On Stage Los Angeles

Is it ART? Yes!!

2012-01-31T18:13:00.000-08:00

Bradley Whitford, Roger Bart and Michael O'Keefe
Photo credit Jim Cox

ART

The Pasadena Playhouse

A warm January Sunday afternoon

Michael Gross

Jeans and Jackets

A little glitz

Jackets w/ ties

Jackets w/ No Ties

No jackets

Really really high heels

Old guys with girls in low cut dresses

More heels

Just off the tennis court, a woman flits to and from the Box Office

A woman in a Phyllis Diller Op Art Chemise

All smiles

Big hugs

Men happy to see one another, very

Up the stairs a suspicious woman eyes my observations

The woman with the chest tattoo has a drink, worried, perhaps, by

The leaky forecourt fountain?

It’s Opening Night at The Pasadena Playhouse. El Molino's all abuzz with the folks who love the Theatre. Old friends schmooze and as the courtyard fills with the sold out crowd for Yasmina Reza’s ART, it is, indeed, a perfect day.

The Play, however, is the thing and Reza’s way with words, translated from the French by Christopher Hampton, roll off the actors’ tongues trippingly and truly. For me it’s a virtual feast of ideas and ethics and words and the collaboration of some very talented people. Director David Lee brings his sit com takes, pauses and timing to what could be just a lot of words. The scene is set in three beautiful contemporary Parisian apartments. Serge’s digs (haughty Michael O’Keefe) are the fanciest, of course, because he’s the wealthiest of the three old friends. He’s just acquired a new work of art and is madly in love with it. The argument of the play becomes the well constructed vocal objection to this piece of shit… or is it? by Marc, the deep seeded cynic of the three, the excellent Bradley Whitford. Perhaps in an effort to protect his wealthy pal, he loudly protests the two hundred thousand Euros that Serge has shelled out for an essentially ‘white’ abstract painting.

Enter the hapless Yvan, (pronounced Eye-vn, though I have heard it pronounced Eee-van in other productions) an appropriately quirky Roger Bart. The self involved and over the top neurotic stops the show with a three page monologue that rattles through his issues at machine gun pace and leaves no doubt who is the most emotionally conflicted of the three.

The beauty of Reza’s writing, to me, is the fluency and craft of each character’s self revelation expanded by interaction with the others. Marc is agitated and abrasive. Serge is smug and self congratulatory. Poor Yvan is conflicted and bounces like a rubber ball between the other two as the issue of the painting becomes more heated. Their interaction reminded me of The Three Stooge’s: Larry, Moe and Curly and David’s Steinberg’s wonderful riff on how in any given situation there is always someone in charge (Moe), someone who wants to be Moe (Larry) and how someone else just wants to not be Curly (Curly). The power shifts from Serge to Marc with Yvan at last evolving, more or less, into his own as the plot resolves itself. Reza won the Tony for this show in 1998, deservedly. The characters may be over the top, but the interaction is triumphant and in this production, it’s a complete collaboration between the playwright, the cast and the director, supplemented by rich technical support.

Tom Buderwitz’s massive set reminded me of the current Tacita Dean exhibit at the Tate Modern. A huge monolith center stage sets the background for all three apartments that are accented by the artwork selected by the characters, reflecting each one’s tastes. “Motel Art” graces Yvan’s humble home while a modern landscape, reminiscent of Yoko Ono’s large window photographs, is center stage for Marc. The abstract Artrios comes and goes at Serge’s. Jared A. Sayeg’s lighting is dramatic and appropriate.

As The Playhouse regains its sea legs and launches into new waters, I’d hope that the seating situation in the house would be on the list for reconstruction. My seat was threadbare and uncomfortable. There was a hole in the floor big enough for a cat to leap through ready to swallow dropped keys or small children. Sight lines are terrible and the closeness of the rows to one another makes getting to know the other folks crab walking to their seats a bit more intimate than might be desired.

The play, however, is the thing. And, ART deserves repeat patronage and many sold out performances.

ART by Yasmina Reza

The Pasadena Playhouse

39 S. El Molino

Pasadena, CA

Runs through February 19, 2012

Rush tickets $15

General Admission $29 - $59

626- 356-7529

www.PasadenaPlayhouse.org

NogoodDeed

2012-01-22T17:48:00.000-08:00

No~~good~~Deed

That the current Inside the Ford projects take chances and LA County makes the space available to companies like Furious is commendable. The space itself has gone through many metamorphoses over the years as the Pilgrimage became the John Anson Ford. The Company Theatre produced a unique version of their James Joyce Memorial Liquid Theatre there in the early seventies to huge audiences upstairs … Outside at the Pilgrimage. Prolific playwright Robert Patrick (Kennedy’s Children) held theatre workshops in what was then a simple open space downstairs. Later, Steven Kent’s ProVisional Theatre, split off from The Company, performed political theatre with the story of Xa reminding audiences of the horrors of war.

The space was called the “Taper, too,” for a while, with small creative productions sponsored by the Mark Taper Forum. It’s been a space for experiments. And, yes, experimental theatre is sorely needed to keep the art form vital and fresh.

If nothing else, Furious Theatre Company is taking chances. This lurid tale of teenager Josh Jaxson (Nick Cernoch), spray paint huffer/graphic artist/burgeoning super hero is a stretch. Like a 21^st Century graphic novel, Pelfrey’s script flings the audience left and right with unprovoked violent attacks, super hero interventions, parallel universes and some wild video projections reflecting, as a friend pointed out, the heavy influence of television on the youth of today.

The triumverate of erstwhile Super Heros:

Security Guard (Troy Metcalf)

Fire Man (Shawn Lee)

Hellbound Hero (Nick Cernoch)

These three hapless heroes, modern day everymen: just pretty much normal guys, are thrust by individual heroic efforts into the spotlight, lionized, vilified and eventually driven to a bad end are based on playwright Matt Pelfrey’s examination of Richard Jewell, the Atlanta security guard who may have saved lives at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Enjoyment of and relating to this play will turn on the generation with whom you survive. Twentieth century aficionados who remember early comic books with super heroes like Superman and Batman will find themselves struggling for a point of reference. Evidently, the Graphic Novel has supplanted the comic book in the geek spotlight. There’s a bad moon rising.

In the cast we find a mixed bag of mumblers, screamers, good guys, bad guys, archetypes, stereotypes and bad impersonators. The task is for the audience to figure out which is which, who is who and whether or not to care. With all the doubling going on, program references are a must. Director Damaso Rodriguez has his hands full. Skill levels are uneven and dialogue like “It’s cool, man. Seriously, I’m good.” speaks for itself.

Video projections by Jason H. Thompson are terrific using moving scrims for projections to set the scene on the grungy multipurpose set. Actors duplicate themselves now and then via video. That part works, too. It may be the acoustics in this small space, but much of the dialogue, to me, was garbled, though the action pretty much made up for the loss of any words. Thank goodness the action was graphic. The staged fight scenes need work.

Furious has spent a lot of time, money and energy on this project. I learned that there are five hundred cues: lights, sound and video, making the real super heroes of the evening the Furious technical crew.

No Good Deed by Matt Pelfrey

Furious Theatre Company

A live-on-stage graphic novel adventure

Inside the Ford

2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East

Hollywood, CA 90068

Tickets and information 323 461 3673

http://fordtheatres.org

www.iamhellbound.com

General Admission $25

Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays Through February 26

Call theatre for specific times and prices

PARAMOUNT'S WINGS SOARS AGAIN

2012-01-19T23:32:00.000-08:00

I don't usually review films, but I was invited to Paramount Studios tonight to see Paramount's restored version of WINGS. The effect that I'm sure it will have on audiences makes it important to share.

Though it is unlikely that the restored version of the first Academy Award Winning Picture, WINGS, with Buddy Rogers, Clara Bow, Richard Arlen and a very young Gary Cooper will show up in your local movie palace, it needs commenting on. It’s been over 85 years since William A. Wellman directed this epic of the air. Most of us have seen clips from the film, perhaps in a Chuck Workman montage with Richard Arlen grimacing directly to camera as he bears down on the Heinies. This is to report that this silent film, though over two and a half hours long, with an intermission… takes us back to what a movie is supposed to do. It involves us emotionally, mentally and physically. The declamatory style of acting is what actors practiced in 1925. It’s broad, over the top and totally appropriate.

Clara Bow and Buddy Rogers were at the top of their game in silent films and hundreds of thousands of fans filled the movie houses to thrill to the story. Budgeted at two million dollars, it brought in over four million, a tidy sum in 1927. The story holds up beautifully. The enhanced sound effects, especially the dogfight sequences and battle scenes on the ground are truly amazing. In a day with no green screen nor rear screen projection, Wellman mounted cameras on the bi-planes that the actors themselves literally flew. Bombing sequences were done in real time with real bombs. Thousands of U.S. troops were recruited to re-enact battle scenes which took Wellman and his crew to Texas to accommodate the use of battle gear and soldiers stationed at Camp Stanley in near by San Antonio.

John Stepan Zamecnik’s magnificent score was literally collected, researched, reassembled and restored by Paramount musicologist, Jeannie Gayle Pool. Contrary to information on the Internet, the collection of the original paper music restoration for WINGS was all due to the expert work of Pool. In their introduction to the film, Paramount officials acknowledged the music, having Zamecnik’s family rise for acknowledgement.However, they opted to not mention Dr. Pool nor acknowledge the many members of the orchestra in attendance who recorded the score.

To see the film projected, fully restored, featuring a full orchestra was a unique moment in cinema. As the credits rolled, I searched for Dr. Pool’s name along with the credits for every musician in the orchestra and was disappointed that she was not credited there.

WINGS will be released on Blu-Ray. However, any opportunity to see the it in a real theater with a great sound system will deliver the goods and then some. The Academy’s first Best Picture holds up in every way. Applause to Paramount for dedicating itself to the preservation of this beautiful film.

Michael Sheehan

NOISES OFF! PARTY ON!!

2012-01-08T23:56:00.001-08:00

The new space that is almost paid for created by A Noise Within Theatre Company was shaking with laughter, literally, this weekend. A love letter review will follow with kudos to ANW for transplanting the rickety set and the rollicking performances from the old Glendale space to the new theater. A pitch was made for donors who may have the desire to fund a seat for a donation of $2,500 to pay down the remaining half million that the Company hopes to eliminate in the next three years.

Jill Hill and Stephen Rockwell in Noises Off! Photo Credit Craig Schwartz

Sadly, Noises Off! closes on January 15, 2012.

Here is my actual review. Michael Sheehan

Noises Off! Party On!!

The beauty of writing what I want to write is that when a show as entertaining and professionally presented as is Noises Off (through January 15^th at A Noise Within in Pasadena) in this brief reincarnation, I can rave about the acting, the writing, the production values, the costumes, (not to mention the lovely set pieces donated to ANW by a friend) and the way a matinee audience explodes with appreciation as this charming cast of players: Shaun Anthony, Apollo Dukakis, Geoff Elliott, Jill Hill, Mikael Salazar, Lenne Klingaman, Emily Kosloski, Stephen Rockwell, and Deborah Strang, cavorts for three amazing acts that rival anything you’ll see at the big houses in town or in New York or London, though I’ve never actually seen the show done anywhere else, so I’m spoiled with the way that Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and co-director Geoff Elliott guide their ship away from rocks, reefs and rough seas, sailing in smoother waters, this errant “British company” of players who, after a tense final rehearsal, which may be a tech or a dress or just a panic before opening night, launch into a voyage filled with sardines, grimaces and doors, doors, doors opening and closing with imprecise precision, locked and blocked and otherwise the fodder of what Moliere would agree most certainly is the heart of farce: as Lloyd Dallas, director of Nothing On, the play within Noises Off, well ranted by Geoff Elliott, announces in the depth of his frustration that this play, funded by-the-by by Dotty Otley (again, triumphant Deborah Strang) is simply put, just about doors and sardines, of which Dotty has an intimate knowledge and that “Looks and gestures is what acting is all about!” encouraging his cast to get on with it while one or another of them asks questions about motivation that anyone who has ever been in a play has asked and probably been answered that maybe just pretending and getting the job done is our objective now and that question should have been asked in the first rehearsal, not the night… well, the morning, now, before the show must go on because that’s what show folk do, they make the show go on and with the carryings on of the assistant stage manager, Poppy Norton-Taylor limned to a fine finish by Lenne Klingaman with whom Dallas may have had an intimate interlude as well as with the blonde bombshell, Vicki, played by Brooke Ashton, brilliantly bouncing down the stairs in her garters or suspenders or whatever you call that sexy thing that holds ones stockings up, Emily Kosloski (which for the gentlemen in our audience, makes the whole three acts certainly exciting and worth the price of admission alone); Act II back stage presents mayhem with jealous abandon, missed understandings and missing actors, which in Act III, as the show playing on the road winds up in the British hinterlands, brings us not one, not two but three burglars crashing through the window, nose bleeds, and of course, several courses of, dare I say… yes, my mountain flower… yes… sardines.

Noises Off by Michael Frayn

A Noise Within

3352 East Foothill

Pasadena, CA 91107

Through January 15, 2012

Tickets and Information

www.anoisewithin.org

626-356-3100

$46.00 top

"THE SHERMAN SHOW"

2012-01-06T23:18:00.000-08:00

Michael Sherman is an old actor pal who has made a living in every form of show business for the past sixty or seventy years. Well.. for a long time! He's been an actor, a balloon animal clown and a Friendly Santa

Michael's doing a matinee, evidently undaunted by superstition, on Friday the Thirteenth at One PM at the Fairfax Senior Center. Free Coffee and Donuts for Members, but I'm sure that Michael will make a good deal for non - members.

One Show Only 1/13/12 1PM
Fairfax Senior Center
7929 Melrose
Hollywood

Baby Doll at the Lillian

2011-12-03T00:20:00.001-08:00

L to R: Dave Metz, Jacque Lynn Colton, Tony Gatto.

There's a whole lot of acting going on in The Elephant Theatre production of Baby Doll. With accents so thick you can cut them with a knife, the ensemble at The Lillian takes its work very seriously. They combine Williams’s pithy one act, 27 Wagon Loads of Cotton and Elia Kazan’s award winning film Baby Doll, blending them into an acting exercise. It looks as though the cast is having a good time. The work is consistent, with dancing cotton pickers and cotton pickin' dancers, all painted in broad strokes. It takes almost two hours to unfold.

This is not to say it's a bad show. It is, after all, Tennessee Williams, but these folks are not the iconic characters whom we remember from Streetcar or The Glass Menagerie. Instead we are given, perhaps, Blanche DuBois as a child… in Blanche’s imagination and Stanley Kowalski long gone to seed and nefarious deeds in The Deep South: Tiger Tail, Mississippi.

Archie Lee Meighan (powerful Tony Gatto) rants from the git go in sweaty anticipation of consummating his marriage to sweet cheeks and lovely Baby Doll Meighan. Baby Doll, played by Lulu Brud, is a near personification of Carol Baker in the title role of Kazan’s film. Baby Doll’s twentieth birthday is imminent and she’s promised to give it up to Archie Lee the day she actually turns twenty. At rise we meet the wonderful Jacque Lynn Colton as Aunt Rose Comfort whose hearing is failing. Just why she puts up with so much crap from Archie Lee is a mystery. She feeds the chickens. She cleans and cooks for Archie and Baby Doll while living in the virtually empty haunted house, evidently unpaid.

Enter another accent from Sicilian Silva Vacarro (sinewy, clad all in black, Ronnie Marmo) who suspects Archie Lee as the arsonist who has burned his cotton gin to the ground. Vacarro’s gin has basically put Archie’s gin out of business and because Silva is a foreigner, he is held in contempt by the locals. The sensuality of other Williams’s characters is evident, but more as two dimensional cut outs rather than the complicated icons in Williams’s plays.

The up side is that director/set designer Joel Daavid has created a beautifully utilitarian multifunctional set, including a floating ceiling where “run away - come hither” Baby Doll escapes from Vacarro even though she can’t play hide and seek because she is “not athletic.” Well executed by lights Daavid and Matt Richter’s sound, with the assistance of the director’s dedicated ensemble, almost become an additional character in the play.

Briefly, a live fiddle appears and accentuates the show, but recorded guitar score by Nick Block almost overwhelms. The music might have been even more effective with a live guitarist on stage.

Baby Doll by Tennessee Williams

An Elephant Theatre Production

Lillian Theatre

1076 Lillian Way

Los Angeles, (Hollywood, akshully) CA 90038

Tickets and Information:

ElephantTheatreCompany.com

323 960 4420

Friday and Saturday at 8PM

Sunday at 7PM

$25 top

Desire Under the Elms at ANW

2011-12-02T17:34:00.000-08:00

Photo Credit: Craig Schwartz
L to R: Monette Magrath, Jason Dechrt, William Dennis Hunt

In the description of the set for Desire Under the Elms, Eugene O’Neill describes the scene poetically: "...a farm house needing paint with two huge elm trees framing it. They bend their trailing branches down over the roof… to protect and at the same time subdue… like exhausted women resting their sagging breasts and hands and hair on its roof…” Doesn’t sound like a lot of laughs.

Written in 1920, when O’Neill was just 36 years of age, this modern tragedy echoes the classic Greek drama Phaedra. A seasoned theatre scholar once told me that everyone cribs from time to time. O’Neill’s effort is, indeed tragic and rambles its way to a sad conclusion.

The tyrannical Ephraim Cabot (William Dennis Hunt) shows the power of age and religious conviction. He has ruled his domain, a hard scrabble New England farm, for fifty years. Ephraim’s stern exterior, a reflection of his stony soul rules with an iron fist. Jason Dechert plays Eben, a clever and on again, off again fellow with confused emotions and a plan to keep the farm for himself.

At rise, Ephraim has abandoned the family farm leaving his two sons, Simeon and Peter, (Christopher Fairbanks and Stephen Rockwell) from his first marriage and his son by his second wife, Eben. Eben persuades the brothers hit the trail for the Gold Fields of California by buying out the brothers’ shares and sending them on their way. Suddenly, Ephraim returns, having married the young and beautiful Abbie (Monette Magrath), who in a confusing love/hate beginning falls for Eben and under the influence and elms, is impregnated by him. A son is born and Ephraim is allowed to believe the child is his, becoming his heir to the farm. Adultery evolves to an even darker hue. The desire of the flesh and the avarice that turns men… and women into lustful greedy people foments into loss for all involved: a tragedy in the classical sense.

Andre Balogh, the Fiddler, beautifully enhances the scene changes with his own minor key melancholies that emphasize the great acoustics of the new performance space.

Director Damaso Rodriguez has cast the play well, though the revelations at the close of the piece are somewhat confusing with a split focus that might be difficult to puzzle out at first.

John Iacovilli’s two level set echoes the hard existence as described by O’Neill. Clever lighting by James P. Taylor works beautifully.

DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS

By Eugene O’Neill

A Noise Within

3352 East Foothill Boulevard

Pasadena, CA 91107

In Repertory through December 18, 2011

Tickets and Information

626 356-3500 ext. 1

www. A NoiseWithin . org

A NEW NOISE AT A NOISE WITHIN PASADENA

2011-10-31T21:56:00.000-07:00

Debra Strang and Apollo Dukakis Photo by Craig Schwartz

TWELFTH NIGHT.. or What you Will by William Shakespeare

Richard Boone is possibly best remembered for his TV western, Have Gun, Will Travel. It told the story of a fast gun for hire in the early American West. Later, The Richard Boone Show set out of do a somewhat radical approach to television using a company of actors in repertory, featuring Mr. Boone acting and directing in a variety of roles that stretched their artistic abilities, allowing the television audience to enjoy familiar faces in a variety of roles from week to week. It was a noble effort and as we got to know the actors, including Ford Rainey and Harry Morgan, it was a pleasure to welcome them into our homes.

It is that familiar feeling that blossoms as we settle into A Noise Within Theater’s brand new space in Pasadena. It feels right to see Geoff Elliott (ridiculously silly Malvolio), Debra Strang (apt and sexy Maria), Apollo Dukakis (bawdy and then some Sir Toby Belch) and Robertson Dean as Orsino mount this stage, in this great new venue, having such a very good time. After nineteen years at their Masonic Lodge location, it became obvious to the Elliotts and the company that Glendale was not going to make any effort to keep the company there. Fortunately, more welcoming arms were outstretched in Pasadena. Mayor Bill Bogaard welcomed attendees as an unofficial greeter as we filed into the theater. The feeling of support not only for A Noise Within, but for the spirit of Art filled the auditorium.

Before their first official performance, ANW co-founder, Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, held forth to welcome the invited audience Home to ANW and The Redmond Stage, named for Charles Redmond, VP of the Times-Mirror and chair of the ANW board for many years. She thanked the assembled supporters of more than 300 as they rose to their feet to inaugurate the space with its first standing ovation.

Having rushed from a screening of ANONYMOUS (the new Roland Emmerich film) to make the early six o’clock curtain of Twelfth Night, I had had a taste of the play presented briefly in the film: the final scene where Sebastian and Viola reunite. Director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott’s take on the show was miles from the traditional sixteenth century presentation. She sets the scene in 1950’s Cuba with colorful rhumba and mambo dancers affecting the storm that blew the twins, Sebastian (Max Rosenak) and Viola ( Angela Gulner) asunder. The strong presence of Afro-Cuban influence erupts with Anthony Mark Barrow’s interpretation of Feste, the Fool in his prologue and through the play. It’s pre-Castro with cigars and rum in abundance. Also notable are Abby Craden as Olivia, sexy in polka dots and Steve Weingartner as Antonio.

Inventive use of machetes in the opening number with un-credited choreography, probably by director Rodriguez-Elliott sets the tone for the remainder of the play: fast paced and true to the letter of the author (I still think Shakespeare wrote everything he’s been credited with!!).

Keeping the thrust stage the company used in the former space, Kurt Boetcher’s simple sets transition quickly and smoothly with a feeling that may echo presentations at The Globe itself. Dedicated to the classics, Twelfth Night is a fine choice with which to open the new theater. With the exception of a couple of unsure soldiers, the cast delivers the show beautifully to life, bringing the audience to its feet once more as a final dance number somewhat confused the curtain call.

It’s a short walk from the Gold Line Parking to the theater. Consider taking the train and tell your friends that Shakespeare (or the Earl of Oxford?) is alive and well in Pasadena. Congratulations to the Company as this new venture becomes another bright jewel in the Crown City of California.

TWELFTH NIGHT

By William Shakespeare

A Noise Within

3352 E. Foothill Blvd.

Pasadena, CA 91107

Through December 16^th, 2011 in repertory

Tickets and Information: 626 356 3100

Visit www . ANoiseWithin . org

$42.00 Top

HOUSE OF GOLD (an anatomy) / Ensemble Studio Theatre

2011-10-23T22:32:00.000-07:00

It’s a fine line between what could almost be a simple narrative and the psychedelic trip currently on hand at the Atwater Village Theatre. House of Gold, playwright Gregory Moss’s surrealistic examination of the odd world of the Ramsey family of Boulder, Colorado may be searching for answers or, perhaps, the play is like a Magritte painting, leaving discovery to the beholder. The ‘fine line’ becomes a tightrope for Jacqueline Wright as JonBenet upon which to balance. For an adult to play a child is a challenge because the line between ‘playing at’ and becoming the character fluxuates unless there is a believable commitment to finding the truth of the child. This holds true for Wright as well as Alex Davis as Jasper, JonBenet’s put upon childhood pal (or is he her brother?) Their performances are mostly consistent as the story unfolds. However, accepting adults in the role of children is a stretch. Of course, what the Ramseys did to JonBenet was to manipulate her into the role of an adult, probably to allow the mother, (an excellent Denise Crosby as Woman), to live vicariously through her pretty little six year old daughter.

The opening scene exposes the strained relationship between the Woman and the Man (Tony Pasqualini)/the Father as she serves up sausages made from JonBenet. Director Gates McFadden (artistic director of Ensemble Theatre/LA) has woven together the disparate aspects of this odd piece nicely. Notwithstanding the disjointed and highly physical interstitials of the four buff Apollonian Boys (Chris Arvan, Josh Heine, Matt Little and Eric Schulman) who gang up to plague Jasper, the dreamlike quality of the piece is augmented by a very innovative use of ET/LA’s basic black box. With the audience seated at just the north and west walls of the space, the scenes change seamlessly. Kurt Boetcher’s bare bones set featuring rolling screens and set pieces provide for innovative videos by Alexander Mirecki throughout the play. Like the play itself, the set, populated with impressive video screens and psychedelic artwork covering the floor are augmented by William H. Parks’ projections and Drew Christie’s animations.

