August | 2013 | Intimate Excellent

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

The Heart Song company.

Our wonderful 3-month run of the world premiere of Heart Song came to a glorious conclusion yesterday with its final matinee performance followed by a joyous party. The funny and powerful new play and sold-out production earned many rave reviews and deeply affected audiences. We received many emails and Facebook comments from people expressing how deeply moved they were by the play and what the production meant to them. One patron, Heidi Singh, was so taken with the play she saw it seven times.

New plays created by the Fountain Theatre often have future lives as they are produced by other theaters around the country. Heart Song will open at Florida Repertory Theatre in April.

We thank all of the extraordinary artists, crew, production team, and — most important — audience members who made the extended 3-month run of Heart Song at the Fountain Theatre such an unforgettable and meaningful experience.

Enjoy Photos From The Final Show Party! 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Posted in Acting, actors, Arts, arts organizations, Dance, designers, director, Drama, flamenco, Fountain Theatre, Music, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre

Tagged actors, Andrea Dantas, Deborah Lawlor, Denise Blasor, Elissa Kyriacou, Flamenco, flamenco dancing, Fountain Theatre, Heart Song, Juanita Jennings, Los Angeles, Maria Bermudez, Mindy Krasner, Nakia Secrest, new plays, Pamela Dunlap, Paulina Guitron, performing arts, plays, playwriting, Sherrie Lewandowski, Shirley Jo Finney, Simon Levy, Stephen Sachs, Tamlyn Tomita, theater, theatre, world premiere

Tim Cummings and Bill Brochtrup at first rehearsal.

Fueled by love, anger, hope and pride, a circle of friends struggles to contain a mysterious disease ravaging New York’s gay community. Simon Levy directs the exclusive Los Angeles revival of Larry Kramer’s groundbreaking drama about public and private indifference to the onset of the AIDS crisis, and one man’s fight to awaken the world to its urgency. The Normal Heart opens Sept. 21 at the Fountain Theatre.

Not seen in L.A. for over 16 years, The Normal Heart remains one of the theater’s most powerful evenings ever. It was so ahead of its time that many of the core issues it addresses — including gay marriage, a broken healthcare system and, of course, AIDS — are just as relevant today as they were when it first premiered nearly 30 years ago.

“What’s wonderful about this play is that it’s a passionate reminder that we must always keep fighting for what we believe in, that we must never let injustice go unanswered,” says Levy.

Bill Brochtrup

Loosely autobiographical, The Normal Heart takes place in New York City in 1981. Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle and LA Weekly Award-winning actor Tim Cummings (Rogue Machine’s The New Electric Ballroom), stars as writer and activist Ned Weeks, whose doctor (LADCC award-winning Lisa Pelikan, The New Electric Ballroom) tells him he must convince everyone he knows to stop having sex or they’ll die. The play follows Ned and a core group of friends — Verton R. Banks (NAACP Theater Award-winner for Butterflies of Uganda),Bill Brochtrup (ABC’s NYPD Blue, Showtime’sShameless), Matt Gottlieb (The Grapes of Wrath at A Noise Within),  Fred Koehler (CBS’s Kate & Allie, HBO’s Oz), Stephen O’Mahoney (Harvey at the Laguna Playhouse), Ray Paolantonio (Animal Farm, Wilhelm Reich in Hell at Son of Semele), Dan Shaked (On the Spectrum at the Fountain) and Jeff Witzke (Blank Theatre Co.’s Book Of Liz) — as they rail against a community that refuses to believe they are in danger, a bureaucracy that refuses to listen and a President who won’t even utter the word AIDS. Dismissed by politicians, frustrated by doctors and fighting with each other, their differences could tear them apart – or change the world. The title of the play comes from a poem by W. H. Auden, the last line of which is this simple truth: “We must love one another or die.”

