Cormac is a young man who lives with his mother, Elisabeth, in a tiny apartment in New York City’s West Village. He is preparing to enter law school and Elisabeth’s employer has cut back her hours, so money is tight. Iris, a young blogger from Queens, hires Cormac to design her website. What ensues is a boy meets girl love story unlike any other.
Dan Shaked and Virginia Newcomb
Writer Ken LaZebnik’s highly acclaimed drama, “On the Spectrum,” provides a glimpse into the minds and hearts of two people faced with autism spectrum disorders. The production, directed by Jacqueline Schultz and currently on stage at the Fountain Theatre, captures the strengths and quirks of the main characters as they navigate through life. More importantly, the play serves as a testament to the need for increased awareness about autism.
The play “does a great a job of breaking down the myths about autism” says Schultz. “They can feel. They can fall in love. They can get actively involved in their own community.”
Dan Shaked & Jeanie Hackett in “On the Spectrum”
Rave reviews are rolling in for our West Coast Premiere of On the Spectrum by Ken LaZebnik, directed by Jacqueline Schultz. The Hollywood Reporter hails it as “Incandescent!” and Broadway World calls it “life-affirming” and “engrossing theatre that should be experienced by everyone.” The Examiner exclaims “If you have the opportunity to get to one play this spring, On the Spectrum is the one to see!”
Take a Look at All the RAVE REVIEWS
Advance LA is proud to welcome LaZebnik to Day One of the Innovate Conference on Friday, April 26th, from 12:50 to 1:50pm, where he will be giving a presentation about his celebrated production. In addition, the play’s three actors — Dan Shaked as Mac, Virginia Newcomb as Iris, and Jeanie Hackett as Elisabeth — are scheduled to perform a scene from the play for Friday’s conference attendees.
Advance LA is an innovative program created and operated by The Help Group to support teens and young adults with autism, Asperger’s and other learning issues in their transition to independence.
This year’s Advance LA conference, INNOVATE, will bring together experts and innovators from diverse fields to join in exploring the newest thinking on how best to support young people preparing for a successful transition to college, the workforce, and beyond. The conference will focus on the need to devise innovative, practical, and sustainable solutions to answer questions that arise during the transitioning period, a crucial time for young people who face challenges that differ from those confronting many of their peers.
Meet the playwright and cast of On the Spectrum at the Advance LA conference on Friday, April 26th, from 12:50 to 1:50, at the American Jewish University, 15600 Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90077.
More info: (818) 779-5198 or www.advancela.org
On the Spectrum(323) 663-1525 Now to April 28th MORE
This production is sponsored, in part, by The Help Group.
This entry was posted in actors, Arts, Aspergers, Autism, Drama, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre and tagged actors, Advance LA, American Jewish University, Asperger’s, autism, autism spectrum, Dan Shaked, Fountain Theatre, Hollywood Reporter, Jacqueline Schultz, Jeanie Hackett, Ken LaZebnik, learning differences, Los Angeles, new plays, On the Spectrum, performing arts, plays, playwriting, The Help Group, theater, theatre, Virginia Newcomb, West Coast Premiere. Bookmark the permalink.
Technical rehearsals are a slow, painstaking process. When all of the technical and design elements — light cues, sound cues, sets, props, costumes — are layered in and integrated with the timing of the actors. Whenever I work at other theatres around the country I’m always curious to witness how other companies run a tech. The procedure is the same but the experience is different. Some are slow, some fast, some meticulous and detail-oriented, some breezy and easy-going.
As a director myself who just opened this play in Los Angeles, watching director Jeff Zinn run the tech rehearsal is like letting someone else drive your car. You hand over the keys. Sit quiet in the passenger seat. And try to not to shout out “No! Turn here! Go faster! Slow down! Look out!” No one likes a back-seat driver. Let Jeff drive. See how he handles the road.
Whether in a sparkling new 200-seat venue or the funky intimate Fountain, the basic questions and challenges of a tech rehearsal remain the same: how do we make this moment work? What story are we telling in this scene? What should the lights be doing as she crosses to the table? Let’s work out the timing of sound cues for the opening. How do we create the best lighting effect for the end?
The set for “Bakersfield Mist” on the Julie Harris Stage.
At 12 noon, actors Ken Cheeseman and Paula Langton arrive on stage and walk on the set for the first time. After weeks in a barren rehearsal room, they finally step into the colorfully eccentric universe of Maude’s trailer. Their eyes light up. Grins spread over faces. They explore the set, picking up props and playing with all the weird-looking tchotchkes like giggly kids on Christmas morning. Continue reading
Fountain Co-Artistic Director and Writer/Director Stephen Sachs is in Cape Cod for the opening of his new play, Bakersfield Mist, at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre.
by Stephen Sachs
Monday, August 8
Wellfleet Harbor sits nestled on the edge of Cape Cod just a few hamlets over from Provincetown. A tiny beachfront resort village famous for its oysters and art galleries. A galaxy away from the smog, traffic and congestion of Los Angeles.
I’m here for the opening this week of my play, Bakersfield Mist, at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre. Arriving for the final week of rehearsals, tech week and opening on August 11th. This is the second production of the play to be produced, the first since our opening at the Fountain (which is still running). It will be the first time I get to see the play directed by someone else, performed by a different cast of actors. I expect to learn a lot. As playwright, I’m here to continue tweaking the script, lend support, offer guidance, and try to stay out of the way.
My apartment is up the stairs to the second-floor balcony.
For my one-week stay, WHAT has provided me with “artist housing”. My apartment sits nestled on the edge of beachfront, overlooking the harbor. It’s funky and bohemian and absolutely divine. From the second-floor balcony I stand and peer out over the harbor and bay. Mac’s Seafood Market is an arm’s reach next door. The crisp aroma of steamed oysters, clams and lobster mixes with the salt air and drifts up to my balcony. Delicious.
“Downtown” Wellfleet is a postcard of charming, picturesque shops, cafes and galleries. Tree-lined, quaint. Townfolk and tourists stroll leisurely in t-shirts, shorts and sandals. The pace is slow. Languid. Why hurry to go anywhere else?
This morning I meet Jeff Zinn for breakfast at a homey little cafe off the main road. Jeff is the Artistic Director of WHAT and directing their production of my play. He’s smart, warm, easy to chat with. We talk shop: discuss new plays, new writers, share ideas, complain, bitch and gossip.
I do a quick phone interview with the Boston Globe, then Jeff and I jump into his car for a short drive over to the theatre.
The Julie Harris Stage
Jeff gives me a tour of his gorgeous new venue: the handsome Julie Harris Stage. Named for the Tony-winning actress, of course, who did Beauty Queen of Leenane at Wellfleet in 2000. The new $6.8 million year-round theater seats 200 people and complements the 90-seat Harbor Stage where the company has been performing since 1985. “The Julie” is exquisite, glittering fresh like a new Cadillac. The stage is huge, tall and wide. The building also holds a labyrinth of office space, a costume shop, dressing rooms, green room, rehearsal room and a two-level lobby. Although I wouldn’t trade the quality of our work at the Fountain with anyone, I can’t help but gape at the glory of a fully-rigged two-story new theatre building with 200 seats and drool with envy. I mutter Yoda’s mantra (“Size matters not”) and keep moving.
The Bakersfield set is being assembled on stage. Carpenters, technicians and designers scurry about clutching power tools and design plans. Because the Harris stage is so much bigger (and taller) than the Fountain, Maude’s trailer sits entirely on stage like a mobile home parked on blocks in a trailer park.
