"Bubble" Bounces Back

One of my oldest friends from AZ, Cinco Paul, had the relative misfortune to have as his first major screenwriting credit the misbegotten film comedy Bubble Boy. But he's having the last laugh, or rather the first in a series of fresh laughs, by turning the film, which featured the not-yet-star-minted Jake Gyllenhaal and Marley Shelton, Swoosie Kurtz, and Stephen Spinnella (surely grateful to be unrecognizable as a freak-show Chicken Man), into a frothy, winking musical. I've heard a bit of it, and it's very funny, in ways and places the movie just wasn't. I wish I could make it to the musical's workshop bow, at the Scherr Forum in Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza Feb. 7-8, if only to see how they're going to stage the title character's cross-country journey in said bubble. Tickets can be had for a mere $10 by calling (818) 665-6366.