Matt Gottlieb

When The Normal Heart premiered at New York’s Public Theater in 1985, Joseph Papp wrote, “In taking a burning social issue and holding it up to public and private scrutiny so that it reverberates with the social and personal implications of that issue, The Normal Heart reveals its origins in the theater of Sophocles, Euripides and Shakespeare. In his moralistic fervor, Larry Kramer is a first cousin to nineteenth century Ibsen and twentieth century Odets and other radical writers of the 1930s. Yet… the element that gives this powerful political play its essence, is love — love holding firm under fire, put to the ultimate test, facing and overcoming our greatest fear: death.”

In 2000, The Normal Heart was named “one of the 100 greatest plays of the 20th century” by the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain, and the 2011 Broadway revival earned Tony, Drama League, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for Best Revival of a Play. A movie directed by Ryan Murphy and starring Mark Ruffalo, Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer and Julia Roberts is slated to premiere on HBO in 2014.

Larry Kramer recently told Playbill, “Now it’s considered a history play. Everything I said in the play has come true.”

Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer is an American playwright and LGBT-rights activist. He is a founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, an AIDS service organization, and ACT UP, a direct action AIDS advocacy group. His most acclaimed plays include The Normal Heart (1985) and the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Destiny of Me (1992). His screenplay for Women in Love was nominated for an Academy Award in 1969. He is the author of the novel Faggots (1978), a confrontational portrayal of gay culture, and a critical essay about the AIDS crisis, “1,112 and Counting” (1983). Kramer has also written the plays Sissie’s Scrapbook, A Minor Dark Age and Just Say No, A Play about Farce. His other books are The Tragedy of Today’s Gays and Reports From the Holocaust: The Story of an AIDS Activist. He earned his B.A. in English from Yale University. In 2013, he was honored by the Tony Awards with the Isabelle Stevenson Award for significant contribution to humanitarian or charitable causes.

Simon Levy

Simon Levy was honored with the 2011 Milton Katselas Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle. Directing credits at the Fountain include Cyrano (LADCC Awards for Direction and Production), A House Not Meantto Stand; Opus (LA Weekly Awards, Best Director); Photograph 51;The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore (Backstage Garland Award, Best Direction); The Gimmick with Dael Orlandersmith (Ovation Award-Solo Performance); Master Class (Ovation Award-Best Production); Daisy in theDreamtime (Backstage Garland Awards, Best Production and Direction); Going to St. Ives; The Night of theIguana; Summer & Smoke (Ovation Award-Best Production); The LastTycoon, which he wrote and directed, (5 Back Stage awards, including Best Adaptation and Direction); and Orpheus Descending (6 Drama-Logue awards, including Best Production and Direction). What I Heard About Iraq, which he wrote and directed, was produced worldwide including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Fringe First Award) and the Adelaide Fringe Festival (Fringe Award), was produced by BBC Radio, and received a 30-city UK tour culminating in London. He has written the official stage adaptations of The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night, and The Last Tycoon for the Fitzgerald Estate, all published by Dramatists Play Service. 

Set design for The Normal Heart is by Jeff McLaughlin; lighting design is by R. Christopher Stokes; sound design is by Peter Bayne; video design is by Adam Flemming; costume design is by Naila Aladdin Sanders; prop design is by Misty Carlisle; the production stage manager is Corey Womack and the assistant stage manager is Terri Roberts.

The Normal Heart  Sept 21 – Nov 3  (323) 663-1525  MORE

Posted in Acting, actors, AIDS, Arts, arts organizations, designers, director, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Gay, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre

Tagged ACT UP, actors, Adam Flemming, AIDS, AIDS crisis, Bill Brochtrup, Corey Womack, Dan Shaked, Deborah Lawlor, Fountain Theatre, Fred Koehler, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, HBO, HIV, Jeff McLaughlin, Jeff Witzke, Joseph Papp, Larry Kramer, Lisa Pelikan, Los Angeles, Matt Gotlieb, Misty Carlisle, Naila, performing arts, Peter Bayne, plays, playwriting, Public Theater, R. Christopher Stokes, Ray Paolantonio, Simon Levy, Stephen O’Mahoney, Stephen Sachs, The Normal Heart, theater, theatre, Tim Cummings, Tony Award, Verton R. Banks

Director Simon Levy speaks to the cast of ‘The Normal Heart’.

