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by Julio Martinez | July 25, 2013
Karen Anzoategui
LATC FALL 2013…Downtown LA-basedLos Angeles Theatre Center (LATC) is embarking on its seventh fall season under the leadership of Latino Theater Company (LTC), beginning with its participation in the Radar L.A. festival (Sep 23-Oct 6), presented by REDCAT and CalArts, in association with Center Theatre Groupand the City of LA Department of Cultural Affairs. The production schedule is still to be announced. Following Radar, LATC is hosting a four-production season entirely produced by LTC, beginning with Lina Gallegos’ Wild in Wichita — a “Latino comedy about finding love in the golden years in the strangest of places: Kansas” — helmed byDenise Blasor, opening Oct 12. As previously reported, Marcus Gardley’s the road weeps, the well runs dry, helmed by Shirley Jo Finney, chronicling the travails faced by the settlers who created the first all-black US town, debuts Oct 24. Billed as a “rolling world premiere,” productions open the same week at Perseverance Theatre (Arkansas), Pillsbury House Theatre (Minneapolis) and University of South Florida. Ser! – which “examines a queer Latina’s strained relationship with each of her two homes: Los Angeles and Buenos Aires,” written and performed by Karen Anzoategui, helmed byMarcos Najera, premieres Nov 16. The production features musical collaborations of Louie Lopezof Los Lobos, CAVA and Walter Miranda. After going dark in 2012 due to lack of production funds, LTC’s annual holiday pageant play, La Virgen de Guadalupe, Dios Inantzin, adapted by Evelina Fernandez, helmed by LTC artistic director José Luis Valenzuela, produced in partnership withCathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, performs Dec 4 and 5 at the Cathedral. The production, which is free to the public, is being underwritten by national Latino products manufacturer, Goya Foods…
IN THE MONEY…Center Theatre Group (CTG) has been awarded a four-year, $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grant makes possible a program focusing on collaboratively created contemporary work from ensembles, devisers and writers. The program will build on the work generated by a multi-year 2009 Mellon Foundation grant supporting the development of non-text based work…And in Costa Mesa, South Coast Repertory (SCR) is launching a new CrossRoadsCommissioning Project — a community-based initiative within SCR’s new work program — thanks in part to a two-year grant of $150,000 from Time Warner Foundation’s New Works/New Voices Initiative. In conjunction with the program, SCR has commissioned eight playwrights, locally and nationally, to create new work inspired by residencies that explore the diversity of Orange County. Participating writers include: Luis Alfaro, Carla Ching, Julia Cho and Tanya Saracho of LA; Marc Bamuthi Joseph of Oakland, Aditi Brennan Kapil of Minneapolis, Mona Mansour of New York and Qui Nguyen of Brooklyn.
Lisa Wolpe in “Hamlet.” Photo by Michael Lamont.
AROUND TOWN…Nederlander Organization has announced that The Book of Mormon run next winter has been expanded for five weeks. It’s now scheduled for Jan 21-March 16, at the Pantages in Hollywood. The Tony-winning tuner — wrought by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone – set a box office record during its initial 2012 run at the Pantages. Also, Nederlander has delayed the previously announced The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber at the Pantages. Taking its place in a June 13-22, 2014 slot is a new tour of Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat...Meanwhile, Laguna Playhouse is adding a bonus to its 2013 season, Britishmania — a Beatles Tribute concert, featuring 35 Beatles classics, Aug 13-25…Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company and West LA-based Odyssey Theatre are co-producing an all-female staging of Hamlet in celebration of LAWSC’s 20th anniversary, starring artistic director Lisa Wolpe in the title role, also co-helming with Natsuko Ohama, opening Aug 30. The Judy Show — My life as a sitcom, starring Judy Gold, co-scripted by Gold and Kate Moira Ryan, helmed by Amanda Charlton, is extending through Aug 18 in the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at Geffen Playhouse….On the premiere front, Greeks 6 –Trojans 5, an irreverent send-up of modern warfare, scripted by Chuck Faerber, helmed by Richard Kuhlman, premieres Aug 10 at Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks…Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles is debuting Eve2 — “a new play that gives Eve a second bite at the apple,” scripted by Susan Rubin, helmed by Mark Bringelson, opening Aug 10…
Kathrine Bates and Darby Hinton in “The Manor”
THE THING IS… “It is an historic landmark located just above Sunset Boulevard and Doheny. We were so fortunate to be allowed to perform there, now celebrating our eleventh year of mainly sold-out performances. The mansion is 46,000 square feet, 55 rooms. And the audience members do follow the actors from room to room. Alas, you don’t get to see all of them when you come to the show; but you do get to see a good deal of the main living quarters on the first floor. Much of the action within the play takes place in the beautiful living room which is almost the size of a ballroom. Then the audience moves into a couple of other locations following the actors. We have a cast of 12. We have three actors who play servants and interact with the audience members. They actually break the fourth wall and guide the audience members to where they need to go. The rest of us are actually in the drama and don’t interact with the audience. I wrote this work, based on the actual history of the Doheny family. The patriarch of the family, Edward Doheny, made a huge fortune in the oil industry. He did run into some difficulty when he became involved in one of the 20th century’s first big political scandals: Teapot Dome (1920). His son stuck by him and supported Edward throughout this time. Out of gratitude, Edward Doheny gave his son the land on which the mansion was built. We deal with the history of these people and the tragedy that befell them in this house. We gave them fictional names. I hope we can continue doing this show every summer for many more years” — Kathrine Bates, who scripted and stars in The Manor, a site-specific whodunit, produced by Theatre 40, performed at Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills…
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton rehearsing “Private Lives”
INSIDE LA STAGE HISTORY…Fox Wilshire Theatre, designed by S. Charles Lee – also the architect of downtown’s Los Angeles Theatre — opens its doors on September 19, 1930, located at 8440 Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills. Built to showcase Fox’s first-run feature films, Fox Wilshire serves as a dedicated movie palace for 50 years. In 1971 it screens the exclusive premiere run of the documentary feature, Woodstock. In 1980, after extensive renovation and a name change, the 1900-seat Wilshire Theatre re-opens as a live stage venue, operated by the Nederlander organization, opening with a touring production of Beatlemania on Oct 1, 1980. Over the next three years, Wilshire hosts a smattering of of road shows, including Anything Goes, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (starring Alexis Smith), Whose Life Is it Anyway? (starring Lucie Arnaz) and A Chorus Line. In 1983, Nederlander’s failure to attract national touring productions to the facility results in only two bookings — a six-performance concert by French balladeer Charles Aznavour in April and a critically panned touring production of Noel Coward’s Private Lives in October, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Nederlander finally gives up on the Wilshire in 1989, concentrating its energies on the larger and much more successful Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. Reduced to the status of a rental facility, Wilshire Theatre does have a makeover in 1999, taking out its regular seating in favor of a cabaret setting with tables and chairs, just in time to host the national tour of the John Kander and Fred Ebb tuner, Cabaret, starring Teri Hatcher as Fraulein Sally Bowles, opening on March 3. In 2005, management of the Wilshire is taken over by Temple of the Arts – dedicated to the integration of the arts and Judaism. In March 2009, Wilshire is renamed the Saban Theatre, in recognition of a $5 million restoration grant from Haim and Cheryl Saban. It continues to operate as a rental facility…
Julio Martinez-produced and hosted Arts in Review, celebrates the best in LA-area theater and cabaret, Fridays on KPFK Radio (90.7FM). On July 26, Arts in Review airs at a new time (7-7:30 pm), highlighting the premiere of Pack Up the Moon, running at Lounge Theatre in Hollywood…
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