Taking Off

High above Studio City, where Coldwater Canyon Avenue meets Mulholland Drive, seven actors will perform a staged reading of the original screenplay for “Airplane!” tonight and Saturday night.

The event, in its third year, will benefit the environmental group TreePeople, which operates the S. Mark Taper Foundation Amphitheatre in Coldwater Canyon Park.

“No expense has been spared. In fact, there has been virtually no expense at all for this production,” said event organizer Jim Hardie, who will perform the role played by Leslie Nielsen in the 1980 spoof of airplane disaster pictures. “‘No cameras, no costumes or even a roof. The trees will be real, though.”

He recommended that people take a picnic and arrive early to stroll in the park. Hardie wears two hats as programmer for TreePeople’s evening activities and managing director of Actors Conservatory Ensemble, the Equity-waiver group that will perform this weekend.

Group members appearing with Hardie are Andy Parks, Burr DeBenning, Sal Viscuso, Jodie Carlisle, Jill Klein and Bridget Hoffman, whose faces the audience will recognize from TV and movies, Hardie said.

The amphitheater was created in 1997 through the support of the Taper family, as well as donors Steve Martin, Bonnie Raitt and Johnny Carson.

Since then, Actors Conservatory Ensemble, a nonprofit group of screen actors with a yen to perform live, has used the venue for its summer play-reading season entitled “Once Upon a Canyon Night.” The “Airplane!” event has become the season closer.

David Zucker, director and co-writer of the original movie, is a TreePeople board member. Yet he has never attended a reading and will miss it again this year to observe Rosh Hashana.

“I wish I could be there,” he said. “They promised me they’d videotape it, and I’ll try to go next year.”

BE THERE

“Airplane! The Reading!” by the Actors Conservatory Ensemble, 8 p.m. today-Saturday, S. Mark Taper Foundation Amphitheatre, Coldwater Canyon Park, 12601 Mulholland Drive, Beverly Hills. Admission: $10, $7 TreePeople members and senior citizens, $6 children. Call (888) 922-3846.