Any surrealist work of art is open for interpretation. Certainly, House of Gold is deliberately thought provoking in this regard. In the fifteen years since the tragic death of JonBenet, no one has been brought to trial for her murder. The introduction of a very creepy guy, Joe (Graham Sibley), (who may echo Jasper as an adult?) may be a suspect, but clearly, the real culprit in the sad demise of JonBenet’s spirit is The Woman who browbeats the little girl into submission to present herself as a sexy six year old.

A disparate detour from the story (perhaps a nod to Arthur Kopit?) involves JonBenet’s visit to Grandpop (Melvin Weiss) who seems to be stored in the attic. He may be her refuge or even a fantasy in the midst of her father’s advances and her mother’s manic goal of making her daughter a beauty queen. Keith Arthur Bolden rounds out the cast as the detective and the coroner.

The beauty of McFadden’s and her professional crew’s efforts for this production and the other shows I’ve seen at the Atwater Village Theatre is that they spend the energy and truly invest talent and cash to commit fully to the edgy and innovative productions they opt to mount. This is disturbing material and though not always clear as to the argument of the story, the actors and the tech work beautifully together to fulfill the director’s vision.

House of Gold by Gregory Moss

Ensemble Studio Theatre / LA

Atwater Village Theatre

3269 Casitas Avenue

Awater Village, CA 90039

Runs through December 4, 2011

Tickets and Information

323 644 1929

ensemblestudiotheatrela.org

PEACE IN OUR TIME / ANTEAUS

2011-10-21T15:08:00.000-07:00

PEACE IN OUR TIME / ANTEAUS

Anteaus’s current offering adapted by Barry Creyton from Noel Coward’s somewhat obscure drama is directed smoothly by Casey Stangl. Curtain speech by the co-directors of Anteaus mention that it is the goal of the company to not only present important and classical theatre, but to create a space for the next generation of classically trained actors for the American Stage. A noble calling, indeed. The professional presentation runs for more than two hours with an intermission.

Stangl keeps the story moving apace as it examines what life in London might have been like had the Nazis invaded and held the city during WWII. Interesting video montages separate the scenes with stock footage manipulated to show Trafalger Square and Nelson’s Column surrounded by legions of German troops with the King and Queen on hand.

There is a contract that, though unwritten, between any theatrical presentation and its audience that relies on the abandonment of disbelief ; allowing the work of the play to become more a reality than simply an evening’s entertainment. I must admit that I have a prejudice in this regard and though Anteaus productions adhere closely to maintaining the reality of their shows, in this one, the first appearance of one of those phony plastic cigarettes, frankly, bounced me wholly out of the play. Certainly, the folks in London in the forties and around the world used tobacco all the time. It may be important to the argument of the script, but, to me, it was just silly. A London pub not filled with smoke was okay, but to fake the tobacco did not make sense to me.

It’s hard to get back to the contract when the agreement is broken. The second breech of contract comes with the brilliant video montages that separate the scenes and announce the passage of time. John Apicella’s projections would have worked beautifully, had it not been for the literal explosion of over amped sound effects that accompany the images. At least one other patron literally pressed her fingers into her ears to shut out the abusive volume. Theatre of Cruelty may be okay for Artaud and in other circumstances, totally called for. However, this story, though filled with palpable tension and effective brutality, is not served by the assault that the opening night audience was subjected to.

Stangl’s ability to hone his cast to a single unit, especially as he is directing essentially two separate shows is professional. The choice to insert some of Coward’s music accompanied by Richard Levinson’s live piano in the pub is an effective one. There are stand outs in the company. Steve Hofvendahl as the pub owner, Fred Shattock, holds the cast together beautifully. Because the cast is huge and references to the character names come infrequently, a strong nod to the raven haired chanteuse is in order as well as to Shattock’s wife, Nora, played by Lily Knight. This is an ensemble piece and notwithstanding the blatant distractions noted above, if one is a fan of Antaeus and owns earplugs, it may be worth a trip to NoHo for the show. It’s a long one. The British accents are acceptable to each Brit. Not so much for the Germans and one Austrian.

Peace in Our Time by Noel Coward

The Antaeus Company @ Deaf West Theatre

5112 Lankershim Blvd.

NoHo 91601

October 20 through December 11, 2011

$34 top

Tickets: 818 506 1983

www.Antaeus.org

IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE! ANTAEUS READING

2011-10-17T13:11:00.000-07:00

Some theatre and literature is so vital that it cannot be denied. Antaeus Theatre Company dedicates itself to meaty stuff and this reading is one that should be heard, the novel read or the play presented. Unfortunately, Antaeus will do this reading only one time, but I hope they will consider mounting it or at least extending the readings to otherwise dark nights at Deaf West. Sinclair Lewis's novel was adapted into a play for the Federal Theatre in 1936. This reading commemorates the 75th anniversary of the production of the play. From Lucy Pollak, the following information:

WHAT:
Antaeus presents a reading of It Can’t Happen Here as part of a nation-wide effort to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Federal Theatre’s production in 1936. The dramatization of Sinclair Lewis’ satirical novel imagines an America overtaken by Fascism, tying in with the current Antaues production of Noël Coward’s Peace In Our Time which poses a similar question: what if the Nazis had successfully invaded and occupied Britain?

WHO:
Written by by Sinclair Lewis and John C. Moffitt
Directed by Gigi Birmingham
Featuring John Achorn, Daniel Blinkoff, Avery Clyde, Kevin Daniels, Jeff Doba, Robert Goldsby, Arye Gross, Shannon Holt, Adrian Latourelle, William Mitchell, Angela Paton, Nicholas Podany, Joseph Ruskin, James Sutorius, Jason Thomas, and the voice of Dakin Matthews

WHEN:
Wednesday, Oct 26 @ 8 pm

WHERE:
THE ANTAEUS COMPANY@ Deaf West Theatre
5112 Lankershim Blvd.
North Hollywood CA 91601
(one block south of Magnolia; free parking available in Citibank lot on Lankershim Blvd. South of Otsego St.)

HOW:
(818) 506-1983 or www.Antaeus.org

TICKETS:
Free (donations accepted)

More good news

2011-10-16T12:03:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about this opportunity to share information about theatre in Los Angeles and environs is that I get to be objective and subjective at the same time. The handful of theatres who invite us to see their shows are generally professional in their approach and quality.

With the opening of their new ten million dollar plus theatre, A Noise Within Theatre Company has just announced their premiere Pasadena season. The Elliotts have taken the concept of "My uncle has a barn!" and "I can get some lights, let's put on a show!" to new heights. They deserve an audience. Though, once word gets out, tickets may be a challenge to obtain.

Check the ANW website for the upcoming season and ... if you are a fan of farce, check your supply of Depends and do not fail to see Noises Off revived in January in the new ANW space!

They open soon with Twelfth Night. Play on!

http://www.anoisewithin.org/theplays.html

GOOD NEWS!!

2011-09-26T18:25:00.001-07:00

If you have not made it down to the Fountain Theater to see Bakersfield Mist, the good news is that it's been extended for the third time and for art aficianados and fans of fine acting and a good script, you have until December 18th to see Jenny O'Hara and Nick Ullett bringing home yeoman's work. Stephen Sachs' script and his fluid direction bring his show to life. It's a tour de force for the actors. The audience can't help but have great time. Thought provoking and funny.

Google Bakersfield Mist / Fountain Theatre for details or page back to my review here. Don't miss this one!!

ANW OPEN HOUSE OCTOBER 23, 2011

2011-09-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

A NOISE WITHIN, Pasadena's brand new theatre complex, will host an Open House on Sunday, October 23, 2011 from 1 to 4PM. Glendale's favorite arts venue is almost ready to bring Classic Theatre back to the boards. Seeing the space should be a unique pleasure for aficianados of Theatre with a capital "T."

Reservations are a must.

A NOISE WITHIN is located on the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Sierra Madre Villa Avenue at 3352 East Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91107. Free self parking is located in the Sierra Madre Villa Metro parking structure, with entrances on northbound Sierra Madre Villa Avenue or North Halsted Street. The Open House is free, but reservations are required and may be made by calling (626) 356-3127. www.ANoiseWithin.org.

The Encyclopedia of Hallucinations La Luz de Jesus Gallery

2011-09-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

If you have not visited Billy Shire's La Luz de Jesus / Wacko / Soap Plant Gallery on Hollywood Boulevard, you are missing out on a piece of Hollywood history. Originally on Melrose in the heart of hip and happening, the gallery moved to East Hollywood (just east of Vermont) bringing the feeling of Melrose to the neighborhood. The area is burgeoning with 21st century boutiques and venues.

The current show in the Gallery features the art of Rob Reger and his gal pal, Emily the Strange. Emily, for those who may not have heard, is a darkly "tween" who brooks no fools nor posers. Now a world wide phenomenon, Rob's original artwork featuring Emily and many images of kitties, is exciting collectors.

The show next door features outsider artists presented by Gordon W. Bailey including south eastern US artists including the raw emotion of Sam Doyle.

Included in the gallery with Rob's paintings are weird little critters "Misfits of the Forest" by Lauren Gardiner.

The amazing inventory of the space is worth the trip alone. Say hello to Matt Kennedy, the gallery director and tell him OnStageLosAngeles sent you. Gallery owner, Billy Shire is hard to miss. His championing of new art should be applauded.

Show closes on October 3, 2011. Parking is tough on the weekends, but not impossible.

http://www.laluzdejesus.com/shows/2011/September_2011.html

http://www.emilystrange.com/blog/index.cfm/2011/8/31/Rob-Reger-Art-Show-The-Encyclopedia-of-Hallucinations-La-Luz-de-Jesus-Gallery

DRAMA WEST FEST: Play Readings by the Seat of Their Pants!

2011-08-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

DRAMA WEST FEST

Good news for Silverlake locals and fans of new theatre. In a funky little community meeting room at the Edendale Library at Sunset and Alvarado, theatre by the seat of its pants is burgeoning.

Every other month Catherine Stanley, producer and Hettie Lynne Hurtes, casting director, present a handful of very short plays in staged readings. This kind of theatre is vital to the community as it gives playwrights, actors and directors an opportunity to toss ideas into the air just to hear them on their feet. Or to see if they might fly?

Playing to a packed house (over fifty in attendance) Saturday’s performances included six clever pieces that showcased six playwrights and a healthy company of players and directors. Also included was a well written and produced short film, "Misusing Irony."

Play readings were climaxed by Mary Steelsmith’s “The Miraculous Day Quartet,” a chilling recounting of four diverse characters all somehow not where they should have been on September 11^th 2001. Presented in a somewhat Beckettian manner conducted by a maestro with a baton, director Susan Stangl brought the piece in nicely.

Steelsmith has been writing plays for over thirty years and it was a pleasure to see her and remembering her one act, “WACs in Khaki” which we produced at The Company Theatre in 1981!

Playwrights, directors and actors are solicited for the Drama West Fest at the Edendale. Pieces should be no longer than ten minutes and may be presented as a staged reading. This is truly theatre by the seat of its pants.

Next readings will be presented around the last Saturday in October.

For more information producer Catherine Staley may be reached at dramawest@cox.net.

Virtual Realty Comes to the Stage

2011-08-26T21:39:00.000-07:00

“You are Dead. You are Here.” is a theatre piece in progress written by playwright Christine Evans collaborating with University of North Carolina director Joseph Megel. Story turns on actual therapy currently being developed along with a program called Virtual Iraq that literally takes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder patients back to the scene of the crime: war torn Iraq, to help them confront the issues brought on by the tragedy of being in war.

Presented at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, a beautiful complex in Playa Vista, Evans’ play will eventually be mounted using Virtual Reality programs currently in development at the ICT. Today’s reading featured Media design by Jared Mezzochi which incorporated projections including Skype images as well as use of the current Virtual Iraq program.

Essentially, a trained psychologist sits with a young African American soldier who has reluctantly agreed to “give a shot” at what he expects to be a virtual reality game. The depths to which the therapist and the client must delve unfold readily with examples of the new technology being used with actual patients who are suffering from PTSD. As in any good story an additional element is brought in to add to the mystery of the play. Apologies to the excellent actors whose names I neglected to take down.

It was noted that not everyone thinks that having PTSD patients wading back into their traumatic situations via Virtual Iraq is a good idea. The results in the real world remain to be tallied.

The evolving use of New Media in theatre is on the cutting edge thanks to the collaboration with USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies.

Thanks to Joseph Megel, Christine Evans and Jared Mezzochi and their cast of three who are opening not only these new techniques to the stage, but helping to defuse the stigma of seeking treatment for trauma experienced by the fighting men and women of the United States.

Please check the attached video for the results of the work in a reading at UNC in May, 2011.

http://vimeo.com/23592174

Free Theatah!

2011-08-24T23:33:00.000-07:00

For those of you who listen to KPCC, Hettie Lynne Hurtes and friends produce readings of original One Act Plays at the Edendale Library (Alvarado and Sunset) this Saturday, August 27, 2011 at 2PM. Free Parking behind the library.

Drama West this SATURDAY!!!

Location: Edendale Library Sunset at Alvalrado

Time: ‎2:00PM Saturday, August 27th

A WHALE OF A TALE!

2011-08-05T22:45:00.001-07:00

Guest Reviewer Zach Siefert-Ponce is nineteen and will attend his first year of college in September. His passion for writing and interest in Theatre prompted me to invite him to see this show and write his own review. As a recent scholar of Melville, his insights are succinct and relevant.

A Whale of a Tale: Moby Dick Rehearsed at the Lyric Theatre in Hollywood

To those of us who are fond of brilliance, it may seem as though only too much can be said about Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, and the genius of Orson Welles tends to speak for itself. Director Aliah Whitmore skillfully blends the artistry of both in Orson Welles’s Moby Dick Rehearsed, now presented by the Whitmore Eclectic at the Lyric Theatre. This play recounts the plot of Herman Melville’s novel as experienced by an intense young enthusiast, The Young Actor/Ishmael—vigorously played by Dustin Seavey—who insists that parts of this book were meant to be spoken; James Whitmore Jr.’s performance of Father Mapple’s Sermon in the following scene assures us that this is true as the words of Melville swallow the audience whole and the voice that speaks them rains fire and brimstone.

However interesting the play, this production of Moby Dick Rehearsed is not for the lazy audience member. From the beginning the audience is made to understand that more is required of them than usual: the actors bring the characters to life, but it is left to the imagination of the audience to provide the sea and the whale. This is not difficult with the strength of Ishmael’s narrative voice; Seavey’s intensity cuts through the audience’s concentration, as does that of James Whitmore Jr. and Richard Cox.

However, the monologues of the three major speaking roles were written with such strict poetics and attention to detail that any slight mistake stings the ear. Every stammer feels like a stumble and every missed rest like a record skipping. Mistakes were minimal, but noticeable; overall, they are forgivable.

The timeless passages and monologues of Moby Dick are brought to life with authenticity and all of the Gothic Realism that is signature to the style of Herman Melville. The play stays true to the words of Melville which are delivered with an intensity that transcends volume. The major speaking roles are those of James Whitmore Jr. as Captain Ahab, Dustin Seavey as Ishmael, and Richard Cox as Starbuck, all of whom capture the very essence of their characters. The remainder of the cast embodies the entire crew, whether on or off stage, with a mix of general whale ship sounds and caricatured representations—most notably Flask’s feistiness, which is embodied by Andrew Patton’s mustache, and Kate McManus’s portrayal of Pip, whose tone of voice seems to always be saying “remember, I’m a little black boy.”

At times, due to the proportions of the stage, all of the actors are crossing each other’s paths at once, weaving in and out of each other’s way. The stage becomes so busy with movement that the audience is not certain who or what to watch. Director Aliah Whitmore capitalizes on this organized confusion and the audience finds that their eyes are beginning to follow their ears; people with stiff necks should consider waiting for their pain to subside before making their visit to see this play as it will be showing through August 28th.

The grim authenticity of Melville’s work is palpable with the first glimpse of the stage. The stage itself has limitations in its depth as well as its lighting, but to master one’s limitations is to create one’s own style. It is obvious from the first scene that a harmony of relationship exists between the director and the building itself. What the stage lacks in depth it more than makes up for in width which may prove to be a hindrance to most other directors who do not possess the personal understanding of a stage that Aliah Whitmore has with her own.
Complete with lofty speeches and talented directing, the tableaus of frozen faces make this production priceless, let alone worth twenty dollars; this production of Moby Dick Rehearsed is a fun time for any active imagination.

Moby Dick Rehearsed by Orson Welles
Directed by Aliah Whitmore
The Whitmore Eclectic
The Lyric Theater
520 N. La Brea Ave
Los Angeles, Ca 90036
Tickets and Information
818-826-3609
Thursdays through Saturdays at 8PM
Sundays at 3PM
Closes August 28th
Tickets $20

THAR SHE BLOWS!

2011-08-01T23:17:00.000-07:00

Top, left to right: Kate McManus, Andrew Patton, Dustin Seavey, Richard Cox, Steve Madar, Michael Welch; Center: James Whitmore Jr.; Bottom: Andre Verderame (l.), Rob Fabiani. Photo by Fabiani

MOBY DICK: REHEARSED at The Lyric in Hollywood.

Orson Welles, born almost a hundred years after the birth of Herman Melville, shared some of Melville’s adventurous spirit that was evident also at an early age. Melville, born in 1819, was just 22 when he signed on a whaling ship and found himself round the Horn in the Galapagos Islands. Experiencing the sea and the hard work of whale hunting likely led to his magnificent 1851 tome, Moby Dick, known to most of us through director John Huston with Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab in the epic 1956 film. Welles has long since been recognized as a genius with his work with the Mercury Theatre and Citizen Kane. His dedication to art and new ideas blossoms these fifty some years later in Whitmore Eclectic’s production of Moby Dick: Rehearsed now playing at the Lyric.

As the audience settles, we observe various members of the cast on the periphery of the stage and learn from the Stage Manager (Director Aliah Whitmore, third generation of the acclaimed acting family) and her silent assistant Andre Verderme, that a rehearsal of the show is about to begin. They are visible off right with live music and sound effects through out, reminding us that this is, after all, a theatrical... circa late eighteen hundreds. Jacob Whitmore’s set and Grant Dun’s lights are purposely simple representations, allowing the audience to make up the difference, helping to create the reality of the tale as the actors take on multiple roles depicting the well known story. Well done costumes are not credited.

As The Young Actor, Dustin Seavey, evolves into Ishmael, who has survived alone to tell the story. Eclectic founder James Whitmore (The Governor, Father Mapple, Ahab), bursts upon the stage with all the charisma that one must have.. as Welles indeed possessed.. to command the scene, first spouting lines from King Lear as Welles himself must have read them. We learn that budget is an issue. Thus, the rigging of the Pequod is very basic with marginal props and lighting to depict the journey into the Atlantic and on to warmer waters to seek out and destroy the Leviathan who has claimed Captain Ahab’s leg. In the actors’ speeches we hear the voice of the playwright. As the actual rehearsal begins, the voice of Melville is brought to life.

The introduction of the players is telling. There is a professional pecking order in the company. Tim deZarn literally steals the scene as The Old Pro, purposely chewing the scenery from time to time. As the characters in the rehearsal come to life, the egos of the actors whom we’ve met are left behind. Also notable is Richard Cox as Starbuck, the attempted conscience of Ahab whose pleadings to abandon the vengeful hunt go unheeded.

Director Aliah Whitmore has whipped her crew into an ensemble who function as a well-tuned machine. Their physical dedication to the show is outstanding. Benches for whaling boats and rag tag suggestions of the Pequod work well.

Cross casting of talented Kate McManus as the Black Cabin Boy, Pip is a challenge. She mentions that there are no parts for women in the play, so she is cast as Pip. Her rendition works beautifully. In fact each of the ensemble members, Steve Madar, Robert Fabiani, Andrew Patton, Michael G. Welch in multiple roles are well defined as individuals.

Why the design did not include actual sails that may have been unfurled from time to time was a mystery to me as the crew hove to with ropes and pulleys as the Pequod found, at last, the White Whale. The strenuous business of the encounter is dramatic and exhausting.

Whitmore’s ensemble is a hearty and dedicated crew. The show deserves an audience.

MOBY DICK: REHEARSED

Presented by Whitmore Eclectic

Lyric Theatre

520 N. La Brea

Hollywood, CA 90036

Thursday through Saturday at 8PM

Sundays at 3PM

Closes August 28, 2011

Reservations 818 826 3609

www.whitmoreeclectidotcom

$20 Top

GOOD NEWS!

2011-07-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

For those of you who love great theatre, don't miss BAKERSFIELD MIST extended through September 3, 2011 at The Fountain Theatre (Fountain and Normandie) in Hollywood. See previous post for contact information. Ullett and O'Hara nail their characters in the story based on retired truck driver Terri Horton's art find.

Stephen Sachs has a winner with this one. Don't miss it!

For the full story rent Who the Blank is Jackson Pollock? Fascinating.

Mysterious Bakersfield Mist

2011-06-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

Bakersfield Mist, written and directed by Stephen Sachs is a brilliant new play having its world premiere at The Fountain Theatre in Hollywood. It echoes the real life story of Teri Horton, a retired truck driver, who, in 1990, found a very large canvas in a thrift store in San Bernardino. The dumpster diving lady invested five bucks and her quest began. Over the years, she has been offered, ostensibly, nine million dollars for the painting. To date, she has refused to sell, citing the desire to properly vet the canvas to the abstract expressionist, Jackson Pollock. “Bakersfield Mist” references Pollock's 1950 painting “Lavender Mist” currently in the National Gallery of Art.

Jenny O’Hara as Maude Gutman limns the tougher than nails, hard drinking and smoking former bar tender who buys a painting at a local thrift store bargaining the price from five to three bucks. O’Hara’s portrayal slowly builds but is hampered slightly because the script calls for Maude to smoke. The nasty habit is one that the actor probably does not have and it shows. Certainly, Maude could be tough and hard drinking without faking the smoking. It’s a nit pick in an otherwise beautifully evolving portrayal. As with Horton’s story, Maude greets the prim and proper Art Evaluator, Lionel Percy (finely tuned Nick Ullett). former director of the Museum of Modern Art (it’s in New York, you know) who arrives in a limo to see Maude's spattered canvas. It looks as though the business will take only a few minutes. Indeed, in a ‘blink’ Percy finds Maude’s painting to be anything but authentic. And, then the tussle begins. Maude insists that it must be real: a genuine Pollock. Percy insists that it is not. But, Maude’s desperate search for Truth evokes questions that lead to doubts that lead to an examination of personal taste and the true nature of Art.

Ullett stops the show as he channels Pollock, envisioning the artist as he creates a canvas: laid out on the floor, engaging it passionately. O’Hara’s potty mouth erupts naturally and uncontrollably throughout. Later we see past her crusty shell as she reveals the hardships she has faced, exposing a thoughtful inner woman.

Set designer Jeff McLaughlin’s single wide trailer bristles beautifully with tchotchkes and clutter, setting the scene for the dance that Maude and Percy tumble into. The whole question of what art really is… how it can move the Spirit of Man and capture the soul… unfolds in ways that thoughtfully enlighten. Visions of Yasmina Reza’s award winning play, “ART,” are brought to mind as the discussion of the painting deepens. It’s a pas de deux exploring the question of who really knows best and what, exactly, is ‘good taste’ as the play digs deeper into the characters’ psyches. Sachs directs with a steady hand and the actors bring not only strong comedic touches to the story, but moments of tension, angst and drama.

Ken Booth’s lighting works well except for one odd flare from off stage right. It may have been meant to be the setting sun. Or, it may have simply been a misdirected instrument which drew attention to itself by glaring in the faces of the actors. As the show progressed I thought the light might fade. Eventually, it does, but not quickly enough for that one lone spot. Technical glitches are forgivable, but should never be so obvious as to distract from the play itself.

After watching the Tonys on television tonight, I realize anew that it is only in the living theatre where an audience is directly involved with a once in a lifetime art filled experience. Every performance is unique. These professional actors mount the stage to create their own distinctive form of art. In the moment, O’Hara and Ullett, bring this quirky story beautifully to life. This is the Real McCoy. The Art of Theatre, when presented with such care, as this show is, is undeniable.

BAKERSFIELD MIST
Written and directed by Stephen Sachs
The Fountain Theatre
5060 Fountain Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90029
(Fountain at Normandie)
Tickets and information
323 663 1525
www .FountainTheatre dot com
Thursdays through Sundays
Closes July 31, 2011
$30 top (discounts for seniors and students)

Importance of The Importance

2011-06-02T10:49:00.000-07:00

See below for information regarding screenings of this play just about anywhere in the Universe. Good show!

Produced by Julie and Robert Borchard-Young for BY Experience, Susan A. Loewenberg for LA Theatre Works and Harold Wolpert for the Roundabout Theatre Company, The Importance of Being Earnest ... Oscar Wilde's comedy of manners, shines beautifully after over a hundred years. The words are brought to life by a finely tuned cast with Brian Bedford at the helm as well as playing the completely genuine Oh So Upper Class Lady Bracknell.

