Gil Kaan - Page 23

DIAVOLO/Architecture in Motion's The Veteran Project will premiere its THIS IS ME: LETTERS FROM THE FRONT LINES on The Soraya Facebook page Friday July 31 at 4p PST. Returning to The Soraya for their fourth engagement, DIAVOLO's latest movement piece deals with our current pandemic isolation from the first responders' perspectives. DIAVOLO/Architecture in Motion's founder and artistic director Jacques Heim, who directed and choreographed THIS IS ME: LETTERS FROM THE FRONT LINES, shared some behind-the-scenes of THIS IS ME and background of the performing company he founded in 1992.

Source Material's IN THESE UNCERTAIN TIMES will world premiere via Zoom July 25, 2020 at 4pm PST. Directed by Source Material's artistic director Samantha Shay, IN THESE UNCERTAIN TIMES posits the state of theatre in these COVID-19 times using a mash-up of Chekov monologues, drinking duels and coronavirus memes. Performers, spread out in the U. S. and in Iceland, include company members James Cowan, Miles Hartfelder, Annelise Lawson, Stephanie Regina, Raven Scott, Victoria Sendra, and Grace Tiso. I had the chance to ask Samantha what's currently predominating in her creative mind.

The third annual SheLA Arts' Summer Theater Festival has gone completely digital this year, running July 13 through July 19, 2020. I had the socially distant chance to pose a few questions to one of the five elected playwrights chosen for this year's festival, Ali MacLean, whose THIS WILL BE OUR YEAR will world premiere July 17th via Zoom.

In these pandemic times, The Fountain Theatre has been Zooming their SATURDAY MATINEE series, the latest on June 27 being France-Luce Benson's SHOWTIME BLUES. The cast of this reading includes Cecil Blutcher, Suzette Azariah Gunn and Matt Kirkwood. I had the socially distant opportunity to pose a few questions to this prolific playwright.

The works of the incomparable Martha Graham remain a must-see for modern dance aficionados. The Martha Graham Dance Company's latest work IMMEDIATE TRAGEDY will premiere online Friday, June 19 at 4pm (PDT)/7pm (EDT) on The Soraya Facebook page. In collaboration with composer Christopher Rountree and his musical ensemble Wild Up, Janet Eilber (Martha Graham Dance Company's Artistic Director) has re-choreographed this historical solo into a number for fourteen dancers with the creative help of the fourteen dancers.

To commemorate Juneteenth this Friday June 19th, the Juneteenth Theatre Justice Project will present Vincent Terrell Durham's POLAR BEARS, BLACK BOYS & PRAIRIE FRINGED ORCHIDS as a free, live Zoom reading. Juneteenth Theatre Justice Project has gathered groups of regional theatres in various cities to partner in this production. In the Los Angeles Theatre community, co-presenting POLAR BEARS are: IAMA Theatre Company, Celebration Theatre, DOMA Theatre Company, Echo Theater Company, Highways, The Inkwell Theater, Lower Depth Theatre, Skylight Theatre Company and the L.A. Stage Alliance.

North Coast Rep's west coast premiere of playwright Eric Pfeffinger's HUMAN ERROR will go on as originally planned, only in these times of social distancing, being presented online from June 15 through June 29, 2020. HUMAN ERROR's a comedy of a medical mix-up that brings two couples of opposing life views together. Cast includes: Allison Spratt Pearce, Terrell Donnell Sledge, Max Macke, Jacque Wilke, and Martin Kildare. I had the socially distancing opportunity to pose a few questions to HUMAN ERROR's director Jane Page.

Guitarist Laurence Juber, with a musical resume longer than your arm, will play his first full-length concert since the beginnings of our stay-home orders in AN EVENING WITH LAURENCE JUBER, a virtual benefit for Whitefire Theatre June 13, 2020. LJ graciously took some time for this interview between his prepping a musical Broadway-bound and making musical musings with Hope, his wife and frequent collaborator.

First up in the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's newly revamped 2020 Summer Season - now online, the 30th NATIONAL PUPPETRY CONFERENCE (PUP) running June 8 through June 12, 2020. PUP, with an already sold-out main CONFERENCE, is offering the public a series of five master classes, as well as, two free open mic puppet sessions. I managed to pull the right strings to pose a few questions to PUP's Artistic Director Pam Arcerio.

