Results tagged “broadway”

Pencil This In: Watermelons and Broadway Showtunes

The 48th Annual Sunland-Tujunga Watermelon Fest starts this afternoon at 5 pm. On tap for the fest: a watermelon carving display, watermelon eating contest, watermelon seed spitting contest, watermelon recipe contest and the royal coronation of the Watermelon Festival Queen! There’s also a food court, wine and beer garden, artisan exhibits, carnival rides, arcade games, pony rides, petting zoo and more. The festival lasts through the weekend. Admission is $1 and will enter you in a nightly prize drawing.

A Take-Out Order? Clifton's Cafeteria Building Up For Sale

It's been a rough few years for the Clinton family, who remain the owners and operators of the last of their once-booming set of cafeteria eateries in Los Angeles, Clifton's Cafeteria. It was just three years ago that the death of Jean Clinton Roeschlaub, described as the cafeteria family's heiress, was ruled homicide; the 83-year-old who was thought to be the heart and soul of the restaurant was found dead inside her penthouse apartment.

On Monday, following the taping of their rousing performance on the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, cast members from the Broadway revival of Hair stopped by Here Lounge in West Hollywood for a "Be In" aimed at promoting marriage equality.

Move Over Wicked Witches, There's a Phantom in Town

The Phantom of the Opera has taken over the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood until Feb. 21. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about love, longing and a guy in a mask who plays the organ outlasted even Cats to become the longest-running show in Broadway history in 2006. The show runs Tuesday through Fridays at 8 pm, Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 1 and 6:30 pm. Tickets will set you back $95-126.50. But if that's too pricey and you have to get your Phantom fix to hear tunes like "Music of the Night" or "All I Ask of You," then plan to call-in sick on Thursday, Feb. 19, for the 2 pm matinee. For this one show, tickets are only $19.50-54.50.

              

The Official Recession has been upon us for thirteen official months. It’s still not a reason we can’t enjoy life on the cheap. This is LA -- we’ve got options! We last feasted on Thai Town for just a few bucks, and stopped to smell the daisies for even less.

If you loved, loved, loved Cats, then you might want think twice before seeing Spring Awakening, which opened last week at the Ahmanson. But for those who can relate to any one of the following themes: teen angst, love, lust, parental oppression, child abuse, sex, masturbation, yearning for enlightenment, then head straight for the Music Center. Pronto.

George Furth, a Tony-award winning playwright and the man behind the books for "Company," the 1970 Broadway musical as well as "Merrily We Roll Along," died yesterday in Santa Monica for reasons yet to be announced. Furth worked with Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the music and lyrics for the two musicals, on the short lived murder mystery "Getting Away With Murder" in 1996. He also wrote the play "Twigs." As an actor, Furth worked on mostly TV shows from the 60s through the 90s and is most notably remembered for his railroad clerk role in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

First brought to the boards of Broadway in 1975, Michael Bennett's stark, blunt, and brilliant musical about being in musicals became one of the longest-running musicals of all-time. Now in revival after over a decade's absence on the Great White Way, the national touring company of A Chorus Line has landed in LA's Ahmanson Theatre for a limited engagement.

              

Jesus Sanchez at the LA Times reports that the 150,000 estimated turn out (based on LAPD numbers) to Sunday's Fiesta Broadway celebration downtown was still was lower than previous celebrations and projections for this year. However, the fire department determined 400,000 people came out, still lower than the expected 500,000. Whatever the exact number may be, one things was for sure... it was hot and looked like a great time. LAist Featured Photographer Tom Andrews shares some photos from the event.

Full disclosure: my expectations for shows that are put up on “theater row” in Hollywood are low. For every one good play on that stretch of Santa Monica between Highland and Vine, there are ten painful renditions of “Proof,” five embarrassing actor showcases, and at least three productions by students taking classes in the Complex.


FREE DAYS @ LACMA

Just in time for the release one of the most anticipated titles for the Wii this year, the folks over at Nintendo are staging a regional tournament for fans of Super Smash Brothers Brawl, the game that just recently shattered Wii sales records in Japan. According to our sources, the first 256 people who show up at the Orpheum theater downtown will have a chance to fight to the finish in an attempt to claim the regional championship title. All regional winners will face off in a championship tournament in New York wherein the finalists will battle for a crystal-coated Wii and a home theater system from Best Buy. So if you've ever wanted to chance to see Pikachu kick the simultaneous asses of Mario and Luigi, head downtown this Saturday. Doors open at 3pm.

Come celebrate at LA's annual Lunar New Year Festival! Today the Golden Dragon Parade featuring lion and dragon dancers will thrill over 100,000 spectators along North Broadway. The festival continues until 8pm tonight, and runs from 10am to 3pm tomorrow at Broadway and Cesar Chavez.