As an ensemble, the excellent cast performs without flaw and should have been mentioned initially:
Jayne Houdyshell (Miss Prism)
Brian Murray (Rev. Canon Chasuble)
Jessie Austrian (Gwendolen Fairfax)
David Furr (John Worthing)
Paul O'Brien (Lane)
Charlotte Parry (Cecily Cardew)
Tim MacDonald (Merriman)
Amanda Leigh Cobb (Servant)

Desmond Heeley (Set & Costume Design)

All tech credits are professional. Seeing the play in high definition, certainly, is not 'being there' but the experience is very impressive. David Hyde Pierce hosts an interview with Bedford that may have played better after the show itself. Ditto for a glimpse of the actor's transformation to Bracknell at the intermission. I prefer the illusion first and then the insights. It was a little like a magician showing the audience how she does the trick and then performing it. Too broad an analogy, but you get the idea.

Regardless, please find your way to the UCLA James Bridges Theatre (see below) or to other venues listed below for the ongoing HD performances. The play simply works. Bedford's broad strokes resound like listening to a favorite tune that one is happy to hear again and again. The sparkling wit of Wilde as he explores the issues of Class and Love in Victorian England is as fresh as it must have been in 1895.

Kudos to All Concerned for this bright idea to bring the Broadway stage to the country, indeed the whole world. Sitting in a theatre with a full audience, sharing the show with the New York audience is almost like being there. Video direction by David Stern is unobtrusive and though Bedford's staging has actors pictured at wide angles from time to time, closeups provide subtle insights that we would never see from the balcony.

The opening night audience at UCLA thoroughly enjoyed the show, as did I.

See the trailer at www.EarnestHD.com

Normally, I'll keep my reviews relatively succinct. At the request of the Roundabout Theatre Company the information for the entire series of these special HD Events is listed below. Feel free to copy and paste to friends, relatives and colleagues across the country, in foreign lands where the electricity may still be working and anywhere in the Universe they may roam.

///

Roundabout Theatre Company, L.A. Theatre Works and BY Experience
Announce dates & venues for international high-definition screenings
of
Roundabout Theatre Company’s acclaimed Broadway production of
Oscar Wilde’s comedy
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
Directed by and starring Brian Bedford

Global screenings begin on June 2, 2011
Hosted by David Hyde Pierce!

To view the HD trailer visit: www.EarnestHD.com

Roundabout Theatre Company, L.A. Theatre Works and BY Experience are thrilled to announce dates and venues for the upcoming screening of Roundabout’s critically acclaimed Broadway production of Oscar Wilde’s comedy The Importance of Being Earnest, directed by and starring Brian Bedford.

The Importance of Being Earnest: Live in HD will screen across the U.S. and internationally on Thursday, June 2, 2011 and varying dates through June 28. Digitally equipped movie theaters and performing arts centers throughout the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico, and throughout Europe have signed on to host special screenings.

This high-definition event brings the best of Broadway to movie audiences, and includes the added bonus of host David Hyde Pierce taking viewers backstage for special behind-the-scenes peek! Mr. Hyde Pierce says: “This delightful production of Earnest shouldn't be missed, and for the people who can't see it on Broadway, Broadway is coming to them.”

Oscar Wilde expert Michael Hackett and actor Alfred Molina will discuss the writer and the man in an intermission special.

The Importance of Being Earnest: Live in HD was captured live in high-definition from Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre (227 West 42^nd St.) and features the original cast of this new Broadway production.

The Importance of Being Earnest is a glorious comedy of mistaken identity, which ridicules codes of propriety and etiquette. Dashing men-about-town John Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff pursue fair ladies Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew. Matters are complicated by the imaginary characters invented by both men to cover their on-the-sly activities – not to mention the disapproval of Gwendolen’s mother, the formidable Lady Bracknell.

A full list of participating cinemas, exhibition dates and ticket prices is available at www.EarnestHD.com. New venues will continue to be added.

U.S.VENUE & DATE INFORMATION:

ARIZONA
The Loft Theater (Tuscon, AZ) – June 5
Phoenix Art Museum (Phoenix, AZ) – June 12

CALIFORNIA
Downtown Independent (Los Angeles, CA) – June 9
The Gaslamp (San Diego, CA) – June 22, 23
James Bridges Theater at UCLA (Los Angeles, CA) – June 2, 5, 23, 26
La Mirada Theatre (La Mirada, CA) – June 26
Lark Theater (Larkspur, CA) – June 6
Mann Theatre (Hollywood, CA) – June 2, 7
Rialto Cinema Cerrito (El Cerrito, CA) – June 2, 13
Rialto Cinemas Elmwood (Berkeley, CA) – June 2, 7
Rialto Cinemas Sixth Street Playhouse (Santa Rosa, CA) – June 7, 14
Sierra Cinemas (Grass Valley, CA) – June 8
Sundance Kabuki (San Francisco, CA) – June 12, 13

COLORADO
Colorado Mountain College (Breckenridge, CO) – June 2

CONNECTICUT
Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center (Old Saybrook, CT) – June 7
Quick Center for the Arts (Fairfield, CT) – June 4, 10

GEORGIA
Douglass Theatre (Macon, GA) – June 5, 19

HAWAII

Kahala 8 Theater (Honolulu, HI) – June 16, 19

ILLINOIS
McKendree University (Lebanon, IL) – June 2
Music Box Theater (Chicago, IL) – June 9, 12

INDIANA
Notre Dame Browning Cinema (Notre Dame, IN) – June 28

MAINE
The Grand Auditorium (Ellsworth, ME) – June TBC
The Lincoln Theater (Damariscotta, ME) – June 2
The Strand (Rockland, ME) – June 2, 5, 7

MARYLAND
Avalon Theatre (Easton, MD) – June 2

MASSACHUSETTS
Amherst Cinema (Amherst, MA) – June 2, 18, 21, 26
Cape Cinema (Dennis, MA) – June 2
Coolidge Corner (Boston, MA) – June 2
Julie Harris Stage (Wellfleet, MA) – June 4, 11, 18, 25
Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center (Great Barrington, MA) – June 9
Shalin Liu Performance Center (Rockport, MA) – June 5
The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (Williamstown, MA) – June 18

MICHIGAN
Michigan Theater (Ann Arbor, MI) – June 2

MINNESOTA
Guthrie Theatre (Minneapolis, MN) – June 6

MISSOURI
Tivoli Cinemas (Kansas City, MO) – June 13, 19

NEBRASKA
Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center (Lincoln, NE) – June 9, 12

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth (Hanover, NH) – June 24, 25
The Music Hall (Portsmouth, NH) – June 2

NEW JERSEY
Pollak Theatre at Monmouth University (West Long Branch, NJ) – June 4

NEW MEXICO
The Lensic (Santa Fe, NM) – June 2
Taos Community Auditorium (Taos, NM) – June 8, 17

NEW YORK
Cinema Arts Center (Huntington, NY) – June 2
Cinema 123 (New York, NY) – June 2, 5
Jacob Burns Film Center (Pleasantville, NY) – June 22
John Drew Theater at Guild Hall (East Hampton, NY) – June 2
Kew Gardens Cinemas (Queens, NY) – June 2 two showings
Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (New York, NY) – June 11
Spectrum 8 Theatres (Albany, NY) – June 2, 5, 12, 13
Staller Center, SUNY Stony Brook (Stony Brook, NY) – June 2
Time & Space Limited (Hudson, NY) – June 2, 4, 11, 12

NORTH CAROLINA
Hanesbrands Theatre (Winston-Salem, NC) – June TBC
Lumina Theater at UNCW (Wilmington, NC) – June 2
Sunrise Theater (Southern Pines, NC) – June 2 two showings

OHIO
Cedar Lee Theatre (Cleveland Height, OH) – June 22, 26

OKLAHOMA
Circle Cinema (Tulsa, OK) – June 9

OREGON
Newport Performing Arts Center (Newport, OR) – June 24
Third Rail Rep at the World Trade Center Theater (Portland, OR) – June 2, 12

PENNSYLVANIA
Allentown Symphony Hall (Allentown, PA) – June 2, 10
Ambler Theater (Ambler, PA) – June 2, 5, 12
Bryn Mawr Film Institute (Bryn Mawr, PA) – June 2, 5
County Theater (Doylestown, PA) – June 2, 5
Mary D’Angelo Performing Arts Center at Mercyhurst College (Erie, PA) – June 2
Oaks Theater (Oakmont, PA) – June 2, 5

RHODE ISLAND
Jane Pickens Theater, Event Center (Newport, RI) – June 2

TENNESSEE

Paradiso Cinema (Memphis, TN) – June 12, 14

TEXAS
Angelika Film Center (Dallas, TX) – June 8, 9
Angelika Film Center (Plano, TX) – June 12, 14

VERMONT
Catamount Arts (St. Johnsbury, VT) - June 2, 4
Town Hall Theater/Opera Company (Middlebury, VT) – June 12

VIRGINIA
The Paramount Theater (Charlottesville, VA) – June 4 two showings

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Shakespeare Theatre Company, Sidney Harman Hall (Washington, DC) – June 28

WASHINGTON
The Lincoln Theater (Mount Vernon, WA) – June 2, 12
Rose Theatre (Port Townsend, WA) – June 4, 11, 12, 18
SIFF Cinema (Seattle, WA) – June 2, 5

WISCONSIN
Sundance Cinemas (Madison, WI) – June 25, 27

The Importance of Being Earnest: Live in HD cast features the original company of this new Broadway production featuring Dana Ivey as “Miss Prism,” Paxton Whitehead as “Rev. Canon Chasuble,” Santino Fontana as “Algernon Moncrieff,” David Furr as “John Worthing,” Tim MacDonald as “Merriman,” Paul O’Brien as “Lane,” Charlotte Parry as “Cecily Cardew,” Sara Topham as “Gwendolen Fairfax” and Amanda Leigh Cobb as “Servant.” The design team includes Desmond Heeley (Sets & Costumes), Duane Schuler (Lights) and Drew Levy (Sound).

Elysa Gardner of USA Today says “Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway production of Wilde’s most famous play is delightful! Bedford proves a perfect fit for Earnest's juiciest character”. Charles Isherwood of the New York Times says: “The great actor Brian Bedford is brilliant in this funny and effervescent production. It’s one of the great performances of the season; to miss it would most definitely look like carelessness.” Scott Brown of NY Magazine says Earnest is “Funny as hell!” And Charles Spencer of the London Telegraph exclaims: “Brian Bedford’s production is the finest ‘Importance’ I have ever seen.”

The Importance of Being Earnest: Live in HD was filmed and is being distributed to movie theaters and performing arts centers globally by New York-based BY Experience.

Executive Producers for cinema are Julie Borchard-Young and Robert Borchard-Young for BY Experience, Susan A. Loewenberg for L.A. Theatre Works, and Harold Wolpert for Roundabout Theatre Company.

Lead funding for this project is provided by the Sidney E. Frank Foundation.

Due to demand, the critically acclaimed Broadway engagement of The Importance of Being Earnest was extended 17-weeks through Sunday, July 3^rd, 2011. The Stratford Shakespeare Festival presented an acclaimed production of The Importance of Being Earnest, directed by and starring Brian Bedford, in 2009.

BROADWAY TICKET INFORMATION:

Tickets are available by calling Roundabout Ticket Services at (212)719-1300, online at www.roundabouttheatre.org or at the American Airlines Box Office (227 West 42^nd Street). Ticket prices range from $72.00-122.00.

To become a Roundabout subscriber visit www.roundabouttheatre.org or call Roundabout Ticket Services (212)719-1300.

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE:

The Importance of Being Earnest plays Tuesday evenings at 7:00PM, Wednesday through Saturday evening at 8:00PM with Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:00PM.

ABOUT ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANY:

Roundabout Theatre Companyis a not-for-profit theatre dedicated to providing a nurturing artistic home for theatre artists at all stages of their careers where the widest possible audience can experience their work at affordable prices. Roundabout fulfills its mission each season through the revival of classic plays and musicals; development and production of new works by established playwrights and emerging writers; educational initiatives that enrich the lives of children and adults; and a subscription model and audience outreach programs that cultivate loyal audiences.

Roundabout Theatre Companycurrently produces at three permanent homes each of which is designed specifically to enhance the needs of the Roundabout's mission. Off-Broadway, the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, which houses the Laura Pels Theatre and Black Box Theatre, with its simple
sophisticated design is perfectly suited to showcasing new plays. The grandeur of its Broadway home on 42^nd Street, American Airlines Theatre, sets the ideal stage for the classics. Roundabout's Studio 54 provides an exciting and intimate Broadway venue for its musical and special event productions. Together these three distinctive venues serve to enhance the work on each of its stages.

American Airlines is the official airline of Roundabout Theatre Company. Roundabout productions are made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State’s 62 counties; and the City of New York Theater Subdistrict Council, LDC and the City of New York.

Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2010-2011 season features Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, starring and directed by Brian Bedford; Tennessee Williams’ The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore starring Olympia Dukakis, directed by Michael Wilson; Anything Goes starring Sutton Foster & Joel Grey, directed & choreographed by Kathleen Marshall; David West Read’s The Dream of the Burning Boy, directed by Evan Cabnet; Dart, Stoller, Butler’s The People in the Picture, starring Donna Murphy, directed by Leonard Foglia; Stone, Meehan & Yeston’s Death Takes a Holiday, directed by Doug Hughes.

Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2011-2012 will feature Bob Fosse’s Dancin’, directed by Graciela Daniele; Stephen Karam’s Sons of the Prophet, directed by Peter DuBois; John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger, directed by Sam Gold.

ABOUT L.A. THEATRE WORKS:

L.A. Theatre Works (LATW) has been recording award-winning audio versions of stage plays, musicals, and novels for nearly three decades. Founded in 1974, LATW, under the leadership of Producing Director, Susan Albert Loewenberg, is a non-profit theatre and media arts organization which marries innovative forms of technology with timeless and compelling stories. LATW's long-running weekly radio show, L.A. Theatre Works, is heard on NPR stations nationwide, and its unprecedented collection of over 400 recordings is available in thousands of libraries, via iTunes, Amazon, in bookstores and direct from LATW.org. Plays are recorded in front of live audiences (The Play's the Thing) with America's top actors as well as in the studio, and the company tours nationally with its radio-style productions. L.A. Theatre Works recordings are made available for secondary education (Alive & Aloud, for middle and high schools) and to under-served communities (Library Access), and now to higher education through its recently launched The Play's the Thing for Higher Education project, a digital database of plays indexed for use in scholarly research and college and university instruction.

Recent recordings include Lucy Prebble’s Enron, starring Steven Weber, Greg Germann & Amy Pietz, directed by Rosalind Ayres; Kenneth Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth, starring Mark Ruffalo, Josh Hamilton and Missy Yager, directed by Mark Brokaw; Terry Johnson’s The Graduate, starring Kathleen Turner and Matthew Rhys, directed by John Rubinstein; Tartuffe starring Brian Bedford, directed by Rosalind Ayres; Arcadia starring Kate Burton, Peter Paige, Gregory Itzin, directed by John Rubinstein; Jon Robin Baitz’s The Paris Letter, starring Ron Rifkin, Neil Patrick Harris, Josh Radnor and Patricia Wettig, directed by Peter Levin; and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin In The Sun, starring Judyann Elder, Corey Hawkins and Rutina Wesley, directed by Lou Bellamy.

ABOUT BY EXPERIENCE:

BY Experience kicked off the digital revolution of live events to movie theaters and other locations globally with David Bowie’s 2003 Reality album launch and since then, nearly 10 million tickets have been sold worldwide for events BY Experience has distributed and/or produced. BY Experience introduced the live in cinema concept to the Metropolitan Opera, and from conception of the Live in HD series in 2006 to the present, has served as the Met’s Worldwide HD Distribution Representative. In 2009, BY Experience began working with the U.K.’s National Theatre as International (ex-UK) Distribution Representative for National Theatre Live, now in its second season. BY Experience teamed up with The New York Times on its speaker’s series, TimesTalks LIVE for select cinema events with authors John Irving and Steven King, and the creators of ABC’s hit series Lost (2009 - 2010). Additionally, BY Experience has produced, distributed, and executive produced several highly successful unique one off events for cinemas, including the public radio shows A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor (February and October 2010) and This American Life – Live! with Ira Glass (April 2008 and May 2009), several high profile concerts includingThe Big Four: Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax (June 2010), BBC Electric Proms: Robbie Williams (October 2009), David Gilmour: Remember That Night — Live from the Royal Albert Hall (September 2007), and the classic music celebrations BBC Last Night of the Proms (September 2009 and September 2010). For more information, visit: www.byexperience.net

www.earnesthd.com

www.roundabouttheatre.org

Follow ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANY on Twitter: @RTC_NYC and on Facebook.

Follow BBB on Twitter: @BBBway and on Facebook.

For the most up to date press releases visit our Blog.

Fond Farewell ANW Benefit Performances

2011-05-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

As A Noise Within Classical Theatre gathers its tents to repair to Pasadena, they invite subscribers and those who have appreciated their work over the years to a Benefit Farewell Retrospective.

From the press release:

SPECIAL "RETROSPECTIVE" BENEFIT
HIGHLIGHTING 19-YEAR HISTORY
AS ONE OF REGION'S LEADING THEATRE COMPANIES
BEFORE HIGHLY ANTICIPATED MOVE
TO PERMANENT NEW HOME IN PASADENA NEXT FALL

Three Performances Only: June 3 - 5, 2011

Program Features Many of Company's Lauded Resident Actors;
Champagne-Dessert Reception and Silent Auction Follow Each Performance

A NOISE WITHIN is located at 234 South Brand Boulevard, Glendale, CA 91204.

Individual tickets to the "Retrospective" are $100. Sponsorship
opportunities are available, ranging from $500 to $2,000, and Tribute
Program messages or ads range from $75 to $200.

To purchase tickets or for
a full season brochure, call 818-240-0910 x1 or visit www.ANoiseWithin.org.

TAG You're IT / ART IN THE STREETS at the Geffen

2011-05-17T17:20:00.000-07:00

Ordinarily, this space is reserved for local theatre and how I feel about the shows I've been invited to review. This show, however, is theatre of the streets and it's a must see. It's down and dirty and utterly undeniable.

I've not seen the whole show at the Geffen Contemporary which opened on April 17th and rocks (literally) until the first week in August, but this is the summer to find your way to Little Tokyo and take in the MoCA tribute to artwork that makes some of us pretty uncomfortable. For the first time in recent memory, Frank Gehry's re-model of a former Los Angeles City Garage, is loaded to the gills with color, sound and controversy.

ART IN THE STREETS is touted as "the first major historical exhibition of graffiti and street art to be organized by an American museum..." Indeed, it's a survey of grandiose proportions. It is simply not to be missed for anyone who lives in the 21st Century. Dwellers from a time gone by may squirm a bit as they wait in line to see what many may find not so much 'art' as simply visual vandalism. The show includes current artistic trends, graffiti, music, dance, film and fashion. It is unlike any art show you have ever seen.

A free symposium/workshop sponsored by Levi's© invites anyone to create amazing video using state of the art equipment. The space looks like Mole-Richardson in spades with lights and other film making gear stacked in racks to the ceiling. Evidently, there are knowledgeable folks behind the counter to offer advice and coach aspiring film makers. This is hands on fun.

When you make the trek to see ART IN THE STREETS, be prepared for a long visit. It might be an idea to see part of the show and then hit Little Tokyo for some lunch and then go back again. The entire space, including the huge south galleries are packed with installation after installation that will simply blow your mind. What may be a tribute to Paul McCarthy's huge animated installations catches us off guard as we head to the dark north east corner of the Geffen. There we see three taggers caught in the act, standing on a ratty old van, spray painting what looks like "AMAZO" on the wall. It's grunge and grit and a comment on the fact that there is art going on in the dead of night and in the least likely places one can imagine. It's powerful and colorful and eclectic. I challenge anyone who attends to not have an opinion.

Highlights for me include an amazing East L.A. customized low rider and an ice cream truck so tricked out that one could spend hours just examining them. Another grand installation features large lacy stencils casting shadows on billowing folds of white material that drape harem-like in its own small gallery.

Familiar artists include Shepard Fairey, Kenny Scharf, Spike Jonze and Banksy.

MoCA Members go to the head of the line. Join the museum! Tell a friend.

For more information:
Call 213 626 6222
or
Check moca.org

April 17 through August 8th, 2011

PRISONERS TAKEN AT THE EL PORTAL

2011-04-25T19:47:00.000-07:00

Jason Alexander and Gina Hecht

The old El Portal in NoHo is alive and well. For the next two weeks it will be available for a trip down memory lane with Neil Simon’s PRISONER OF SECOND AVENUE. Gina Hecht and Jason Alexander as Edna and Mel Edison capture Simon’s serio-comic take on life in 1971 New York. It’s Neil Simon! The jokes come apace and the message, though subtle, remains. How does one survive when “the whole world is going out of business?”

Suffice it to say that a professional company in a professional set in a gorgeous theater adds up to two hours of fun. Forty years later, the issues of today are reflected in the issues of 1971 when Mel, almost 47, rants and raves about living on the fourteenth floor with noisy neighbors up, down and sideways. To add to the romp, as poor Mel loses his job and teeters on the brink of completely losing his mind, Alexander finds the nuances of comedy that would make Mr. Simon smile. Director Glenn Casale guides his cast fluidly, but it’s the text that makes the show.

In Act II the arrival of Mel’s sisters, Pearl, Jessie and Pauline, respectively: Annie Korzen, Carole Ita White and Deedee Rescher confronting and confronted by Mel’s brother Harry, the excellent Ron Orbach (who stops the show briefly to the delight of the audience) just want to help… but not too much. The only downside for me was the choice by one of the sisters, not Jessie, maybe Pauline? to smoke. It always looks contrived and this odd choice is no different. However the chorus of the three sisters, each with a separate agenda is hilarious.

Alexander will always be known for his work as You Know Who on the You Know What Show and is doing a fine job of getting beyond his impression of Larry David. Mel Edison simply wants a normal life and emotionally plummets like a stone when he’s summarily dismissed after years on the job. Alexander’s timing melds with Hecht’s (who is mercurial and gorgeous) as they fit together like... like things that fit together well! The play is a finely tuned instrument and even with all the revivals and the film made in 1975, it still holds up. It’s a professional staging. Professional actors make full use of Stephen Gifford’s New York apartment set with Jared A. Sayeg’s lights. It’s a must see for Neil Simon fans and for those who have not seen one of his plays, it’s a great way to start!

PRISONER OF SECOND AVENUE
By Neil Simon
El Portal Theatre
5269 Lankershim Blvd.
North Hollywood, CA
Wednesdays through Sundays
Closes May 15, 2011
Tickets:
www.elportaltheatre.com
866 811 4111 or 818 508 4200
$55.00 Top

THE SON ALSO RISES AT EST-LA

2011-04-24T11:34:00.000-07:00

For those old enough to remember Eric Burden and the Animals, it’s impossible not to hear the heavy bass arpeggio that leads into Burden’s singing, “There is a house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun. It’s been the ruin of many a poor boy and me, Oh God, I’m one.” Tom Jacobson’s House of the Rising Son echoes this theme and in his unique polemic regarding the politics of the necessity of parasites in the ecosystem, we meet four actors playing eight characters who advance the theory that even the human race is parasitic. Unfortunately, unlike parasites such as tape worms and mites who conduct their business subtly, never taking more than the host can safely supply, Homo Sapiens may suck the planet dry unless we change our ways. The play points out, however, that Nature has a way of fixing Herself and though we human beings may think of ourselves as being above ‘nature’, we are most likely simply stepping stones to the next evolutionary cycle of the planet.

At rise we meet handsome Dr. Trent Varro, (Paul Witten) entomologist, ecologist and heir to a dynasty: the House of Varros, whose lineage may go back to ancient Greece! As he lectures at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum regarding garden variety parasites, he discovers that he is being blatantly cruised by Felix Martin (Steve Coombs), fifteen years his junior, who is a fund raiser for the museum. Dr. Varro is immediately attracted to Felix who has a great interest in ghosts and past lives. In a steamy pas de deux they find themselves that night in Felix’s realm, searching for remnants of the past in local cemeteries.

Concurrently, just beyond the Katrina disaster zone in New Orleans, we meet Garrett Varro (earthy John Patrick Hurley) and the translucent patriarch Bowen Varro (Rod Menzies) who appear to be the father and grandfather of Trent. Subtly designed kittywhompus and multipurpose set by Richard Hoover reflects the Ninth Ward, which may be a metaphor for the whole story. Jacobson’s writing brings all of these characters eventually to light, which is, at once, enlightening and, at first, confusing. Bowen is ill and as head of the Varro Clan has specific feelings about Trent and his life as a gay man. When Trent calls to announce that he is bringing Felix home to meet the family, epithets fly left and right, even when the couple arrives.

