January | 2016 | Intimate Excellent

Check it out! Our world premiere of Dream Catcher. A hot new experience at the Fountain. Feel it. Full circle. In the round. Fountain 360.

Live theatre like nowhere else in LA.

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Posted in Acting, actors, Arts, arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, Native American, new plays, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, stage, Theater, theatre

Tagged actors, Brian Tichnell, Cameron Watson, Dream Catcher, Elizabeth Frances, Fountain 360, Fountain Theatre, in the round, Los Angeles, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwriting, Stephen Sachs, theater, theatre, world premiere

The Fountain Theatre was home to young actors this Sunday morning as actress/teacher Elizabeth Dennehy led teenage acting students through her inspiring class. The young people explored acting through exercises and monologues and learned how to further develop as young artists. It was an exciting morning of growth and discovery.

Elizabeth Dennehy trained at The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and Hofstra University. She is a stage, film and TV actress and acting teacher. She has been featured on many television series, including Star Trek: The Next Generation, Seinfeld, Without a Trace and The Young and the Restless, and such films as Clear and Present Danger, Red Dragon, and True Blood. Born into an acting family, she is the daughter of actor Brian Dennehy.

Elizabeth was delighted with Sunday’s experience at the Fountain. “It was magic,” she says. “Really a dream come true.”

The Fountain Theatre is dedicated to providing a nurturing environment where the creativity of young people can develop and flourish. Its educational outreach program, Theatre as a Learning Tool, offers students the many life-enhancing benefits of access to theatre.

Enjoy these photos!

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Posted in Acting, actors, Arts, Arts education, arts organizations, creativity, Drama, Fountain Theatre, plays, Theater, theatre

Tagged acting class, acting students, actors, Arts education, arts organizations, educational outreach, Elizabeth Dennehy, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, theater, Theatre as a Learning Tool, young actors

Dick Motika & Jerrie Whitfield

The Fountain Theatre is thrilled to introduce two new members of its Board of Directors: Dick Motika and his wife, Jerrie Whitfield.

Dick and Jerrie are avid arts supporters and share a love for theatre, especially The Fountain Theatre and Center Theatre Group.  Fountain subscribers for many years, Dick and Jerrie are eager to dedicate themselves to furthering the growth of The Fountain Theatre in 2016.

Dick received his BA from the University of Colorado and an MBA from the University of Chicago. With over 30 years of banking experience, Dick is a Senior Private Banker for the Beverly Hills region of Wells Fargo Bank.  Jerrie, also with Wells Fargo Bank, is a second generation Angeleno who received her BS from St Mary’s University.

In addition to their shared passion for the arts, Dick and Jerrie are active volunteers at their church, All Saints Episcopal in Beverly Hills, through which they also began their support of The Episcopal School of Los Angeles, for which Dick serves as trustee.  Hobbies for the busy duo include jazz piano for Jerrie; cooking and gardening for Dick.

Welcome, Dick and Jerrie! We’re honored and delighted to have you on our Board.

Posted in arts organizations, Board of Directors, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, non-profit organization, Theater, theatre

Tagged All Saints Episcopal, Board of Directors, Dick Motika, Fountain Theatre, Jerrie Whitfield, Los Angeles, non-profit arts organization, performing arts, theatre, Wells Fargo Bank

Karen Kondazian

Fountain Theatre actress and board member Karen Kondazian is sponsoring an award to support Armenian stories and artists through the Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance.  The Kondazian Playwriting Award for Armenian Stories will be awarded to an outstanding play on an Armenian theme. Karen Kondazian, actress, ADAA Board Member and daughter of Lillian and Varnum Paul, is sponsor of the award and its $2500 prize.

“I am extremely happy to have my parentsʼ The Paul Award, join hands with the extraordinary Saroyan Foundation — to inspire and encourage human justice and dignity thought the eyes of the of playwright with the Saroyan/Paul Playwriting Prize,” says Kondazian. “It is also my honor to present the Kondazian Playwriting Award for Armenian Stories (through my parents’ fund) to encourage playwrights of any nationality, to explore the Armenian heart.”

