Celeste Bedford Walker
NEWS… Considerable rhetoric and conjecture followed the Jan 17 announcement that the LA City Council is booting Latino Theater Company (LTC) out of LA Theatre Center (LATC) within 45 days. But no formal eviction notice had been received by Wednesday, and LTC, under the leadership of Jose Luis Valenzuela, has announced its spring 2012 production schedule in the four-theater complex it has occupied and co-managed since 2006. The projected lineup and hoped-for opening dates: The Vault Ensemble’s collage of downtown LA stories, Bankrupt, co-helmed by co-ADs Eric Garcia and Fidel Gomez (Mar 29); Playwrights’ Arena’s The Girl Most Likely To by Filipino-American scripter Michael Premsrirat (Apr 19); LTC’S Charity: Part III of A Mexican Trilogy, scripted by Evelina Fernandez, a follow-up to LTC’s fall 2011 staging of Hope (Apr 19); Robey Theatre Company’s West Coast premiere of Celeste Bedford Walker‘s African-American military drama, Camp Logan, helmed by Alex Morris (Apr 28); Cornerstone Theater’s and LTC’s staging of Café Vida, chronicling the Homegirl Café, scripted by Lisa Loomer (May 2); Refugee Nation, scripted by Leilani Chan and Ova Saopeng, presented by TeAda productions, focusing on Laotian refugees and their descendants (May 31); and Language Rooms by Yussef el Guindi, a co-production with San Francisco-based Golden Thread Productions (May 31)…In no danger of losing its home, Actors Co-op, located on the campus of First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, is formally re-naming the Crossley Terrace Theatre. It’s now the David Schall Theatre, in honor of a co-founder of the company. Schall, who had been one of main motivating forces in the development of Actors Co-op, passed away on Apr 11, 2003, hours before he was to appear onstage in the opening night performance of Uncle Vanya. The dedication is being presented in conjunction with the Feb 3 American premiere of the two-hander Yours, Isabel, scripted by Christy Hall, helmed by Marianne Savell, chronicling the relationship-of-letters between a young wife (Heather Chesley) and her soldier husband (Rick Marcus), who is overseas during WWII…
CTG UNLEASHES TWITTER MANIA… In an embrace of social media, Center Theatre Group (CTG) is holding a landmark Tweet Seat Event tonight, at both parts of the interconnected CTG productions of A Raisin in the Sun at Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City and Pulitzer Prize-winning Clybourne Park at downtown’s Mark Taper Forum. The event offers a limited number of selected Twitter users – made up of theater patrons and social media fans with a combined reach of 90,000 followers – to live tweet throughout performances this evening. Of course, these dedicated finger poppers will be seated in special sections of the theaters, isolated from the non-tweeting patrons. Tweets will be unified under the hash tag #WhereWeLive and will stream on monitors in the lobbies of the Taper and the Douglas…
Davy Jones
AROUND TOWN… Often, LA theater folk are wary of taking a locally premiered play to New York in fear of being sneered upon. In a fitting reversal, Jason Mitchell’s 2009 NY Fringe Festival hit, The Boy Upstairs, helmed by Jeremy O’Keefe, tiptoed into Celebration Theatre, Jan 24, as part of CT: Tuesdays Workshop series to find out if this Big Apple-centric comedy will connect with a West Hollywood audience. The workshop concludes next Tuesday and Wednesday.…To launch its 38th season, Group Rep in North Hollywood is offering two plays in rep. Opening Feb 10 at Lonny Chapman Theatre is If We Are Women, Joanna McClelland Glass’s 1993 all-female dramedy, helmed by Sherry Netherland, focusing on three generations of family members who “weigh the choices each of them have made as women.” Opening a week later, Feb 17, a revival of Lee Blessing’s 1989 baseball bio drama Cobb chronicles the unapologetic life of Hall of Famer Ty Cobb, who had been called “the most despised man in baseball,” helmed by Gregg T. Daniel. The season continues with: Moon Over Buffalo, scripted by Ken Ludwig, helmed by Larry Eisenberg (May 11 to June 24); Charles Marowitz’s Sherlock’s Last Case, helmed by Shira Dubrovner (July 20 to Sep 2); The Paris Letter by Jon Robin Baitz, helmed by Jules Aaron (Sep 28 to Nov 11); and Stepping Out, scripted by Richard Harris, helmed by Stan Mazin (Dec 7 to Jan 20, 2013)…Hoping to attract audience folk who are not into NCAA basketball, La Mirada Theatre is offering its own version of March Madness with a full court press of eight productions. The bill o fare includes: 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Leon Russell (Mar 3); those geriatric bad boys of doo-wop, Sha Na Na (Mar 4); Laser Spectacular’s Michael Jackson tribute The Spirit of Michael (Mar 10); In The Mood: A 1940s Musical Revue (Mar 11); Chubby Checker & The Wildcats, celebrating the 50th anniversary of “The Twist” (Mar 17); Classic Albums Live concert recreation, Eagles’ Hotel California, based on the iconic 1976 album (Mar 23); Dionne Warwick in Concert (Mar 24); and Davy Jones Sings The Monkees & More (Mar 31)…
ISN’T IT ROMANTIC… Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza-based Cabrillo Music Theatre (CMT) and Two Roads Theatre in Studio City are offering variant takes on the celebration of Valentine’s Day. In conjunction with its ongoing fundraising efforts, CMT is cooing A Musical Valentine, love ballads warbled by a roundup of Cabrillo stars, including Shannon Warne, Michael G. Hawkins, Stuart Ambrose and Alet Taylor, Feb 13 in the Founders Room of the Kavli Theatre…Meanwhile, Two Roads is declaring, It’s Just Sex, Jeff Gould’s comedic view of contemporary morals and wife-swapping, opening Feb 10, helmed by Rick Shaw...