Yesterday was our first “meet and greet” rehearsal for our upcoming production of The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer, directed by Simon Levy. The groundbreaking drama about public and private indifference to the onset of the AIDS crisis, and one man’s fight to awaken the world to its urgency, opens September 21 at the Fountain Theatre.

The cast met for the first time last night in the Fountain cafe. Co-Artistic Director and Producer Stephen Sachs guided them through the business of paperwork and director Levy spoke about his vision for the production. The Fountain is thrilled and proud to be presenting this galvanizing play, not seen in Los Angeles in nearly twenty years.

The talented cast includes Verton R. Banks, Bill Brochtrup, Tim Cummings,  Matt Gotlieb,  Fred Koehler, Stephen O’Mahoney, Ray Paolantonio, Lisa Pelikan, Dan Shaked, and Jeff Witzke .

Enjoy A Few Snapshots

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Normal Heart  Sept 21 – Nov 3  (323) 663-1525  MORE

Posted in Acting, actors, Arts, arts organizations, designers, director, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre

Lowes and the Fountain Family.

by Lowes Moore III

Hello everyone, this is Lowes Lee Moore III one last time.

As you know The Los Angeles County Arts Commission gave me a 10-week Internship with the Fountain Theatre as the Development Intern. YAAAAY!!! I am very sad to say that today marks the end of the internship. It is extremely upsetting to have to leave such a loving family of beautiful theater-making individuals. Every day they have welcomed me with warm smiles, hugs, and valuable lessons. I am truly blessed to have been a member of the Fountain Theatre Family.

I thought it would be funny to take some of my journal entries from my first two weeks on the job so you can see for yourselves how great my summer has been.

photo by Lowes

[6/4/2013] Day 1: Today I met Stephen, Deborah, Scott and Diana. They showed me to my desk, which had a laptop, office supplies, and a phone. The scariest part of the day was the phone rang 3x. Of course I didn’t answer. What am I suppose to say? It’s my first day. Give me a break. Stephen gave me a task to complete over the next few days to get me started. I took that as a challenge. I got to meet Denise Blasor, one of the new actors in the Fountain Theatre play Heart Song written by the very own Stephen Sachs himself. She did a KPFK radio interview which was pretty cool because I got to sit in the room while it happened. They do a lot Flamenco-y things in this place. I probably should look up Flamenco sometime between today and tomorrow. It’s definitely a thing here.

[6/7/2013] Day 4: Today there was a lot of traffic. Being from New York I guess I’ll never understand LA traffic shenanigans. The second I got to the office I was put in charge of 4 tasks! They waste no time here and are going to use every bit of me they can. Well, lucky for them that is why I am here. The most daunting task of all was doing computer research and e-mailing for artist who will donate over 100 CD’s for Forever Flamenco! At the Ford. Apparently, this event is going to be big and I need to get with the program fast. After archiving for about 15 minutes with Deb I had to take a break. There is some much history here at the Fountain. Every time I look at the information that needs to be archived I get exhausted/flustered/overwhelmed/distracted. But hey, who’s complaining really. Deb told me to get rid of items that had too many extra copies but could not watch me and would not let me throw anything away without saying “Let me see that…let me see the copies.” This was going to be a long project I could tell.

photo by Lowes

We decided to call it a day and I joined Deb in some stretching and dancing to cool off. She demanded I research Flamenco dancers who’ve been through the Fountain Theatre like Timo Nunez, Maria Bermudez, and Mizuho Sato to name a few. She, politely, threatened me saying, “you will not be allowed to stay here very long if you don’t come see my Flamenco show” in her most seriously voice but with her most vibrant and loving smile. I am pretty sure Deb was an amazing dancer back in the day. She has moves. That has been confirmed.