The Kondazian Playwriting Award for Armenian Stories will be awarded in tandem with The Saroyan/Paul Prize for Playwriting in Human Rights/Social Justice in December 2016, in honor of Human Rights Day, at ADAA’s annual awards event in Los Angeles.

For submission guidelines, please visit ADAA’s website  http://www.armeniandrama.org.

Posted in Armenian, arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, playwriting, Theater, theatre

Tagged ADAA, Armenian, Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance, award, Fountain Theatre, Karen Kondazian, Kondazian Playwriting Award for Armenian Stories, Los Angeles, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwriting, theater, Varnum Paul, William Saroyan

In our upcoming world premiere of Dream Catcher, Roy is a engineer working for a major solar power corporation to combat climate change. In this moving and informative essay, a NASA scientist shares his fight against global warming while battling cancer.

by Piers J. Sellers 

I’m a climate scientist who has just been told I have Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

This diagnosis puts me in an interesting position. I’ve spent much of my professional life thinking about the science of climate change, which is best viewed through a multidecadal lens. At some level I was sure that, even at my present age of 60, I would live to see the most critical part of the problem, and its possible solutions, play out in my lifetime. Now that my personal horizon has been steeply foreshortened, I was forced to decide how to spend my remaining time. Was continuing to think about climate change worth the bother?

After handling the immediate business associated with the medical news — informing family, friends, work; tidying up some finances; putting out stacks of unread New York Times Book Reviews to recycle; and throwing a large “Limited Edition” holiday party, complete with butlers, I had some time to sit at my kitchen table and draw up the bucket list.

Very quickly, I found out that I had no desire to jostle with wealthy tourists on Mount Everest, or fight for some yardage on a beautiful and exclusive beach, or all those other things one toys with on a boring January afternoon. Instead, I concluded that all I really wanted to do was spend more time with the people I know and love, and get back to my office as quickly as possible.

I work for NASA, managing a large group of expert scientists doing research on the whole Earth system (I should mention that the views in this article are my own, not NASA’s). This involves studies of climate and weather using space-based observations and powerful computer models. These models describe how the planet works, and what can happen as we pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The work is complex, exacting, highly relevant and fascinating.

Last year was the warmest year on record, by far. I think that future generations will look back on 2015 as an important but not decisive year in the struggle to align politics and policy with science. This is an incredibly hard thing to do. On the science side, there has been a steady accumulation of evidence over the last 15 years that climate change is real and that its trajectory could lead us to a very uncomfortable, if not dangerous, place. On the policy side, the just-concluded climate conference in Paris set a goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature to 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels.

While many have mocked this accord as being toothless and unenforceable, it is noteworthy that the policy makers settled on a number that is based on the best science available and is within the predictive capability of our computer models.

It’s doubtful that we’ll hold the line at 2 degrees Celsius, but we need to give it our best shot. With scenarios that exceed that target, we are talking about enormous changes in global precipitation and temperature patterns, huge impacts on water and food security, and significant sea level rise. As the predicted temperature rises, model uncertainty grows, increasing the likelihood of unforeseen, disastrous events.

All this as the world’s population is expected to crest at around 9.5 billion by 2050 from the current seven billion. Pope Francis and a think tank of retired military officers have drawn roughly the same conclusion from computer model predictions: The worst impacts will be felt by the world’s poorest, who are already under immense stress and have meager resources to help them adapt to the changes. They will see themselves as innocent victims of the developed world’s excesses. Looking back, the causes of the 1789 French Revolution are not a mystery to historians; looking forward, the pressure cooker for increased radicalism, of all flavors, and conflict could get hotter along with the global temperature.

