Results tagged “theatre”

In the process to make L.A. Live a reality, AEG has been going through the city for permits and approvals for eight years. Now with a moratorium on billboards upheld by a judge, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich is fighting the installation of six digital billboards at the new 14-screen Regal Cinemas theatre, set to open on Wednesday. Today, the LA Times editorial board chimes in on the issue:

As usual, things at the Ivy Substation in Culver City are not status quo. Then again, when you’re trying to keep theatre alive in an economy more suited for food stamps than Shakespeare, nothing is going to be easy. Enter The Actors’ Gang, who for years have been at the Los Angeles forefront of doing things the hard way, and with amazing results. Their productions, workshops, and community outreach programs are second to none, and the current WTF?! Festival is right in line with such forward thinking.

UCLA Live presents Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis tonight at 8 pm at Royce Hall. Under Music Director Wynton Marsalis, the 15-piece resident orchestra at Jazz at Lincoln Center in NYC will perform rare historic compositions to modern jazz, including compositions and arrangements by members of the band. Tickets: $38-$85. ($15 UCLA students).

Quiet week on the comedy front, with a few notable exceptions like Cagematch, Dragon Boy Suede, and Barats & Bereta. Get AT ME if you wanna.

For over twenty years, when Culver City-based theatre collective The Actors’ Gang has spoken, Los Angeles theatergoers have listened, and with good reason. The shows that are produced in the tiny Ivy Substation are often on par or well above the other high-gloss production shows you can pay twice as much money for around town. Not that their works are expansive (or expensive) shows with all sorts of modern theatrical trickery; in fact, the Gang just lets their acting do all the talking for them. And, again, we listen.

The NoHo Arts District has over 20 live theatre spaces, but no movie theatre of note nearby. Part of the redevelopment of the neighborhood--besides adding public art that LAist readers dislike--is the third phase of the NoHo Commons development that includes a mixed use building, Phil's Diner, a parking garage and a seven-screen Laemmle Theatre, which is being delayed. "Laemmle Theatre is working on their architectural drawings and hoping to secure financing to be able to start construction," according to Curbed LA.

Last weekend, the noted Bruce Norris play, "The Pain and the Itch" opened at the Boston Court in Pasadena, earning the Critic's Pick nod from Back Stage. "This astutely designed and intelligently rendered production is a shared feather in the cap for two of L.A.'s most adventurous theater companies," wrote Les Spindle of the Furious Theatre Company's production.

For the second time this summer, traveling troupe Cirque Berzerk has extended their run, this time through the end of August. This just confirms to us that Los Angeles is indeed ready for permanent high quality acts. Soon Cirque du Soleil will be arriving for a 10 year show at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, but what else? Can this city support a Blue Man Group theatre? Would it go on the revived Broadway? Can we give Vegas a little run for their money? Let's hope so, L.A.

       

Beau Willimon's Farragut North, now onstage in its West Coast premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, begins first with a burst of layered noise courtesy a handful of media outlets and their various talking heads rehashing political talking points, and then is followed by the noise of a group of four ambitious people talking rehashing politics and the media--their bread and butter--in an Iowa bar.

Remember the classic Griffith Observatory show when "the audience sat in dentist-like chairs so they could watch whirling laser beams dance on the domed ceiling to the classic rock tunes of Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon,' Led Zeppelin and the Beatles"? Well, it's back, reports the Daily News in a feature today. But there are some changes, most notably with new technology and its new pedestrian friendly location at the Historic Vine Theater at Hollywood and Vine. And apparently, the popcorn glows in the dark.

DRINKING Bigfoot Lodge is celebrating their 10th Anniversary with a week-long party. They're rolling back the prices, so you can actually party like it's 1999. Help them celebrate by enjoying their "recession busting" special pricing. Heads up: if you really want to relive the glory of '99, check them out all week for other fun events like tomorrow's Knotty Pine Derby, and the return of music to the Bigfoot on Sunday, along with their Bloody Sunday crafty cocktail menu.

You know it's summer in LA when Highland in Hollywood becomes even more of a traffic nightmare than usual when the Hollywood Bowl "officially" opens. (We guess the annual Playboy Jazz Festival is the unofficial opening?) Tonight, there's a star-studded opening night gala with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Josh Groban, who'll be inducted during the 10th anniversary of the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame. The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra will be conducted by Thomas Wilkins, with guest performers Roger Daltrey, Angélique Kidjo, Frederica von Stade and Trisha Yearwood. Tickets are $17-$103.