[6/13/2013] Day 8: Today was my day of funny events. This morning I laughed with Stephen about how hectic my no car situation is. It felt good to just talk about it. We hung out and ate some hotdogs, which he says is one of our normal Fountain lunch meals. Who knew I would like hotdogs so much. After, I was sitting at my desk when Scott & Diana were working on the phones in the other room but forgot to tell me. Diana fussed me out for answering the phone. “Are you serious? We are checking the phones? Come on Lowes?” which is the pretty censored version haha. I was really embarrassed because Diana is kind of scary. Diana came right over and glared at me for 2 minutes. Then she smiled & chuckled and said “hey Lowes, next time read my mind…that was a joke!!!” Boy, did I need some time to process that one. Today was one of the first days I bonded with James (the head box office person but he is MANAGER now) as I refer to him on the phone. He is really funny and right around the corner from my desk. Sooner or later he’ll get annoyed with my 1,000 questions. Today I definitely had a lot but he did not seem to mind at all. We had our first staff meeting before the show at the Ford. I failed for the first time on the job. I could not find anyone to donate the CD’s that we asked for.

Lowes and dancer Timo Nunez backstage at Forever Flamenco at the Ford

[6/14/2013] Day 9: Just kidding I cannot believe how great today was. After I got home last night. I got an e-mail from a company willing to donate 100 CDs. Stephen and the rest of the FT family were so proud. Apparently, I’m a “boss.” If you do not know what that means…well it means I’M THE MAN!!! Yup and to top it off I surprised Stephen with his favorite Chicken Avocado burrito from El Pollo Loco. Yes it was a pretty great day. As if the day couldn’t get any better, Simon tells me that I get to help him on the producing side of theatre. “This is the fun part of the internship” he says. I get to help with a show he is directing in September called “The Normal Heart.” I am so excited to get started on that project. Simon seems like a very fun person to work with. He gets so intense and is so knowledgeable I can’t help but be amazed majority of the time.

I can’t even begin to process all of the great things that have happened to me this summer. I have learned many new tools and have met so many great people. I got to spend a summer in the office of a Non-Profit Organization who does everything possible to bring quality work to a diverse Los Angeles Community. I finally learned what Flamenco is and have seen some of the best in Los Angeles. I’ve seen Heart Song and had the privilege of working under the writer for my entire stay at the Fountain Theatre. I did research on and helped advertise one of the greatest American Play’s, the The Normal Heart, revival in Los Angeles after 15+ years.

Here are some other areas I helped in while at the Fountain Theatre:

Artist Relations*Box Office Work*Document Managing/Organizing*Entering Transfers & Journal Entries into QuickBooks*Helping Fundraise/Donation*Archiving*General Office Work*Casting Monitor*Assistant Handyman*Running Errands*Grant Research/Preparation*Blogging*

Lowes and box office dude James Bennett

I’ve found a family here at the Fountain Theatre. Everyday forward I will be grateful for all of the wisdom and knowledge this experience has given me. Even though I am very sad to leave and go back to school. I happy I have found another home in East Hollywood at the intersection of Fountain and Normandie. When I walked out of the office after my first day I felt something deep down. There is something special here at the Fountain. It must be in the water. And as I walk out of the office today I know I’ll feel it again. Love.

This upcoming school year I will be diving into intense coursework in classes such as Econometrics, Macro-economics, Music of Western Culture, & Community Literacy. I also will be the section leader for our Glee Club for the second year in a row. Our Glee Club is traveling to Spain & Portugal on tour in January. I will be serving on the executive board, as treasurer of our schools largest club on campus called Dance Production. I will be a Tour Guide for my second year and a music scholarship student for my third year. Lastly, from August 24^th to October 12^th I am in the production of Hairspray The Broadway Musical at the Glendale Centre Theatre. This summer has opened up doors for me to work in many different aspects of the arts.

I want to give a special thank you to the Los Angeles Arts Commission for allowing me this opportunity to gain more experience in the work place. Thank you Fountain Family: Stephen, Deborah, Simon, Scott, Diana, James, Barbara and everyone else who played such integral parts in making this one of the best summer experiences yet.

Warmly,

Lowesie

Development Intern at the Fountain Theatre 2013.