Jacobson, as he has done in Chinese Massacre [Annotated] opening concurrently next door at the AVT, has done his research and done it well. We learn more about parasites and parasitic behavior directly through Trent’s lectures, than we may have ever learned. Interestingly, the metaphor carries directly through the plot and into the lives of not only the four main characters, but their seconds as well.

Witten appears briefly as Maureen (possibly a woman?), whose necessity to the plot was vague. A knock later comes to the Varro’s door to introduce Hurley once again as the blustery Lendell, a New Orleans tour guide to the haunted places of the Crescent City. Is he another parasite, taking advantage of gullible tourists? In a dangerous turn, Coombs returns as a stealthy hustler, Rod, upon whom the plot thickens deeply. Finally, we meet Menzies again as Robert, an aging fairy, who, in his cups does his best to rally the gay constituents of New Orleans.

Michael Michetti directs his cast fluidly on Hoover’s earthy three quarter thrust stage. The cloying atmosphere of oriental rugs and rococo furniture lend a feeling of stereotypically tres gay décor. Some sight lines are difficult simply because in a set like this some action will, by its very nature, will be blocked.

The discomfort that the hegemonic heterosexual community may experience in seeing this play comes directly from limbic reactions that those of us stuck in our early impressionable experiences must overcome. In her program notes, Artistic Director, Gates McFadden, says, “We might find out the thing we fear is simply different and not harmful. Evolution takes time. This play might help us to nudge forward a bit.” Certainly, Tom Jacobson has the chops to help move things along.

THE HOUSE OF THE RISING SON
By Tom Jacobson
The Ensemble Studio Theatre – LA
At The Atwater Village Theatre
3269 Casitas Avenue
Atwater Village, CA 90039
April 23 through May 29, 2011
Thursdays through Saturdays at 8PM
Sundays at 2PM
$25.00 Top
Thursday April 28 and Thursday May 5, 2011 Pay What You Can
Tickets and information
323 644 1929
www.ensemblestudiotheatrela.org

MASSACRE AT THE AVT

2011-04-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

Chinese Massacre [Annotated]

Take Ken Burns’ visual imagination, add an homage to Bertolt Brecht, fold in exquisite scenic design by Sibyl Wickersheimer, lighting by Tom Ontiveros and sound by Dennis Yen, all literally bursting on the stage and here you have a Los Angeles history lesson, a lesson in human behavior and an exciting evening of theatre. Tom Jacobson’s brilliant writing under the adept vision of director Jeff Liu’s innate sense of talent, humor and history bring these elements together beautifully. Chinese Massacre [Annotated] at Circle X Theatre Co. at the Atwater Village Theatre complex literally captures the audience.

When an actor agrees to become part of an ensemble, he may at once play a lead and in the next breath a supernumerary. The play’s the thing and when all of the performers are on the same page; in the same play, having a wonderful time (especially the annotators in this one), then the captured audience is in for a ride.

Director Jeff Liu’s vision breathes life into Jacobson’s play, animating the story, painstakingly researched thanks to the playwright’s fine attention to detail. Los Angeles, 1871, is, indeed a frontier town, inherently rough and tumble. Racial tensions and struggle for power bubble to the surface of the burgeoning City of the Angels. “Companies” (read gangs or Tongs) fight for ownership of unfortunate prostitutes as well as running other illegal activities. The Massacre of 1871 erupts from this cauldron of prejudice, anger and fear.

In his nod to playwright Bertolt Brecht, Jacobson casts his ensemble in multiple roles. Some step slightly outside the actual play as “annotators” who report the factual source of a speech or a particular situation to remind the audience that this is a true history for the intellect. Even though one may become emotionally involved with the goings on (and we certainly do), it’s the ‘stuff’ of the piece that Jacobson and the ensemble want us to remember. The talented cast often executes with precision a “Chinese Fire Drill” on stage, shifting from one character to another flawlessly with the quick change of a coat or a hat (or a queue) aided by precision lighting and sound, realistically bringing the audience directly to the heart of the matter.

The outstanding ensemble features Richard Azurdia, Warren Davis, Anna Douglas, Elizabeth Ho, Ross Kurt Le, Jully Lee, Alex Levin, West Liang, Johanna McKay, Silas Weir Mitchell, Gary Patent, Jack Sochet, Lisa Tharps, Marie-Françoise Theodore and Ryan Yu.

Dianne K. Graebner’s costumes are outstanding.

The Chinese Massacre [Annotated] is a must see, especially for Angelenos and those for whom a true theatrical experience has been rare.

THE CHINESE MASSACRE [ANNOTATED]
By Tom Jacobson
Circle X Theatre Company at the Atwater Village Theatre
3269 Casitas Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90039
Thursdays through Saturdays at 8PM
Sundays at 2PM and 7PM
Runs April 22 through May 28, 2011
326 644 1929
www.circlextheatre.org
$25.00 top
Sundays at 2PM Pay What You Can

WATCH THIS SPACE!

2011-04-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

Big weekend of theatre to follow. Two new shows at the Atwater Village Theatre featuring the Circle X Company and Gates McFadden's Ensemble Studio Theatre: Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday: April 22 and 23. Prisoner of Second Avenue at the El Portal in NoHo on Sunday, 4/24/11.

HAPPY PASSOVER AND HAPPY EASTER TO ALL. (HAPPY EARTH DAY TO ALL OF YOU OPTIMISTS!)

The Chairs, a fond adieu

2011-04-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

Deborah Strang / Geoff Elliott Photo by Craig Schawartz

“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under Heaven. A time to be born and a time to die…” So says the Book of Ecclesiastes or The Byrds, depending on your personal experience. The correlation of how things change is reflected in the anticipation of the brand new Pasadena space currently under construction for A Noise Within: ‘a time to be born’ and the death of a theatre tradition in Glendale. The third production in this final season in Glendale for A Noise Within features long time favorites, ANW founder Geoff Elliott as Old Man and Deborah Strang as Old Woman directed by Julia Rodriguez-Elliott. Written by Eugene Ionesco, and first produced in 1952 the play challenges the audience to discover the meaning of the story rather than simply absorbing it as we often do when attending the theatre.

Stephen W. Gifford’s rag tag peeling post-apocalyptic set borders off stage water. The Old Man hangs out the window because he likes to look at the water. A hand written sign barely visible on a chalkboard requires, “No Diving!” Indeed within the first few minutes of the play, Old Man practically violates the rule by half tumbling out the window. He is, of course, General Factotum, my darling and could have been the best of practically any important post had he only really wanted to. If he had taken some initiative, as Old Woman points out continually to her ‘darling’ he could have been anything.

Whether or not Old Man and Old Woman are indeed really a couple married for over seventy years or if they are actors simply playing at the end of the world may be an interpretation to be considered. They know each other so well (as do Elliott and Strang) and mutually subscribe to the absurd notion that they may be the last two people on earth. Or are they? They anticipate a multitude of visitors from every social station and are especially excited about the arrival of THE EMPORER for whom they prepare a virtual throne. Invisible characters arrive, brought to life by the Old Couple’s mutual acknowledgement as they prepare for The Orator (Andy Stokan) who has been employed to impart to not only the assembled throng, but the audience, as well, what may be the Meaning of Life! These are actually the Old Man’s insights, but he’s not so good at speaking, as he eloquently admits time and again.

Interesting, though inexplicable, Ken Booth’s lighting changes from time to time, climaxing with a flurry of pinwheels spinning madly, sound and fury, as more and more and more chairs and more visitors arrive until the stage is completely filled with chairs and invisible guests. At last, The Orator arrives in a grand manner. Welcomed by the Old Couple, he takes stage with authority.

The issue of who Old Man and Old Woman really are is never completely clear, probably Ionesco’s intention. We love their banter as they lovingly function smoothly and flawlessly as one. Elliott and Strang have worked together for almost twenty years. The simpatico is obvious. In an interview elsewhere, Elliott mentioned that being relieved of his often role as director of a show, simply acting in the hands of his capable wife, Julia, was a pleasure. Indeed, his focus and choices, perfectly compliment Strang’s, whose comedic versatility shines. Rodriguez-Elliott’s direction is crisp. With well seasoned actors in hand, the show simply works. What a pleasure. What fun the actors are having. And this, my darling is infectious to the audience.

As ANW departs Glendale to open this coming fall in Pasadena, it should be mentioned that the non-profit company is still slightly short of it’s $12Million fund raising goal. Contributions for this final push will be matched dollar for dollar by an Angel in Pasadena. Contact ANW for details and contribute as you may. This is regional theatre at its finest.

Eugene Ionesco’s The Chairs
Directed by Julia Rodriguez-Elliott

Opened April 9; plays in repertory with
Comedy of Errors and The Eccentricities of A Nightingale
Wed.-Fri., 8 pm; Sat., 2 and 8 pm; Sun., 2 and 7 pm; through May 21.

A Noise Within
234 S. Brand Blvd.
Glendale, CA 91203

Single tickets: $42-$46 (discount prices for seniors, students and groups).
818.240.0910, ext. 1
www.anoisewithin.org

Brook at The Broad Stage

2011-04-08T12:55:00.001-07:00

Peter Brook has a brand and his brand is what drew me to The Broad Stage for two pieces directed by him. Bruce Meyers presented The Grand Inquisitor, a selection from a Dostoyevsky piece that describes the return of Christ to Spain during the Inquisition. To be read to, even very dramatically, for forty five minutes was enough to send many folks home during the interval. This is a shame because the presentation of five "Fragments" by Samuel Beckett, the best of the lot being Act Without Words II, presented by Meyers and Yoshi Oida with vigor and joy was well worth the wait. Press blurb calls them "illuminating the comedy and courage in characters who dare to face the void" which, of course, most of Samuel Beckett's work involves. Fragments features fine performances from Meyers, Oida and Hayley Carmichael.

The Grand Inquisitor / Fragments
The Broad Stage
1310 11 Street
Santa Monica, CA 90401

THU	\|	APR 7	\|	7:30 PM
FRI	\|	APR 8	\|	7:30 PM
SAT	\|	APR 9	\|	7:30 PM
SUN	\|	APR 10	\|	2:00 PM

Box Office: 310 434 3200

http://thebroadstage.com/brook

Daddy O Dies Well at The Electric Lodge

2011-04-03T19:43:00.000-07:00

Daddy O Dies Well

Murray Mednick’s continuation of his ‘Gary Plays’ holds forth at The Electric Lodge. Featuring the excellent Hugh Dane as Daddy O, this may be a Morality Play meant to bring the audience to personal insights and/or revelations. Just guessing. Daddy O has explored the otherworld via an ancient South American tea: Ayahuasca. (Google that!) Dane’s well crafted characterization is at once casual and intense which leads us to appreciate his vast experience. Daddy O is the epitome of ‘cool.’ There’s more going on here than meets the eye.

Daddy O is haunted by Antonio (protean Peggy A. Blow), the master of another world. Still and all, somehow, Daddy O seems to be able to control the inevitable. About this time the allegories and drama become somewhat hallucinatory and at once become fascinating and confusing by turns.

Is it Gary’s (Casey Sullivan) depression after a break up with ex-wife, Marcia (Melissa Paladino), that makes Daddy O want to expand Gary’s outlook? Certainly, Gary is depressed. Meanwhile, Gary’s first Ex, Gloria (Elizabeth Greer) mother of their murdered son, is in Chile reporting from her exotic location, which is present and distant at the same time thanks to the ayahuasca, the hallucinogenic that Gary has been administered by Daddy O. Enigmatic Dr. Jones (Jack Kehler) is ever on hand, reminding us that he is just a helper.

Earth Mother Strawn Bovee as Mama Bean, is peripheral and central at the same time. The deceased wife of Daddy O and mother of Gary she is present and absent. Each of the important people in Gary’s life serve in singular and multiple roles. The most impressive aspect of this show is that the actors are all well seasoned and under playwright Mednick’s direction, are perfectly focused. To a person every actor is fully engaged with the words and their role. The presentational style works well. What it all means is up for grabs. Puzzling out the argument is an individual quest as the curtain falls.

Ritual emerges as Antonio rolls in with magic and an ice cream truck. The spirits of the dead and the living commingle and though the essential argument of the play remains difficult to discern, the expert work of the actors and fine technical additions of Mark I. Rosenthal and Dan Reed combine with Mednick’s trippy script to make the evening pithy in the same way a vision quest might send us out of a long night’s vigil in the desert knowing that we’ve been privy to something, perhaps something important… even if we can’t figure out exactly what that is. Maybe it’s not a morality play after all? Rather it’s a mystery play following in the style of early mystery plays that were also produced in cycles?

DADDY O DIES WELL
By Murray Mednick
The Electric Lodge
1416 Electric Avenue
Venice, CA 90291
Thursdays through Saturdays at 8PM
Sundays at 2PM
Through May 22, 2011
Tickets and Information 323 960 7724
www plays411 / DaddyO
$25.00 top

Peter Brook at The Broad! April 7 - 10, 2011

2011-03-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

Director, Peter Brook, brings two pieces to The Broad Stage in Santa Monica. His seminal Midsummer Night's Dream years ago at The Ahmanson lives in my memory as a wonderful experience. Seeing his work at The Broad should be equally inspired. Contact The Broad for details:

An Evening of Peter Brook:

The Grand Inquisitor and Fragments

From Beckett to Dostoevsky

The Broad Stage

April 7 - April 10, 2011

The West Coast premiere of two of Peter Brook's most revered recent works in one extraordinary theatrical evening. It all begins with The Grand Inquisitor. Starring Bruce Meyers, the one-man show imagines Christ's return to earth during the Spanish Inquisition. Following intermission, Brook stages a quintet of Beckett's Fragments illuminating the comedy and courage in characters who dare to face the void.

TICKETS: $120 -$32 310 407 3083 for information

Neil LaBute's THE MERCY SEAT

2011-03-21T21:10:00.000-07:00

Several definitions of “mercy seat” come up in a Google search. In Neil LaBute’s play now on stage at [Inside] The Ford, I’m having difficulty relating the title to the play itself. One definition has to do with a ledge where the faithful may rest during a required long stand in church. Another relates to the covering on the Ark of the Covenant where God met man in the Holy of Holies. I have not vetted this quote, but it may give us a clue to LaBute’s angle on what is going on with the two lovers who make up the cast of the play.

“…and I will commune with thee from above the Mercy Seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things..." Exodus 25:17-22

Does this definition have relevance to Ben (VS. founder Johnny Clark) and Abby (Michelle Clunie)? Was the 9/11 Attack a message from Above that drove them to face each other (two cherubim?) in a moment of Truth? Abby and Ben (he is unhappily married with children) have been lovers for more than three years as they rendezvous the day after the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center. Abby Prescott’s apartment, a stylish loft in lower Manhattan, is lushly decorated in Danny Cistone’s expensively appointed set. In fact, everything about the VS. Theatre Company’s West Coast Premiere of The Mercy Seat shouts First Cabin. Pre-show the audience is surrounded by projected images of the New York City skyline. A sound montage includes sirens and news reports of the aftermath of that terrible day. At rise, a small television set upstage recounts the ongoing problems in the city. A lot is going on all at the same time.

Ben sits with the dust of the tragedy on his pants legs, seemingly in shock. Abby enters in a whirlwind. She is full of anger. The two are colleagues in an office in the World Trade Center. She is Ben’s boss. In the relationship, defined and redefined in the almost two hours of dialogue, the struggle for some common definition of what the relationship is, has been and may be emerges. Power shifts back and forth, but mostly lands with Abby as the two of them play tug of war with emotions and the ultimate decision for Ben to “make the call.” They avoided being at Ground Zero the day before. But no one knows that they were not there.

LaBute is not Edward Albee. Ben and Abby are nowhere near the peaks and valleys we find with George and Martha in “Virginia Woolf.” Clark and Clunie create believable characters and steer them through the morass of emotions and ethics, already compromised for three years with their on-going affair, but it’s more of an acting exercise than a conceit that makes us much care about either of the characters. As an exercise in stage discipline, the two deserve applause. At Sunday’s matinee, Clunie, at the curtain call, was obviously exhausted. It was, indeed, hard work!

So.. An urban morality play? What is the ‘right thing’ to do? Who’s in charge? Two cherubim face one another at the Moment of Truth? An acting exercise well played? Mostly, the latter.

Director Ron Klier keeps the pace up and working, but has little opportunity for action with the exception of a moment of passion which inexplicably turns the blue sky crimson red; then fades as the dénouement arrives. Even so, the production values are excellent.

Applause to The Ford Theatre Foundation and the L.A. County Arts Commission with support from the National Endowment of the Arts for making [Inside] the Ford available for challenging new theatre. The venue lends itself to one set productions and I, for one, commend VS. Theatre Company as well as The Rogue Company's production of HYPERBOLE: origins and Theatre Neo's FREE produced there this season.

The Mercy Seat by Neil LaBute
VS. Theatre Company at
[Inside] the Ford
2580 Cahuenga East
Hollywood, CA 90068
Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8PM
Sundays at 2PM
Through April 24, 2011
$20.00 Top
Tickets and Information
323 461 3673
www.fordtheatres.org

Eccentricities Of A Nightingale at ANW

2011-03-20T00:20:00.000-07:00

L to R: Jason Dechert (John Buchanan), Deborah Puette (Alma Winemiller) Photo: Craig Schwartz

The Eccentricities of a Nightingale

The centennial anniversary of Tennessee Williams’ birth is cause for celebration. Theatres across the country are reviving his pithy gothic take on Southern Society. Everyone who has seen The Glass Menagerie has met the dominating southern matriarch. Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof may be the archetypical patriarch, Stanley Kowalski, the domineering Alpha Male. The delicate flowers of Laura and Stella. These are elegant archetypes sometimes reflecting one another from play to play.

Director Dàmaso Rodriguez stages the early 20th Century piece reconstructed from Williams’ earlier Summer and Smoke nicely employing supernumeraries in costume to facilitate scene changes and populate the story. Magic Lantern slides announce the scene and an imaginative use of silhouette illuminates off stage action.

Set around the time of World War I in a small town in the South we meet Alma Winemiller (Deborah Puette), upon whom the story turns: the Nightingale who sings with great passion and laughs too loudly and too often. Reverend Winemiller (Mitchell Edmonds) curses the fact that he’s sent her to the music conservatory. The Reverend’s treatment of women is immediately evident as he orders around his mentally failing wife played with demented distinction by Jill Hill in a delicate turn,

Independence Day fireworks and festivities are in the air as the Winemillers stroll the small town plaza. Alma’s childhood friend, John Buchanan (very natural Jason Dechert) has now returned to his hometown, having graduated cum laude from Johns Hopkins. He, like his father, is now a doctor. Over protective and class conscious, his doting mother, Mrs. Buchanan (sultry Christopher Callen) practically vamps her own son. John defends his friendship with Alma by saying he finds her ‘gallant.’

Alma mistakes John’s attention for a romantic interest and invites him to a meeting of a group of artsy cronies in an attempt to draw him closer and show him off to her friends.
The uncomfortable meeting of geeks and freaks played by Dave Kirkpatrick, Jacque Lynn Colton, Darby Bricker and David LM McIntyre attempts to codify their own importance by adopting a manifesto. The ennui is thick and echoes Alma’s lonely reaching out in her over zealous search for love.

Performances are top notch with Puette slightly over the top in the first act, moving comfortably into the character as Alma realizes the truth about her relationship with John. From prim and proper and trying too hard to please, to a woman of experience is a nice arc for the actress.

Rodriguez keeps the action moving smoothly on Joel Daavid’s Joseph Cornell inspired set which beautifully frames the story. Leah Piehl’s period costumes are luscious with a pink plume for Alma that may repeat through the entire ANW season from play to play. A nice touch.

THE ECCENTRICITIES OF A NIGHTINGALE
by Tennessee Williams
A Noise Within
234 Brand Blvd.
Glendale, CA
Opened Saturday, March 19 plays in repertory
through Saturday, May 28, 2011.
Tickets and information
818-240-0910 x1
www.ANoiseWithin.org
$46.00 Top

The Frybread Queen / Native Voices at The Autry

2011-03-13T19:40:00.000-07:00

Kimberly Guerrero (as Annalee), Shyla Marlin (as Carlisle)
Photo by Tony Dontscheff

Native Voices has for many years held forth at the Wells Fargo Theater at The Autry Western Heritage Museum in Griffith Park. “Theater” is a slight misnomer, as the space is basically an auditorium where it’s difficult to mount a professional looking production. This is not to say that the company doesn’t do the best it can with what it has to play with. Playwright Carolyn Dunn’s The Frybread Queen has been in development for several years and has, at last found its way to The Autry. It is directed in a very straightforward way by Robert Caisley.

A mixture of ghost story and family competition unfolds as three generations of one family come together to bury Paul, the son of Navajo matriarch Jessie Burns (Jane Lind), Frybread Queen the first. We meet Jessie, who breaks the fourth wall to announce her traditional recipe for Navajo frybread. (Her finding a loaded pistol under the sink has nothing to do with frybread.)

Two daughters-in-law appear, Carlisle Emmanuel Burns (Shyla Marlin) Frybread Queen #2 and her ex-sister-in-law, Paul’s former wife, Annalee Walker Hayne (powerful Kimberly Norris Gurrero), Frybread Queen #3. Their connection to Jessie and Lily Savannah Santiago Burns: Paul and Annalee’s 17 year old daughter (punked out Elizabeth Frances) is by marriage. Annalee is her mother.

As the story unfolds, the rivalry turns on who deserted whom and why and what drove Paul to suicide… or was it? Lind’s heavy declamatory style is probably a creative choice worked out with her director. This style is not echoed so much by the other women. The whole presentation is certainly heavy on the dramatic with ghostly possession and strong physical performances presented throughout. The supposed rivalry of whose frybread is best is only an excuse for a deeper story. Carlisle, now living with Jessie's younger son in California, uses self- rising flour. Jessie calls it “Hollywood frybread." The audience enjoyed this reference a lot. For me, Jessie’s recipe was the one my Aunt Carolyn used and I’d eschew the self-rising flour, too. Annalee’s recipe using buttermilk sounds like one I’d like to try. I’d have been very happy to see these recipes come to fruition on stage with the aroma of bacon grease and frying dough wafting over the audience. However, it is not about the frybread at all. The frybread is simply a matrix for the issues plaguing these four women on many different levels.

NATIVE VOICES at The Autry speaks to and for the Native American Community. The Frybread Queen’s actors are strong, though the production values are marginal. At the intermission it would have been great to have samples of Jessie’s, Carlisle’s and Annalee’s frybreads for sale.

I just love fried bread!

THE FRYBREAD QUEEN
By Carolyn Dunn
Thursdays through Sundays
March 12 through March 27, 2011
Wells Fargo Theater
The Autry National Center
4700 Western Heritage Way
Los Angeles, Ca 90027
Tickets and Information:
323 667 2000 Ext: 354
www.Nativevoicesattheautry.org
$20.00 top (discounts for students, seniors, military and Autry Museum members)

The Young Man From Atlanta

2011-03-11T23:40:00.000-08:00

Producer/Director August Viverito of The Production Company opened Horton Foote's The Young Man From Atlanta tonight at The Lex Theater on Lexington at McCadden in Hollywood.

Because a good friend is in the cast, I agreed to not review the play. It was nice to sit back and just enjoy the show. It deserves an audience.

The Lex Theater
6760 Lexington Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90093

Opened Friday March 11, 2011
Closes Saturday April 16, 2011
$25.00 Top
www.THEPRODCO.COM
800 838 3006

A COMEDY OF ERRORS!!

2011-03-06T17:59:00.000-08:00

(l-r) Gwenmarie White (Ensemble), Lauren Robyn (Courtesan), Christine Breihan (Ensemble) Photo Credit: Craig Schwartz

Madcap!!!

That’s what my friend, Jeannie, called it: William Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors now playing at A Noise Within. It’s always nice to have company when reviewing a show. Of course, I’d have said zany or outta sight or whacko… and eventually “madcap” would probably have popped up. Heck, it doesn’t take PhD to grab the ideal word right out of the air and have it fit just perfectly. But “Madcap” is just about perfect!

“Burlesque on Brand,” the ANW tribute to Shakespeare’s nutty comedy of mistaken identity, may be a sly tip of the hat to what the City of Glendale is really interested in: The nearby Americana’s glitzy faux-Disney kitch. After a short honky tonk piano serenade by David Bickford on the upright, who also provides sound effects (the “chain” being the most fun!) we literally meet the cast. Director Michael Michetti’s wonderfully mounted burlesque (the show is presented as a play within a play), introduces the actors individually as members of the Burley Q: the cast of the play. Ostrich plume fans deftly wielded by chorine cuties set the scene. Angela Balogh Calin’s costumes rock.