Jeff ushers me into the rehearsal room for a quick introduction to the Bakersfield actors, Ken Cheeseman and Paula Langton. We’re delighted to meet each other and equally excited about doing the play at Wellfleet. I’m then quickly guided out of the room so the actors can run lines with the stage manager.
Back at my apartment at sunset, I stand on my rickety wood balcony and peer out at the ocean, the orange sun painting the harbor water a shimmering coral rose, marveling at how lucky I am to be visiting such a beautiful place. And how blessed I am to be doing what I love.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) will be a long, full 10-hour tech day.
We’ve been told what it is, what it isn’t. What’s in it, what’s not. But how many have actually read it for themselves? Even some members of Congress haven’t read it.
Robert Mueller told us the report speaks for itself. But who can give voice to the report? Our Los Angeles theatre community, that’s who.
The Fountain Theatre will host a single, 15-hour Mueller Report Read-A-Thon, offering citizens of Los Angeles the opportunity to hear the Mueller Report read aloud, on Thursday, July 18 from 9 a.m. to midnight.
On Tuesday, it was announced that former special counsel Robert Mueller will testify before Congress on July 17, the day before the Fountain Read-A-Thon.
Earlier this month, a reading was hosted by NY theater companies, and a marathon reading is scheduled for July at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. This week, an all-star celebrity reading of a new play, adapted from the Mueller Report by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan, was streamed live on social media.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s “Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election” is the official report documenting the findings and conclusions of investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 United States presidential election, allegations of conspiracy or coordination between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia, and allegations of obstruction of justice.
“The Fountain has a long history of using theater as a trigger for political and social action,” says Fountain Theatre co-artistic director Stephen Sachs. “My larger purpose for the Read-a-thon is not to disseminate details about the report — although that is important. The greater goal is to give the public and our Los Angeles theatre community the opportunity to engage, to take some kind of expressive action. I see it as similar to a protest march. But all of us are marching from our stages.”
Readers at the Fountain will include over 90 readers representing the diversity of Los Angeles, including actors, artistic leaders, community leaders and business people. Confirmed to read so far: Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell; actors Alfred Molina, Jeff Perry, Richard Schiff, Rob Nagle, Frances Fisher, Harry Groener, Karen Kondazian, Bill Brochtrup and Jenny O’Hara; artistic directors Daniel Henning (Blank Theatre) and John Flynn (Rogue Machine); playwright Justin Tanner; and theater journalist Steven Leigh Morris. A complete list of readers is available at www.fountaintheatre.com/event/mueller, where anyone interested in participating can also sign up for a 10-minute reading slot. The Fountain Theatre Read-A-Thon will be streamed live on the Fountain’s Facebook and Twitter pages. The Fountain Theatre Café will be open throughout the event.
Los Angeles Theatres supporting the Read-A-Thon include: 24th Street Theatre, Blank Theatre Company, Boston Court Pasadena, Celebration Theatre, Company of Angels, Cornerstone Theater Company, Echo Theatre Company, Hero Theatre Company, The Inkwell Theatre, Latino Theatre Company, The Los Angeles LGBT Center, Lower Depth Theatre Ensemble, The Matrix Theatre Company, Moving Arts, New American Theatre, Open Fist, Playwrights Arena, Road Theatre Company, Rogue Machine, Skylight Theatre, Stacie Chaiken and What’s the Story?, The Victory Theatre Center, Vs. Theatre Company, Whitefire Theatre, Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum
The Odyssey Theatre Ensemble in West L.A. will hold a separate marathon reading, breaking it up into two 8-hour sessions on Monday, July 22 and Tuesday, July 23, each from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m.
According to Odyssey Theatre artistic director Ron Sossi, “Political projects like Chicago Conspiracy Trial, Tracers, McCarthy and Rapmaster Ronnie have always been a large part of the Odyssey’s 50-year history. Sadly politically-oriented work has been missing from American stages of late. This live reading of the Mueller Report at two different L.A. theaters is a refreshing and exciting reminder of the heady days of ‘60s/’70s activism, and, hopefully, a sign that the local theater scene is becoming re-engaged.”
The Odyssey event, curated by Not Man Apart artistic director John Farmanesh-Bocca, will include 20-minute readings by long-standing company members, friends and celebrities including Councilmember Paul Koretz; film and stage actors Alfred Molina, Frances Fisher, Brenda Strong, Norbert Weisser, Michael Nouri, Ray Abruzzo, Darrell Larson and Gregg Henry; Richard Montoya of Culture Clash; spoken word artist Steve Connell; Cornerstone Theater Company members Shishirand Bahni Kurup; Padua Playwrights founding artistic director Murray Mednick; plus many more. A complete list of readers will be available at www.odysseytheatre.com.
Admission to both Read-A-thons is free and open to the public. Audience members may come and go throughout each event.
For more information:
Fountain Theatre (323) 663-1525
Odyssey Theatre (310) 477-2055
Posted in actors, Arts, arts organizations, Fountain Theatre, government, Hollywood, Los Angeles, non-profit organization, Social justice, Theater, theatre
Tagged Alfred Molina, Arena Stage, Bill Brochtrup, Fountain Theatre, Frances Fisher, Jeff Perry, Jenny O’Hara, John Flynn, Justin Tanner, Los Angeles, marathon, Mitch O’Farrell, Mueller Report, Odyssey Theatre, Read-A-Thon, reading, Richard Schiff, Rob Nagle, Robert Mueller, Robert Schenkkan, Ron Sossi, Stephen Sachs, theater, theatre, Trump
As retired Dodgers veteran sportscaster Vin Scully would declare, “It’s time for Dodgers baseball!”
With the warm nights of summer comes the annual Fountain Theatre Dodgers Game Night, a yearly tradition for Fountain staff, Board members, Fountain Family and friends to enjoy a night out at the ballpark. Last night’s event brought thirty-four Fountain folks together for hot dogs, peanuts, beer and the joy of cheering our Boys in Blue. For some, it was their first visit to Dodger Stadium. For a few, last night was their first time watching a baseball game ever.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
The evening ended in celebration: The Dodgers beat the Colorado Rockies 5-3.
Posted in actors, arts organizations, Baseball, Board of Directors, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, non-profit organization, Theater, theatre
Tagged arts organizations, Baseball, Dodgers, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, theater, theatre
Who says theatre nerds don’t like sports? Our annual Fountain Theatre Dodgers Game Night is a highly-anticipated event every year. Tuesday, a rowdy group of thirty Fountain Folk sat together at Dodger Stadium to cheer on The Boys in Blue. The cool summer night was perfect. While the Dodgers battled on the field for first place in the National League West, the rooting section of Fountain fans enjoyed cold beer and hot dogs and the joy of being together.
Most satisfying of all to the Fountain crew, the cross-country rivalry of New York versus Los Angeles as theatre towns was settled on the baseball field Tuesday night. The Dodgers beat the NY Mets 11-4.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Posted in arts organizations, Baseball, Fountain Theatre, Hollywood, Los Angeles, non-profit organization, performing arts, Theater, theatre
Tagged Baseball, Dodgers, Dodgers Game Night, Dodgers Stadium, Fountain Family, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, theater, theatre
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Who says theatre nerds don’t like sports? Our Fountain staff stepped away from our desks and slipped out of rehearsal rooms to enjoy a night out together at Dodger Stadium to cheer on our first-place Dodgers against the Arizona Diamondbacks. We had a great time drinking beer, munching peanuts and Dodger dogs, and hollering for the home team. And we were featured on the jumbo Dodger Vision big screen! Fun!
