Shakespeare Festival. We have become fans and friends of hers.

And she came by this play, brought it to my wife, Susan and asked her if she would look at it. Susan fell so in love it with this play! It’s a very beautiful piece, very beautifully written, very moving, and funny. It’s an amazing piece of work; an amazing piece of writing. Susan showed it to me and I agreed with her. Jeanmarie Simpson asked Susan if she would direct it and I agreed to produce it and that’s how the project came about. It’s a piece that Susan - with her partner Chase Mishkin - has now optioned for the rest of the United States, including Broadway and for English-speaking territories: UK and Australia. It is now being submitted to directors for the Broadway production. It’s been done before but only in Canada as far as I know.

- So this is the United States Première!

- And this is an extremely well written, very beautiful piece of work and Jeanmarie Simpson is going to be brilliant in it. This a wonderful opportunity for Los Angeles audience to get a glimpse of it BEFORE it goes to New York.

- It sounds terrific; I like Theatre 40 because it frequently features interesting, original plays.

- You’re absolutely right, and this is one of those. It is the story of Anne Hathaway, she is the character on stage, reminiscing about her life as William Shakespeare’s wife. It is quite an extra-ordinary story.

- Your wife, Susan Bay Nimoy is directing “Shakespeare’s Will”, what could you tell us about your wife’s work?

- My wife is a long time director. She’s been away from it for some years but this is a return to something that has been a great love of hers for 40 years. She is one of the first women to be a member of the Directors Guild of America, while she was directing television. She has directed various documentaries over the years. One in particular is a documentary about an artist by the name of Liza Lou who is a wonderful Southern California artist. So Susan has had an interesting career in directing and this is a return to something that she loves and does very well.

Season Fourteen Memories (1976)

Leonard Nimoy was an excellent Henry Higgins in MY FAIR LADY with a fine, consistent English accent, again showing he could be a lot more than Spock from STAR TREK. His Eliza, Linda Michele, performed at The Top several times and always displayed a "loverly" lyric soprano and a charming stage presence. She appeared a couple of times with John Raitt, and together they made a very effective team.

Season Twelve Memories (1974)

Jo Anne Worley (Winnifred in ONCE UPON A MATTRESS) and Leonard Nimoy (The King of Siam in THE KING AND I) showed what excellent stage actors they are. Both were so associated with their television work that they probably never got the stage opportunities they deserved, but their "small screen" fame got them summer stock jobs which enabled people like me to see how skilled and magnetic they are!

If a visitor from another galaxy happened to land on earth to observe the United States firsthand, what kind of impression would the country make on a complete stranger to the human race? This is the question posed in Gore Vidal's Visit to a Small Planet, a comedy subtitled as A Comedy Akin to a Vaudeville. Originally presented as a television play in 1957 (it had a New York City stage premiere in the same year), the satirical play follows the exploits of Kreton, an alien who lands on Earth, hoping to catch a glimpse of the American Civil War only to find that "something went wrong with the machine"; he has landed in the Manassas, Virginia, of the mid-twentieth century, outside of the Spelding family's home. Upon learning that it is not 1861, Kreton nevertheless decides to stay and observe human behavior. "You are my hobby,'' he tells the Speldings, "and I am going native."

Unlike film aliens such as E.T. or the creatures in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Kreton is no lovable Martian. Arrogant, selfish, and patronizing, he is determined to make his stay memorable by starting a full-scale war between the United States and the Soviet Union (the setting being the days of the Cold War, when trust between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. was distinctly lacking). "I admit to leaping into this on the spur of the moment,'' he admits at the end of Act I, "but we're going to have such good times!"

Vidal's play pokes fun at the post-World War II fear of Communism and the "Red-baiting" (Senator Joseph McCarthy's house hearings on Un-American Activities) common in the late 1950s, as well as military paranoia and the rising importance of television in American life. Using Kreton as the satiric personification of America's ugly underbelly, Vidal's play employs a common science-fiction scenario to explore not alien but American life.

Good News is a musical with a book by Laurence Schwab and B.G. DeSylva, lyrics by DeSylva and Lew Brown, and music by Ray Henderson.

World War I is over, the Roaring Twenties have arrived, women have won the right to vote, and college campuses, such as fictional Tait College, are as much a social scene as an academic one. Football is the big game, and star player Tom Marlowe is a prime catch. All the girls are interested in Tom, and vice-versa, although one society climber seems to have him in hand. Studious part-time school librarian Connie Lane doesn't seem to have a chance and stays out of the fray. When Marlowe fails a final exam, he needs a tutor to help him pass so he can play in the big game on Saturday. Connie is selected to help keep his nose to the grindstone, and the two fall for each other. The couples' romance can only endure if the team wins the big game.

I can give you examples of what a nice guy Lenny was. In Good News I had a bit where I was supposed to whistle and Len was supposed to hide the football star. I couldn't whistle, do I got a toy whistle to use. It occured to Len and me at one rehearsal that a cute bit could be worked out, I pretended I couldn't find the whistle. Len and I practiced it on our own. The audience was hysterical at both performances when I searched my pockets, sleeves, belt,socks and what all for the whistle. It was a good bit. Len and I liked it. It goes without saying the director didn't aappreaciate it at all. Elliot [Silverstein] almost hashed us up that night, gave us a real lecture. Len soaked it all in - he was real gung-ho on theater. He never kidded around with a show again.

(Source: "The Names They Call Him Back Home", see Interviews.)

At a neighborhood settlement house, The Elizabeth Peabody Playhouse, I saw my first play. It was a production of Gilbert & Sullivan's "HMS Pinafore," and I marveled at the wonderful combination of words, movement, and music. I was amazed at the ability of the performers.

When I was cast as "Hansel" in "Hansel & Gretel," to be played on the same stage, the work began. Piece by piece, line by line, movement by movement, I was coached, pushed, cajoled and trained up to performance level. I went through the several performances of that production without ever thinking of, or understanding, the concept of "stage fright." To this day, I have known "stage fright" only when I have been insufficiently prepared for the evening of the performance. That's the secret ... hours and hours, days and weeks of preparation.