Overtone Industries Presents ICELAND at REDCAT's NOW Festival 2014, Now thru 7/26

Overtone Industries, a celebrated force in the evolution of contemporary music theatre and experimental opera, will share the stage at REDCAT, CalArt's downtown center for contemporary arts, with two other Los Angeles-based arts organizations during the kick-off weekend of the New Original Works Festival 2014 (NOW Festival), tonight, July 24, through Saturday, July 26, 2014.

Overtone Industries will present the first glimpse of ICELAND, a new multidisciplinary work, written, composed, and directed by O-Lan Jones in collaboration with critically acclaimed singer-songwriter Emmett Tinley. The production will feature a twenty-member cast, with two soloists, a twelve-member choir, and a chamber orchestra. ICELAND is a modern love story, set in a mythical and timeless world, where elemental forces and ancient creatures challenge the hero and heroine on an archetypal journey. Additional information and tickets are available via the REDCAT box office at 213-237-2800 or www.redcat.org/event/nowfest-2014-week-one.

REDCAT's 11th annual NOW Festival of new original work will run for three-weeks, from July 24th through August 9th, presenting three distinct programs, on three weekends, that offer audiences a chance to see eight works created in Los Angeles by celebrated world-class and emerging artists. Program One, on the opening weekend, features the spellbinding choreographer and dancer Wilfried Souly in Saana/The Foreigner, a solo featuring live music by multi-instrumentalists Julio Montero, aka Cuñao, and Tom Moose. Rosanna Gamson/Worldwide's virtuosic dancers share intimate or volatile moments in Gamson's kinetic investigation of the neuroscience of dreams in Still. Overtone Industries' ICELAND closes out each of the three nights with its new multidisciplinary contemporary opera.

Performances start at 8:30pm. General admission is $20, $16 for REDCAT members/students, and $14 for CalArts students/faculty/staff. REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) is located in downtown Los Angeles inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex with a separate entrance at the corner of West 2nd and Hope Streets. REDCAT's street address is 631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Parking is available in the Walt Disney Concert Hall parking structure ($9 event rate or $5 for vehicles entering after 8:00pm on weekdays).

ICELAND - ICELAND, a new multidisciplinary music theatre work written, composed, and directed by Overtone Industries' Artistic Director O-Lan Jones, in collaboration with singer-songwriter Emmett Tinley, is a contemporary story set against a mythic backdrop, inhabited by elemental forces and ancient creatures that influence and guide the protagonists, Vala (Cesili Williams) and Mundur (David O). The piece explores the archetypal passage through the "dark night of the soul," as the heroine and hero travel through a hidden world in order to find themselves and each other. This story is told through a visually fluid world, vertically and horizontally, using a chorus of multidisciplinary performers to create landscapes, weather, pathways, and flashbacks. The new work features original songs written by Tinley. He is best known as the front man for the folk-indie band The Prayer Boat and, later, for his solo work.

The story follows Vala, a woman who is retreating to a distant location in the north of Iceland, running away from an unfulfilled life. At the airport, en route to her destination, she has a chance meeting with Mundur, a clerk at the airline taking her north. Vala and Mundur recognize an otherworldly inexplicable connection, before she boards her flight. As Vala's plane gets into trouble, she parachutes to earth falling off the grid into an abstract world inhabited by sea dragons, mermaids, monsters, fragments of life, and unfinished things. Mundur hears that Vala is missing and has an intuitive feeling that he can find her. As the search party fails to find Vala, she is lost and letting go of each memory. Mundur, initially full of doubt about his intuition, begins to reclaim essential parts of himself, and they are both taken down to the abyss of giving up as they remember significant moments of their lives. For the New Original Works Festival 2014, Overtone will present the first half hour of this two-act piece.

"One of the most exciting things about putting ICELAND together is creating a contemporary story and music permeated by another reality - a parallel world inhabited by the timeless 'Hidden Folk' who help instigate circumstances that require people to grow and develop," says Jones.

Overtone Industries is working with Vibrant Production Management, which also produced Overtone's epic Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands and The Woman in the Wall. Sets and props have been designed by Doug Hammett, whose art is also currently featured in Made In LA, the West Coast's answer to the Whitney Biennial at the Hammer Museum. Costume designs are by Christina Wright and Christopher Tulysewski; Dan Reed is the lighting designer; and John Ballinger is the music director. Students from Art Division will be helping to create gigantic maps that are destroyed each night when our heroine goes off the grid, falling through them into unknown territories.