It was a fabulous night for Fountain staff to go out and enjoy ourselves together. Go, Dodgers! Go, Fountain!
Posted in arts organizations, Baseball, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, performing arts, Theater, theatre
Tagged Baseball, Dodgers, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, staff, theater, theatre
by Stephen Sachs
The red-hot Dodgers are the best team in baseball right now. They have a MLB leading record of 66 and 29, have won 11 in a row, and their current 30-4 run is now entering historic territory. They are the first National League team to achieve a run of this dominance since the 1936 Giants. This is a great year to be a Dodger fan.
This is also a great season to be a theatre fan. In regional theaters across the country and on Broadway, thought-provoking and powerful new plays are being developed and produced to illuminate the urgency of our times. Right here in Los Angeles, theatre has never been better.
My passion for both theatre and baseball were ignited at an early age and remain heated to this day. I am dedicated to both as a lifetime commitment, a sacred calling. America’s Pastime and The Great Invalid both require a fierce devotion, unyielding faith, a resilience to overcome disappointment, and the joyful capacity to celebrate excellence. To quote ABC’s Wide World of Sports, theatre and baseball each contain “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.”
Granted, not every aspect of baseball and theatre are identical. In the theatre, only critics, pen and notepad in hand, keep score of the players as the action unfolds. Unlike baseball, a theatre audience does not stand en masse three-quarters into the play to sing, “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” Yet, one can’t help but see similarities between baseball and professional theatre.
In both theatre and baseball, the crowd gathers together in a common place to engage in a live, shared dramatic experience.
Theatre and baseball can happen anywhere, indoors and outdoors, in settings large and small. On neighborhood streets, in city parks, and in grand municipal buildings.
A baseball game and a stage play both have a beginning, middle and end escalating toward a final resolution in which the dramatic question “who will win?” is ultimately answered.
A stage play and a baseball game are driven by the same engine: conflict. Both have good guys and bad guys, heroes and enemies, humor, action, spectacle, courageous deeds and foolish gaffes, turns of direction and a climax resulting in either a sad or happy ending.
Both theatre and baseball require teamwork and collaboration. We focus on the players in front of us but there is a huge staff of unseen professionals behind the scenes who make the whole experience possible.
Theatre and baseball require years of training and a tremendous amount of practice. Contrary though it may seem, on the field and on the stage, repetitive drilling frees the player so he can let go and perform spontaneously, alive in the moment.
A baseball team, like a cast of actors on stage, are both an ensemble who not only play well together but must also rely on the skill of lead players.
Theatre and baseball are romantic. We idolize our favorite stars on stage and on the field. We swap stories about our favorite memories, spin yarns, follow careers of favorite players, share legends, recall highlights and laugh (or agonize) over famous flops.
Baseball and theatre savor a rich and colorful history, a reverence for tradition, and eccentric superstitions.
Stage plays and baseball games are made of moments. A great baseball game and a powerful play can each have the power to contain that one unforgettable moment — that one crystallized instant of perfect artistry, of joyous elation or agonizing heartbreak that sears itself into your soul forever. You remember it, that baseball play or that moment on stage, for the rest of your life.
My family video of the seventh-inning stretch at Dodger Stadium.
In baseball and theatre, we invest ourselves in the live dramatic event that is unfolding in front of us in real-time. We watch the struggle of other human beings engaged in dramatic conflict and care deeply about their outcome. Who will perish? Who survive?
As to survival, both theatre and baseball have been assailed as dying art forms for years. Both suffer from a decreasing appeal to young people, while viewership for both are getting older. Baseball games and dramatic plays are too slow and too long for this new generation raised on TV and video games.
Even so, my stat-obsessed sport tells me this: Live attendance to Major League Baseball games each year outnumber both NFL and NBA games combined, nationwide. Likewise, attendance for live theatre across the country is on the rise. These facts give me hope and tell me one thing. In this digital age, human beings still crave a fundamental need to assemble together in a shared public event that brings thought, drama, spectacle and enhances their lives.
Batter up. And “places for the top of Act One”.
Posted in Arts, arts organizations, Baseball, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, Theater, theatre
Tagged Baseball, Dodgers, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, Major League Baseball, plays, Stephen Sachs, theater, theatre
by Stephen Sachs
In theatre and baseball, nothing beats watching a well-made play.
Right now, the Dodgers are the hottest team in baseball. Burning up the National League West, nearly 10 games ahead in first place and streaking toward the playoffs with only 30 games left to play. They’ve achieved an astounding turnaround since the season began. Only two months ago in June, they were in last place. Then a miracle happened. Transformation. They now have the best record in baseball since the All Star break. LA fans are elated, fired up. Dodger Stadium is selling out, the stands filling up with folk eager to watch, share and be part of this thrilling live event. Feverish with the same zeal of rushing to see a hit Broadway show. Why?
It’s dramatic.
Sure, everyone loves a winner. But if the Dodgers had leapt into first place from day one of the season our delirium today would be far less electric. Winning would become expected and, as all good playwrights know, giving the audience what’s expected kills drama. The Dodgers story this season is dramatic because they began the year so badly. Their story has what playwrights call dramatic arc.
In crafting a well-made play, the playwright shapes the story so that the protagonist (lead character) undergoes dramatic change: the character begins the journey one way and then, by overcoming a series of trials and obstacles, ends the play fundamentally different in some way. Opposite from how he began. Like, say, beginning as a bad team in last place and then winning the pennant in first place at the end. Just saying.
Part of the joy of watching baseball is the relief of losing yourself in something that has nothing to do with whatever it is you do in real life. Even so, one can’t help see similarities between baseball and professional theatre.
In both theatre and baseball, the crowd gathers together in a common place to engage in a live, shared dramatic experience.
A baseball game and a stage play both have a beginning, middle and end building toward a final resolution in which the dramatic question “who will win?” is ultimately answered.
A stage play and a baseball game are driven by the same engine: conflict. Both have good guys and bad guys, heroes and enemies, humor, action, spectacle, courageous deeds and foolish gaffes, turns of direction and a climax resulting in either a sad or happy ending.
Both theatre and baseball require teamwork and collaboration. We focus on the players in front of us but there is a huge staff of unseen professionals behind the scenes who make the whole experience possible.
Theatre and baseball require years of training and a tremendous amount of practice. Contrary though it may seem, on the field and on the stage, repetitive drilling frees the player so he can let go and perform spontaneously, alive in the moment.
A baseball team, like a cast of actors on stage, are both an ensemble who not only play well together but must also rely on the skill of lead players.
Theatre and baseball are romantic. We idolize our favorite stars on stage and on the field. We swap stories about our favorite memories, spin yarns, follow careers of favorite players, share legends, recall highlights and laugh (or agonize) over famous flops.
Stage plays and baseball games are made of specific moments. A great baseball game and a powerful play can each have the power to contain that one unforgettable moment — that one crystalized instant of perfect artistry, of joyous elation or agonizing heartbreak that sears itself into your soul forever. You remember it, that baseball play or that moment on stage, for the rest of your life.
In baseball and theatre, we lose ourselves in the live dramatic event that is unfolding in front of us in real-time. We watch the struggle of other human beings engaged in dramatic conflict and care deeply about their outcome. Who will perish? Who survive?