Reading the synopsis of A Comedy of Errors will do its best to just confuse. So, the thing to do is to simply follow the silly romp and once you ‘get it’ that the twins Antipholus of Syracuse and Antipholus of Ephesus, both and each played effectively by Bruce Turk (sons of Egeon, the well seasoned Michael Stone Forrest) are twins separated shortly after birth as explained in a terrific silent movie. The slaves: Dromio of Syracuse and Dromio of Ephesus are both played by Jerry Kernion, who, for a big guy takes some major pratfalls and takes them beautifully. Egeon, the Antipholuses delinquent father, is sentenced to death by the Duke (Ever eloquent Mr. William Dennis Hunt founder of The Company Theatre of Los Angeles) for crossing the border into Ephesus illegally! Evidently, they were tougher on immigration than even the folks in Arizona are today! Egeon narrates the silent film that explains his journey and desire to find his long lost twins. He has only hours to prove himself to the Duke. The hours are marked on set designer Kurt Boetcher’s cheesey clock that hangs over the doorway of the home of Adriana and Antipholus of Ephesus. A Laugh In window above opens for some additional fun.

You can’t tell the players without a program and even then, you may find yourself referring back time after time to try to figure out who’s who. It really doesn’t matter though because the slapstick routines and The Bard’s couplets (along with a few contemporary references tossed in for good measure) round out the fast paced show. Vampy Adriana (gorgeous Abby Craden), married to the successful Antipholus of Ephesus is jealous and suspicious (rightly so!) of her spouse. Equally beautiful Luciana (Annie Abrams) plays her sister who is vamped by the other Antipholus (her brother-in-law’s twin!) After a dozen mix ups, each one funnier than the last including some missing money, a rope and a golden chain (bling!), the boys of Ephesus are given sanctuary in the Abby of Syracuse and guarded by angelic nuns (made up of some of the ensemble: Andy Stokan, Christine Breihan, Douglas Rory Milliron, Gwenmarie White and Sara-Lucy Hill?). About the middle of the first act I lost track of a couple of the characters. The actors are all are notable and mentioning the great ensemble work of the entire cast is a must. Paul D. Masterson as Balthasar and the 2nd Merchant.. (was he the ventriloquist?); P.J. Ochlan as Angelo/Doctor Pinch; Rene Ruiz as First Merchant and Lauren Robyn doing her best Judy Holliday impression as the Courtesan are all so much fun.

The Duke orders that the Abbess be summoned and the cry “Heyyyyy Abbessssss!” time travels a couple of decades from the twenties to the forties and briefly stops the show with the Abbott and Costello reference. Dragalicious Gibby Brand plays The Abbess as well as the randy Nell whose cap is set for one of the Dromios (oh wherefore art thou, Dromio?)

The eventual problem, of course, is how to present the final scene to reunite the twins of Syracuse and the twins of Ephesus all at the same time. Needless to say that in ANW’s Burlesque on Brand, this is not a problem. Twins are reunited, families reconciled and all’s well that ends well. Applause!

A Noise Within takes the company off to Pasadena in the fall of 2011 (they are still about a million bucks shy of their entire budget, but ground is broken and construction has begun.) A fund raising campaign is on to sign folks up for the “50/50 Coffee Club” ($50 a month for 50 months which will fulfill a matching donation) which will garner each donor free coffee at the theater for life! Coffee anyone?

A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Plays in repertory with Eccentricities of a Nightingale and The Chairs
Wednesdays through Sundays

A Noise Within
234 South Brand Boulevard
Glendale, CA 91204
P: 818.240.0910
F: 818.240.0826
http://anoisewithin.org
$46 Top

A House Not Meant to Stand / The Fountain

2011-02-28T18:29:00.000-08:00

A House Not Meant to Stand / The Fountain Theatre

Tennessee Williams may be the most notable American playwright in the twentieth century. His Streetcar and Glass Menagerie flow like honey and salt from the troubled spirits emerging from Williams’ rich imagination. He had an ear for the language of lost souls, at once poetic and pithy. In the current production of this last of the playwright’s plays mounted in the West Coast Premiere, by Simon Levy, long time artistic director of The Fountain, we meet more gothic characters who are sick with grief, filled with bombastic hubris, sexually frustrated and bigger than life. The poetry is not as rich as what we’ve heard in the more well known plays, but none the less, in the Fountain’s presentation, we are immersed in trouble and strife. The moldering home of Cornelius and Bella McCorkle is literally falling down around their shoulders.

Jeff McGlaughlin’s grubby living room and dining area extend to embrace the audience; reflecting ages of neglect that, for reasons not really explained, the leaking roof has not been fixed; the peeling wall paper exposes lath and one can almost smell the mildew and the mold. We expect to see vermin racing through the living room, but there are only memories.

Chips McCorkle is dead and Cornelius (Alan Blumenfeld) and his wife, Bella (the excellent Sandy Martin) slog in from Memphis where they have just attended Chips’ funeral. Upstairs, Chips’ near do well brother, Charlie McCorkle (Daniel Billet) can be heard in a sexual romp with his soon to be Baby Momma, Stacey (literally moist and fecund Virginia Newcomb). Cornelius is in bombast mode that seems to permeate the cast from his very first entrance and stays there for most of the play. In a small theater, shouting at the top of one’s lungs with little variation becomes strident and must be a burden for all of the actors. Only Stacey whom we don’t really meet until the second act attempts some variation as she eludes the horny Emerson Sykes (equally bombastic Robert Craighead) as he pursues her around the living room furniture.

Whenever a plot discusses hidden money and a shotgun is produced, dramatic tension level rises considerably. In delusions of grandeur Cornelius has aspirations to run for public office. If only he could get his hands on the Dancey money (perhaps a family myth from Bella’s side?). He is convinced his pre-dementia wife is hiding the stash from him. When elected he could become influential and give Charlie a cushy job and grant favors to his cronies.

This is pure Williams. Occasional asides break the fourth wall. Jessie Sykes (perfectly cast Lisa Richards) explains her recent cosmetic surgery and imagined fears regarding a sex fiend loose in the area, whom we suppose she would feint directly toward as she sighed “no no..”

Program notes discuss the business of the “Southern Gothic” of which Williams was a past master. These archetypical creatures, the blustery patriarch, the faded Southern mother, the ambitious but ineffectual son, delusional others, are all here. As in The Glass Menagerie when Tom’s father is mentioned, his photograph glows with memory, Bella has Charlie hang a family photograph in the scrimmed off dining area where, when examined with lighted candles, the family appears in ghostly black and white, fading as the candles are taken away. Later, as Bella’s failing mind runs her out the door to collide with a car in the rain and then comes back inside, she imagines her three young children projected into the dining room, taking their places at the dinner table, through her demented vision.

Williams’ ability to create strong characters is at work in this piece. My issue is mostly with the direction… or the actors seizing their own lead to shout the dialogue and keep the action at an almost fever pitch from the get go. Though no one would allow that Williams is ever very subtle, it seems that finding the peaks and valleys of this play would make it more enjoyable to watch. Director Levy’s ability as a director is well known. If it was his intention that the energy of the cast to be dialed up for much of the play, perhaps finding a few subtle moments might be an idea. The entrance of Emerson Sykes matched McCorkle’s bombast line for line, exhausting any chance for understatement.

Sandy Martin’s Bella virtually stops the show with her description of being in the room with her grandfather at the moment of his passing. This is a show that deserves an audience and as a Williams play that has been only marginally explored, takes the notion of Southern Gothic to the wall with all its might. Uncredited shady characters come looking for Sykes that seem a little out of place. One of whom we meet again as a tall bearded cop we might not expect to see in Mississippi in 1982. Chip Bent’s Officer “Pee Wee” Jackson adds a nice touch in the second act.

Over all this is a show to see and judge for one’s self. If you love southern accents (collectively all just fine) and Williams’ strong archetypes and a well mounted production, except for some highly accentuated volume... see it.

A House Not Meant to Stand
by Tennessee Williams
The Fountain Theatre
5060 Fountain Avenue
Hollywood, CA 90029 (East of Normandie on Fountain)

February 26 through April 17, 2011
Thursday through Sunday
Tickets and information 323 663 1525
www.FountainTheatre.com
$30.00 Top

The Adventures of Pinocchio / Deaf West

2011-02-28T01:35:00.000-08:00

The current Deaf West production of Carlo Collodi’s classic is neither fish nor fowl. Director Stephen Rothman and the talented members of Deaf West Theatre Company, renowned for such presentations as Big River and A Streetcar Named Desire, have ventured into the land of children’s tales with mixed results. Admirably, deaf and hard of hearing actors present the story with one actor playing and signing the physical character and a hearing/speaking actor presenting the character’s voice. Signing Pinocchio, played by Amber Zion, is in a colorful costume while Pinocchio’s voice (Darrin Revitz) is in an almost identical costume in subdued colors. Not all the actors are doubled in this way. Some sign and also speak. Some sign as another actor speaks. Over all, the device pretty much works.

Walt Disney’s 1940 animated movie has indoctrinated many generations of us with a somewhat homogenized version of Collodi’s original story. The dark side is present in Deaf West's version from the outset. After being created from a rather imaginative tree branch, the puppet is just about as naughty as a kid can be. When Talking Cricket (Vae, who doubles as other characters as well) bounces in to tell Pinocchio that he needs to get an education and be respectful of Geppetto (Matt Henerson), the puppet chases her out the door and kills her with a big old mallet! In Act II the Ghost of the Cricket comes back to give more advice and gets the boot again.

Announced as a Commedia dell’Arte version of the story, I found traditional archetypes from Commedia lacking. Certainly, Puppetmaster (Henerson), the owner of the Magical Puppet Theatre is bombastic enough to be a Pantelone and Pinocchio himself a trickster like Harlequino. However, Commedia is an art form that calls for specific gestures and postures. In the entire production there was only one attempt (by The Puppetmaster) at a lazzi: a broad set theatrical piece that defines and expands the character.

It may be a trifle unfair to expect a full on Commedia presentation, but this is the issue of what this show really wants to be. The actors are all on the same page, in the same production, so to speak and some particularly outstanding. To benefit the deaf audience, the music (by Joe Cerqua) is wonderfully cranked with heavy bass that literally vibrates the entire audience. The issue, for me, is that this story is slightly lightweight for an adult audience and may be too heavy for kids.

Some outstanding performances may be worth the effort to go to see this show. My favorite was THE RABBIT OF DEATH (James Royce Edwards, also multicast) who rabidly explodes onto the stage in the second act, after a couple of bad guys (Lexi Marman and Vae) have literally hanged the puppet from a tree, effectively almost killing him. The Blue Fairy (also dead / also Lexi Marman) is wonderful. She wants him to take his medicine and the puppet refuses until menaced by the RoD!

Sets by Evan Bartoletti are flexible. James L. Moody‘s lights work very well. Show glides smoothly through many scenes. Shadow and lighting effects are professional.

As a fan of this company and appreciative of the hard work they have produced for twenty years, I want to applaud their effort, but would have liked to see the production presented either more in a classic Commedia style, and even darker. Or, even lighter if intended for a younger audience.
The Adventures of Pinocchio
Adapted from Carlo Collodi’s story by Lee Hall
Deaf West Theatre
5112 Lankershim Blvd.
North Hollywood, CA 91601

Runs Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday
through March 27, 2011

For tickets and information:
www.deafwest.org
Voice: 818 762 2773
Video Phone: 866 954 2986
$25 Top

The Models Cast "MLLE. GOD"

2011-02-12T17:02:00.000-08:00

In Nicholas Kazan’s “Mlle. God” Lulu, (Annika Marks) the mademoiselle in question, worships at the Church of Sex. Kazan’s tribute to early 20th Century “Lulu Plays” by Frank Wedekind via the 1929 silent film “Pandora’s Box” with Louise Brooks directed by G.W. Pabst is, if nothing else, poetry in motion.

On the way into the theatre, as I walked by Scott Paulin, director of Mlle. God. I heard him describe the severe black bob and bangs worn by Louise Brooks, the star of Pandora’s Box. Born in 1906, Brooks was a product of early show business whose real life as a dancer and show girl who went on to become an actress in the twenties may have paralleled the life of the fictional. Marks makes no attempt to channel Brooks’ performance or look. This is a modern play set in “Not Quite Here” and “Not Quite Now” but has all the makings of a 21st Century time and place with video projections and cell phones.

The fascinating thing about this performance of Mlle. God and the characters in it on my second viewing is coming to the conclusion that Kazan is a poet. Not in the traditional sense, but in the sense that Steinbeck or Saroyan or more recently, John Irving are poetic in the way they capture the flow of language. Paulin’s direction makes use of fluid movements to echo the text. However, in this “Models” cast, it is hard to tell what makes some of the characters so difficult to capture.

As the artist, Melville, Robert Trebor’s efforts show. He is the first victim of Lulu’s charms we meet in his fifth floor studio (again kudos to the sets and lights design realized by Richard Hoover). The age difference between Melville and Lulu is too great, though it echoes Pabst film’s Doctor. Lulu is, at once genuinely enamored with the artist yet toys with his affections when he presents a beautiful sapphire ring with his marriage proposal. His request elicits “Can I keep it?” Lulu understands his intent and rejects the proposal. Even so the artist caves in offering even his soul if only she will agree to be with him on any terms. He threatens to leap from a window. To which Lulu casually reminds him that they are on the fifth floor.

Marks’s Lulu is wantonly sincere and at the same time a literally bouncing flibbertygibbet. She is sensual, sexual, awake, aware and guided by her own untraditional ethic. She communes at the Church of Sex. She attends unabashedly. She takes responsibility for her self and her own actions. She is free.

In Pandora’s Box, Louise Brooks as Lulu leaves a path of emotional and eventually physical destruction as she vamps her way reluctantly into a marriage with an older doctor. He has married her in a fit of passion, knowing that she will either be the death of him.. or he, in his drunken state of love may take his own life. Kazan morphs this moment in the film and transfers it to "Number 26" Charles (Lulu numbers her conquests), (William Duffy), who attempts to escape Lulu’s charms by proposing to the Harvard Legacy, straight laced, up tight Harriet (Laura Beckner). Lulu spirits Charles off to her bedroom for one last romp. Poor Charles, succumbing to the thought of Life without Lulu, defenestrates himself, leaving Lulu not only devastated, but possibly guilty in the eyes of the law, though we know that it’s only lust that has yanked Charles out the window to the street below.

We have met Charles brother, Trib (Gary Patent), whose character may be the most difficult to play. Naïve and shy, he quickly becomes intoxicated with Lulu’s allure. He swoons with the sweet, soft nectar of her lips. Later in this scene, we see the blue nosed Harriet fall victim to Lulu as she declares, “You were right about the nectar!”

Giving more actors time on stage is an admirable gesture. Paulin has his hands full coordinating blocking and timing with two casts. The actors who play only half of the time must work in such a way as to allow the full time players, Lulu/Marks, (The Prince) Kareem Furgusen, Will Harris (Kip) and John Neilsen (The Governor) to meld well. For the most part, it works. To compare the performances would be unfair. I missed seeing the Models cast's Eleanor (Jacqueline Wright) who comes to see Lulu in jail and noted that the ease with which the Muse cast’s Heather Robinson played Eleanor was notably different from the energies in other half timers in the Models cast.

Lewis (Keith Arthur Bolden), the tough jail guard has a totally different take on his role than Jon Kellan in the Muses cast. Again unfair comparison, leaving it up to a savvy audience to invest in seeing the show more than one time to make their own comparison.

The beauty of what EST/LA is up to here is that they produce Theatre. They are dedicated to putting actors on the stage in a professional setting, with challenging scripts and they succeed. Gates McFadden and her company seem willing to take chances and bring important theatre to Atwater. "MLLE. GOD" is not for the faint of heart. This is a place for new and exciting theatre. Pleasure and Punishment await.

See former review for performance dates and ticket information
Plays through March 6, 2011.

James Cromwell and Ed Harris Perform

2011-02-03T11:32:00.001-08:00

It's the goal of onstagelosangeles to boost theatre and the arts when ever we can, mostly through reviews of local theatre. However, the upcoming event at the LA Theatre Center sounds pretty exciting.

This from Philip Sokoloff - Publicity for the Theatre:

On Friday, February 25, 2011 at 7:30 p.m., the Global Theatre Project will present a staged reading of a play, “Being Harold Pinter,” in support of the Belarus Free Theatre. The cast of “Being Harold Pinter” is toplined by famed actors James Cromwell and Ed Harris. It will be directed by Artistic Director Bari Hochwald.

The February 25 event begins with a brief presentation by Amnesty International on the situation in Belarus followed by the performance of “Being Harold Pinter” with a reception, catered by downtown’s Church & State Bistro, to follow.

Reservations for this event are available through suggested donation. More information can be found at www.theglobaltheatreproject.org or by calling 818 823 0891.

At Los Angeles Theatre Center, in its 320-seat Theatre 3, 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90013. (Parking is available in several facilities immediately south of and also to the rear of the theatre). Friday, February 25, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.

It is recommended that reservations be made by February 22.

"Mlle. God" at AVT

2011-01-30T16:29:00.000-08:00

The Ensemble Studio Theatre / LA’s “Mlle. God” by Nicolas Kazan inaugurates a bright new space for theatre in Los Angeles.

EST/LA’s Artistic Director Gates McFadden, best remembered for her role as the alluring Dr. Beverly Crusher on Star Trek: TNG, along with Tim Wright of the Circle X Theatre Company have made a considerable investment to bring quality and challenging theatre to the community. The new Atwater Village Theatre is tucked away in a burgeoning industrial/residential/arts area located on Casitas Avenue between Glendale Avenue and Fletcher Drive in Atwater. Two waiver spaces and a smaller performance space are well appointed and look to become a magnet for the arts in Glendale.

Kazan’s play features the amazing Annika Marks as Lulu, the hot to trot “amoral but naive young woman whose insouciant eroticism inspires lust and violence in those around her.” So says the cut line of the 1929 Louise Brooks film “Pandora’s Box.” The rise and inevitable fall of Lulu is beautifully examined in Kazan’s script based on the Brooks film which was based on a bawdy German play by Franz Wedekind. [German Theatre Scholar Professor Emeritus Kenneth W. Rugg points out that Wedekind was generally known as "Frank". Kazan refers to him as "Franz" in his program notes. In any case, The Lulu Plays are well remembered by Mr. Kazan.] Kazan says in his program notes that Wedekind worked and worked to revise his early 20th Century piece (The Lulu Plays) to meet a social standard that would allow a staged production. It never happened. We are fortunate for Kazan’s vision and that the EST/LA company has dedicated itself to presenting challenging theatre. As McFadden says, “Somebody has to do it.” The playwright, son of director Elia Kazan, speaks in his own unique voice. It is succinct and worthy of an audience.

PR for the show announces “Not for the faint of trousers.” and it’s true. This is an adult piece of theatre. The expert direction of Scott Paulin guides his actors directly through what in less capable hands could become a muddy route. Casting Annika Marks as the irresistible Lulu makes the show. Her absolute dedication to this at once amoral, yet sweet and enticing young woman flows through nuance after nuance while literally flaunting her brazen sexuality in our faces. It’s wonderful, especially the Flash as Lulu turns upstage to torment her artist suitor, Melville, (excellent Keith Szarabajika in the Muses cast… double casting for this show: Muses and Models), who, in his forties, is much too old and too much in love with her for his own good.

Act I "Pleasure" explores how Lulu manipulates and enjoys the men she has seduced. She numbers her prey. Melville is Number Nine. Charles (Andy Lauer), number 36, is, at once enamored with Lulu but has found Harriet (Harvardesque Kim Chueh) whom he intends to marry. We meet other lovers and applicants as the story moves toward what may be an inevitable climax in Act I. Charles’s brother, Trib (Tasso Feldman, trying just a little too hard) arrives and falls to Lulu’s charms. Bright spot in this scene is the appearance of The Prince (almost as naked as Lulu, Kareem Fergusen) who takes stage and flaunts his own brand of seduction.

Act II “Punishment”, turns south as the theatre is, literally, transformed into a dark gray arena. Video again is used to good advantage as Lulu discusses her ‘situation’ which could mean big trouble for her. As she meets her licentious keeper, Lewis (Jon Kellam); her turncoat brother, Kip, (big old Aussie, Will Harris) and another hot suitor, Eleanor (Heather Robinson), Lulu remains the vamp, never apologetic. She is never not her authentic self. With the appearance of The Governor (tough and powerful, John Nielsen) we become afraid for our heroine. It’s all about power, after all. It’s all about how one remains true to one’s self that prevails.

Professional and appropriate sets and lights by Richard Hoover and Production Design by Jason Thompson work beautifully. Director Scott Paulin’s choices are exquisite. Strong acting for the most part. Kazan’s excellent script: provocative and poetic. Two casts: Models and Muses should entice true patrons to see both versions of the show just to compare performances. Annika Marks plays Lulu in both casts.

Mlle. God by Nicholas Kazan
EST/LA
The Atwater Village Theatre
3269 Casitas Avenue
LA, CA 90039
Through March 6, 2011
Thursdays through Sundays
Tickets: 323 644 1929
www.ensemblestudiotheatrela.org
$25.00 Top

FREE Inside the John Anson Ford

2011-01-23T14:21:00.000-08:00

Neo Theatre Ensemble opens Inside the Ford with Barbara Lindsey’s quirky comedy, Free. Kurt Boetcher’s seedy motel room set becomes the stage for personal changes as Marshall “Free” Gunther (a very bearded Michael Earl Reid) storms madly in, burrowing under a mattress. “Free” is a floater. He floats. Literally.

His childlike frantic fears stoked by the embarrassment of being different have driven him to distraction as his old pal, handler, colleague, Stoney Madonna (Greg Albanese) tries and tries again to convince Free that they can make a fortune by exploiting Free’s extraordinary talent. All Free wants is to be left alone and to be ‘normal.’ He is not interested in becoming “the stuff that dreams are made of.”

Free is confronted by a loopy woman, Althea (Dagney Kerr), who longs to learn to float. Free’s no teacher and though Althea seems determined to learn and they may even get a little lighter during the scene, which flies all over the room, the ground is still their final resting place.

Patsy (Jane McPherson), the maid who cleans rooms, is a voice of reason and befriends Free (who now insists that he be called by his given name, Marshall). She gets him a job helping with housekeeping at the motel, leaving poor Stoney without a meal ticket.

Properly harnessed, the energy generated in this production would electrify a city block for a week. Director Wendy Worthington’s tight direction is consistent and the cast delivers.

The metaphor of floating may have spiritual ramifications. The actual effect that the audience anticipates pays off and the metamorphosis of Free from an anxious little guy into a new more confident person is not really discussed in the exposition, but there are changes.. the characters do evolve which may be what the whole thing is about.

“FREE”
by the Neo Ensemble Theatre
at [inside] The Ford Theatre
2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East
Hollywood, CA
Thurs – Sat 8PM
Sundays 2PM and 7PM
Through February 27, 2011
Special Admission rates.. check www.fordtheatres.org
Or call 323 461 3673
$20 Top

NOISES OFF REDUX

2011-01-23T13:11:00.000-08:00

For a very limited time audiences will have an opportunity to see ensemble work that shines. A Noise Within revives their own production of Michael Fryan’s Noises Off!
(Stephen Rockwell as Frederick Fellowes as Philip Brent.
Photo by Craig Schwartz)
Noises Off! is an inside look at the workings of a theatrical road company, all drawn together under the aegis of actress / producer Miss Dotty Otley starring as the maid, Mrs. Clackett. (Dotty/Clackett played by the ever energetic ANW mainstay Deborah Strang). Nothing’s On!!!s director, (Geoff Elliott as Lloyd Dallas), is one of those guys who is busy, busy, busy with more than one project at a time, as well as romancing more than one company member at the same time. The first act of Nothing On!!! is in rehearsal at rise. It’s the dress rehearsal, though some actors think it’s the tech as we continue to stop and start with interjections from Dallas. They have only a few hours before opening and then heading out onto the road with their fishy comedy. It’s about sardines! Sort of.

Excellent production values and solid performances combine to make for an evening of fun that will be very meaningful to anyone who has ever been in a play. Garry Lejeune (Mikael Salazar) squires the delicious Brooke Ashton (very sterotypically blonde Abby Craden) into the home of the well to do Philip and Flavia Brent (Stephen Rockwell and Jill Hill) for a quick tryst.

At this point all I can do is praise the rest of the cast and Geoff and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott’s fine tuned direction. Lenne Klingaman’s Poppy the Assistant Stage Manager is delicate and true. Shaun Anthony’s Stage Manager Tim Allgood keeps the pace moving.. and Apollo Dukakis as doughty old Selsdon Mowbray as The Burglar is just wonderful.