Last year may also be seen in hindsight as the year of the Death of Denial. Globally speaking, most policy makers now trust the scientific evidence and predictions, even as they grapple with ways to respond to the problem. And most Americans — 70 percent, according to a recent Monmouth University poll — believe that the climate is changing. So perhaps now we can move on to the really hard part of this whole business.

The initial heavy lifting will have to be done by policy makers. I feel for them. It’s hard to take a tough stand on an important but long-term issue in the face of so many near-term problems, amid worries that reducing emissions will weaken our global economic position and fears that other countries may cheat on their emissions targets.

Where science can help is to keep track of changes in the Earth system — this is a research and monitoring job, led by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and their counterparts elsewhere in the world — and use our increasingly powerful computer models to explore possible futures associated with proposed policies. The models will help us decide which approaches are practicable, trading off near-term impacts to the economy against longer-term impacts to the climate.

Ultimately, though, it will be up to the engineers and industrialists of the world to save us. They must come up with the new technologies and the means of implementing them. The technical and organizational challenges of solving the problems of clean energy generation, storage and distribution are enormous, and they must be solved within a few decades with minimum disruption to the global economy. This will likely entail a major switch to nuclear, solar and other renewable power, with an electrification of our transport system to the maximum extent possible. These engineers and industrialists are fully up to the job, given the right incentives and investments. You have only to look at what they achieved during World War II: American technology and production catapulted over what would have taken decades to do under ordinary conditions and presented us with a world in 1945 that was completely different from the late 1930s.

What should the rest of us do? Two things come to mind. First, we should brace for change. It is inevitable. It will appear in changes to the climate and to the way we generate and use energy. Second, we should be prepared to absorb these with appropriate sang-froid. Some will be difficult to deal with, like rising seas, but many others could be positive. New technologies have a way of bettering our lives in ways we cannot anticipate. There is no convincing, demonstrated reason to believe that our evolving future will be worse than our present, assuming careful management of the challenges and risks. History is replete with examples of us humans getting out of tight spots. The winners tended to be realistic, pragmatic and flexible; the losers were often in denial of the threat.

As for me, I’ve no complaints. I’m very grateful for the experiences I’ve had on this planet. As an astronaut I spacewalked 220 miles above the Earth. Floating alongside the International Space Station, I watched hurricanes cartwheel across oceans, the Amazon snake its way to the sea through a brilliant green carpet of forest, and gigantic nighttime thunderstorms flash and flare for hundreds of miles along the Equator. From this God’s-eye-view, I saw how fragile and infinitely precious the Earth is. I’m hopeful for its future.

And so, I’m going to work tomorrow.

This piece originally appeared in the NY Times.

Dream Catcher Jan 30 – March 14 (323) 663-1525 More Info/Get Tickets

Posted in Arts, arts organizations, Climate Change, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Global warming, performing arts, plays, Theater, theatre

Tagged arts organizations, cancer, climate change, Dream Catcher, Fountain Theatre, global warming, Los Angeles, NASA, performing arts, theater, theatre, world premiere

Elizabeth Frances and Brian Tichnell

A road trip rehearsal in the vast, open desert became an unforgettable experience for the company of Dream Catcher on Saturday.

Because the new play is set in the middle of the Mojave desert, director Cameron Watson led actors Elizabeth Frances and Brian Tichnell, playwright Stephen Sachs and stage manager Emily Lehrer to a desert spot 80 miles outside Los Angeles. They would rehearse the play there. Watson hoped the desert would offer the actors an authentic sense of place and the opportunity to soak up the sights, sounds, smells and heat of the landscape.

They experienced something much more.

  

Dream Catcher Jan 30 – March 14 (323) 663-1525 More Info/Get Tickets

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

Tagged acting, actors, Brian Tichnell, Cameron Watson, director, Dream Catcher, Elizabeth Frances, Emily Lehrer, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, Mojave desert, new play, performing arts, plays, playwright, Rehearsal, Stephen Sachs, theater, world premiere

Construction underway for in-the-round seating for ‘Dream Catcher’.