Both theatre and baseball are a living, breathing experience that is only meaningful with audience interaction. Other human beings.
After watching a thrilling baseball game or seeing an unforgettable stage play, we exit the ballpark or theater and walk to our car or the subway with the same giddy elation. We’re wrung out, exhausted. And stirred up, juices flowing, exhilarated. We can’t stop yakking about the miracle we’ve just seen. Or we are heartbroken and grow quiet and sullen and can’t speak. Then there are those times, after seeing a great baseball game or an extraordinary piece of theatre, when we can not move. At all. The game or stage play is over. We sit in our seat. Paralyzed. Staring at the empty field or stage. Marveling at what we’ve just lived through.
Lived through. We have just shared in a meaningful live experience with other human beings. We are alive.
Stephen Sachs is the Co-Artistic Director of the Fountain Theatre.
Posted in Acting, actors, Arts, arts organizations, Baseball, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre
Tagged acting, actors, artists, arts organizations, audience, Baseball, Dodger Stadium, Dodgers, drama, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwriting, Stephen Sachs, theater, theatre, Theatre arts
Tim Cummings, Bill Brochtrup, “The Normal Heart”, Fountain Theatre, 2013.
by Tim Cummings
“Hello, you don’t know me. I hope you get this message. Sometimes, when you try to send a message to someone you’re not ‘friends’ with on Facebook, it gets blocked, or you have to ‘approve’ it. I hope you’ll approve this message if it gets to you.
I saw The Normal Heart on Saturday night, and haven’t slept well since. My father died of AIDS in 1995. I was 15. Except he didn’t die of AIDS, he died of ‘cancer.’ Except we all knew it was AIDS because he was gay and had been sleeping around with men for years. We were a Catholic family, and so shame was tantamount to pretty much everything, especially my dad’s secret life. There were a lot of years after he died where Thanksgiving and Christmas and birthdays and anniversaries were lonely days, hollow days where not much was said and my sister and I would sit with our mom around the table and stare at our food.
Watching you on stage, the frustration and rage, it was so palpable it cracked me open, like an egg, and I feel like I can feel again. Except now I feel a lot of rage too. I feel like the rage is taking its revenge, saying, “You ignored me for 20 years and now I own you.” I feel like you brought it into my life. It was like you were breaking barriers up there. I could feel how uncomfortable the audience was at times. Like they were afraid of you. I was too, I guess, but also relieved. I don’t know what you are doing up there, or how you manage to live the role several times a week, but I want you to know that you have changed me forever. More than the play. More than the production. YOU.
I didn’t know who Larry Kramer was before the other night, but I’ve been reading up on him and watching videos on YouTube. He wanted to change things and wake people up and he could only do it by shattering everyone around him that wouldn’t listen. He’s lucky someone like you can interpret his intentions. I will probably see the show again before it closes. For now, I’m figuring out what to do with these feelings. Like, how do I forgive my dad? How do I talk to my mom, after all these years, about what really happened? How many more people out there are just like me, waiting for something to come along and break them open? Too many innocent men died. For nothing. I think I might take boxing lessons.”
In the summer of 2013, I was 40 (and a half) years old and really taking stock of my life, as one is wont to do at 40 (and a half). I had been in Los Angeles exactly a decade at that point, and reflecting on my career as an actor: roles won, roles lost, characters deeply inhabited, their skins later shed like a snake once a show ended, reviews, awards, pounds gained and dropped again, friends made and later lost, the worry over male pattern baldness. That summer, I contemplated the possibility that the ‘acting thing’ was more of a hobby than a profession. Things had changed drastically after I moved from New York to LA. In NY, I was working on Broadway, making a living acting. I was on a good trajectory there.
Where I grew up, and in my time, theater had always felt like a great act of rebellion, a middle-finger held up high to everything normal and expected and accepted. Thespians were teased and bullied, but I prided myself on being subversive, anathema to their pack mentality and bougie normality. Theater was punk af. In LA, however, acting suddenly felt like trying to be part of the popular kids again. Clique mentality. I wanted no part of it. How will I succeed if I have no interest in playing by the rules? I’ve always hated rules. I didn’t want to be hot or muscular or skinny or alpha or tan or…commercially viable in any way. I didn’t want to do things the way they were supposed to be done. I desired to shave my head, ring my eyes with racoon-black eyeliner, cover my body in tattoos, pierce every part of me, paint like Pollock, join a band. I contemplated whomever managed to pull off “LA success” with bitter disdain and a kind of squishy envy. That’s okay—I’m not above being human. Actors are not superheroes, despite the way the media depict them and fame & fortune define them.
I happened to be perusing the labyrinthian interwebs that summer when I discovered a breakdown for The Normal Heart, Larry Kramer’s seminal 1985 agit-prop manifesto about AIDS in the early-to-mid 1980s and how he and his friends banded together to create GMHC (Gay Men’s Health Crisis). The Fountain Theatre in Hollywood was set to produce, overseen by one of the theatre’s founders and Co-Artistic Director, the outstanding Stephen Sachs. The play hadn’t been done in LA in about twenty years, and though it had been given a slick, starry revival on Broadway a few years prior, it felt, perhaps, like something that sunny, surfery Southern California had no right to consider. It’s my (arguably harsh) opinion that LA has always felt too granola (read: passive) for the righteous anger of stories birthed in New York City by New Yorkers.
Nonetheless, The Fountain had a reputation for mounting plays with a social justice bend, and Kramer’s behemoth was certainly no exception. I drafted a cordial email to the casting director asking to be seen. (I’m a firm believer that if you want something done, you do it yourself, and immediately. In other words, I wasn’t going to ask the manager to ask the agent if I had been submitted and then wait around, to neither receive a response nor an appointment time.) When casting responded to my inquiry I assumed the team would want to see me for the role of Bruce Niles, the strapping gay ex-marine. At 6’2” , broad-shouldered, and north of 200lbs, I figured it was the only role they’d consider me for. Instead, they asked me to prepare the role of Ned Weeks, the play’s antagonistic protagonist. Ned is molded out of the playwright himself, the pejorative Larry Kramer. It was the true story of him and his friends, after all, and he was going to tell it his way. It’s a colossal script, with a role as immense as Hamlet, and on nearly every page it elucidates Ned’s pushiness, outspokenness, and righteous anger.
How does an audience go on a journey, and root for, a disagreeable character? Continue reading
Posted in Acting, actors, AIDS, artist, Arts, arts organizations, director, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre
Tagged acting, actor, AIDS, Bill Brochtrup, Dan Shaked, David France, Fountain Theatre, Fred Koehler, homosexual, How to Survive a Plague, Jeff Witzke, Joe Mantello, Larry Kramer, Lisa Pelikan, Los Angeles, Matt Gottlieb, Ray Paolantonio, Simon Levy, Stephen O’Mahoney, Stephen Sachs, Terri Roberts, The Normal Heart, Tim Cummings, Verton R. Banks
David Serlin, actor Eddie Buck, author/illustrator Brian Selznick at the Fountain Theatre following the performance of ‘Cyrano’.
Award-winning author and illustrator Brian Selznick was at The Fountain Theatre this weekend to see our smash hit production of Cyrano. Selznick is the author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which was made into the Oscar-winning film Hugo directed by Martin Scorsese.
What was Selznick’s special interest in seeing our signed/spoken version of Cyrano? One of the main characters in his most recent book, Wonderstruck, is partially deaf.
In a Q&A with Publisher’s Weekly, Selznick talked about his book and deafness:
Where did the idea come from to include deaf characters?