Enjoy These Fountain Snapshots by Lowes

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Posted in Acting, actors, Arts, arts organizations, Dance, Drama, flamenco, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre

Tagged actors, Deborah Lawlor, Diana Gibson, Flamenco, Forever Flamenco at the Ford, Fountain Theatre, Heart Song, intern, internship, James Bennett, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Lowes Moore, new plays, performing arts, Scott Tuomey, Simon Levy, Stephen Sachs, summer intern, summer internship, The Normal Heart, theater, theatre, Timo Nunez

LA Stage Day

by Holly L. Derr

It was a sunny day and LA Stage Alliance was hosting LA Stage Day, a gathering of Los Angeles theater folk centered around inspirational presentations, workshops, and breakout sessions. So I ventured down the 5 to University Hills, just off the 10, where participants in small group discussions like “Leading Diversity on the LA Stage,” “New Media in the Rehearsal Room,” and “Blue Sky: What Are Your Dream Ideas?” were sharing best practices, brainstorming new ideas, and challenging their own assumptions about how theater works.

As part of a day geared around questions like how to engage new, increasingly diverse, tech savvy audiences, the playwriting workshop stood out for advocating the safest route to getting produced. Led by four men and one woman, “Play!: The 60-minute Everything-You-Need-to-Know-About-Playwriting-in-LA Marathon” offered such revelatory tidbits as “cast a name actor or no one will come see your play,” “every story has to have a protagonist and a resolution,” and “plays only get produced when they have small casts and one set.” Now these things are all well and good if that’s the kind of play you want to write, but what if the best actors you can get have impeccable training but aren’t names? What if the world as you see it or as you want to show it has multiple protagonists and locations, lots of people, and conflicts that don’t necessarily get resolved? What if you want to make art more than you want to sell tickets? What if you’re a woman?

Play reading at Playwrights Union

In search of more fertile ground for innovative new play development, I headed up the 101 to Silver Lake for a reading of Crazy Bitch, a new play by Jennie Webb, presented by The Playwrights Union. As if the theater gods had heard my cry, Webb’s 70-minute play has not one but four protagonists, one of which is a character called The Immortal Jellyfish who is described as 4.5mm wide and lives in a petri dish. And though the play, which is set in LA, deeply investigates questions of life and death, the actual plot is left unresolved. Asked to what extent her play was consciously created in relation to the commercialism of Los Angeles, Webb said:

I’ve lived here all my life but this is the first play I’ve set here. I just got tired of all the new plays set in New York and gave myself a challenge to set one in LA. But I’m not savvy enough to write what’s producible. I write what I write and I hope it speaks to someone. I’d rather write plays where a woman loses body parts or shoes start raining from the ceiling. I call it “domestic absurdism,” with domestic meaning everyday life, because I find that life is absurd, especially for women.

The Playwrights Union

In contrast to the male-heavy representation among speakers at LA Stage Day, a full five of the seven readings done that weekend by The Playwrights Union were by women. The Union, which began in 2009 as a meeting of interested colleagues in organizer Jennifer Haley’s backyard, hosts an annual February challenge to write a play in a month. Participating playwrights gather over a long weekend to read and talk about one another’s plays. They do another round of rewrites and then host a weekend of public readings with actors. Haley, whose own play The Nether recently premiered at Center Theater Group’s Kirk Douglas Theater, told me:

We have about thirty members, and there was a time when we had to recruit men in order to achieve parity. Right now it’s about even, but more women participated in the February Challenge that led to these plays.

Asked how her writing functions in relation to the commercial culture of Hollywood and the idea of what’s “producible,” Haley offered:

I’ve worked as a playwright in Austin, Seattle and all over the East Coast. Studying at Brown with Paula Vogel, I learned to play with both experimental and traditional forms.  I think circulation in a variety of theater communities helps you look at different models… there are new Playwrights arriving all the time in LA, and it will be interesting to see if this influences the kind of work being done here.