One has to keep referring back and forth from the program for the play within the play (Nothing On!!! in Noises Off) to keep the names straight. However, as the mayhem builds, it really doesn’t matter and keeping track of the actual plot becomes inconsequential to the fun and watching the three ring circus of events; missed cues and attempted murder evolve.

A final note to the benefit of A Noise Within’s dedication to excellence is Adam Lillibridge’s amazing set (which the audience must stay through the intermissions to watch the Run Crew: Lillibridge, Bernice Mendez, Katie Elsaesser, Dough Milliron, Stefanie Demetriades and Karla Menjivar transform like clockwork. Twice!

Soojin Lee’s costumes are perfect.

It’s just a fun show.

Playing now through January 30, 2011 ONLY
Fridays at 8PM
Saturdays at 2PM and 8PM
Sundays at 2PM and 7PM
A Noise Within
234 Brand Blvd.
Glendale, Ca 91204
$46 top
call theatre for group rates and discounts
240-0910 x1
Visit www.ANoiseWithin.org

New Season begins with Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams and Ionesco the end of February, 2011.

Noises Off Redux!

2011-01-18T09:41:00.000-08:00

The beauty of this forum is that it is... simply.. my personal take on art and theatre in Los Angeles. I have seen four thrilling shows in my life that have made me so happy to be a part of the world of theatre. The Emergence at The Company Theatre on Robertson, Bill Irwin's Regard of Flight at the Pilgrimage (Taper, Too), Henry V at Stratford Upon Avon with Ian Holm and A Noise Within's NOISES OFF.

It's a thrill when a theatre company comes together and works as a finely tuned machine, when performances and book rise to an inspired plain.. that's what art is supposed to do: Inspire Us. That's what ANW's NOISES OFF has done for me.

The show is back for a limited run at the old Masonic Lodge on the corner of Colorado and Brand in Glendale, starting on Friday, January 21st. This link should help you find tickets. It's a short revival. Don't miss it!

http://www.anoisewithin.org/

sheehan

'greedy' at The El Centro Theatre

2011-01-11T22:33:00.000-08:00

The Red Dog Squadron is a hearty band of serious actors dedicated to profes-
sional theatre.

Playwright, Karl Gajdusek, has crafted an oddly appealing, but somewhat confusing play. Set in the middle of a 144 day deluge, the audience hears the thunder.. or is it a bowling alley above the theater, as we enter past a zombie (of sorts) (Daddy played by Kyle Hamilton) who sports an empty baby carrier.

His yellow slicker, sunken eyes and depressed demeanor: a mannequin standing sentinel at the entry to the theater. Just before the play begins, Daddy meets Momma (Gemma Levinson) on the stage. They display newspaper headlines to one another that mention a mysterious baby that has been deposited in a local hospital. Another headline mentions 144 days of steady rain.

Kurt Boetcher’s excellent set is a stark contrast of life styles. Stage right is a dingy space with hundreds of books lining the walls, even blocking a door where the father of Louis (Brad Raider), an aspiring inventor and his sister Keira (Maggie Lawson), may still be entombed? We never meet the dad. Kiera is an unwelcome guest in her childhood home. Louis is supported by his butch security guard wife, Janet (the protean Amanda Detmer). Janet tolerates Kiera's visit… barely. Kiera has come up with a scheme to hustle a hundred thousand dollars from an unsuspecting doctor, Paul (Kurt Fuller), using an untraceable email address through a woman she’s met in Russia.

Plot unfolds cinematically with action moving from the dingy home to the crisp modern space where Dr. Paul and his Bosnian wife, Tatiana (Ivana Milicevic) discuss major issues they have. She is determined to have a baby and Paul avoids the issue by saying they just can’t afford to create a family. He’s been suspended from practice because of an unfortunate Good Samaritan move he made some time ago. Kiera's greed and the basic humanity of Paul play out in a scheme that takes some twists and turns that one must pay careful attention to fully appreciate.

An interesting use of a narrow space that divides the book lined walls of Louis and Janet’s home and the doctor’s upscale digs features a rear screen projection that creates interludes that include Paul driving in his car in the rain with a muffled GPS voice instructing him where to turn and other locations where the lives of all five of the main characters meet at one time or another. Momma and Daddy, the zombies in the yellow slickers, function as ghostly parents of the baby who, evidently, dozens of couples want to claim at the hospital where Janet is a security guard. They double as yellow slickered Kabuki koken, efficiently moving props and scenery.

Gajdusek’s script may challenge the audience, but under director James Roday’s mostly steady hand, the actors are all on the same page at the same time. This is a production worth seeing. The influence of the absurdists filters in. Perhaps a bit of Kopit? We never meet the father who has collected Nazi artifacts: his legacy to Louis and Kiera. Over all The Red Dog Squadron deserves an audience up for a challenging evening and ready to confront, perhaps, our own personal issues with greed.

“greedy”
Red Dog Squadron at The El Centro
804 El Centro Avenue
Hollywood, CA
Plays Thursday – Sunday through January 29, 2011
www.Reddogsquadron.com
$20.00

Save Barnsdall Rally

2010-12-31T00:28:00.000-08:00

Slightly off topic.. There is a crisis at the LA Municipal Art Gallery in Barnsdall Park in Hollywood. The City of LA has the facility on what is called a RFP (request for proposals) in an attempt to privatize the gallery and facilities, making it no longer Municipal. One City Councilman has called the necessary budget, less than two million dollars, 'budget dust.' It is important that the egalitarian access to this venue remain municipal. If you write to Councilman Tom LaBonge or Eric Garcetti simply asking for the Barnsdall Art Park to be taken off the RFP list, that will be a huge help. See below for a scheduled rally in support of keeping Barnsdall Municipal. Please copy and post where you can.. the voices of the people must be heard and this is a terrific way to lift them up. Thanks! Happy New Year!

Media. Newspapers.Bloggers and Film crew. Rally on Steps of City Hall.
Barnsdall Alliance Rally.
200 North Spring street @ 10.00 a.m Wednesday January 5,2011.
Barnsdall off the RFP list!! Other related issues as well......
Happy New Year 2011!!

Neil LaBute benefit for Vs. Theatre Company

2010-12-30T20:34:00.000-08:00

LaBute is a well known film director/playwright. This is an opportunity to be up close and personal with him. His reputation is wide spread and it seems that 'candor' may be his middle name. Support local theatre and rub elbows with some of the movers and shakers in Los Angeles. Please tell them that onstagelosangeles sent you. Happy New Year!

“An Evening With Neil LaBute”
January 15^th at the Howard Fine Acting Studio.

LOS ANGELES – December 30, 2010 –Vs. Theatre Company, which will produce the Los Angeles premiere of Neil LaBute’s The Mercy Seat at [Inside] the Ford this spring, hosts “An Evening With Neil LaBute” on January 15. The acclaimed playwright and filmmaker will take questions from the audience in a discussion moderated by theater director/acting coach Howard Fine.

“An Evening With Neil LaBute” will take place on January 15 at 7 pm at the Howard Fine Acting Studio, 1445 N. Las Palmas Ave, Hollywood, CA 90028. Tickets are $75 in advance and $95 at the door, and include food and drink. A limited number of VIP tickets are available for $125, which includes priority seating and a pre-event reception with Mr. LaBute. Ticket proceeds will benefit the non-profit Vs. Theatre Company, with a portion of each ticket donated to 9/11 Health Now. For more information and to purchase tickets, call 800-838-3006 or go to www.vstheatre.org. 21+ only.

"greedy" at the El Centro

2010-12-28T20:37:00.000-08:00

The Little El Centro Theatre has been active in Hollywood for longer than I can remember: I first saw shows there in the seventies. The work there has ranged the gamut from musical previews to the beginnings of Torch Song Trilogy (the first act was called The International Stud). I don't know the Red Dog Squadron, but certainly applaud this kind of "going for it" attitude that this show may deliver. I'm unsure I'll have time to review it, but this may be one to support. The price is right. If anyone who is knowledgeable about theatre sees this show and would like to submit a review, let Lucy Pollak, Red Dog's publicity rep know and I'll consider it.

Happy New Year! See more theatre in 2011.. By the way.. A Noise Within in Glendale will reprise NOISES OFF! in January. It's an amazing romp.

RED DOG SQUADRON kicks off 2011
with West Coast premiere of "greedy"

James Roday directs Amanda Detmer, Kurt Fuller,
Peter Mackenzie, Ivana Milicevic, Brad Raider
and Roday's 'psych' co-star Maggie Lawson
in Karl Gajdusek's edgy comedy

"The more you have, the more greedy you become, you know. And all this crisis is the product of greed. Greed is the dominant value today in the world. And as long as that persists, well, we are done."
– Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef in an interview with Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman

WHAT:
greedy – the West Coast premiere of Karl Gajdusek's edgy and very dark comedy. Five people struggle with greed, hope, desire and integrity in the wake of an emailed plea for money that promises big returns. Is it a scam or a golden opportunity? James Roday directs a cast that includes Amanda Detmer, Kurt Fuller, Peter Mackenzie, Ivana Milicevic, Brad Raider, and Roday’s co-star on USA Network’s psych, Maggie Lawson.

WHO:
Written by Karl Gajdusek
Directed by James Roday
Starring Amanda Detmer, Kurt Fuller, Peter Mackenzie, Ivana Milicevic, Brad Raider and Maggie Lawson
Presented by RED DOG SQUADRON, James Roday and Brad Raider, Artistic Directors

WHEN:
Previews: January 6 & 7
Performance Schedule: January 8 through January 29
Thursdays @ 8 pm: Jan. 6 (preview), 13, 20, 27
Fridays @ 8 pm: Jan. 7 (preview), 14, 21, 28
Saturdays @ 8 pm: Jan. 8 (opening), 15, 22, 29
Sundays @ 8pm: Jan. 9, 16, 23

WHERE:
El Centro Theatre
804 N. El Centro Ave
Hollywood, CA 90038

HOW:
www.reddogsquadron.com

TICKETS: $20.00

THE PLAYHOUSE RISES

2010-12-09T22:29:00.000-08:00

It is my goal to be an honest critic and at the same time... as much as possible... a booster of theatre in Los Angeles. Personal stuff has me not attending some openings, but I hope to keep readers informed about what's going on that I'm told about. This is pretty exciting, as it was The Pasadena Playhouse / Patty Onagan Publicity who first treated me as a true member of the press. So.. this good news from Patty, I want to share with you and, if you are inclined, make a contribution to the Playhouse. It's a regal old gal... that place. Sure hope they come up with ways to please their basic audience and also move forward with edgy and interesting theatre in the years to come. The upcoming Dangerous Beauty musical will be interesting to say the least. Rent the movie to get the gist and then attend the show if you're as curious as I am.

Here's the current info on The Playhouse courtesy of Patty Onagan:

THE PASADENA PLAYHOUSE RAISES $2 MILLION AND
LAUNCHES NEW "FUND THE FUTURE" CAMPAIGN

PASADENA, CA (December 9, 2010) – The Pasadena Playhouse (Sheldon Epps, Artistic Director and Stephen Eich, Executive Director) proudly announced today that they raised $2 million, which was a challenge inspired by anonymous donors’ $1 million matching grant. The theatre continues fundraising efforts with a new $2 million campaign named Fund the Future. The new monies raised will support opportunities for the Playhouse’s advancements including expansion of the next generation of theatre audiences.

"We are thrilled by the outpouring of generous gifts. So many sources have been willing to join forces by quickly and actively displaying their support in helping to reach the $2 million that we raised," said Sheldon Epps, Artistic Director of The Pasadena Playhouse. "The evidence of this extraordinary community backing reconfirms what I always say, 'People care about this theatre.' It is the commitment from our board and our supporters, that ensures us that we have a strong and exciting future and that The Pasadena Playhouse remains the vital and important theatre that it has always been."

Michele Dedeaux Engemann, Chairman of the Board of The Pasadena Playhouse said, "When we met the $1 million pledge, the Board knew immediately that we still needed to have an aggressive fundraising campaign to continue our ongoing efforts to reach our goals. We are thrilled with what we have accomplished since July of this year and are wholeheartedly dedicated to take on our new Fund the Future campaign."

Stephen Eich, Executive Director of The Pasadena Playhouse added, "The unanimous endorsement of this campaign from the Board and staff to raise $2 million tangibly represents our continued commitment to the Playhouse being the premier theatre of Southern California and an important part of the national theatrical scene.”

Contributions for "Fund the Future" can be made online at www.PasadenaPlayhouse.org; by calling 626-921-1156; or by mailing a gift to Fund the Future, Pasadena Playhouse, 600 N. Rosemead Boulevard., Pasadena, CA 91107.

Free Theatre

2010-12-08T00:56:00.001-08:00

Apologies to loyal readers. Hope to be out to new theatre productions soon.
Meanwhile, here's an opportunity to see some free theatre.. One night only. Debra Deliso is a talented director whom I've known for many years. If you are free on 12/11/10, please head up to Pasadena for her show. See below. Guest reviews for this show are welcome.

//////////

Dear Theatre Friends!

You are cordially invited to an evening of rich theatre stories! This Saturday night at Throop Hall in Pasadena I am hosting an "Evening of Solo Performances." Kaleidoscope Theatre Company is co-producing. 7:00 curtain, admission free, refreshments too! Please click on the link below to read about the beautiful line up of talent!
Hope to see you!
Debra Deliso

http://kaleidoscopetheater.org/solo..htm

Throop Hall
300 S. Los Robles
Free parking in Throop Church lot
Pasadena, CA 91101
7:00 p.m. December 11, 2010

BILLIONS FOR BILLIAM Guest Reviews

2010-11-16T18:31:00.000-08:00

L to R: Michael Moynahan, Michael Sheehan and another guy

Guest Reviews: Billions for Billiam at the Moose Lodge, Glendale, CA 11/15/10.
Over a hundred friends and supporters filled the funky Glendale Moose Lodge to raise "Billions" for Billiam: William Quinn Barrett.

As a side note, the Moose are looking for a few good members: men and WOMEN! who may become a driving force to lift the spirits of the community by making this fantastically funky facility a venue for Variety Artists, musical events, comedy and a magnet for not only vaudevillians, but people who want to serve the community. To that end, on Friday, December 3, 2010, from 7:30 -11:00PM Moose Lodge #641 will hold an Open House at the Lodge: 357 Arden Avenue (2 blocks north of the 134 Freeway), located between Pacific and Central in Glendale, CA 91203. It's a wonderfully funky venue that deserves to be put to full use. New membership is the answer.

This review from Judy Kory in a letter to her sister, Stephanie, in Hawaii:

"I just got back from one of the most incredible evenings of my life, a benefit show and raffle for William (aka "Billly") Barrett. All these friends of William showed up to perform, sit in the audience roaring with laughter, eat healthy, homemade snacks, give generously for donated crafts and prizes such as: crocheted fools' cap 'n bells (mine) romantic, sexy clothing by Barbara Butcher; certificate for an hour with a psychologist; beauty products; yoga lessons; paintings; cds; antique memorabilia, sports event tickets; toys and much more.

The show!! OMG...all these faire folk and variety artists!
I'm sleepy so I'll describe just a few: the Flying Morgans' amazingly twisted contortionist/acrobatic act; Mitchel Young Evans' newly classic clown/mime; the 3 rapidly juggling, drumming, Mums; a sensational Mat Plendl and his amazing hula hoops; Christina, the sexy diva, singing and flirting with a nervous guy from the audience, who turned out to "eat" razor blades and gracefully dance; funny, dueling pianists, Jeff and Sandey; Hilary Carlip, with straight face, juggling while warbling a torch song ; Cock and Feathers singing and "signing" a song that touched us, romantically, I mean; Amanda Barrett (William’s beautiful daughter) of the Ditty Bops, sang a song her father wrote, Dreaming Away;
J Paul Moore as "Alfie" and his wry legerdemain; The Briton Ensemble singing their popular Renaissance song "co-written" by Paul McCartney and James Hendricks; and Molly Morgan's exquisite belly dance enticing people to rush up and put money wherever they could in her costume, while she kept on dancing and enticing.

I had so much fun selling raffle tickets, and sharing hugs with older, familiar faces while making friends with new ones. It was a privilege to be at this special night: this reunion of old friends. It was amazing to be in a ballroom full of professionals, who are also a unique, extended family, performing with love, with and for one of our own.

I was too young to see Vaudeville, but I saw the Real Thing tonight."

Guest reviewer Judy Kory

Judy Kory

Artist, storyteller, performer, teacher,

Family member of the original Renaissance Pleasure Faires

and Instant Theatre

/ / / / / / / / / / / /

And this from Daniel (Rover) Singer, director of The Briton Ensemble…

Review: Boffo Benefit for Billiam by Rover
"William's Billionaire Bash"

"Ever have that dream where everyone you know is gathered at a Moose Lodge in Glendale, California, watching you perform a vaudeville act you hadn’t done in decades? Or was it actually November 15, 2010? It was, in fact, a massive undertaking to celebrate the love we feel for the legendary William/Billy/Billiam Q. Barrett. Dozens of donated and somewhat eccentric raffle items—pet massage, anyone? His family and friends turned up in astonishing numbers on a Monday evening; and since so many of them are performers, a lavish variety show dominated the evening. Presented in typically slapdash fashion, the epic show lasted till nearly midnight, as a stream of astonishing variety acts took the stage in tribute to Mr. Barrett, whose long career as a hippy clown has brought joy to countless billions of hippy clowns around the world. By the end of the evening we were knee-deep in juggling clubs, rubber chickens, razor blades, ukuleles and hula hoops, with nary a dry seat in the house. Most astonishing—to this observer, anyway—was the astounding agelessness of these supposedly aging friends, who all seem as buoyantly youthful as ever. As a group our spirits are eternally ageless. Congrats and thanks to the scores of participants, and to Billiam, we say, long life and good health. –Rover"

Guest Reviewer: Daniel "Rover" Singer is the founder of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, a former production designer at Walt Disney Imagineering, and a professional bohemian.

BILLIONS FOR BILLIAM

2010-11-10T12:19:00.000-08:00

For folks who love Variety Shows.. the opportunity to see some terrific performers all to the benefit of an old friend, William Barrett (whom we called Billy for fifty years) is at hand.

Featured acts include Amanda Barrett (Ditty Bops), The Mums; Cock and Feathers!
When: Monday, November 15, 2010 is the date.
6:30 is the time (show at 8PM)
Where: Moose Lodge #641 357 Arden Avenue (between Pacific and Central) two blocks north of the 134 Freeway in Glendale 91203

$20.00 at the door. All donations are welcome.
No Host Bar / munchies..
Fantastic raffle items will be given away at the intermission

Why? To the Benefit of William for his incurred and mounting medical bills. Cancer is no fun, but the show will be!

Check Billions for Billiam on Facebook for more information.

See you there?

Great Great Expectations

2010-11-03T21:47:00.001-07:00

Another Classic at A Noise Within

Deborah Strang as Miss Havisham

Kurt Boetcher’s stark bare bones set allows Neil Bartlett’s imaginative adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations to unfold boldly and melodramatically at A Noise Within. Highly theatrical from first light we meet Pip (Jason Dechert) seated in a graveyard: the stage floor laid out with simple lozenges of gray: an apt launching pad from which to narrate his orphan’s story. Moments into his narration, Pip is attacked by Magwich (Daniel Reichert), an escaped prisoner and forced to bring him food and a file to release him from his chains. Though captured soon after, Magwich takes the rap for the theft of the tools and food, protecting Pip because he had acted honorably. This kindness, as we all recall from reading the story, is repaid much later in Pip’s personal journey.

Dickens never told a short story. Or, if he did, it must have been a long one. However, Bartlett’s adaptation nicely moved along by Geoff and Julia Rodriguez-Elliotts tight direction unspools the episodes of Pip’s tale apace. It is a signature of the Elliotts, perhaps, that some things are rushed a little from time to time, especially when we meet Mrs. Joe, Jill Hill, who has always subscribed to the adage that to spare the rod is to spoil the child. Hill’s banshee of a Mrs. Joe is not a tolerant sister, though her more patient husband, (ANW founder Geoff Elliott), Mr. Joe, the blacksmith, who punctuates some scenes with ringing hammer blows, is certainly more kind.

Pip is trundled off to meet Miss Havisham, an at once vivacious and eccentric jilted bride, nicely limned by ANW mainstay, Deborah Strang. Angela Balogh Calin’s costumes are appropriate throughout; especially with Havisham's tattered wedding dress which reflects her moldering wedding cake, now in shambles years after she was abandoned at the alter. Havisham has raised the beautiful Estella (Jaimi Paige) to break mens' hearts. Estella delights in tormenting poor ignorant Pip, leading him on and slapping him down while calling him “Boy.” Which, of course, draws the callow kid to her fall in love with her anyway.

Pip’s adventures continue by his being sent back to apprentice with Mr. Joe. He's then informed that he’s the recipient of a fortune that will enable him to go to London to learn to become a gentleman. This includes episodes with the talented cast doubling and a fine ensemble of supernumeraries who are crisp and dedicated: Darby Bricker, Elizabeth Fabie, Kurt Quinn and Taylor Jackson Ross who move props and literally become part of the scenery.

Mitchell Edmonds may have the most fun trebling as Mr. Pumblechook/Sarah Pocket and Bentley Drummle. The romance that Dickens has with names is equal to the fun that he has with the drama of the orphan and his adventures. The beauty of this production is that the lengthy tome with all its twists and turns pares down nicely to two acts in two hours with a cast who play the story with gusto. Jill Hill does double duty playing the complete opposite from her feisty Mrs. Joe, the pretty Biddy, who marries Mr. Joe after Mrs. Joe’s demise. Kurt Quinn plays Wemmick. Stephen Rockwell doubles as Herbert Pocket and Compeyson.

In the end, we see Pip, back where he’s started: in the graveyard where his parents and siblings lie. He again meets Estella, now more demure.. age has not been so kind and her killer attitude is dimmed, a reunion that we probably could see coming from the get go. Together at last.

///

A curtain speech before the show announced that a generous benefactor (not Magwich) has come forth to offer A Noise Within a one million dollar matching fund to help complete the expensive process of installing actual plumbing and such in the new ANW Theater in Pasadena. Glendale’s loss is certainly Pasadena’s gain and though this fine company will be twenty minutes further away, they’ll be in a brand new home where Pasadena will embrace them and will also embrace audiences with parking and a more tolerant atmosphere for the Arts. Opportunities for naming things, from the entire lobby to a porcelain throne, are available. As I don’t have to be objective, I very much admire this hearty troupe. I encourage you to see their season of plays and to dig into your pocket, shallow or deep and help to complete the new space in Pasadena in time for the Fall 2011 Opening there.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS
A Noise Within
234 S. Brand Ave.
Glendale, CA 91204

Through December 19, 2010
$46.00 Top
818 240 0910 x 1 for tickets
www.anoisewithin.org for donations and information

P.S. Mark your calendars for a reprise of my personal favorite, NOISES OFF! January 21 – 30, 2011

Merry Wives of Windsor

2010-10-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

Merry Wives! Indeed! (Serena Evans and Sarah Woodward)

Applause! How many different and indifferent kinds of applause must there be? Gratuitous? Polite? Appreciative? Thunderous? The ovation! To hear British actors handle the language and the attitude of William Shakespeare is truly a feast. If you haven’t been to The Broad Stage in Santa Monica, this would be the time, if you can get a ticket. The beauty of the 499 seat space is that even from the back row one is still in intimate contact with the action on the stage. This company, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, on tour from London, plays wonderfully at The Broad because every word can be heard; every gesture, nuance, tick and eye roll is available.

Director Christopher Luscombe is credited with this new production designed especially for The Broad. Scene design by Janet Bird (who also did period costumes) presents on a severely raked stage, a double turntable holds a two story structure, the roof of which supports a five piece orchestra with what appear to be authentic Renaissance musical instruments. Nigel Hess's compositions are grand and the musicians seem to really be having a good time! Through out the play, they supply incidental music and sounds as well as just hang over the balcony from time to time enjoying the goings on.

There is a feeling of comfort and good will in all the company. Sir John Falstaff (complete and unfaltering Christopher Benjamin with credits going back to television’s The Prisoner) takes stage with all the bluster one could hope for. His randy gambols, especially ambitious for a man past sixty, extend to hustling two married ladies at the same time. Most wonderful Mistress Page (joyful Serena Evans) and Mistress Ford (equally conspiratorial Sarah Woodward) receive identical letters of intent from Falstaff and decide to trick him and embarrass him for his hubris.