I started what became Wonderstruck while I was still working on Hugo. I had been thinking about Deaf culture after seeing this really, really good documentary, Through Deaf Eyes, which is about the history of Deaf culture. There was a line about how the deaf are a “people of the eye.” Most of the ways they communicate is visually. To me, that was the perfect reason to tell a story about a deaf person through illustrations. I had met deaf people who told me the thing they liked most about Hugo was the silence. Even when you’re reading words, you hear those words in your head but telling a story through pictures, there’s a feeling of silence about that and they really liked that.
Carol Padden and Tom Humphries from the University of California-San Diego, two of the leading Deaf scholars in the country, read my manuscript again and again and again to help me fine-tune the experience of the Deaf culture to make sure it was true to deaf people in general and to these two characters I was writing about. They were incredibly generous with their time and there was no way I could have written the book without them.
There’s also a line in the acknowledgments about being deaf in a hearing family and having to look for one’s culture outside of one’s biological family. This made me think about being gay in a heterosexual family.
Brian Selznick
Yep. That’s exactly the parallel I was thinking about. In Through Deaf Eyes, there was a young man raised by hearing parents. His parents were great, incredibly supportive, but it wasn’t until he got to college that he became aware he was part of a larger culture that had its own history he could share and be proud of. Growing up gay, there’s this exact parallel. And you don’t have to be deaf or gay to feel like you don’t belong to your own family. So many people have the experience of feeling that the family they were born into is not a good fit: An artist who is born into a family of non–artists, or a kid who is not interested in sports who is born into a family of athletes — there are a million parallels for that situation. You have the family you’re born into but you have this need to meet other people who are uniquely like you. One of the things that people told me they were most moved by in Hugo was how he creates a new family for himself. That’s a truth for so many people. You leave your family and create a family for yourself that’s often a better fit. Wonderstruck is a more direct way of exploring that same theme.
Cyrano Now to July 29 (323) 663-1525More Info
Posted in actors, Arts, Deaf, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, theatre
Tagged Academy Award, American Sign Language, ASL, Brian Selznick, Carol Padden, Cyrano, Cyrano de Bergerac, David Serlin, deaf, deaf community, deaf culture, Deaf West Theatre, deafness, Eddie Buck, Fountain Theatre, gay, homosexual, Hugo, Los Angeles, Martin Scorsese, movie, new plays, Oscar, plays, Stephen Sachs, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, theater, Through Deaf Eyes, Tom Humphries, UC San Diego, University of California-San Diego, Wonderstruck, world premiere
Posted in Arts, arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre
Tagged Avenue A, Baby Steps, Cast Theatre, Cinderelle, Dan Gerrity, David Steen, Diana Gibson, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Fountain Theatre, Jack Bender, Jeremy Lawrence, Julie Gibson Josephson, Justin Tanner, Kevin Tighe, Los Angeles, Melody Jones, performing arts, plays, playwriting, producer, subscription, Ted Schmitt, The Word, theater, theatre, University of Southern California, USC, Words and Pictures, world premiere
Jeff Witzke, Bill Brochtrup, Verton R. Banks
Actors from our acclaimed production of The Normal Heart participated in the Models of Pride LGBT Youth Conference today at the University of Southern California (USC). This one-day conference is presented by the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center’s LifeWorks program and focuses on the concerns and interests of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) youth up to age 24, and their allies.
The Models of Pride conference offers over 100 workshops, a huge resource fair, exciting entertainment, lunch and dinner, and an evening dance with DJ. The workshops cover many areas of life that are experienced by LGBT youth transitioning to adulthood including but not limited to LGBT issues.
The Normal Heart actors were joined at the conference today by Fountain Co-Artistic Stephen Sachs and Associate Producer/ASM Terri Roberts . The Fountain hosted a table at the outdoor event. The group handed out flyers, interacted with hundreds of young people, and networked with dozens of other organizations. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon and a very productive day.
Reaching out to young people is a vital goal and ongoing process for the Fountain Theatre and the company of The Normal Heart. The smash hit production has educational, historical, cultural and artistic importance for young audiences who were born after the initial AIDS crisis exploded on the scene in the early 1980’s. The Fountain was determined to be at today’s LGBT Youth Conference. To keep AIDS and Gay Rights awareness alive in young minds and remind young people that the battle is not over. And to encourage them to see an important play that brings these issues — and so much more — dramatically and passionately to life.
Enjoy These Snapshots from Today’s Conference
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
The Normal Heart Extended to Dec 15th (323) 663-1525 MORE
Posted in Acting, actors, AIDS, Arts, arts organizations, director, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Gay, performing arts, plays, Theater, theatre
Tagged actors, AIDS, AIDS awareness, Bill Brochtrup, Fountain Theatre, HIV, Jeff Witzke, L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, Larry Kramer, LGBT, Los Angeles, Models of Pride, performing arts, plays, Simon Levy, Stephen Sachs, Terri Roberts, The Normal Heart, theater, theatre, University of Southern California, USC, Verton R. Banks
Cast, company and audience members swept into our upstairs cafe Saturday night to celebrate the opening night performance of our west coast premiere of Athol Fugard’s new play, The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek. Food, drink and joyfulness followed a marvelous performance that earned a standing ovation.
Internationally acclaimed playwright Athol Fugard returns to the Fountain Theatre with this beautifully heartfelt new drama. Directed by Simon Levy, it features Gilbert Glenn Brown, Thomas Silcott, Philip Solomon, and Suanne Spoke.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
The production runs to December 14th. Info/Get Tickets
Posted in actors, Art, artist, Arts, arts organizations, Athol Fugard, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, non-profit organization, plays, Theater, theatre
Tagged actors, Athol Fugard, Barbara Goodhill, Deborah Lawlor, Fountain Theatre, Gilbert Glenn Brown, Henry Sanders, Jacqueline Schultz, Los Angeles, Maya Lynn Robinson, Naila Aladdin-Sanders, opening night, Philip Solomon, Simon Levy, Stephen Sachs, Suanne Spoke, The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek, theater, theatre, Thomas Silcott, West Coast Premiere
When Backstage “let go” Los Angeles theater writer Dany Margolies last January for “restructuring” reasons we knew it was a bad omen of darker times to come for the 53-year-old theater industry trade publication. Now, more bad news arrives: As of the April 11th print edition, Backstage will stop printing theater reviews, online or in print. Any of them. All of them. Gone. Done. Period.
Last week, The Executive Editor Daniel Holloway of Backstage sent the following memo:
An analysis of metric data by our executive team led to the conclusion that too few readers are engaging our reviews for Backstage to continue to invest resources in producing them. We will be shifting those resources primarily to the creation of additional advice, news, and features content.
Got that? No more critical analysis of the art itself. No more artistic assessment or creative survey of what is actually happening on stage. Who wants to read that? Apparently, no one. Instead, we want “advice, news and features”. The dumbing-down of American culture continues.
To Halloway and Backstage, “metric data” and investment resources appear to be more important than remembering that the name of their publication includes the word “stage”.
Ironically, the announcement from Backstage on Friday came after HowlRound — committed to modeling a commons-based approach to advancing the health and impact of the not-for-profit theater — devoted the week on a discussion of theater criticism.
In the ether of our online reality, are “User Comments” and Yelp reviews written by “people like us” holding more sway than a studied critique by an arts journalist? Do we now trust home-written blogs more than art experts? In the lightning-fast instantaneous tech-world of Tweeting and texting and Instant Messaging, are critical reviews being left behind and lost in the dust like relics from another era?