Though many playwrights are drawn to Los Angeles to write for television, others come here to study and end up making the city their home. Brittany Knupper, a recent grad from the playwriting program headed by Alice Tuan at the California Institute of the Arts—just up the 5 from the Valley—talked to me about her first year living here as a writer:

A lot of people their first year out of school have an existential crisis. Maybe mine just hasn’t hit yet but it hasn’t been that bad. Then again I constantly feel like I’m in an existential crisis, so maybe I’m just used to it. At CalArts I felt like I wasn’t being experimental enough as a writer, but in Hollywood people think what I do is too experimental. LA is such an industry town: People are trying to do anything they can to make a connection. You can feel the desperation. It’s funky and weird and gross, and I kind of like how dirty and weird it is.

Knupper has found an artistic outlet in storytelling, a popular form of Los Angeles entertainment in which people gather in theaters, bars, and homes to hear individuals read stories, usually autobiographical, but sometimes fictional. These pop-up salons feature the work of playwrights, journalists, fiction writers, and essayists and provide writers with regular opportunities to present work and receive feedback from within a supportive community.

Because the nightmare of driving in LA keeps most Angelenos locked in their own neighborhoods, writers who want to reach a city-wide audience have to create communities like these, organized around the discipline rather than through established institutions. Jennie Webb and writer/mythologist Laura Shamas formed just such an association in 2009—the Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative—to coordinate efforts to get more plays by women produced on local stages. Webb related,

LA is almost pridefully inaccessible. We needed an organization that would bring women together and spread the word that women writers exist. We are focused on connecting artists to one another, supporting one another by going to see each others plays, and getting the message out that it pays to produce work by women.

LA Female Playwrights Initiative

Clearly LA is not lacking in women playwrights, yet a study done by LAFPI in conjunction with LA Stage Alliance revealed that between 2000 and 2010, only 20% of plays produced in Los Angeles were written or co-written by women.

Hopefully next year’s LA Stage Day will address the lack of gender diversity on our city’s stages. Organizers at the Alliance should start by asking more women to speak and conduct workshops and should include breakout sessions addressing the issue. For their part, producers need to recognize that the only way to appeal to new audiences is to tell stories in new ways, which is why I’m going to stay on the trail of the LA writing underground, where work by women—and experimental work at that—is flourishing.

Holly L. Derr is a writer, director, and professor of theater specializing in the Viewpoints & Composition, the performance of gender, and applied theater history. This post originally appeared on HowlRound. Holly is also a blogger for Ms., where she writes about theater, film, and culture. Follow her on twitter @hld6oddblend.

Posted in Acting, actors, Arts, arts organizations, director, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, playwright, Theater, theatre

Tagged actors, Brittany Knupper, CalArts, California Institute of the Arts, Center Theater Group, diversity, female playwrights, Fountain Theatre, Holly L. Derr, Hollywood, Jenifer Haley, Jennie Webb, Kirk Douglas Theatre, LA Stage Alliance, LA Stage Day, Latino, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwriting, The Nether, The Playwrights Union, theater, theatre, women in theatre

The Fountain Theatre presents Forever Flamenco! with Yaelisa y Caminos Flamencos in “Flamenkeando”— With only 78 seats in four rows, the Fountain is the perfect place to experience the fire andpassion of flamenco. This month’s lineup includes dancers Manuel Gutierrez, Yaelisa and Devon LaRussa, who offers a hybrid of contemporary/flamenco style; singer/dancer Oscar Valero and singer El Grillo, both from Spain; guitarist Jason McGuire (“El Rubio”); and percussionist Joey Heredia.

Caminos Flamencos was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area by Emmy Award-winning dancer and choreographer Yaelisa. The mission of Caminos Flamencos is to create and present contemporary, traditional and theatrical dance programs showcasing artists from Spain and the U.S., which reflect the changing face of flamenco in the 21st century. Their programs seek to preserve the legacy of Spain’s rich artistic heritage, and bring them to people of all backgrounds, enriching the lives of people with Spanish and Hispanic ancestry, and of the community at large.