The Hammer Museum presents a lecture by artist and photographer Stephen Berkman tonight at 7 pm. He’ll discuss his work, which uses antiquated photographic and optical processes. “Berkman, currently a teacher at the Art Center of Design, will also discuss his quixotic art in the context of the early history of the photographic medium, including phenomenology, spirit photography, and the technical processes used to achieve them.” The lecture is a related program to “The Darker Side of Light” exhibition. The public program is free, but tickets are required. Parking is available under the museum for $3 after 6 pm.

Machine Project is hosting a “Farewell to Analog TV” lecture and mixer tonight at 10 pm. Jason Torchinsky will talk about mechanical televisions, which will be followed by a countdown to the demise of analog TV. At midnight, all the old analog television broadcasts will stop, replaced by digital signals so all the TVs without converter boxes won’t work anymore. Machine Project will be gathering a pyramid of old TVs together for a countdown as they go to static, all at once.

Start off the morning with a nice casual two hour hike/walk starting at Malibu Bluffs Park and heading to the beach led by the California Native Plant Society who will teach you about wildflowers, native grasses and invading weeds. Begins at 10 a.m.

From the Taste of Avalon to Peddle Boat Race to a parade featuring Huell Howser, the 2nd Annual Flying Fish Festival in Catalina Island's main city, Avalon, is ready to pack a punch over the next four days. It begins tomorrow with a variety of activities including the Taste of Avalon where restaurants gather in the middle of town and dole out $1 or cheaper samples of their best dishes.

THEATRE* ShortLived 2.0 is SF-based PianoFight’s short playwriting competition, and it’s making its LA debut as ShortLived LA at 8 pm tonight at Theatre Asylum. Tickets are $15-$20. Last week, eight original pieces written by local LA writers hit the stage; the highest scoring piece will automatically get a spot in the SF Championship Weekend for a chance to win the grand prize: an invitation to pen a full-length piece produced by PianoFight and staged for a one-month in San Francisco.

...Well, sort of. The new Westside Comedy theater, formerly the Westside Eclectic in Santa Monica, has undergone a renovation and (hopefully) a renaissance. A few months ago longtime touring improvisers Mission IMPROVable (M.i.) took a majority stake in the theater and have since decided to really revamp the look and feel of the place. Their mission? To be the premiere spot for comedy west of the 405.

We are all lucky enough to live in a region rich in arts, especially theatre. And Pasadena has one of the strongest presences around with its Playhouse District, which includes the Boston Court Performing Arts Center (follow them on Twitter) where a new world premiere play, Courting Vampires, opened this earlier this month.

LACMA presents its Masters of Architecture Lecture Series with Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas tonight at 7:30 pm. His studio focuses on urban design and public projects, including the Bao’an International Airport, Shenzhen, China; Congress Center EUR, Rome, Italy; African Institute of Science and Technology, Abuja, Nigeria; Zenith Music Hall, Strasbourg, France, and Amiens, France; Armani Ginza Tower, Tokyo, Japan; and New Milan Trade Fair, Milan, Italy. From 1998 to 2000, he served as director of the VII Biennale Internazionale di Architettura di Venezia “Less Aesthetics, More Ethics.” Tonight he’ll be introduced by LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne. Tickets are $12.

Mother daughter relationships are complicated to begin with. Power struggles, personality clashes, communication misfires. But add to that the question of whether mom once tried to kill her little girl, and things go quickly from complicated to depraved.

Comedian Robert Wuhl is probably better known for his film roles or for his HBO series Arli$$, than he is for his stand up, though he's been at it for the bulk of his 30+ career. This changed somewhat in 2006 with the launch of Wuhl's brilliant Assume The Position with Mr. Wuhl, a hilarious history lecture (given to actual students) about the way history is created and treated by the culture at large (similar to pop culture or even entertainment). HBO aired a 2 part version of the show and it was well received enough that Wuhl followed it up in 2007 with a second installment.

Imagine a structure hailed for its exterior design that took 60 days to build, was trafficked by hundreds of thousands of people for almost four decades, spent 17 years abandoned with an uncertain fate, contributed to the launch of LA's preservation movement, and took one night to burn to the ground.

