What's My Line Live on Stage in New York

I've written about What's My Line Live on Stage before because I've been photographing the show for some time now. The show is a great deal of fun and is done as seriously as the original television series was. I remember watching many an episode of it when it ran on Sunday nights during my childhood.

For anyone living in the greater New York area, WMLLOS will have a 6-week run at the Barrow Street Theatre in downtown Manhattan starting on March 24. WMLLOS has been done as a live stage show out here in Los Angeles for various-length runs at the Acme Theatre since 2005. It is hosted by J. Keith van Straaten, the original host of "Beat the Geeks" and directed by Jim Newman. They both produce.

Information about the L.A. show can be seen here and I am sure there will soon be information about the New York schedule.

Each week, the guests generally consist of someone who deals in a service, someone who deals in a product, someone who performs or demonstrates (like a musician, magician, dog trainer, etc.), and the Mystery Guest, a celebrity whose identity is guessed while the panelists are blindfolded. Out here, the Mystery Guests have included Grey Davis, Michael and Kitty Dukakis, Larry King, Shelly Long, Ed Asner, Camryn Manheim, Lorenzo Lamas, and Elliott Gould. They've had sword swallowers, saddle makers, guitar makers, a bell choir, a marimba band, a bubble expert, a cup cake king, and writers.

My husband originally went on the show and stumped the panel with his occupation of "comic book writer." As it happened, a number of people in the audience recognized him, including one Drew Carey, who was there because Greg Proops was on the panel and Kathy Kinney was the Mystery Guest. Drew, it turns out, is a huge comic book fan, shyly came up and introduced himself, and took us out for drinks afterwards.

Jim Newman is currently looking to book guests for the panelists to guess and if anyone reading this has an interesting job or knows someone with an interesting job OR has contacts with a celebrity who would make a great mystery guest, send me an e-mail and I will be happy to pass the information on to Jim. Please don't post the information in the comments, because my husband does read my blog and I wouldn't want to give him an unfair advantage. He's pretty good at the show as it is and expects to go to New York to appear on the panel on April 21.