Credits -
an Overtone Industries Production
Artistic Director - O-Lan Jones
Managing Director - Yurie Ann Cho

ICELAND
By O-Lan Jones & Emmett Tinley
Director/Choreographer - O-Lan Jones
Producer - Michelle Magaldi, Vibrant Production Management
Musical Director/Co-Producer - John Ballinger
Assistant Director/Co-Production Manager - Yurie Ann Cho
Costume Designers - Christina Wright and Christopher Tulysewski
Set & Prop Designer - Doug Hammett
Lighting Designer - Dan Reed
Stage Manager - Alexx Zachary

O-Lan Jones, Writer/Composer/Choreographer/Director -
O-Lan Jones is an award winning composer, sound designer, writer, and actress who has been consistently involved in experimental theatre, music, and opera since the age of sixteen. The press has referred to her as an "uncategorizable legend." As an actress, she has originated roles in 97 of 100 plays including those of Sam Shepard, Julie Hebert, Beth Henley, Murray Mednick, and John Steppling. Her screen credits include Edward Scissorhands, Mars Attacks, Natural Born Killers, The Truman Show, Lonesome Dove, Seinfeld, and The X-Files. Jones founded Overtone Industries in 1980, and has simultaneously pursued an acting career and worked as a composer; creating original sound designs and scores for more than forty productions. She has written music for Padua Hills Playwrights, LA Woman's Shakespeare Company, San Diego Rep, the Taper Too, and Shakespeare Festival LA. Her music has also been showcased at Playwright's Horizons, the Workhouse, La Mama, and the Kurt Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

As Artistic Director of Overtone Industries, she creates original stories for her productions, as well as composing and writing lyrics. In the last few years, she has begun directing and choreographing while building the entire vision for her operas. Jones devotes her time towards creating new music theatre and opera, and it is her aim to create lasting works of art. For the past two years, Jones has also been collaborating with Rachel Rosenthal Company's (RRC) TOHUBOHU! Extreme Theatre Ensemble. Jones participates in most monthly TOHUBOHU! performances and also appeared in the recently sold out Instant Fairy Tales, earlier this year at RRC. She also recently completed a successful run of A Delicate Balance at the Odyssey Theatre, which critics credited Jones for "spicing up the mix throughout with sly brilliance" (Stage Scene LA) and for providing "a sarcastic breath of fresh air" (Arts in LA).

Emmett Tinley, Writer & Composer -
Emmett Tinley was born in Chicago and grew up in Ireland. Through the 1990s he fronted the critically acclaimed Irish band The Prayer Boat before striking out on his own to forge a solo career. He was signed by Atlantic Records in New York, which released The Prayer Boat's final album, Polichinelle in 2001 (named Billboard Magazine Album of the Year). Tinley spent three years writing his debut solo album, Attic Faith, in Ireland, the UK and Denmark. Attic Faith was released in 2005 to great critical acclaim, and was nominated for the Choice Music Prize (Irish Mercury Prize) for Best Irish Album of 2005. In 2011, Tinley released his second eponymously titled solo album. The album was recorded in Los Angeles and in Odense, Denmark. In addition to writing songs for ICELAND, he has also been working on a new album.

John Ballinger, Music Director -
John Ballinger is an award-winning, LA-based musician and composer whose songs/scores have been featured on television, film, stage, and on CDs. He has performed on numerous TV and film soundtracks. Ballinger also toured with Rufus Wainwright and Rebekah Jordan. He has recorded, performed, or toured with Pato Banton, Tracy Bonham, Van Dyke Parks, Moira Smiley, the Dreaming Ferns, and Dancing With the Stars. Ballinger has also collaborated with Geffen Playhouse, Theatre @ Boston Court, South Coast Rep, San Diego Rep, Universal Cartoons, Matt Nix, O-Lan Jones, Ken Roht, and Jim Henson. Ballinger received formal training at Musicians' Institute in Hollywood and California Institute of the Arts, studying privately with Arnold Schoenberg protégé Leonard Stein, and earning a BFA in music composition.