Or is the evil of Corporate Thinking overtaking and poisoning our art form? Are CEO’s of Arts Organizations — and Arts Publications — focused only on the bottom-line and not enhancing the art form they are meant to serve?
Or does the problem lie at the feet of the quality of dramatic criticism itself? Without question, the time has come to take a fresh look at and, perhaps, reinvent a new form of dramatic criticism that can respond in new ways to what happens on stage. What is that fresh approach? What will it look like? Which journalists have the skill, intelligence and artistic sensibility to lead the way?
The arts community has been complaining about the quality of dramatic criticism almost as long as it’s moaned about the dying of theater as an art form itself. As both art form and journalist run the risk of becoming more and more marginalized in today’s Info-Age, the more vital and essential both are revealed to be.
Intelligent and insightful arts journalism and dramatic criticism is essential for a healthy dialogue between the journalist, the audience and the art form we all love. The sad announcement last week from Backstage is another stab in the heart of the theatre community and a further silencing of the critical voice. Let’s not forget that the word critical not only means “to judge, find fault or criticize”. It also means “crucial, indispensable, and urgently needed”.
Posted in Acting, actors, Arts, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, Theater, theatre
Tagged actors, art critic, arts critisism, arts organizations, backstage, Daniel Holloway, Dany Margolies, dramatic criticism, Fountain Theatre, HowlRound, Los Angeles, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwriting, reviews, theater, Theater Arts, theater critic, theater reviews, theatre
George Saunders
by Colin Dabkowski
In a profile that ran a week ago in the New York Times Magazine, Syracuse-based author George Saunders devised a little thought exercise to describe his ideal audience.
Saunders conjured 10 imaginary readers, and assumed for the sake of argument that three or four of them were already hooked on his work. Two of them, he reasoned, were lost causes that would never come around to it.
But, he continued, “If there’s something in my work that’s making numbers five, six and seven turn off to it, I’d like to figure out what that is. I can’t change who I am and what I do, but maybe there’s a way to reach those good and dedicated readers that the first few books might not have appealed to. I’d like to make a basket big enough that it included them.”
Saunders, a thoughtful and gifted fiction writer, has yet to be disabused of his populist notions about literature. Thankfully for literature.
His idea – that an artist is never finished building an audience, never through striving to extend his reach to include a slightly bigger swath of humanity with each new effort – ought to be a lesson for every curator, artistic director or film festival programmer. For those struggling to strike a balance between publicly supplied revenue and artistic quality, Saunders’ words are a reminder to send out more invitations.
Saunders’ thought experiment isn’t good blanket advice for artists, who should be free to create work without even thinking about an audience if they so desire. But it’s great advice for those of us charged with building pathways to that art or uncovering its meaning.
Saunders’ idea – to try harder – sounds remarkably simple, and it is. But its repetition is necessary in a cultural landscape densely populated by those who hold the opposing view. Take, for instance, a blurb in a recent issue of the New Yorker by dance critic Joan Acocella of a Philadelphia Art Museum exhibition about Marcel Duchamp and his American followers.
“Duchamp’s nude descended a staircase a hundred years ago. [John] Cage sat down and didn’t play ‘4’33’ sixty years ago. [Merce] Cunningham stuck his foot into [Jasper] John’s ‘Numbers’ fifty years ago,” she wrote, ticking off some of the landmark moments in modernist art, music and dance of the 20th century. “Most of the public is never going to like such things. Most of the public doesn’t like modernism. Let it be.”
The idea of giving up, of allowing the audience for Duchamp or any other living or dead artist to remain a tiny, circumscribed elite is antithetical not only to the goal of public museums and of criticism, but to the work of many of those artists. And yet it persists, born of a notion of artistic elitism rooted in a distant era.
The mention of concerted audience-building is met with cynicism or viewed wrongly as a de facto assault on artistic quality.
But we can never merely “let it be.” We must, as Saunders’ so wisely suggested, cast an ever-wider net.
Colin Dabkowski writes for the Buffalo News
Posted in Arts, Books, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre
Tagged art critic, artists, audiences, Colin Dabkowski, elite, Fountain Theatre, George Saunders, Los Angeles, Marcel Duchamp, new plays, New York Times, New Yorker, performing artists, plays
Who do you trust more? A professional critic or a fellow audience member? Which do you now read more — and pay more attention to — in deciding which play to see: a printed review in a newspaper or a “user comment” on a website or blog?
We now buy everything online. Cars, books, electronics, major appliances. Before clicking “submit payment” and buying the product yourself on a site, don’t you first read the “user comments” from other buyers who have purchased the same product and are now using it? To get their opinion of the product, their experience using it?
Is it now the same thing when buying a ticket for a play or any arts event?
One of the substantial changes in the arts environment that has happened with astonishing speed is that arts criticism is no longer a spectator sport. It is now a participatory event. Everyone can now be in on it.
A good thing or bad? One thing is certain: there is no going back.
Every artist, producer or arts organization used to wait for a handful of reviews in newspapers to determine the critical response to a particular project. But in the vast immensity of today’s Web Universe, a larger portion of arts projects today have become somewhat immune to the opinions of any one newspaper journalist.
Even in New York and Los Angeles, one “make or break” review from “The Theater Critic” in the major newspaper in each city — while still important — is losing its power and relevance to box office sales and popularity. The mega-hit musical Wicked got a bad review in the New York Times: “Wicked does not, alas, speak hopefully for the future of the Broadway musical.”
Why are newspaper critics having less impact? Three reasons.
First, far fewer people are getting their news from print media. There is a reason the newspaper industry is in trouble. Advertisers are spending less in print media because fewer people are reading hard copy newspapers. And for those arts projects aimed at younger audiences, hard copy newspapers are no longer a central element of a marketing strategy. Younger people get virtually all of their information online, through news web sites, social media and chat rooms. And older people are increasingly getting their information online as well.
Second, because serious arts coverage has been deemed an unnecessary expense by many news media outlets looking to pare costs, there are fewer critics and less space devoted to serious arts criticism. The Los Angeles Times’ arts section is dominated now by features and reviews of popular entertainment — television, movies and pop music — rather than serious opera, dance, music or theater.
And third, the growing influence of blogs, chat rooms and message boards devoted to the arts has given the local professional critic a slew of competitors. Locally, the theater site Bitter Lemons lists 63 blogs devoted to theater coverage in Los Angeles alone. Many arts institutions even allow their audience members to write their own critiques on the organizational website.
The result is a double-edged sword that cuts both ways.
One side: Anyone can write a blog or leave a review in a chat room. The fact that someone writes about theater does not mean they have expert judgment. It is difficult to distinguish the professional critic from the amateur as one reads on-line reviews and critiques.
No one critic should be deemed the arbiter of good taste in any market and it is wonderful that people now have an opportunity to express their feelings about a work of art. But art must not be measured by a popularity contest. Otherwise the art that appeals to the lowest common denominator will always be deemed the best.
The other side: People now have the opportunity to interact with their art experience. Tweet, text and blog about it. Going to the theater has always been a shared experience between actors and audience. The blogosphere has taken it a step further. It is now a shared experience between actor and audience — and the audience’s electronic web network of online friends.
The magic of live performance – even the most traditional forms – is that the audience is never really a passive watcher – they are engaged and their response informs the performance. The internet as a forum for authentic feedback and reaction is vital to the growth, development and continued relevancy of the discipline.