Director Cameron Watson wants Fountain audiences to walk into the theatre and immediately be surprised. To encounter the unexpected. For his mounting of the world premiere of Stephen Sachs’ Dream Catcher, patrons will be startled the moment they step through the lobby door: the seating has been changed to a dynamic in-the-round configuration.

Cameron Watson

“This play is volatile and exciting,” says Watson. “The muscularity of it got my attention right away.”

Watson doesn’t want audiences to experience the kinetic energy of Dream Catcher in the conventional way. Instead of sitting in the dark and watching the play as an observer, audiences will surround the playing area on all sides and be inside the world of the play with the two characters.

Dream Catcher is set in an empty stretch of the barren Mojave Desert. The construction of a huge solar energy plant in the middle of the desert is threatened to come to a halt when the sudden discovery of long-buried Native American artifacts are found on the site. Changing the theatre seating to an in-the-round configuration opens up the space to help evoke a feeling of wide expanse. It also creates a sacred circle for the audience, a sense of ritual and ancient storytelling that is central to Mojave Native culture. Even the hoop shape of an actual dream catcher is circular, signifying unity.

“I felt like it needed to be a circular, almost tribal, space,” says Watson. “I felt like it is told in a ring. Communal. That we all need to be part of the experience and commune with the story. Inclusive. The circular space echoes the vastness and isolation of the wide open space and also the circular configuration of the solar field in the desert.”

The new set is being created by award-winning and longtime Fountain designer Jeff McLaughlin. Changing the audience seating required extra effort for Fountain Technical Director Scott Tuomey and his crew.

This is not the first time the Fountain has experimented with altered seating. In 1993, The Seagull starring Salome Jens was performed in-the-round. Athol Fugard’s The Train Driver had a three-quarter setting in 2010, with the audience seated on three sides.

But this current in-the-round seating for Dream Catcher is unique and has an immediate impact on the total feeling of the space. It is kinetic, energetic and alive.

Which is exactly what Cameron Watson is wanting.

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Posted in Arts, arts organizations, designers, director, Fountain Theatre, Native American, new plays, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, Theater, theatre

Tagged Cameron Watson, Dream Catcher, Fountain Theatre, Jeff McLaughlin, Los Angeles, Native American, performing arts, plays, Scott Tuomey, set design, Stephen Sachs, theatre, world premiere

In our upcoming world premiere of Stephen Sachs’ new play Dream Catcher, Opal is a young Mojave woman living on the reservation being threatened by the construction of a huge new solar energy plant. She describes to her engineer lover Roy the power of the hoop-shaped object hung over her bed. What is it? A dream catcher.      

Dream catchers are one of the many fascinating traditions of Native Americans. The traditional dream catcher was intended to protect the sleeping individual from negative dreams, while letting positive dreams through. The positive dreams would slip through the hole in the center of the dream catcher, and glide down the feathers to the sleeping person below. The negative dreams would get caught up in the web, and expire when the first rays of the sun struck them.

The dream catcher has been a part of Native American culture for generations. One element of the Native American dream catcher relates to the tradition of the hoop. Some Natives held the hoop in high esteem because it symbolized strength and unity.

The legend of the Native American dream catcher varies somewhat from tribe to tribe, but the basic theme was to allow positive dreams to slip through the web and into the sleeper during the night while the negative dreams were caught in the web and would die at morning light. Other tribes have the opposing belief that the web will catch your positive ideas and the negative ones will go through the hole.

The earliest dream catchers, also called “sacred hoops,” were crafted by parents to protect their children from nightmares. Newborn babies were given charms that were woven in the form of webs to protect their dreams so their innocence would not be harmed by the troublemakers of the night. The dream catcher charm would be hung from the hoop on the cradle.

