Show Biz
'Comedy Shack' extended at Pagoda

ALIVE ’N’ WELL: "Comedy Shack," with Lanai and Augie T., the one-two punch from Island Rhythms 98.5, will be extended two more Fridays, tonight and March 2, at the Pagoda Restaurant’s second floor. Two reasons: The club has been doing turnaway business, with locals lapping up the comedic lunacy of the deejay pair; and the extension will enable Lanai and Augie to tape a live-at-the-Comedy Shack CD. Augie wants everyone to know that the pair, who had recurring roles on "Baywatch Hawai‘i," were not responsible for the cancellation. And the "Comedy Shack" will tour the Neighbor Islands (stay tuned for dates), after Lanai and Augie take 12 radio listeners on a trek to Australia (departing March 3) ...

AROUND ’N’ ABOUT: Diamond Head Theatre’s "Chess" is worth seeing, if only to soak in the three leads (Jade Stice as Florence, Matthew Pedersen as Freddie and Guy Merola as Anatoly) and since the musical is seldom produced. But it’s a distancing experience, with lyrics that you can’t hear over a zealous orchestra and an earnest but green ensemble not quite together in matching the quality bar raised by the leads’ presence. The key exceptions: John L. Bryant as the Arbiter, a "Miss Saigon" colleague of Stice’s, and Leonard Piggee as Walter ...

Also worth catching: Tino Isaac (he goes by Tino Ibach as a member of The Krush), who is one of the six finalists in "Your Big Break," at 11 p.m. Sunday on KGMB-9. Considering that 10,000 auditioned and 108 made it on camera, it’s great he has made it this far. He does Stevie Wonder’s "I Just Called To Say I Love You" ...

Ellie Wary, a St. Anthony’s seventh-grader, was dining with the family (dad is restaurateur Ed Wary, of Dixie Grill and Auntie Pasto’s eateries), at Ruth’s Chris Steak House the other night, when she spotted comedian Frank DeLima there with his mother Pearl and other guests. Ellie wrangled an introduction so she could thank DeLima for speaking at her Kailua school and for making quite an impression on the youngsters ...

The last thing Ben Dowling of Nick’s Fishmarket expected was a comedy show in the midst of his restaurant, but that’s what he got when Rob Schneider, of "Saturday Night Live" and "Deuce Bigelow," dined there and hit the funny bones of diners ...

WHEE, THE PEOPLE: Keith and Carmen Haugen will mark their 15th anniversary as performers at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel March 13. Time flies when you’re having fun ...

Peter Rockford Espiritu is back from Nagoya to line up a Japanese tour of his Tau Dance Theatre later this year. It would be an Asian premiere for the local dance company ...

The late Fred Jackson, who performed in "Driving Miss Daisy" at Manoa Valley Theatre and "Camelot" at Army Community Theatre, has been inducted into the Ft. Wayne (Ind.) Jazz Club Hall of Fame, according to his wife, Jackie Jackson. Fred was known for his jazz work (drums) in the Ft. Wayne and Northeast Indiana area before he relocated to the Islands in the early 1990s. He died last year at age 82, but not before releasing a solo vocal CD and a Christmas CD ...

Michon Suyama and Chris Quibon, alumni of the Castle Performing Arts Center, are among the dancers at the new Disney California Adventure park in Anaheim. Michon is the daughter of Pearl City High School principal Gerald Suyama and wife Paula; she was last seen as Liat in CPAC’s "South Pacific." She also has danced with Hoku Ho on tour ...

Congrats to Dave Russell, a Maui native and a Grammy winner; he was one of four engineers on Steely Dan’s "Two Against Nature" CD ...

And that’s Show Biz ...

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