Anyone can create art. And now, anyone can comment on it.
The audience for the arts – and the people who are passionate enough to frequent cultural institutions, comment on their sites or start their own blogs – are frequently educated, knowledgeable, committed individuals who, you know, have actual jobs. They are artists and former artists, they are friends and families of artists, they are people who grew up or into an appreciation of the arts for any number of reasons but because of the necessities of making a living are relegated to “amateur” status. Sure there are some ill-informed writers and commenters out there, but arts writing on the internet has evolved over the years. The quality of writing, the knowledge of the writers and the vitality of the discussion can sometimes be invigorating, stimulating and exciting.
Newspapers are never again going to be a dominant force in our lives. And the economics that made it possible to subsidize newspapers (and full-time professional arts critics) via ads and real estate listings are not likely to return. The speed of internet/blog/tweet comments and reviews is instant. Hundreds or thousands of audience members can now post their comments on a play seconds after seeing it. A newspaper review can take days, sometimes one week, to appear in print.
Like it or not, our Smart Phones and the internet are fast becoming our new content delivery system and our primary circuit of commerce and communication (about the arts, and everything else). Theaters and arts organizations that don’t recognize that the internet train left the station years ago — and don’t get on board — are being left behind on the platform, by themselves. Alone.
What do you think? Care to “leave a comment”? Blog about it?
Posted in Arts, Fountain Theatre, plays, theatre
Tagged art critic, arts critisism, arts organizations, Bitter Lemons, blogospere, Fountain Theatre, iphone, Los Angeles, New York, online, print media, text, theater critic, theatre, tweet, user comment, Wicked
Posted in actors, Arts, Dance, director, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, poetry, Theater, theatre
Tagged actors, artists, Creativity, drama, Fountain Theatre, ideas, inspiration, Los Angeles, new plays, performing artists, performing arts, plays, playwriting, theatre
George Saunders
by Colin Dabkowski
In a profile that ran a week ago in the New York Times Magazine, Syracuse-based author George Saunders devised a little thought exercise to describe his ideal audience.
Saunders conjured 10 imaginary readers, and assumed for the sake of argument that three or four of them were already hooked on his work. Two of them, he reasoned, were lost causes that would never come around to it.
But, he continued, “If there’s something in my work that’s making numbers five, six and seven turn off to it, I’d like to figure out what that is. I can’t change who I am and what I do, but maybe there’s a way to reach those good and dedicated readers that the first few books might not have appealed to. I’d like to make a basket big enough that it included them.”
Saunders, a thoughtful and gifted fiction writer, has yet to be disabused of his populist notions about literature. Thankfully for literature.
His idea – that an artist is never finished building an audience, never through striving to extend his reach to include a slightly bigger swath of humanity with each new effort – ought to be a lesson for every curator, artistic director or film festival programmer. For those struggling to strike a balance between publicly supplied revenue and artistic quality, Saunders’ words are a reminder to send out more invitations.
Saunders’ thought experiment isn’t good blanket advice for artists, who should be free to create work without even thinking about an audience if they so desire. But it’s great advice for those of us charged with building pathways to that art or uncovering its meaning.
Saunders’ idea – to try harder – sounds remarkably simple, and it is. But its repetition is necessary in a cultural landscape densely populated by those who hold the opposing view. Take, for instance, a blurb in a recent issue of the New Yorker by dance critic Joan Acocella of a Philadelphia Art Museum exhibition about Marcel Duchamp and his American followers.
“Duchamp’s nude descended a staircase a hundred years ago. [John] Cage sat down and didn’t play ‘4’33’ sixty years ago. [Merce] Cunningham stuck his foot into [Jasper] John’s ‘Numbers’ fifty years ago,” she wrote, ticking off some of the landmark moments in modernist art, music and dance of the 20th century. “Most of the public is never going to like such things. Most of the public doesn’t like modernism. Let it be.”
The idea of giving up, of allowing the audience for Duchamp or any other living or dead artist to remain a tiny, circumscribed elite is antithetical not only to the goal of public museums and of criticism, but to the work of many of those artists. And yet it persists, born of a notion of artistic elitism rooted in a distant era.
The mention of concerted audience-building is met with cynicism or viewed wrongly as a de facto assault on artistic quality.
But we can never merely “let it be.” We must, as Saunders’ so wisely suggested, cast an ever-wider net.
Colin Dabkowski writes for the Buffalo News
Posted in Arts, Books, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre
Tagged art critic, artists, audiences, Colin Dabkowski, elite, Fountain Theatre, George Saunders, Los Angeles, Marcel Duchamp, new plays, New York Times, New Yorker, performing artists, plays
By Daniel Lehman
Does an ability to “get into character” and portray other people help actors resolve their own internal conflicts offstage? Or will the pursuit of a career that values emotional vulnerability, but at the same time involves frequent rejection, inevitably lead to poor mental health and instability?
Dr. Paula Thomson and Dr. S. Victoria Jaque of California State University, Northridge, endeavored to answer these questions in “Holding a Mirror Up to Nature: Psychological Vulnerability in Actors,” a study published this month in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Over the course of several years, the researchers surveyed a sample of 41 professional actors in Los Angeles; Toronto, Ontario; and Cape Town, South Africa. The actors’ answers were compared with those of a control group of 41 non-actors.
“This study demonstrated that the actor group had greater fantasy proneness and a greater distribution of psychological security as compared with the nonartist control group,” Thomson and Jaque write. “Despite no group differences in type and frequency of trauma and loss, the actor group had more unresolved mourning and elevated dissociation.”
All of the actors surveyed had at least three years of conservatory training, all of which Thomson said was rooted in Stanislavsky’s method. They also had the common link of at least a few months of experience creating and performing “testimonial theater,” an autobiographical medium that is used most often to heal individuals and communities that have undergone major trauma. Subjects were evaluated through a 60- to 90-minute interview session.
“I think in performing artists, there’s an incredible tolerance to accept emotional abuse from people,” Thomson told Back Stage. A former dancer, she is fascinated with the psychology of actors and performing artists. “I was very struck by how aware they were about people’s emotions and how sensitive they were,” she said, “and then how unpredictable they could be.”
Thomson and Jaque speculated that experience embodying different characters in order to act out dramatized conflicts would indirectly give actors greater resolution for their own past experiences. Yet the researchers found that while actors tend to be more emotionally self-aware and secure, they are no better at getting over unresolved trauma or loss than their counterparts in the control group. In fact, the actor group was more likely to respond with confusion, silence, or halting speech when asked about past traumatic events, and they displayed “greater vulnerability for psychological distress.”
Thomson and Jaque could not determine whether an actor’s career choice was determined by his or her mental state or vice versa. The researchers are analyzing the results of a related physiological study — in which actors wore what they call a “life shirt” during interviews, stress tests, and rehearsals and onstage performances — to evaluate whether their physiology shows the same vulnerability as their psychology.
Daniel Lehman writes for Backstage
Posted in actors, Arts, Fountain Theatre, performing arts, plays, theatre
Tagged actors, and the Arts, Back Stage, Brene Brown, California State University, Cape Town, Creativity, Daniel Lehman, drama, emotion, Fountain Theatre, Holding a Mirror Up to Nature: Psychological Vulnerability in Actors, Los Angeles, Ontario, Paula Thomson, performing artists, plays, Psychology of Aesthetics, S. Victoria Jaque, sensitive, South Africa, Stanislavsky, The Power of Vulnerability, theater, Toronto, vulnerability
On Friday, February 10, 2012, the convicted killer of Ben Bradley was officially sentenced to life in prison. He will be eligible for a parole hearing in sixteen years.