If you were lucky to be at our fabulous jaw-dropping Forever Flamenco at the Ford in June, you experienced the artistry of Yaelisa and guitar master Jason McGuire in action. The stars not only shone bright overhead on that hot summer night. Stars twinkled backstage as well, as Yaelisa was visited by TV/Film actress and flamenco fan Eva Longoria.

Yaelisa with Eva Longoria backstage at ‘Forever Flamenco at the Ford’  June 15.

Don’t miss this month’s Forever Flamenco at the intimate Fountain Theatre on Sunday, August 18th at 8pm. (323) 663-1525  MORE

Posted in Arts, arts organizations, Dance, dancer, flamenco, Fountain Theatre, Music, performing arts, singer, Theater, theatre

Tagged Caminos Flamencos, Deborah Lawlor, Devon LaRussa, El Grillo, Eva Longoria, Flamenco, flamenco dancing, flamenco guitar, flamenco music, FLAMENKEANDO, Forever Flamenco, Forever Flamenco at the Ford, Fountain Theatre, Jason McGuire, Joey Heredia, Los Angeles, Manuel Gutierrez, Oscar Valero, theater, theatre, Yaelisa

Chauvet Cave

by Eric Coble

Emerging from the One Theatre World conference on plays for young audiences, this past May,  life was pretty wondrous. And ringing in my head was a concept totally unrelated to any of what I’d just seen or experienced, except that it was perhaps at the very heart of the experience, and perhaps the heart of what theater, better than any other art form, can achieve. The concept comes from Jean Clottes, former head of scientific research at Chauvet Cave in southern France that contains cave paintings dating back 35,000 years:

People of the Paleolithic probably had two concepts which change [one’s] vision of the world. The concept of fluidity and the concept of permeability. Fluidity means that the categories that we have—man, woman, horse, tree, etc.—can shift. A tree may speak. A man can get transformed into an animal, and the other way around, given certain circumstances. The concept of permeability is that there are no barriers, so to speak, between the world where we are and the world of the spirits. A wall can talk to us, or a wall can accept us or refuse us. A shaman for example can send his or her spirit to the world of the supernatural or can receive the visit, inside him or her, of supernatural spirits. If you put those two concepts together you realize how different life must have been for those people from the way we live now.

Exactly. Except not for all of us. Children are still remarkably, gloriously, frighteningly close to our Paleolithic ancestors. They have absolute faith and comfort in fluidity and permeability, in parents who can become animals and rocks that can speak to enlighten or deceive. The freedom of that worldview, the magic that this enables, makes writing for children’s theater both a joy and exquisite effort—one has to let go of rational plotting, of the need for explanation, while still honoring the rules of the universe being created. Which strikes me as being a valid way to live one’s life outside theater.

But here’s the thing. This universe is not just for kids. Over the three days of the festival, I witnessed adults, men and women from their twenties to their sixties, who totally bought that a Styrofoam ball and a gloved hand were a small man in a diving suit, one that they cared for, rooted for, and grieved with. They believed an obviously human hand moving through the air with a squeaking sound was a mouse that had seen enough injustice in the world and was finally taking action; that a plastic bag came to life and pursued its own agenda within our human realm. Inanimate became animate, fluidity was real. The edges of our known world became permeable. And, yes, we knew. We knew it was a puppeteer—there was no effort to hide the mechanics—we’re sophisticated and jaded and theater people for god’s sake. And yet we believed. We believed with our child/Paleolithic minds. Is there anywhere else besides theater where this can happen with such grace? Where the machinery can be in such plain sight and yet simultaneously break us free of our fundamental knowledge of the world? Paintings, music, dance, novels can punch us in the gut, remind us we’re human, open us to others’ experiences, but can they fundamentally revert our very perceptions to an earlier state? We’re in the same room at the same time with the creators, they are clearly as human as we are, and for minutes or hours at a time we are in the presence of something nonhuman, nonrational, yet viscerally real and true.