Rachel Noll
THE THING IS… “My character’s name is Girleen, a booze-peddling 17-year-old. She’s very tough. She can rumble with the boys. She has to, to survive. But she’s also in love with the town priest. The play has a similar feel to the work of Sam Shepard. It’s technically a comedy but the humor is very dark. It hits your heart but it also makes you laugh. My character is very different from who I am but I can really identify with her. She has very deep thoughts and deep emotions; but because of the nature of her life, she is afraid to share them with anyone but the one person she feels safe with, the priest. He treats her like an adult and like a human being. Even though she comes off as very bold, brash and sexual, her love for the priest is so pure and innocent. She is actually just a young girl with her heart on her sleeve for this man. The reason she is out peddling the booze around the countryside is because she is trying to save up enough money to buy him this expensive gold heart necklace. There is so much anger and confrontation in the play, it needs this relationship to provide some emotional balance.” – Rachel Noll is appearing in the Santa Monica-based Ruskin Group Theatre production of Lonesome West, scripted by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, helmed by Mike Reilly, opening Jan 27…
Taylor Gilbert
I WAS REALLY ACTING WHEN… “We were at our old warehouse space in Van Nuys in 1994 doing Mark Lee’s Pirates. I was playing Anne Bonny and Michael Dempsey was playing Capt. Jack. The costume I was wearing was one of those corset types, with some lacy bustier stuff across the bosom and long puffy, florally sleeves that fell off the shoulders. There was a lot of physical action involved,and I noticed that Michael, for the first time, was doing the whole scene staring straight into my face. When I made my exit, I found out one of my breasts had been sticking out the whole time.” – Taylor Gilbert, founding artistic director of NoHo-based Road Theatre Company, is co-executive producing the LA premiere of Ty DeMartino’s Finding Fossils, helmed by Suzanne Hunt, opening Jan 29…
Ed Pearl
INSIDE LA STAGE HISTORY… The building at 8162 Melrose Avenue is destined to provide a home for a diverse assemblage of artists, beginning with the July 1958 debut of The Ash Grove folk club (named after the Welsh folk song of the same name), founded by 22-year-old guitar teacher Ed Pearl. For the next 15 years, the club serves as the intersection for folk legends like Mississippi John Hurt and Brownie McGee, intermingling with the surge of young 1960s anti-establishment folkies such as Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez. It is also a nurturing ground for the social dissent that engulfs the nation during the decade, providing a platform for satirists and commentators, such as poets Charles Bukowski and Kenneth Patchen, the satirical Credibility Gap (Michael McKean, David L. Lander, Harry Shearer, Richard Beebe), El Teatro Campesino, Firesign Theater, the Groundlings, Rowan & Martin, Mort Sahl, San Francisco Mime Troupe, Wavy Gravy and others. In the early 70s, the Ash Grove also welcomes political activists returning from Cuba who – through poetry, song, film and rant – provide a view of the Castro regime that foments protests and threats of violence from decidedly anti-Castro Cuban exiles. A series of fires, including what patrons believe to be an arson attack, lead to the club’s closing on Nov 11, 1973. Soon after, young entrepreneur, Joe Roth (the future film industry power broker), leases the Ash Grove for the San Francisco-based improv ensemble, the Pitchell Players, led by Ann Bowen (wife of thesp Roger Bowen). Despite achieving laudable artistic success, the Pitchell residency fails to maintain financial viability. Meanwhile, in New York, Budd Friedman, who in 1963, establishes the successful Hell’s Kitchen-based late-night music and comedy club, The Improvisation, asks visiting guitarist Julio Martinez whether he feels the Improvisation concept could take hold in Hollywood. Martinez’s response, “Nah, this would never work in LA.” Undeterred by this bit of wisdom, Friedman opens the West Coast branch of the Improvisation (nicknamed the Improv) at the former Ash Grove site in 1974, serving as the launching pad for a plethora of stand-up comics and comedy writers who emerge during the next three decades, as well as spawning Improvisation Comedy Club franchises around the nation. Today, it is still doing quite well…
…The Julio Martinez-hosted ARTS IN REVIEW, moves to Thursdays (2:30 to 3 pm) on KPFK (90.7FM), spotlighting the best in live theater and cabaret in the Greater LA area. Upcoming on Feb 2, a spotlight on Upright Cabaret’s American Icon series, featuring Jake Simpson and Jackie Tohn…