The judge denied the motion for retrial submitted last month by the defense. In addition to sentencing, the judge ruled that the murderer must also pay $15,000 in restitution to the Bradley family.
The hearing took place in the Criminal Court Building in downtown Los Angeles. Present in the courtroom were Ben’s brother, Micheal Hill; the Fountain’s Deborah Lawlor, Simon Levy, and Stephen Sachs; actress Lisa Pelikan; and theater journalist (and Fountain friend) Dany Margolies.
When asked by the judge if he wished to make a statement or had anything to say, the murderer said “No”. He was then led away in handcuffs. To spend the rest of his life in prison.
As invoked in the final line of The Ballad of Emmett Till, the play Ben was directing two years ago when he was brutally murdered:
“It is done.”
Posted in Arts, Fountain Theatre, performing arts, plays, theatre
Tagged Ben Bradley, Dany Margolies, Deborah Lawlor, Fountain Theatre, Lisa Pelikan, Los Angeles, Micheal Hill, murder, Simon Levy, Stephen Sachs, The Ballad of Emmett Till
Ben Bradley
In the Criminal Court Building in downtown Los Angeles on January 3, 2012, almost two years to the day that the brutal murder was committed, the judge announced that the killer of Ben Bradley can expect a sentence of life in prison with eligibility for parole in 16 years.
Several members of the Fountain Family were present in the courtroom to give Victim Impact Statements. Co-Artistic Director Stephen Sachs represented the Fountain with a passionate eloquent plea, repeating the phrase “Everybody loved Ben”; Producing Director Simon Levy read a beautiful letter from theatre critic Dany Margolies of Back Stage; Adolphus Ward, one of our beloved actors, spoke movingly about the larger impact of Ben’s murder, intoning “one man killed, many died” ; Rebecca Lackner, a friend of Ben’s brother, read a letter from sound designer David Marling; Barbara Ramsey, subscriber and friend, spoke lovingly of Ben’s impact on her son; and Ben’s brother, Micheal Hill, spoke of the heartache to his family and the uniqueness that was Ben’s spirit. Others from the Fountain Community — actors, designers, friends — were there to show their support and solidarity on Ben’s behalf.
The defense filed a perfunctory retrial motion (standard procedure). There will be a procedural hearing on Feb 10 for the judge to officially rule on the retrial motion but he already said in court that, barring some extraordinary circumstance, he will deny it. And the legal process will be over. And prison time will begin.
The judge remarked in court that it was clear that Ben was widely loved and admired, and that the proceeding that morning was “a sad day”. He also commented that he had deliberated many murder cases in his long career as a judge. This crime was particularly brutal. Referring to the sentence and the obligatory retrial motion by the defense, the judge looked to the killer sitting opposite at the defense table and said “don’t get your hopes up” about any option other than life in prison.
Our deep thanks to those who were able to be there in court with us on Ben’s behalf, and to all of you who sent emails of support. We love you all.
The Fountain Theatre announced last week that a guilty verdict has been reached in the trial of the man accused of murdering longtime Fountain director/producer Ben Bradley.
The defendant was found guilty of second-degree felony murder on November 23 in the Los Angeles Superior Court Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles, following a three-week trial that began on November 3. Closing arguments took place on November 21, with the jury deliberating for about a day and half before reaching the verdict. Present in the courtroom when the verdict was read were Bradley’s brother, Michael Hill, a resident of Virginia; Fountain Producing Director Simon Levy; and Fountain Co-Artistic Director Deborah Lawlor. The verdict carries a sentence of 16 years to life. Sentencing is scheduled for January 3.
“All of us in the Fountain family are pleased and relieved by the verdict and grateful that the trial phase of this horrific nightmare is over,” wrote Fountain Co-Artistic Director Stephen Sachs in a statement. “We thank Los Angeles District Attorney Mario Haidar and the team of detectives, led by Matthew Gares, who did such an excellent job on this case. Justice is done. But no matter the verdict or severity of the sentence, justice does not wield the power to bring Ben back to us. With that truth, comes the painful reality that justice can never be fully served in our hearts.”
Prior to his death on January 1, 2010, Ben had been with the Fountain Theatre for over seventeen years as a producer, director, and the Director of Audience Development. Ben was in rehearsal for The Ballad of Emmett Till when he was murdered. Prior to that, Ben had directed the Fountain’s critically acclaimed production of August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean (LADCC Awards for Production of the Year and Best Director). He received the 2006 OVATION Award and the 2007 NAACP Award for his direction of the Fountain’s critically acclaimed production of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Other directorial credits at the Fountain includeLady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill (winner of the NAACP Award for Best Actress) and Direct from Death Row: The Scottsboro Boys(winner of Best Ensemble, L.A. Weekly Award, and Best Ensemble, Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award). Ben produced the Fountain’s acclaimed productions of Photograph 51, Yellowman, Master Class and Central Avenue, and co–produced the Fountain’sThe Darker Face of the Earth, IAm AMan, and Four by Tennessee. Before joining the Fountain Theatre family, Ben worked at the Los Angeles Theatre Center as Lobby Subscription Manager. Ben was born in Wilkes County, Georgia, but his family moved to Baltimore, MD when he was very young. He was a graduate of Carroll College in Wisconsin, where he majored in theater.
Read the blog post about trial verdict in the Los Angeles Times.
The Fountain Theatre has established The Ben Bradley Memorial Fund to develop new plays at the Fountain. For more information, go to http://fountaintheatre.com/BenBradleyMemorialPage.htm or call Diana at (323) 663-1098.
Fountain Co-Artistic Director and Writer/Director Stephen Sachs is in Cape Cod for the opening of his new play, Bakersfield Mist, at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre.
I’m here for the opening this week of my play, Bakersfield Mist, at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre. Arriving for the final week of rehearsals, tech week and opening on August 11th. This is the second production of the play to be produced, the first since our opening at the Fountain (which is still running). It will be the first time I get to see the play directed by someone else, performed by a different cast of actors. I expect to learn a lot. As playwright, I’m here to continue tweaking the script, lend support, offer guidance, and try to stay out of the way.
“Downtown” Wellfleet is a postcard of charming, picturesque shops, cafes and galleries. Tree-lined, quaint. Townfolk and tourists stroll leisurely in t-shirts, shorts and sandals. The pace is slow. Languid. Why hurry to go anywhere else?
by Stephen Sachs
Who do you trust more? A professional critic or a fellow audience member? Which do you now read more — and pay more attention to — in deciding which play to see: a printed review in a newspaper or a “user comment” on a website or blog?
The other side: People now have the opportunity to interact with their art experience. Tweet, text and blog about it. Going to the theater has always been a shared experience between actors and audience. The blogosphere has taken it a step further. It is now a shared experience between actor and audience — and the audience’s electronic web network of online friends.
Like it or not, our Smart Phones and the internet are fast becoming our new content delivery system and our primary circuit of commerce and communication (about the arts, and everything else). Theaters and arts organizations that don’t recognize that the internet train left the station years ago — and don’t get on board — are being left behind on the platform, by themselves. Alone.
The Fountain Theatre announced last week that a guilty verdict has been reached in the trial of the man accused of murdering longtime Fountain director/producer Ben Bradley.