The Lunar New Year has officially started, and pigs are like soooo last year. To usher in the Year of the Mouse and Rat, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles is hosting the 109th Annual Golden Dragon Parade and festival on February 9th and 10th. Performers from Beijing will lead the parade, followed by assorted city officials (Villaraigosa et al.), Mickey Mouse as grand Marshall, flower drum dances, a plethora of beauty queens, and lots of floats, costumes, and dragons.

  • Speaking of elections and politics...Bush's last State of the Union Address is going to be televised...right...about...now.

  • DINE

    As revitalization takes place throughout LA's downtown area, many are seeking to extend the developments and improvements to the Broadway area, which is home to many majestic and historic theaters, once the crown jewels of our city's movie palaces. "Among the most prized treasures of the area are Broadway's twelve historic movie palaces, which in their heyday evoked - and often surpassed - the magic of stage and screen," explains Historic Downtown LA.

    Will it be pouring buckets tonight? If you aren't already planning on holing up with some popcorn and Netflix picks, you may want to get out and get your art & culture on. Let us help!

    It was 10 p.m. when two men fought at West 86th Place and Main Street in Broadway Square, an official Los Angeles neighborhood in South LA near the 110 and 105 freeway junction. One man, the apparent "winner" of this fight, which took place for unknown reasons, slashed the victim's throat, "doused with a flammable liquid and set alight," according to the Daily News this morning.

    Forget Malibu. Forget the Hollywood Hills. Forget Mulholland Drive. Downtown is the new hot LZ for A-list celebrities, at least for the beloved Johnny Depp. He looked and bought into the $2-million property six months ago, but still hasn't moved into the Art Deco Eastern Columbia Building on Broadway, which has reportedly been having problems selling all the units. To that, the LA Times gives you the hard sell:

    It's not too late to become one of Depp's neighbors. There is a furnished corner unit in the building listed at about $1.8 million. It's on the 12th floor and is described as light-filled with an open floor plan and high ceilings. The unit has a bronze and iron entry gate, storage for 112 bottles of wine, flat-screen TVs, a jukebox, a vintage-style safe and city views. The 1,827-square-foot loft was decorated by designer Jim Hughes.

    So what do you think of the beards on Letterman and Conan? I thought everyone did pretty well, particularly Conan. Leno's show was practically unchanged (same old crap) while Letterman gave lots of props to the WGA.

    Stage and screen choreographer Michael Kidd died this past Sunday in Los Angeles at the age of 92, according to the New York Times. From his beginnings in Brooklyn, Kidd moved over to Manhattan to dance and create dances for dance companies including Lincoln Kirstein's Ballet Caravan (1937), Eugene Loring's Dance Players (1941) and Ballet Theater, the predecessor to the American Ballet Theater (1942-47).

  • The price tag for fixing LAUSD's out of control payroll system could reportedly be in excess of $210 million. Although the percentage of employees reporting errors on their checks has dropped significantly, the system is still entangled in a nasty backlog of over and underpayments, and clashes between those brought on to fix it and those anxiously awaiting the fix keep this a hot button issue in the district.
  • A third sister in Long Beach house fire has died of her injuries. The Times is reporting "Jocelin Aviles died at 9:24 a.m. [Saturday] at Torrance Memorial Medical Center, authorities said. The girl had suffered a heart attack and had burns on about 18% of her body." Fire officials believe a space heater caused the deadly blaze.
  • Police have booked a 46-year-old "pickup truck driver who ran a red light and struck a motorcyclist, dragging him under the vehicle for about a block early today" on charges of drunk driving. The accident took place around 1 a.m. "on Vernon Avenue where it crosses the Harbor (110) Freeway, said Los Angeles police." The suspect gave chase on foot after abandoning his car at Vernon and Broadway but was caught by the LAPD. The motorcyclist was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment for his injuries.

  • 1812: A major earthquake struck Southern California, destroying the church at Mission San Juan Capistrano and damaging the San Gabriel Mission.

    The newly reunited Spice Girls hit the stage at the Staples Center for two sold out nights this past Wednesday and Friday. Today's LA Times review says the girls are "thinner and more plastic than ever" and that "the show was even more elaborate and pyro- technic than the British pop group's 1998 L.A. debut at the Forum." However, the article goes on to say that the spectacle "played more like a Broadway production...

    I am thankful for… Thanksgiving - even though I think it’s a stupid holiday, and I pretty much hate all the food associated with it - for giving me the opportunity to spend the day with family that I love and actually enjoy being around. I am thankful every day that I am able to make a living being creative and doing something I love. (Except for when I’m on strike) I am thankful...

    No one likes the stigma of saying they live in Van Nuys, so they chip away making their own new neighborhoods. To that, Councilman Tony Cardenas, who we admittedly give a hard time to on this site, said something that is right on target about this so called community pride: "If I had that many people show up to a community cleanup or an anti-prostitution night out it would do much more than changing...

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