Over the course of a woman's reproductive years, the idea of getting knocked up takes on different meanings. It can be terrifying at times, and if she wants children, all-consuming at others. In her new play, "Family Planning," Julia Edwards explores one couples' experience as they navigate the tail end of those years.

Not headed east for the Coachella Valley this weekend? That's perfectly okay because there's plenty of stuff to do. And most of the stuff tonight doesn't cost nearly as much as a music festival pass.

Photograph 51 at the Fountain Theatre has been extended until May 31. It’s based on a true story of Rosalind Franklin, a scientist whose research led to the discovery of DNA. But this drama asks whether her male colleagues stole her data and claimed credit for themselves. It’s a play about science, competition and a woman trapped in a man’s world. Tonight, Rosalind Franklin Jekowsky, niece and namesake of the British biophysicist whose famous photo led to the discovery of the structure of DNA, will lead a Talk Back discussion following the performance. The show begins at 8 pm tonight.

The Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival opens tonight at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica with its Champagne Gala and Awards Ceremony at 7 pm. The festival will also present the Integrity, Eternity, Rainbow and Maverick Awards to five distinguished women for their contributions to theatre and the performing arts by Honorary Co-Chair Hattie Winston (of the TV series Becker and Pasadena Playhouse Artistic Director Sheldon Epps. Entertainment for the evening will include two excerpted theatre pieces: Angela Dean-Baham in “The Unsung Diva” that explores the life of 19th Century opera singer Matilda Sissieretta Jones, known as “The Black Patti” (a comparison to the celebrated Sicilian soprano Adelina Patti. That piece will be followed up by Rose Weaver in “The Incomparable Ethel Waters: A Night of Stormy Weather.” Waters was the first African American Broadway star as well as the first Black actress to star in a television series. “A celebrated singer, she was a favorite of composer Harold Arlen, who wrote the song “Stormy Weather” explicitly for her.” Champagne gala tickets are $60.

The Studio Winter 2009 at REDCAT continues tonight at 8:30 pm. It’s the latest installment of REDCAT's quarterly series of new work and works-in-progress that features dance, theater, multimedia and music performances by Los Angeles area artists. The following six original works will be presented this evening: Choreographer Amy "Catfox" Campion’s “Antics Performance: Gone Wild”; Ori Barel’s soundscapes “In a Tube”; the Blank-the-Dog Productions’s “Carolyn Bryant Project”; Keith Glassman’s “Sonnet (Stroke)”; Elizabeth Hoefner’s “Moth-Asomati”; Katherine Saltzberg’s “Los Angelyne.” Tickets are $8-$15.

Forking -- or its formal title Fork Off Down Your Own Forking Adventure Which You've Forked: FORKING! -- is a full-length play by SF native Daniel Heath that mixes theatre and reality TV. The audience votes on the ending like a “choose your own adventure” on stage: “This time around, the audience again actively participates by voting. Six 20-to-30-somethings who live together in Los Angeles are thrust into or out of the sack with other characters, depending on how the audience votes.” The plot focuses on wedding photographer Chastity with a bad knee and no health coverage and Joshua, a Canadian about to be deported. After a drinking binge they think that marriage might be the best course of action? Will the audience get them to the altar on time? The curtain rises at 8 pm at the Theatre Asylum and runs until March 14. Tickets are $20 at the door or $15 online.

Tonight marks the February installment of Mindshare LA, a monthly evening of “enlightened debauchery,” that celebrates innovations in scholarship, culture, technology and entrepreneurship in LA. This month’s topic celebrates lurrve and Valentine’s Day and includes topics “Return of the Bromance: Victorian Intimacy in the 21st Century” with Ph.D. Candidate Patrick Randolph of U.C. Riverside's English department; “The Reach for Shamanic Media” with multimedia artist David Wexler (VJ Strangeloop); “The Neurophysiology of Attraction” with U.C. Irvine Social Psychology scholar Sena Koleva; “Poledancing for Fitness sponsored by exercise studio Sheila Kelly's S-Factor”; and “How the Brain Processes Emotion” with Ph.D. Candidate Moran Cerf of CalTech's Computation and Neural Systems department. An open bar and jazz accompany the learning, too. Tickets are $25.