The Groundlings' weekly Wednesday night show THE CRAZY UNCLE JOE SHOW that's been running for years, halted production like all other live entertainment. Well, Groundlings improv fans can now look forward to the beginning of the online Zoomed editions of THE CRAZY UNCLE JOE SHOW with the first installment this Wednesday May 27 @ 8pm PST. I got to socially-distance interview Stephanie Courtney and Brian Palermo, long time improvisors of THE CRAZY UNCLE JOE SHOW.

This one-man show would work just as amazingly live and onstage as it does viewed online with the incredible, incredible Rob Nagle as Richard Nixon. Shot and staged in a small office (as a stand-in for Steve McQueen's beach house), Bree Pavey deftly directs Nagle as Nixon on the evening after he announces his resignation. Nagle, with this Nixon vocal mannerisms down pat, seamlessly limns Sean Waldron's fictionalized drunken evening as Nixon.

As part of the official kick-off to West Hollywood's 'One City One Pride,' West Hollywood's Art Division (in collaboration with the Celebration Theatre) presents a free live-stream reading of Patricia Loughrey's DEAR HARVEY on Harvey Milk Day, May 22, 2020. Produced and directed by Celebration Theatre's artistic director Michael A. Shepperd, DEAR HARVEY recalls the too-short political career and the lasting impacting of the first openly gay elected politician, as told through the eyes of those who had the privilege of knowing him.

WOW! WOW! WOW! Just finished viewing master illusionist Helder Guimarães' THE PRESENT via Zoom. A.MA.ZING!!! Having actually seen and been wowed before by Helder Guimarães, up close and live, in person at the Geffen's Audrey Skirball Kenis Theatre (back in May of 2019) in his INVISIBLE TANGO, I was most anxious to see Guimarães' latest show THE PRESENT, a Geffen Stayhouse world premiere. Apparently, Guimarães' fans shared my enthusiasm as his shows for his originally announced run though June 7th sold out in less than an hour. Fortunately, for all, THE PRESENT has been extended through July 5.

A most welcomed hour of laughs and guffaws during our current stay-at-home status, Kay Sedia premiered her A HOUSE PARTY OF JUAN streaming online at StageIt.com on, most appropriately, Cinco de Mayo. With only one techie Mike Pingel and her husband Daron to help her broadcast, the show fabulously went off the rails with a few 'testicle' difficulties. Kay Sedia just went with the flow, smoothly commenting on the unexpected interruptions with her trademark Latina zingers.

In these days of social distancing, producer Kenneth Hughes has captured footage of playwright Ken Roht's VAMPIRE BURT'S SERENADE (shot at the Bootleg Theater, a Los Angeles theatre and rock club); and edited and re-formatted for your virtual theatrical experience. In the style of the low-budget cult films made famous by Roger Corman, VAMPIRE BURT has something for everyone:

Here's the third installment of responses from various Los Angeles Theatre heads on how their individual theatre families are holding up in these crazy, safe-distancing times. As with the first two batches of responses, these are just as amazing in their acknowledged realism and uniform positivity:

Here's the second installment of responses from various Los Angeles Theatre heads on how their individual theatre families are holding up in these crazy, safe-distancing times. As with the first batch of responses, these are just as amazing in their uniform positivity.

In these crazy, safe-distancing times; I reached out earlier this week to various heads of Los Angeles theatres to see how they and their theatre families are holding up. The replies were amazing in their quickness, numbers and uniform positivity.

After 46 years of steady work in front of film and television cameras, C. Thomas Howell will be making his theatrical debut in the world premiere of D.M. Conte's WORST-CASE SCENARIO at the Hudson Comedy Central Backstage Theatre beginning (hopefully) April 2020. Since Thomas made his first screen appearance in Steven Spielberg 1982's phenomenon E.T, The Extra Terrestrial at the ripe young age of 15, Thomas has been working steadily, exhibiting his acting chops in over two hundred shows, including Francis Coppola's cult favorite The Outsider, and in numerous television series and films. Thomas managed to carve out some time to answer some of my inquisitive queries.

Marc Antolin and Carly Bawden reprise their lead roles as Jean-René and Angélique in the U.S. premiere of playwright/director Emma Rice's ROMANTICS ANONYMOUS beginning at The Wallis March 17, 2020 for a thirteen-day run. Based on the movie Les Emotifs Anonymes, two lonely souls make a sweet connection when Angélique takes a job at Jean-René's chocolate factory. Marc graciously freed up some of this time to answer a few of my ROMANTIC questions.