Cesili Williams, "Vala" -
Cesili Williams can been seen recurring on TV Land's HOT in Cleveland. Williams has received nominations for best leading actress for her role as Celie in The Color Purple the Musical by The NAACP, Ovation Award, Scenie Awards, and Broadway LA. She received a best supporting actress nomination from LA Weekly for her work at the Evidence Room (The Blacks: A Clown Show). She has an array of performance experiences including voice over, commercials, TV, vocal session work (singing), and theatre. Williams is a graduate of the MFA program at CalArts School of Theater.

David O, "Mundur" -
David O is a music-theatre artist whose work has ranged from LA's 99-seat theatre scene to the theaters and concert halls of the Music Center, and beyond to major theaters across the U.S. and around the world. Although primarily known as a musical director/composer, David is proud to make his REDCAT debut as an actor/singer in ICELAND. David has received numerous awards over the years, including Ovation, LA Weekly, LA Drama Critics Circle, and Backstage West Garland Awards. He was the recipient of the 2013 LADCC Joel Hirschhorn Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre.

Overtone Industries -
Overtone Industries develops and presents new multidisciplinary operas and music theatre, bringing to life vivid original stories, myths, and fables. Overtone is passionate about live performance and its power to generate transformation, as performers and audience participate together in each unfolding moment. The organization believes artistic expression is an essential part of living, serving as a catalyst for both artists and audience members to understand themselves in a new way. Overtone is committed to an in-depth development process that gives each project the time and devotion it requires to come to life. Founded in 1980 by Artistic Director O-Lan Jones, Overtone Industries has produced and performed more than eighteen original works across the country, winning two Emmy Awards, a Bay Area Critics Circle Award, Dramalogue Award, and an Ovation Award. Notable productions in recent years include The Woman Who Forgot her Sweater at [Inside] the Ford, Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands in a 25,000 square-foot abandoned car dealership, and The Woman in the Wall at the Masonic Lodge in Culver City. The critically acclaimed Songs and Dances was called, "ambitious and possibly ground-breaking" by Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times. Overtone's purpose is to create work that will inspire a broad demographic of people to experience together the joys of being alive.

Art Division -
Art Division is a non-profit organization dedicated to training and supporting underserved youth who are committed to studying the visual arts. Art Division distinguishes itself by providing in-depth services to young adults aged 18-25 in the Rampart District of Los Angeles, an at-risk population within one of Los Angeles' most densely populated and underserved communities. Art Division believes that focused instruction, individualized tutoring, and personal support give students the tools they need to pursue higher education, achieve self-sufficiency, and obtain careers in the arts and related fields. Art Division is also dedicated to community engagement and to building a thriving arts community in the Rampart District.

New Original Works (NOW) Festival -
The annual New Original Works (NOW) Festival is a three-week interdisciplinary program of a variety of short works and some longer projects in their Los Angeles premieres. Each summer, REDCAT transforms its theater into an artist-driven creative laboratory where disciplines are challenged and blurred, traditions are re-imagined, and hybrid visions take hold. The Festival takes place in July and August and artists are given development support through rehearsal space, technical assistance, access to equipment and an honorarium. Los Angeles-based projects are selected through a proposal process by a panel of arts professionals, with an emphasis on new projects in development and/or early career artists.

REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) -
REDCAT, CalArts' downtown center for contemporary arts, presents a dynamic and international mix of innovative visual, performing, and media arts year round. Located inside the iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall complex in downtown Los Angeles, REDCAT houses a modular theater, a 3,000-square-foot gallery space, and a lounge. Through performances, exhibitions, screenings, and literary events, REDCAT introduces diverse audiences, students, and artists to the most influential developments in the arts from around the world, and gives artists in this region the creative support they need to achieve national and international stature. REDCAT continues the tradition of the California Institute of the Arts, its parent organization, by encouraging experimentation, discovery, and lively civic discourse.

For more information, visit:
• Overtone Official Site - www.overtoneindustries.org
• Overtone Facebook Page - www.facebook.com/overtoneindustries
• Facebook Event Page - www.facebook.com/events/1555456928014916
• Overtone Twitter - twitter.com/overtoneind
• REDCAT's NOW Festival 2014 - www.redcat.org/event/nowfest-2014-week-one
• Art Division - www.artdivision.org