To condense the plot would be a chore. Suffice it to say that outstanding performances by all the cast, especially Mistress Quickly (Sue Wallace) and completely silly Frank Ford (Andrew Havill) are like (insert your own ‘Breath of Fresh Air’ analogy here!). It’s simply fun and a romp. The language and the story are told with great good humor as evidenced in the final dance with the audience clapping in time and applauding concurrently. Huzzah! and Bravo! were heard at the curtain call.

When writing a rave, I have to slow myself down a little and not sound like a ringer. I invited a director friend of mine who is past presiding patriarch of the Finger Wagging Naysayers. He’s full of knowledge about theatre. He’s written books! He’s directed more shows than he can remember. I really wanted to share this play with him, but he lives what might be an hour’s drive away and it was raining, so he didn’t want to drive all the way to Santa Monica for ‘bad Shakespeare.’ That he would have been huffing and laughing and pointing, as he does when something good happens on stage is a given. That I was unable to coax him to Santa Monica is a shame. I told him I’d try to get the next show to just come and play under the tree in his backyard. He thought that was a good idea!

So… if you have theatre friends who love to hear Shakespeare recited and presented with great joy, find a way to get them to The Broad.

There are only seven more performances. Evening performances start at 7:30 PM. Call the number below or check the web site for specifics.

Merry Wives of Windsor
Through October 24, 2010
The Broad Stage
1310 11th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Tickets start at $47.00
310 434 3412
www.thebroadstage.com

FDR at The Playhouse

2010-10-13T23:40:00.000-07:00

Ed Asner as FDR
Photo Courtesy of The Theatre Guild

The Pasadena Playhouse rises from the ashes with Ed Asner’s tribute to the 32nd President of the United States: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In FDR, based on the 1958 play by Dore Schary, "Sunrise at Campobello," Asner takes the story past the original ending of the play to its sad conclusion as Roosevelt, having won his fourth term as President, succumbed to a massive cerebral hemorrhage while in retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia in 1945. Asner, a popular staple with television audiences with his long run as Lou Grant on the "Mary Tyler Moore Show" and the follow-up CBS hit "Lou Grant," now at the age of 80 wants us all to know that age is only a number and talent is as talent does. To tackle a tour de force like this, one hundred minutes of pure exposition through monologue, at any time of life is a major challenge for any actor. Asner is, however, not just any actor. This actor knows his stuff.

From the rise of the curtain that re-opens the Playhouse… well there is no curtain, uncredited scenic design presents a simple three area set that gives the story simple spaces to delineate time and locale, which works well. As Asner struggles from FDR’s wheel chair to canes, having told the story of how he awakened one day at the age of 40 unable to move a muscle and how he regained some movement, it’s clear that the actor has no intention of giving the audience an imitation of the President. To the contrary, even with a wispy hair piece, it’s still Ed, the familiar curmudgeon in demeanor and voice whom recent audiences enjoyed as the voice for Mr. Fredrickson in the Pixar hit, “UP.” Asner, unlike Ralph Bellamy, who played the part in the Broadway production of "Campobello," and subsequently in the film of the same name who successfully duplicated FDR’s voice and attitude… Asner simply allows the spirit of the President access. The actor steps out of the way and the words and tone of the President unfold.

As our country balances on the verge of social change, as it did when FDR took office and with his leadership found a way back to sanity, this memoir… a sort of love letter to the President, is apt and moving. FDR embodied all that is good in a political figure and Asner shares it with good humor. Having been accused of being overly thrifty, even a “penny pincher”, FDR tells the story of a poker game at the White House where, among others, a young army officer, Dwight Eisenhower, was in attendance. At the end of the evening, it turned that Roosevelt owed Eisenhower twenty dollars. When he paid the officer, Eisenhower asked him to autograph the bill for him. “Are you going to keep it,” asked the President? “Of course,” said Eisenhower. “Well, hell, then, give me back that twenty and I’ll write you a check!”

The Playhouse is open for business and this show should draw an audience.
Go prepared to listen.

FDR starring Ed Asner
Pasadena Playhouse
39 S. El Molino
Pasadena, CA
626 356 7529
Through November 7, 2010
$59.00 Top
$15.00 Rush one hour before the curtain
check www.pasadenaplayhouse.org for dates and times

IMPROBABLE FARCE! PRACTICAL FUN!

2010-10-12T14:50:00.000-07:00

(l-r) Scott Lowell (Charles Condomine) and Abby Craden (Elvira Condomine)

PHOTO CREDIT: Craig Schwartz

To be more British than Noel Coward would be a challenge if we are to believe the goings on in the Condomine household in Kent created by Coward in his 1941 epic, Blithe Spirit. The Condomines are ever so almost upper class. They have a household staff. The only one we really meet, Edith, the galumphing maid, played by the wonderful Alison Elliott (Geoff and Julia’s daughter) steals the show with every entrance and exit. Her parents must be proud. To carry on about Alison’s grace note to the play serves a double purpose. First, it may be Edith who represents us common folk and secondly, through her less than delicate business, she may subtly represent how we may feel about all of this pip pip folderol. Elliott’s work is practically all physical and worth the price of admission alone. She is also the most believable character in the show.

Though director Damaso Rodriguez has his cast well in hand, one note that some other ANW directors have yet to take and Rodriguez has not understood, however, is that the six or so feet upstage from the apron may be visible to anyone in an empty house, but for the audience sitting above the fourth row in the center section of the theater, it’s impossible to see action on the floor! But, I’m ahead of myself.

Charles Condomine (enthusiastic Scott Lowell) is a successful novelist doing research for a new book. He has invited the quirky medium, Madame Arcati (erratic Jane Macfie) to the home he shares with his second wife, the lovely Ruth (lovely, indeed, Jill Van Velzer). Charles’ first wife, Elvira (campy and vampy Abby Craden) has been dead for seven years. The current Condomines have been happily married for five. The banter as the couple awaits the arrival of Arcati is oh so Coward: Light and airy, cocktails and cigarettes. Edith announces visitors Dr. and Mrs. Bradman (blustery Gibby Brand and ever sweet Jacque Lynn Colton) who settle in for what may be a silly evening of summoning up spirits, Blithe and otherwise. The good doctor is a skeptic and then some.

Arcati’s arrival and the ensuing shenanigans summon Elvira back from the dead. Of course, only Charles can see her and the upshot is that it takes a while to understand that not only is Elvira back, but she’s very interested in having Charles join her. The romp that follows is typical high standard ANW fare with crisp performances (passing some lapses with Macfie who, from time to time, seems to be waiting her turn) culminating with surprises that should come as no surprise.

Coward’s snappy patter and oblique references to sex are charming and witty. The play, written in 1941 takes place in ’36, but makes no mention of any of the turmoil in Europe that had begun there then or the major world issues in ‘41. It’s a light romp which personifies what Coward said of himself, “I am England and England is me.” We hear his voice and experience these Brits through the eyes of a talented young man who spent his life extolling the virtues of his native land in theatre, film and music. Clever and fun, Blithe Spirit moves apace with an excellent scenic design by Kurt Boetcher, period costumes by E.B. Brooks and lights by James P. Taylor. Entre act music by Doug Newell has the feeling of the twenties and permeates the room.

Geoff Elliott’s curtain speech repeated opportunities for donors to contribute to the company’s expected new space in Pasadena next fall. Naming opportunities for donors for everything from seats to bathrooms are available. Donations are tax deductible and tours of the new space may be arranged for donors by calling the company at the number below.

BLITHE SPIRIT
A Noise Within
Brand Blvd.
Glendale, CA 91204
Tickets 818 240 0910 x1
www.anoisewithin.org
$46 top
In Repertory with Measure for Measure
and Great Expectations (opening October 23, 2010)
Blithe Spirit closes on December 5, 2010

Barnsdall Art Park / LA MUNICIPAL Art Gallery

2010-10-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Garcetti,

I was impressed with your brief participation at the Barnsdall Gallery Theater last night. I was not impressed with the evening. Whoever was in charge of the questions filtered out the tough ones.

Here are some questions that I submitted that were not answered by the panel.

1. Why were employees of LAMAG not invited to the panel? Their lives are the most at stake including Nancy, in the wheel chair.

2. Is the annual budget of the City of LA actually $7Billion? (I'd like to know what the budget is, please.)

3. Is the budget for all the Municipal Arts Centers actually less than $1.5Million? (I'd like to know the actual budget, please.)

4. Is the actual budget for LAMAG $380,000.00?

5. What can ordinary interested citizens do to stop this RFP thing and help?

If you really believe that Olive Hill holds the "beating heart" of the arts in Los Angeles (I tend to agree), then it seems like pulling the plug on the space as a MUNICIPAL resource is suicide.

I didn't submit questions asking about the CAD's budget and the salaries of the staff. I understand that Olga Garay supervises a staff of seventeen. I wonder.. and will you tell me.. what her salary is?

With the recent uproar about the million wasted dollars on GPS devices for parking officers cars and the scandal of corrupt city officials in Bell ripping off the citizens there, it seems to me that some accountability should be forthcoming.

If Meg Whitman spends $120Million out of her own pocket to run for Governor while Bill and Melinda Gates funnel billions into their personal causes, certainly the City of Los Angeles must find ways to not let Arts Centers slip from municipal hands.

This bed tax thing is silly. And, your reputation regarding it for funding the Arts has been brought into question. I hope you are a true supporter, especially of the LAMAG and will be pro-active in finding the funding to keep it MUNICIPAL.

Finally. One solution for funds might be a simple two mill levy earmarked for the DCA and the Arts Centers on groceries and restaurant meals purchased in the City. As Los Angeles approaches or maybe passes a population of Ten Million residents, you can do the math.. but let's say that each of the ten million folks buys only two dollars worth of food a day. that's twenty million spent in the City in one day.. a miniscule levy of two mills would bring in $40,000 a day, over a million dollars a month: $12Million, plus annually.. Even for an average family spending as much as $500 a month, the donation would be one dollar!

My lowball estimate of the amount of food bought and consumed would solve the Arts Problem almost immediately.

This is all food for thought. Naysayers can come up with all kinds of reasons why any idea won't work. Pennies for the arts is certainly not what the City deserves.. make all the excuses you want about the economy and such, but if the 'heart' to which you referred is further and further stifled, then our society cannot help but deteriorate.

I refer you to an interesting book by Malcolm Gladwell. The Tipping Point discusses how trends take hold and how they affect society. On Page 141 in Chapter Four THE POWER OF CONTEXT Gladwell discusses how simple attention to maintaining a neighborhood can make a huge difference. The "Broken Window Theory" has to do with how attitudes of people change in an orderly environment. Broken windows make us feel that no one cares about a building, but where the environment is cared for, attitudes change. The correlation is that when the Arts are cared for, the citizenry gains the benefit, either directly by participation, or vicariously in the positive ripples that emanate from the source: music, dance, theatre, fine art, movies, etc...

Do the math on a two mill levy. No one would notice unless they bought a thousand dollars worth of food at one time.. and then.. their fair share would be a whopping two bucks!

Let's make LA a thriving center for culture and the people who..mostly unselfishly.. create cared for spaces in the City.

Michael Sheehan

MEASURE FOR MEASURE at ANW

2010-09-29T15:57:00.000-07:00

Measure for Measure is not one of Shakespeare’s more frequently produced plays and maybe rightly so. That A Noise Within takes chances and comes out with consistently good productions is testament to the company.

Robertson Dean photo credit Craig Schwartz

The issue with the play is that it’s essentially all exposition. To critique the Bard is risky and indeed there are moments in the piece that are bright and wonderful. The politics of the Bard’s time may have influenced him, but as I never have claimed to be a scholar, though sounding like one would really help in this case, the issues in this play resonate a bit with the times we live in. The Duke of Vienna (Robertson Dean) has lost his grip on the city and opts to take a break from his administrative duties, hitting the road, so to speak in his executive helicopter, leaving the disposition of the city to his cousin, Angelo, a righteous cleric (Geoff Elliott). Yes. It’s modern dress.

Cleaning up Vienna becomes a radical proposition. As we find our own society lumbered with paranoia and the broad strokes of enforcing the letter of the law becomes the tail wagging the dog, Angelo in his pious wisdom, decides that the death penalty for immoral behavior will curb the deterioration of Viennese Society. Unfortunate, Claudio (William Patrick Riley) in love with and father to Julietta’s (Courtney Kocak) expected child, is brought to bear and in one of the most enjoyable moments in the play is hauled before the Duke’s appointee by Elbow, (well limned by Michael Faulkner) a constable. Word play with the sincere but out of sync Elbow garners laughs as Claudio is hauled off to await his execution.

Claudio’s sister, Isabella (Karron Graves), a novice just entering the convent, is called upon to plead for Claudio’s life. Madness of lust overcomes the heretofore righteous Angelo who says he’ll commute Claudio’s sentence if Isabella will yield to his charms. Herein lies a moral issue. Meanwhile, The Duke returns to Vienna in disguise to observe while unobserved how Vienna does. The plot is a little fuzzy, but it’s Shakespeare, after all, and if you read the play and/or the synopsis before you take the plunge, it’ll be all that much more enjoyable. I enjoyed the laughs the most. Elbow’s upside down speeches and Barnardine’s (Thomas Moses in lots of hair) refusal to be executed because he’s been drinking all night are hilarious.

ANW’s founders, Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez- Elliott's direction keep the words flowing, sometimes so quickly that the intention of the text gets lost. Stage pictures are efficient in Stephen W. Gifford’s high tech set though some far downstage action is impossible to see from above the fourth or fifth row. Julie Keen’s modern dress costumes work in the solemn modern setting. Elizabeth Harper’s lighting is dramatic. Doug Newell’s sound design serves as a strong foundation for the production. As with large cast shows, some of the supernumeraries are a bit self conscious, but spears (rifles) must be carried and these young actors will mature in time.

Whatever moral lesson Shakespeare intends to teach is in here somewhere. It all works out, as most of Shakespeare’s plays do... one way or another. All’s well and ends.

Measure for Measure
In Repertory with Blithe Spirit and Great Expectations

A Noise Within
234 S. Brand Blvd.
Glendale, CA 91204
Through Sunday December 5, 2010
Tickets $46 Top
818 240 0910 x1
www.AnoiseWithin.org

DYING IS EASY...

2010-09-29T14:38:00.000-07:00

The Matrix Theatre has a reputation for well tuned productions and Nick Ullett’s “Dying is Easy, Comedy is Hard” is no exception. Ullett, a cancer survivor, came to the United States in 1964 with the promise of stardom. With his comedy partner, Tony Hendra, the duo worked clubs in New York as well as playing The Ed Sullivan Show in the sixties. Ullett opens the show with a somewhat bizarre bit, directing off stage chickens all clucking like anything. For what follows, the story of his forty-odd years in Show Business and dealing with the terrors of battling cancer, it’s just weird. Ullett’s delivery and timing took some warming up, but as a raconteur, singer and musician, he is sincere and charming.

Issues with projections on an upstage screen make them a little hard to see. It may have been a technical glitch. Possibly changing the lighting (which is a simple adjustment from the existing lights for the current Matrix show, NEIGHBORS) should be easy and make the projected images pop to illustrate the parts of the story he wants to emphasize.

The ninety minute show moves smoothly from Nick’s early stories of opening for Lenny Bruce at the Bitter End and watching him get hauled away for obscenities, funny interaction with Ed Sullivan trying to do a comedy bit, through four wives and two major bouts with the big C. Now in his sixties, Ullett (gullet without the ‘g’ thank you very much!) knows himself and plies his trade in a way that can only get better as the show matures. Lisa James’ direction is simple and straight forward. The possibility of a stage assistant might double Nick’s budget but the few costume changes he makes might go more smoothly with a little help. I’d lose the chickens, but maybe keep the tux.

Ullett’s closing song on the piano is a stitch and an apt climax to learning about his life… so far. This is a good way to spend a Monday evening.

Plays Mondays Only through October 25th
The Matrix Theatre
7657 Melrose
Hollywood, CA 90046
Tickets $15.00
323 852 1445
www.MatrixTheatre.com

Bargain Theatre in Glendale

2010-09-20T23:03:00.000-07:00

This from A Noise Within. An opportunity to see quality theatre at a bargain price.. Pay What You Can. These shows have not opened yet. Reviews will appear here soon.

A Noise Within, the critically acclaimed classical repertory theatre company, announces "Pay What You Can" dates for two of its fall 2010 productions, Shakespeare's stirring classic MEASURE FOR MEASURE and Noel Coward?s timeless comedic gem BLITHE SPIRIT.

"Pay What You Can" dates, which allow patrons to purchase tickets for what they can afford, are Thursday, September 23, 2010, for Measure for Measure and Thursday, October 7, 2010 for Blithe Spirit. Both performances begin at 8 p.m.

"Pay What You Can" tickets are sold on a first-come, first-served basis based on availability, with a limit of two per person. Tickets must be purchased in person at the box office (234 South Brand Boulevard), after 2 p.m. on the day of the performance with cash only. ($10 minimum suggested).

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE?S MEASURE FOR MEASURE, which opens Saturday, September 25 and closes Sunday, December 5, 2010 (previews begin Saturday, September 18), is one of two productions directed this season by Michael Murray. In this intricately woven play, the Duke of Vienna recognizes that through his neglect, society has become a rotted den of iniquity, so he transfers his authority to Angelo, by all accounts an unblemished, morally uncompromising servant of God. But Angelo's irresistible sexual attraction to Isabella, a novice nun seeking pardon for her condemned brother, transforms saint to beast. Penned centuries ago, Shakespeare?s timeless case study of lethal hypocrisy remains relevant today. The production is part of Shakespeare for a New Generation, a national initiative sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts in cooperation with Arts Midwest.

BLITHE SPIRIT by NOEL COWARD opens at A Noise Within Saturday, October 9 and closes Friday, December 17, 2010 (previews begin Saturday, October 2). Damaso Rodriguez directs Coward?s masterpiece, a quintessential ensemble work, in which novelist Charles Condomine and his wife Ruth get more than they bargained for when an after-dinner seance led by local spiritualist/eccentric Madame Arcati produces an uninvited guest from the great beyond to crash the party, prompting a delightfully cosmic clash of personalities both worldly and otherwise. In this glittering comedy of the soul that ponders the eternal essence of what it is to be in a relationship, Coward?s mastery of comedy is on display with extraordinary wit, talent for crafting an exquisite story and sense of timing.

A NOISE WITHIN is located at 234 South Brand Boulevard, Glendale, CA 91204. To purchase tickets or for a full season brochure, call 818-240-0910 x1 or visit www.anoisewithin.org.

NEIGHBORS: TAKE TWO

2010-09-15T17:02:00.000-07:00

In the sixties Lenny Bruce taught society about freedom of speech and the power of language. His iconic routine, especially germane to Neighbors, where he directly addressed his audience and in jazz rhythms pointed to “a spic and a wop and a kike and nigger… a mick and a wop and a honky…” defused these epithets into simply utterances that some people use to try to defame others. The defamation is in the intent, not in the words and the playground retort, “I know you are but what am I?” and “I’m rubber and you’re glue. Bounces off me and sticks on you!” seems right to me.

Michael McClure broke ground in a big way theatrically with his play, The Beard, which was busted continually in the San Francisco area and then moved to Los Angeles where similar charges for obscenity were leveled at the actors. One account says that at the performances in L.A. there were two standing ovations, one at the end of the show and one as the actors were hauled away to be booked. McClure’s poetry and other bizarre plays, including works done at The Company Theatre in Los Angeles: The Meatball, Spider Rabbit, The Authentic Radio Life of Bruce Conner and Snoutburbler and later The Beard with Dennis Redfield and Trish Soodik and Pink Helmets, pushed the envelope… rather destroyed it vis a vis what theatre is all about. McClure, along with Alan Ginsberg, who had his issues with “obscenity”, sat at the forefront of avant garde poetry in the San Francisco area. Their loopy and succinct approach to art is what, to me, is vital to bring audiences to a state of not just simply being entertained. The polemics of Ginsberg and McClure along with a host of radical artists, including the San Francisco Mime Troupe (still active after more than fifty years of politically charged satire touring parks around the country) have and had the goal of shaking the Establishment. That’s what Neighbors does.

Passing the rough language in Neighbors, the behavior of the characters, both the cartoon Crows and the straight arrow Pattersons, reflects something deeper. It has to do with living a good life. A true life. The two dimensional Crows are not simply burlesques of black actors playing black minstrels in black face. The edge of the darkness that Jacobs-Jenkins imbues in the Crows is more. It’s a call to consciousness for anyone who can sit through the barrage of stuff he discusses in the play. American Society is slowly coming around and we still find ourselves smiling because at the time we didn’t feel that we were demeaning anyone by enjoying Eddie “Rochester” Anderson on the Jack Benny Show (indeed, Rochester was never really the foil, was he?) or Butterfly McQueen’s famous line “I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ no babies!” But prejudice is not just skin deep. It’s to the bone and shall be until we become color blind. To that end, perhaps, Neighbors is divisive. As I’ve said.. we may think we are not prejudiced, but the discomfort that rises like bile as the show progresses is real and that may be Jacobs-Jenkins’ goal. Just to make sure that no matter how great we feel having elected a black President (well, half black) and even folks like Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell rising to international importance, the lines of color are still within us. Martin Luther King was a hero and a martyr for a cause, but the lines of color still mark our division.

The beauty of this play is that as soon as one accepts the stereotypes: both the Crows AND the Pattersons, the foul language becomes almost incidental. What the play points out, at least to me, is that as we define ourselves, so shall we be. Or, hope to be?

What Neighbors must do for every audience who sees it is, when it comes to the final curtain, is to shake them from complacency. To do work as an audience or as an individual is not what most of us expect to do. We like things wrapped up in neat little packages. We expect a climax and then a dénouement. In the final scenes of Act II, Richard’s explosion rocks the house and not in a good way. It becomes the catalyst for the final confrontation and unfortunately.. or maybe fortunately?, resolution is left pretty much up to the audience. It’s work. Work that needs to be done. And, that does not mean that any two audience members will have the same reaction.

Stay for the video directed by Spike Lee in the lobby.

NEIGHBORS: A PLAY WITH CARTOONS!

2010-09-13T13:26:00.000-07:00

NEIGHBORS...
at The Matrix on Melrose.. a tight little space with three rows and a broad stage.. The play turns on an upwardly mobile family in a sort of Stepford neighborhood.. Little boxes on a hillside that mirror one another in a perfectly bookmatched patchwork. Stage Right an empty space waiting to be occupied. Stage Left a sort of kitchen where The Pattersons live. John Iacovelli’s set, tinted in Diebenkorn pastels, announces nothing out of the ordinary, fraught with sameness. We are lulled into the notion that it’s safe here. Nothing could be further from the truth.

My lead line for this piece kept changing. “If you think you are Liberal, think again.”

“If you think you are not prejudiced, think again.”

“Led down the Garden Path, then bitchslapped… hard!”

None of these do justice to the brilliant writing the young black playwright, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, brings to the stage. It’s important that we know he’s black because white folk can’t say nigger and get away with it. They can’t portray a bawdy stereotypical Negro family of profane minstrels, ready to rub your face in the stuff of hundreds of years of struggle. But, Jacobs-Jenkins can and does. It’s poetry that ranks with Genet and Beckett.

Richard Patterson, (brilliant Derek Webster) a forty-something black adjunct theatre history professor wants… really needs, to gain a full time teaching position. His beautiful Caucasian wife (remarkable Julia Campbell) and gorgeous fifteen year old daughter (lithe Rachae Thomas) live their lives in a neighborhood where it's taken a year for them to be accepted. And now... BAM!.. the house next door is sold to a troupe of traveling players.. each and all stereotypical black folks.. “Niggers!” exclaims Richard because he’s black and he can use that word...

It’s the Crow Family: Mammy, Zip Coon, Topsy, Sambo and Jim, young Jim Crow! All in minstrel black face, they spout stereotypical black euphemisms. Loud and raucous, every member of the family wears an under taste of anger, except for Jim (talented James Edward Shippy) who, though also in black face, seems less angry and says that he doesn’t want to be just like his Daddy, now departed this fair Earth going on a year. The plan is to make a comeback with their show. It’s been a year since Daddy Crow died.

Mammy (superb Baadja-Lyne) in Aunt Jemima drag, runs the troupe with an iron hand, supplemented broadly by Zip Coon Crow’s (slick Leith Burke) slap stick and Steppin Fetchit moves. Sambo (ghetto tough Keith Arthur Bolden) reeks of rap, attitude and muscles. Naila Alladin Sanders’ costumes are works of art.

Topsy (an amazing Danielle Watts) enters, Buckwheat hair in raggity bows, dumping her box full of white baby dolls, (which may be Jacobs-Jenkins’ prediction for the future?) mooning and charming the audience with anything but innocent burlesque.

Jean looks out her suburban window and relishes the diversity that is coming, while Richard feels threatened, perhaps having overcome his blackness. With years of effort, his perfect speech and specialty in ancient Greek drama must place him on a higher social level that those people.