Dream catcher hoops were originally made out of red willow and covered with sage, the webbing was made from deer sinew. Modern dream catchers are made with wood or metal wrapped in leather strips, artificial sinew replace the now forbidden use of deer sinew. The decoration of the web along with the shape, size and colors used is left to the artisan’s imagination. Feathers attached to the dream catcher are meant to assist the flight of positive dreams.

Native Americans believe that the night air is filled with dreams both good and bad. The dream catcher when hung over or near your bed swinging freely in the air, catches the dreams as they flow by. The good dreams know how to pass through the dream catcher, slipping through the outer holes and slide down the soft feathers so gently that many times the sleeper does not know that he/she is dreaming. The bad dreams get tangled in the dream catcher and perish with the first light of the new day.

Pretty cool, eh? Want to make your own dream catcher? Here’s how:

You’ll experience more about the power of good dreams and bad dreams in our riveting and mesmerizing world premiere of Dream Catcher, directed by Cameron Watson and starring Elizabeth Frances and Brian Tichnell.  Don’t miss it!

Dream Catcher Jan 30 – March 21 More Info/Get Tickets 

Posted in artist, Arts, arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Native American, performing arts, plays, Theater, theatre

Tagged drama, Dream Catcher, dreamcatcher, dreams, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, Native American, new play, performing arts, plays, Stephen Sachs, theater, theatre, world premiere

All eyes on director Cameron Watson.

Actors, director and production team gathered yesterday afternoon for the first rehearsal of our world premiere production of Dream Catcher by Stephen Sachs. The new play about climate change, cultural change and the moral consequences of personal choice opens January 30.

Producer Simon Levy welcomed the company and director Cameron Watson shared his vision for the production. Playwright Stephen Sachs offered his insight on the script as actors Elizabeth Frances and Brian Tichnell watched and listened.  Also present were Co-Artistic Director Deborah Lawlor, associate producer James Bennett, stage manager Emily Lehrer, designers Terri A. Lewis and Terri Roberts, assistant director Alana Dietze. A special guest at the table was Michael Van Duzer, writing a feature story for ThisStage magazine on the development of the new play.

After the remarks and a brief discussion, the script was opened and the new play was read aloud by the two talented actors. The room immediately filled with the passion and intensity of the play, sent soaring by the heat and fervor of the actors. It was clear, even at this first reading, that Dream Catcher was going to be an extraordinary ride for artists and audiences alike.

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Posted in actors, artist, Arts, arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Global warming, new plays, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, playwright, playwriting, Theater, theatre

Tagged actors, Alana Dietze, Brian Tichnell, Cameron Watson, climate change, Deborah Lawlor, Dream Catcher, Elizabeth Frances, Emily Lehrer, Fountain Theatre, global warming, James Bennett, Los Angeles, Michael Van Duzer, new plays, Simon Levy, Stephen Sachs, Terri A. Lewis, Terri Roberts, theater, theatre, world premiere

Brian Tichnell and Elizabeth Frances

Solar power confronts spirit power in a new drama by Stephen Sachs about climate change, cultural change and the moral consequences of personal choice. Cameron Watson directs Elizabeth Frances and Brian Tichnell in the world premiere of Dream Catcher, opening January 30 at the Fountain Theatre.

Roy is the youngest member on a team of high-level engineers brought in to launch the most important project of his career — the construction of a solar energy plant in the middle of the Mojave Desert — when the sudden discovery of long-buried Native American artifacts threatens to bring the billion-dollar operation to a halt. The disaster gets deeply personal when the whistle-blower turns out to be Opal, the fiery and unpredictable young Mojave Indian woman with whom Roy has been having an affair.

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Posted in Acting, actors, Arts, arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Global warming, new plays, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, playwriting, stage, Theater, theatre

Tagged Actors Equity Association, Brian Tichnell, Cameron Watson, climate change, Dream Catcher, Elizabeth Frances, Fountain Theatre, global warming, Los Angeles, Mojave Indian, Native American, new play, plays, solar energy, solar power, Stephen Sachs, theater, world premiere