Popular playwright to return to newspaper-writing roots

You might have heard that Lee Cataluna, the popular columnist and playwright, is returning to print. She’s rebooting her column writing starting Aug. 3 in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser after a year as a teacher at ‘Iolani School.

“I’m really excited to go back to the paper,” she said in an email. “I loved teaching but I missed writing even more than I thought I would.”

Though she resigned from her ‘Iolani post, her son will continue to be a student there and she just concluded an ‘Iolani workshop on writing a college essay.

For Cataluna the play’s still the thing. She made a summer jaunt to the East Coast, got into a short journalism program at Yale in New Haven, Conn., and took the train to New York to finally see two long-running hit musicals, “Kinky Boots” and “The Book of Mormon.” “OMG, that was crazy,” she said of “Mormon.” “No holds barred.” She counts “Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” this year’s best play Tony winner, as “my favorite play ever … and one of my favorite books, too.”

Cataluna has been tinkering with a script, “Mud Pies and Magic,” part of the Honolulu Theatre for Youth’s upcoming season. She also is contemplating a musical, possibly with Hawaiian music and tapping life stories of local performers. Hmmm, I smell a hit! …

HERE ‘N’ THERE: Tony Ruivivar and Bert Sagum and their Society of Seven buddies are returning to Hawaii for a two-island, four-show gig. The SOS concertize at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s Castle Theatre, then fly to Honolulu for homecoming shows at 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday and at noon Aug. 2, preceded at 11 a.m. by a luncheon buffet, at the Ala Moana Hotel’s Hibiscus Ballroom. This, following sellouts at the Suncoast Casino in Nevada. Maui tickets: $12 to $55, at 242-SHOW or www.mauiarts.org. Honolulu tickets: $55 for cocktail shows, $79 for buffet performance, at 944-4333. … Augie T’s “Laugh Under the Stars” concert, from 5 p.m. Saturday at the Waikiki Shell, is a benefit for BRAVE Hawaii. The roster of participating stars includes comics and musicians: Andy Bumatai, Frank De Lima, Ed Kaahea, Bu La‘ia and Augie, plus Nesian N.I.N.E., Kolohe Kai, Koa‘uka, Natural Vibrations, Taz Vegas, Levity, Eden Kai, Brown Swell, Mike T., Leikai Williams, Gender Bender Lip Gloss Review and Isle 5. Doors open at 4 p.m. Tickets: $20 to $40, at Blaisdell box office or Ticketmaster (800-745-3000). …

PARTY LINE: The Okami ohana, proprietors of KoAloha Ukulele, took over the Willows Restaurant Monday with a 20th-anniversary party. Food stations offered pizza, chicken, fried noodles, pork in Chinese buns and more, with music flowing all evening from the likes of Manoa DNA and Maunalua. Ukulele legends like Roy Sakuma and Herb Ohta Jr. were among the celebrants; Tony Conjugacion delivered the pule(prayer). And folks who didn’t know that Okami patriarch Alvin was a singer back in the day got a rare treat: a couple of vocals by the onetime crooner with Herb “Ohta-san” Ohta’s band. …

ITEMIZATIONS: Kiana Lum, a Punahou grad, is attending a musical theater training program in London’s West End, enrolled in a Performing Arts Abroad session to elevate her learning curve in acting, singing, dancing, stage combat and more. The prestigious London sessions are being held in studios where many professional productions are mounted, with West End performers and directors sharing their techniques. In Hawaii, Lum is studying and teaching ballet, jazz, tap, tumbling, musical theater and hula at The Movement Center. …

Grace Park, Kono Kalakaua on CBS’ “Hawaii Five-0,” is off to Seattle for “Galacticon 4,” Friday through Aug. 2. She’ll reunite with her earlier co-stars of TV’s “Battlestar Galactica” series dating back to the late 1970s. Park appeared in the 21st-century version of “Galactica.” …

Hungry Ear Records presents the fourth Hawaii Record Fair, the largest sale of vinyl and CDs and other collectibles here, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. today at McKinley High School. General admission is $5, with a discounted fee of $3 for youths 13 and older, seniors 65 and older, and active-duty military. Early admission at 9 a.m. is $10. …

And that’s “Show Biz.” …

Wayne Harada is a veteran entertainment columnist; reach him at 266-0926 or wayneharada@gmail.com; read his “Show and Tell Hawaii” blog at www.staradvertiser.com.