The plot: surreal… the issues: real and damning; profane and pornographic bracketed by frightening truths about our own prejudices and the 'race situation' in this country, sounds a wake-up call for not only our society, but for the world. As fear and antipathy insidiously provoke confrontations not only between the races, but religions; the people and the government, the military, law enforcement, the truth is that we must find a way to harmony in this current ever divisive atmosphere.

Jacobs-Jenkins’ lesson arrives on many levels. Shock for the sake of shock, not mildly profane, but deliberately pornographic becomes only slightly balanced as Topsy breaks the fourth wall to address the audience and in Josephine Baker bananas, steps into an interpretive dance that lets us know there’s more to her than silliness and mooning.

Nataki Garrett’s unobtrusive direction keeps the action moving until the final scene, the ultimate moment, that at once pits the mirror images of Zip and Richard, the nigger and the colored man, against the final tableau: the confrontation of the Crows.

Not for the faint of heart.

Publish Post

NEIGHBORS (A Play with Cartoons)
The Matrix Theatre
7657 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90046
Thursday through Saturday at 7:30PM
Sundays at 2:30PM
Through October 24, 2010
Tickets: $25.00
323 960 7774
www.plays411.com/neighbors

C A L L TO A C T I O N!!!

2010-09-06T11:42:00.000-07:00

The Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in Barnsdall Park is scheduled to be privatized at the end of 2010!

The City of Los Angeles, in an attempt to save money has sent out a request for other organizations to take over the Gallery. Current rumors indicate that MoCA may be in line for the job. The imminent firing of the current staff as well as the disturbing prospect of the somewhat elitist attitude of MoCA when it comes to exhibiting 'high art' taking charge is appalling.

LAMAG has been the refuge for new and burgeoning artists in Los Angeles for over forty years. Their egalitarian approach to showing art ranging from avant garde to more traditional works has been appreciated and taken advantage of by hundreds, if not thousands of local artists and in my opinion, this should not change.

Please take time to call or write to Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa, 200 North Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 to voice your concerns and make suggestions. Councilman Tom La Bonge represents the Barnsdall area and he may be reached at the same address.

Do something!

Often I have discussions with a good friend who has issues about the world and I ask her, "What can I do?" My answer is to get involved with the things we actually care enough about and to simply do something.

If you care about the arts in Los Angeles, let your voice be heard and ask friends, artists, actors, producers, directors... everyone... anyone who may lift a voice.. to speak up and let the City know that this vital resource should remain under the aegis of the Department of Cultural Affairs and remain a bastion of hope for Art in Los Angeles. Or, at least remain a truly MUNICIPAL ART GALLERY and retain curatorial staff.

Please call or write the Mayor and Councilman La Bonge to voice support for the Gallery. Write op ed pieces and send letters to the editor of The Times. It's the People who need this space and if MoCA or some other 'high art' organization takes it over, the opportunity for local artists to show their work will be diminished in a major way.

Check the link below for your local council person.

http://www.lacity.org/YourGovernment/CityCouncil/index.htm

Pass it on! Please! and DO SOMETHING!!

Michael Sheehan

Great Greater Greatest

2010-08-22T23:17:00.000-07:00

GREATER TUNA by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard, aptly directed by Guilford Adams currently playing at the picaresque Sierra Madre Playhouse is if nothing else, a crowd pleaser. It’s the sort of romp that community theatre loves to embrace and without a doubt, it’s embraceable.
Greater Tuna opened almost thirty years ago and has been a staple in ambitious little theatres ever since. Sierra Madre’s down home take on Tuna, Texas is a basic peek into the odd goings on in a teeny tiny Texas town. Featuring Dustin Fasching (Left) and Justin Baker (Right) (Photo by Donald Songster) playing every single part: men, women and an occasional dog, the show moves apace, as it should. The fun, of course, is in the challenge for each character to enter and have a scene while the other is madly changing costumes off stage. Baker and Fasching, brought their dressers Carrie and Melissa Flores on for the curtain call! It would be tough to accomplish the illusion without them.

Set in sundry locations in and around the Greater Tuna area, thus the name of the show, at rise we meet an unlikely pair of radio guys reporting the local news of the day, only to realize that they have failed to actually go on the air. The connections between all of the characters evolve slowly and the jokes are not subtle. The fun is in seeing these two talented actors switch characters at the drop of a hat and the donning of a wig and a dress. In a dress, Baker’s leg are impressive.

It’s tough to do an actual review of a show like this because it’s all in good fun and the nudge and the wink are built in. How the two actors keep track of where they are and at the same time keep a straight face while nicely defining each oddball character is terrific.

Dining near the theatre is diverse and it’s worth the trip up the hill to find a simpler time and place. Picaresque says it all.

GREATER TUNA
Sierra Madre Playhouse
87 Sierra Madre Blvd.
Sierra Madre, CA 91024

Reservations or Information:
626-355-4318
info@SierraMadrePlayhouse.org
Through September 25, 2010

PARASITE DRAG

2010-08-16T14:38:00.001-07:00

Parasite Drag..

When I received the invitation to this show, I imagined a leech in high heels and big hair. In fact parasite drag is an aeronautical term that has to do with anything on an aircraft that doesn’t contribute to lift. How this relates to the troubled story of Gene Brown, a weak man with a strong Christian faith (Robert Foster) and his invasive brother, Ronnie (intense Boyd Kestner) from whom he’s been estranged for years, and the bonding … in a way of Ronnie’s wife, Susie (lithe Agatha Nowicki) with Gene’s spouse, Joellen (Mim Drew), is at best obscure.

Written by Mark Roberts and well directed by David Fofi, the acting makes more of the text than the play itself delivers. In the first act we encounter Gene and Joellen attempting to resolve a situation that has left Gene with a black eye and Joellen rationalizing how she inflicted it. The Elephant Theatre Company’s program features a woman running, it appears, toward a funnel cloud with the text “Past is Prelude’ included in the image. References are made to storm warnings as the play advances and it seems that there’s no end to the troubles about to erupt within this anxious family.

Gene and Ronnie’s sister is a victim. Currently, in the hospital after years of drug abuse and living on the streets, Ronnie appears with Suzie, his equally tough and unsophisticated wife to begin to stir old passions. Ronnie does not share Gene’s devotion to the Lord. Resolution for past issues is on the table, but the ability to do something about them is, at best, difficult.

My first impression of the first act brought the cynical notion that Parasite Drag was Virginia Woolf meets Mama’s Family. Roberts was executive producer on Two and a Half Men and is currently producing another sitcom for CBS. The feeling of television pacing is not necessarily a bad thing, but it seemed evident. It’s not until the second act, though some gratuitous sex at the close of Act One brought a chuckle from the audience, that exposition lets us know the terrible things that the Brown kids have had to endure. How one went to Christ and the other to the Devil is revealed. The essence of the last scenes between Joellen and Susie and then an angry encounter between the brothers parallels the impending storm. These powerful scenes may be worth the effort of enduring the first act. Playwright Roberts is not an Albee, but the energy Fofi draws from his actors in the final scenes is powerful and revealing. Interpretation of the final moments of the play is up for speculation, as eight millimeter home movies unspool and everything goes dark.

PARASITE DRAG by Mark Roberts
Elephant Space
6322 Santa Monica Boulevard (just west of Vine)
Hollywood 90038
Thurs – Sat at 8PM
Thru September 18, 2010
Call (213) 614-0556, or reserve online: www.elephanttheatrecompany.com
$20 Top

FIFTY CHAIRS

2010-08-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

On July 31, 2010 Vlatka Horvat spent the entire day in the Los Angeles River with fifty chairs.

She started at nine in the morning and with only brief breaks, moved the chairs around the thirty thousand foot space where the River flows under Fletcher Avenue near the 2 Freeway. Throughout the day, on-lookers watched from the bridge or wandered down to the River’s edge as Vlatka created pattern after pattern with blue skies, swifts and egrets for company.

Julie Deamer of Outpost Contemporary Art sponsored the installation with a reception in the burgeoning art district developing in China Town.

Every cliché one can think of has been uttered about art at one time or another. To call Horvat’s performance an installation; her installation a performance, performance art or by any other name, is to diminish it. The Work was in the moment. For one short day in July the art was mostly in the artist who generously included appreciative patrons warmed by a perfect California day.

In eight hours' time, moving steadily at a dancer’s pace, Horvat arranged each piece of her ever changing puzzle one or two chairs at a time. The patterns, moment to moment improvising, ever calculating her next move evolved kaleidoscopically. Patterns in the design, emphasized by the gently flowing River, occasional applause as she completed one pattern, was not acknowledged.

The Artist, the medium and the River all flowing together, punctuated a moment in time: the reflection's come and gone.

michael sheehan

IN & OUT, IN & OUT

2010-07-28T21:24:00.000-07:00

Juan Pope as Malcolm Jennifer May/ Reel Sessions

Writer/Director David Wally’s examination of life in these United States is at once cynical and arcane. IN & OUT The USofAlienation currently playing Tuesdays at The Whitefire challenges the audience to ride along through a morass of notions that never become completely clear in the text nor in the action. In a series of at once associated and disparate scenes we encounter the ‘alienation’ which is the foundation of Wally’s work.

A program note mentions that the only character who remains consistent in the play is Malcolm, portrayed by an effective Juan Pope. Malcolm appears and stirs the social pot with various other characters by asking intimate questions that all come back to the absence of civility in the United States today. Some scenes work better than others. Two vignettes with Gregor Manns (Bartender and Rod) work well. One scene examines the origins of ‘us vs. them.’ Later as a homeless former security guard the feeling of quiet desperation and dignity prevail. His portrayal of Rod, the former Security Guard, is touching and certainly civil. Manns is a really large guy who quips that one of the ladies in the latter scene might just take him home and turn him into a professional football player.

A mysterious Black Satchel seems to arrive and depart in each scene on its own. It draws attention to itself making us think that an actor may have missed a prop cue. In fact The Satchel belongs to Malcolm, the one consistent character in the sundry scenes. In the final scene we learn that he is, in fact, a research doctor for the CDC in Atlanta possibly bringing (in the satchel?) dark foreboding. His purpose in the piece may be designed to make the audience ask themselves difficult questions about the end of life.

Interstitial music (Don McLean’s American Pie plays as the audience enters the theater) may deliver clues as to the playwright’s intent vis a vis why our society has become so compartmentally uncivilized. Unfortunately, even with some decent performances and believable scenes, including a poignant but gratuitous lesbian tryst, the show lumbers along with only an occasional glimmer of the argument that each of us, indeed all of us must find a way to communicate and to be a little nicer to one another.

Laura Fine Hawkes’ bare bones set design leaves everything to the imagination. The stars and stripes hang above the stage: red tire treads and white handprints on a blue field. Nice. Uncredited over amped sound may have held clues as to the intent of the play, but became cacophonous in between scenes.

IN & OUT The USofAlienation
Whitefire Theatre
13500 Ventura Blvd.
Sherman Oaks, CA 91423
Runs Tuesdays only at 8PM
Closing September 14, 2010
Reservations: (866) 811-4111
$20.00 Top

Yellow at the Coast

2010-07-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

L to R David Cowgill, Kristen McCullough, Evie Louise Thompson and Luke McClure

Del Shores has been writing plays for a long time. In 1983 "Daddy's Dyin' and Who's Got the Will?" opened to stunning reviews at Jeff Murray’s Theatre/Theater in Hollywood. Del has been prolific on the theatre scene as well as having produced and directed at least one film and worked on high stakes television shows. His ability to round out a character and at once make an audience think, laugh and weep continues to develop with time.

YELLOW, written and directed by Shores at The Coast Playhouse, examines a modern southern family, the Westmorelands, of Vicksburg, Mississippi: the father Bobby (David Cowgill), Katie, his wife (excellent Kristen McCullough), football hero Dayne (Luke McClure), and his frantic sister, Gracie (enthusiastic Evie Louise Thompson). As Dayne enters his senior year of high school, Bobby, a former NFL football player turned PE Teacher/Football coach, has high hopes for his son. The kid is a natural and both are dedicated to a great final season.

Gracie is a fifteen year old “actress” whose histrionics as a fanatical high school drama student burst like IEDs in an attempt to get her parents’ attention. Hormones raging, her sibling rivalry with big brother Dayne reaches fever pitch causing their parents to sigh and shake their heads. It’s a phase.

As the Westmorelands celebrate their wedding anniversary, a brief feeling of situation comedy permeates early in the play. We then meet Kendall (tres gai Matthew Scott Montgomery), Gracie’s gay guy pal. Kendall is an aspiring musical comedy star who can quote the plot line of any Broadway show and sing a number to document his love of the genre. Gay through and through, Kendall facilitates one issue through which Shores develops a theme of tolerance evolving into a strong polemic.

The play takes a sharp turn to the right as Kendall’s mother, Sister Timothea Parker (the evangelical Susan Leslie) appears. Sister Timothea is a fervent fundamentalist Christian Woman who can quote both Testaments to prove any point. There’s a fine line between parody and a sincere portrayal of this type of character. Leslie treads this line with frightening perfection.

Shores’ ability to direct his own work, simply, works. From time to time his actors deliver lines directly upstage and some other choices either by the direction or that the actors have made are slightly distracting, but the play works. The message works. The actors are all on the same page at the same time.

Robert Steinberg’s contemporary set is perfect, capturing the middle class status of the Westmorelands. Kathi O’Donohue’s always excellent lighting design accentuates and isolates individual scenes flawlessly.

That YELLOW has been extended for six weeks and had a full house for a Sunday matinee speaks to the fact that good press and word of mouth have done their job. The sensitivity with which Shores intertwines familiar themes of his past work: fidelity, homosexuality and fundamentalist religion, continues to leave audiences laughing and emotionally involved. Themes in this play don’t hit us over the head, but lead us to come to our own conclusions. Redemption and forgiveness are only available when even our deepest feelings are given an opportunity to find their way to new understandings.

YELLOW written and directed by Del Shores
Coast Playhouse
8325 Santa Monica Boulevard
West Hollywood

Fridays and Saturdays at 8PM
Sundays at 2PM and 7PM
Extended through Sunday September 5, 2010
Tickets: www.yellowbydelshores.com / www.tix.com or by calling 800 595 4849
$34.99 Top

A NOISE WITHIN ... PASADENA!

2010-07-22T09:07:00.001-07:00

Geoff Elliott (left) shares A Noise Within's Commendation from Mayor Bogaard and the City of Pasadena.

When the Mayor of Pasadena and the artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse turn out with a couple of hundred other folks on a warm July morning to a construction site, something big is going on. In 1991 Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott with three thousand dollars of their own money found their way into the old Masonic Temple on Brand Avenue in Glendale with the dream of making a theatre dedicated to the classics. Over time, the Elliotts, their resident artists and crew along with their dauntless Board of Directors of A Noise Within, currently led by Chairman Terry Kay, have moved steadily toward creating a modern and comfortable space to do their valuable work.

With ten million dollars pledged, they still need another three million to get to a finished product for the fall of 2011. With the enthusiastic gathering at the ceremony on Tuesday, it looks like their goal is well within sight. The ground is broken. Construction has begun.

The differences between Glendale’s marginal support of the arts and the way that Pasadena takes giant steps to embrace A Noise Within are like night and day. There may have been opportunities for the City of Glendale to entice the Elliotts to stay in the city, but witness the new parking regulations that prevented patrons from parking near the theater at Brand and Colorado for more than two hours. And, then observe the Glendale City Council that seems to have so little interest in any of the arts that no one made the slightest effort to find a space for the company within the city limits. Of course, art flows to where arms fly open. Apparently, arms in Glendale were folded to the company and an ideal opportunity blossomed in the City of Pasadena.

The ceremony opened with a performance by members of the Resident Company. Supporters then told stories of how the past nineteen years have been on ‘the threshold of a dream.’ The dream of A Noise Within now moves in a material way to a beautiful permanent home under way at Sierra Madre Villa and Foothill Boulevard in Pasadena. In a complex designed by Edward Durell Stone (designer of Radio City Music Hall as well as the Museum of Modern Art and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC) the new 33,000 square foot complex space will feature a sweeping thrust stage surrounded on three sided by the audience. A state of the art theater with flies and advanced technical capabilities will be an arts destination convenient to the Gold Line.

Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard presented the company with a proclamation welcoming them to the city. Bogaard was praised by others for his championship of not only ANW, but the arts in general in Pasadena. Sheldon Epps, artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse, in attendance indicates the acceptance of a sister company which can only assist the embattled Playhouse by drawing more attention to Pasadena.

Glendale’s loss is certainly Pasadena’s gain. A Noise Within is on par with regional theatre anywhere in the country and with this new space opening in the autumn of 2011, we can expect even more inventive and creative productions in the future. At the risk of sounding like a fan.. the remaining three million dollars needed to make this jewel sparkle may easily be made in modest donations from each of us. Contact A Noise Within Development Department at 818 265 7959. For further information, link to www.anoisewithin.org/capitalcampaign.html

Congratulations to A Noise Within for never letting go of their dream.

Round and Round and Round in the Circle Game

2010-07-13T23:41:00.000-07:00

Jack Grapes (far right) and Company in a quiet moment before Circle of Will at The Macha Theatre. Photo by Alexis Fancher.

Circle of Will

Many years ago I participated in a production of “Impromptu” by Tad Mosel. It’s a one act that places four characters on a bare stage and makes them figure out who they are and what they are supposed to do. It’s a great exercise in an existential examination of who we are and what we are doing and where we are going. Of course, we’d go nuts if we spent too much time dealing with this stuff. However, a few great playwrights: Beckett, Ionesco, Pirandello... did that and basically made the audience do a lot of the work about figuring out who Godot might be, if he exists and if, ever, he might come, etc. Circle of Will is a less cumbersome play than any of the aforementioned writers' efforts, but it does bring up some issues and addresses them in a most amusing and entertaining way. Okay, an hilarious way. Way hilarious.

I loved this show.

Written by Jack Grapes & Bill Cakmis, Circle of Will features Grapes as Will and Joe Briggs as Richard “Dirk” Burbage at The Macha Theater in WeHo. Formerly, The Globe, this crusty little theater survives with its art. It’s a perfect setting for Circle of Will in that the feeling of The Globe (Shakespeare’s Globe) persists for what is … at least for a time… between 1610 and 1616. The Tempest was written in 1610.. happy 400th to Caliban (whom I saw in the persona of John Ritter in this very theater before we came to know what Ritter could really do), Miranda and all.

Notable as Eunuchs One and Two, Cuthbert (John Brocato) and Quincey (Josh Grapes), entertain and introduce the play. A rich atmosphere of 1970's Renaissance Pleasure Faire permeates their foreplay. Juggling takes practice. (Note to Eunuchs: practice juggling.)

Shakespeare struggles as he attempts to cobble together ideas he’s had brewing for a long time with what may become his last play, “Gonzago and the King” (which Burbage dubs a ‘footstool’ because it weighs a ton and looks like… well… a footstool.) Then, troubles are afoot as the argument morphs, literally into a quantum continuum exploration of the meaning of meaning, more or less.

Director Brian Herskowitz keeps his actors in the moment, which, as the play progresses becomes more and more of a challenge. Martin C. Vallejo’s set allows for some farcical shenanigans. “Shenanigans” being the best description of the entire goings on. There are lots of shenanigans, clever puns and literary references. And, as the story bounds and leaps and leaps and bounds through time, some very interesting deeper thoughts emerge. A lot of scholarly thought has gone into this script and the business that every play encounters with every audience becomes problematic. What’s real? What’s fantasy? Where are we now? When are we going to get there? And, then? What then?

Eavesdropping on any actor symposium will find us discussing ‘being in the moment’ and playing the reality of the characters. Will and Burbage go round and round (it’s a Circle of Will, after all) in the attempt to satisfy Dirk’s enormous ego and get this last endeavor of the Bard’s together in time for previews in a few days. Burbage is tired of playing women and just wants to be a leading man for a change. As Will and Burbage deconstruct (or self destruct), the question of who’s who and what’s what becomes more entangled. Simply put, it’s wonderful. At the risk of trying to be too clever, the only way find yourself breathless with laughter and at the same time questioning what Life is really all about is to go to see this show. Check into the Time Warp and then decide for yourself.

Appearances of a large ephemeral cast, feature Stephanie Nguyen doubling as some body and the stage manager, Steve Roland (Gonzago), Bob Downing as The King, Peter Funt plays Nicholas Bishop, Bert Connors is Thomas Heywood, and Michael Kzynenski as Julius Caesar. Cynthia Tyson limns Lady Macbeth, the androgynous C. J. Potter (a flawless Ophelia). Pam Bohusalv is regal as The Queen, Romona of Verona is played by Christiana Bolaslavsky (no relation to Richard with an ‘e’), Sherrod Klippel as Prospero. Lady Prospero disappears as Lucinda van de Velde, Cynthia Connors plays Miranda of Naples, Capulet (Omar Truzdale) and Grizelda of Beaujolais (Christa Marsh) round out the cast.
Lynda Goodfriend does not appear in this production.

Costumes by Anasuya Engle and Sound and Lighting by Carey Dunn are all just fine.

Just go see this play.

Circle of Will
Macha Theater
1107 N. Kings Road
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Thursday through Saturday at 8PM
Sundays at 7PM
Reservations: 323 960 7822
www.Plays411.com/circleofwill
Through August 15, 2010
$30 top

On Stage Los Angeles

Is it ART? Yes!!

NogoodDeed

PARAMOUNT'S WINGS SOARS AGAIN

NOISES OFF! PARTY ON!!

"THE SHERMAN SHOW"

Baby Doll at the Lillian

Desire Under the Elms at ANW

A NEW NOISE AT A NOISE WITHIN PASADENA

HOUSE OF GOLD (an anatomy) / Ensemble Studio Theatre

PEACE IN OUR TIME / ANTEAUS

IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE! ANTAEUS READING

More good news

GOOD NEWS!!

ANW OPEN HOUSE OCTOBER 23, 2011

The Encyclopedia of Hallucinations La Luz de Jesus Gallery

DRAMA WEST FEST: Play Readings by the Seat of Their Pants!

Virtual Realty Comes to the Stage

Free Theatah!

A WHALE OF A TALE!

THAR SHE BLOWS!

GOOD NEWS!

Mysterious Bakersfield Mist

Importance of The Importance

Fond Farewell ANW Benefit Performances

TAG You're IT / ART IN THE STREETS at the Geffen

PRISONERS TAKEN AT THE EL PORTAL

THE SON ALSO RISES AT EST-LA

MASSACRE AT THE AVT

WATCH THIS SPACE!

The Chairs, a fond adieu

Brook at The Broad Stage

Daddy O Dies Well at The Electric Lodge

Peter Brook at The Broad! April 7 - 10, 2011

Neil LaBute's THE MERCY SEAT

Eccentricities Of A Nightingale at ANW

The Frybread Queen / Native Voices at The Autry

The Young Man From Atlanta

A COMEDY OF ERRORS!!

A House Not Meant to Stand / The Fountain

The Adventures of Pinocchio / Deaf West

The Models Cast "MLLE. GOD"

James Cromwell and Ed Harris Perform

"Mlle. God" at AVT

FREE Inside the John Anson Ford

NOISES OFF REDUX

Noises Off Redux!

'greedy' at The El Centro Theatre

Save Barnsdall Rally

Media. Newspapers.Bloggers and Film crew. Rally on Steps of City Hall.Barnsdall Alliance Rally.200 North Spring street @ 10.00 a.m Wednesday January 5,2011.Barnsdall off the RFP list!! Other related issues as well......Happy New Year 2011!!

Neil LaBute benefit for Vs. Theatre Company

"greedy" at the El Centro

THE PLAYHOUSE RISES

Free Theatre

BILLIONS FOR BILLIAM Guest Reviews

BILLIONS FOR BILLIAM

Great Great Expectations

Merry Wives of Windsor

FDR at The Playhouse

IMPROBABLE FARCE! PRACTICAL FUN!

Barnsdall Art Park / LA MUNICIPAL Art Gallery

MEASURE FOR MEASURE at ANW

DYING IS EASY...

Bargain Theatre in Glendale

NEIGHBORS: TAKE TWO

NEIGHBORS: A PLAY WITH CARTOONS!

C A L L TO A C T I O N!!!

Great Greater Greatest

PARASITE DRAG

FIFTY CHAIRS

IN & OUT, IN & OUT

Yellow at the Coast

A NOISE WITHIN ... PASADENA!

Round and Round and Round in the Circle Game

Media. Newspapers.Bloggers and Film crew. Rally on Steps of City Hall.
Barnsdall Alliance Rally.
200 North Spring street @ 10.00 a.m Wednesday January 5,2011.
Barnsdall off the RFP list!! Other related issues as well......
Happy New Year 2011!!