So what about plays for adults? Can their stories be just as filled with fluidity and permeability? I would argue that there is as much truth to those states as to any other, perhaps more so. Adults watch, transfixed, transported as leather and wood and wire shift form into a huge animal we weep for in Warhorse. And isn’t that sense of magic—knowing that we are witnessing transformation, craving it, the sense that something larger, more true is happening in the obvious falsehood—isn’t that so much more potent than having real horses on stage? It’s not just impressive, it’s fracking magic. The wildlife of the savannah in Lion King, the singing basement appliances of Caroline, or Change, the terrified blind gods in Equus, this is not just stagecraft—it’s matter transforming into other matter, or at least allowing us to believe again that that is possible. And our world gets bigger, more wondrous.

‘Heart Song’ at the Fountain Theatre

Even when physical objects are not transmogrifying, we can achieve stunning moments of permeability as something sweeping and unexplainable bleeds through into our world (or at least the world of the play). It’s not subtle, but when Tony Kushner has an angel descend through a ceiling to announce heaven’s plans…well, our Paleolithic ancestors (and children) would have grasped that more easily than understanding why Blanche Dubois loves paper lanterns. Lisa D’Amour’s Anna Bella Eema, Mickle Maher’s There Is A Happiness That Morning Is, my own early stabs at permeability in My Barking Dog—all of these stories take place here, now, but in a world where our narrow realities are enlarged and our understanding of life gets bigger. Brilliant plays like Good People and Clybourne Park speak ugly truths in graceful ways, but they are, by choice, creating a world that is the exact same size as life. We need those stories, but I posit that we need, perhaps even more, worlds that are unimaginably larger than the one we return to when we step out of the theater onto the sidewalk.

Sacred Space: the stage before the performance begins.

None of this is new, to be sure; theater likely was birthed from acting out the transformations (and perhaps thus gaining some control over them) believed to be happening in the world around our ancestors. Perhaps ancient theatrical techniques and modern technology may yet show us a way to resuscitate our art in the face of all encompassing digital entertainment by offering audiences something we can’t get anywhere else, something that forces us to do the work, to create (or allow) the magic, even as adults, in the face of what we think we know about our world. It’s one thing to willingly believe that Willy Loman is a real person in a real kitchen, but so many other art forms can trick us into that. Novelists can utterly suck us into their worlds, fantastic or not, but they don’t have to contend with our rational brains telling us we’re sitting in a room with strangers consciously watching other strangers tell a story and simultaneously that a live actor is becoming an automobile or a man has been impregnated by a coyote. By directly engaging this battle between our certainty of the real and our hunger for the might-be-real at such an unconscious yet obvious level, theater supersedes other art forms and is able let the bigger world of transformation bleed through.

One more thought from Mssr. Clottes:

Humans have been described in many ways, right? And for a while it was Homo Sapiens and it’s still called Home Sapiens, “the man who knows.” I don’t think it’s a good definition at all. We don’t know. We don’t know much. I would think Homo Spiritulalis.

The theater has given us the unique tools to take us back to our most primitive basic reality, whether one wants to call that a child’s mind or the mind, now forgotten, that launched our species on our current course. We know what existing in the world created by logic and physics feels like. What about living in a world of magic and vastness and wonder again?

What a gift. What a challenge. What art.

Eric Coble is a playwright  born in Edinburgh, Scotland and raised on the Navajo and Ute reservations in New Mexico and Colorado. His plays include The Velocity of Autumn, Bright Ideas,The Dead Guy, Natural Selection, For Better, and The Giver and have been produced Off-Broadway, throughout the U.S., and on several continents. This post appeared on HowlRound.

Posted in Acting, actors, Arts, arts organizations, director, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre

Tagged actors, art, arts organizations, Caroline, change, Chauvet Cave, Clybourne Park, Equus, Eric Coble, fluidity, Fountain Theatre, Good People, Heart Song, Jean Clottes, Los Angeles, magic, new plays, One Theatre World conference, or Change, Paleolithic, performing arts, permeability, plays, playwriting, spirit, The Lion King, Theatre arts, Tony Kushner, transformation, Warhorse, wonder