Brian West News

Since moving to LA, ELPENTHE has worked with childhood hero Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), and collaborated with Lissie, Leo Nocentelli (The Meters), Finish Ticket, Brian West (Maroon 5, U2, Nelly Furtado, K’Naan), and Wondaland (Janelle Monae’s creative collective).

Produced by 88rising go-to production wizards Bekon & The Donuts (Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Rich Brian), “WEST” hypnotizes from the jump with a mesmerizing reel-to-reel tape loop that feels equal parts nostalgic and triumphant. Listen to the new single now!

Chicago born songstress, Lauren Phillips, has been busy building her music career, even through the limitations of the Covid crisis.

The word authentic can conjure up different feelings depending on what you're referring to. In art, a truly authentic creation is something that comes from the heart and can not be contrived. Lauren Phillips' music, and her path to creating that music, satisfies both.

A young woman, an actor (Mollie Murk), recounts her experience of being raped by an important theater director. The understanding and compassionate handling of the incident by company producers doesn't obscure the truth that a formal report will almost certainly prevent her inclusion in future productions. One of the roles she takes on is Lavinia in Titus Andronicus, and she draws insightful parallels with herself and the fact that the traumatized character's inability to speak of her own sexual assault is brutally restricted and her life forfeit for the sake of honor.

Holding On Too LongIn The Secret Garden, Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Marsha Norman writes, 'They're only a ghost if someone alive is still holding on to them.' It is very clear from the top of Haunting Julia that the three characters we meet are haunted by Julia long before she gets the chance to do any haunting of her own. Set in November of 1993 at the newly established Julia Lukin Music Centre, Haunting Julia tells the story of Julia Lukin, a piano prodigy who apparently committed suicide at the age of 19. Twelve years later, her father (Joe), her would-be boyfriend (Andy), and a psychic (Ken) gather to revisit that fateful night, and, from there, the plot begins twisting.

Just in time for the Halloween season, artistic director Tony Prince and producing director Richard McGrew continue The Liminal Playhouse's fifth season with a?oeHaunting Juliaa?? by Alan Ayckbourn. Directed by Tony Prince, a?oeHaunting Juliaa?? features Tom Luce as Joe, a grieving father, Melinda Beck as Julia, a young composer whose attic bedroom Joe has turned into a museum in her honor twelve years after her death, Jason M. Jones, Julia's boyfriend at the time of her death, and Brian West, a psychic whom Joe has invited to the museum to investigate some unusual phenomena.

Derby Mine 4 starts out with a pair of coal miners trapped underground after a methane explosion. Becky (Megan Adair) is a new employee, under the watchful eye of Dan (Casey Moulton), a youthful but prolific member of the industry. Their interaction quickly shows that Dan is a playful and aggressive flirt, who makes unwanted, advances towards Becky, who reacts with distaste and rancor. It is later revealed that Becky is something of a bigot, who makes unsavory remarks about people of color, and Dan is ironically liberal in his views of society. This uncomfortable setting leads to animated discourse, which is both unsettling and humorous.

In the documentary film Hired Gun: Out of the Shadows, Into the Spotlight, an elite group of 'First Call, A-List' musicians share their behind-the scene stories of touring, what it takes to play next to the world's most iconic musicians and create some of the world's most popular songs.

In the documentary film Hired Gun: Out of the Shadows, Into the Spotlight, an elite group of 'First Call, A-List' musicians share their behind-the scene stories of touring, what it takes to play next to the world's most iconic musicians and create some of the world's most popular songs.

"Massacre (Sing to Your Children)" is an abstract play whose meaning will depend on an individual's views of the world, and their willingness to search for the author's intent and purpose. This is a script and production for playgoers who like to probe for ideas with no need for clarity of ideas or outcomes.

Convergence-continuum presents the Ohio premiere of Massacre (Sing to Your Children) by Jose Rivera, directed by Clyde Simon.  After enduring six years of psychological and physical terror, seven citizens of a small New Hampshire town stage a revolt and murder the man who has destroyed them--or do they? Magic realism and pulpy horror-movie conventions collide when the seven friends conspire to brutally rid their small town of its viciously oppressive mayor.   Massacre is a powerful depiction of the use of violence as a response to living under a repressive plutocratic regime, and of our own role in perpetuating the tyranny.

Cleveland is in the midst of 'The Mac Wellman Homecoming Festival,' presented by Playwrights Local, in partnership with Cleveland State University Department of English, the NEOMFA Creative Writing Program, and the Michael Schwartz Library, with performances by Playwrights Local, Theater Ninjas, convergence-continuum, CSU Department of Theatre & Dance, Baldwin Wallace University Department of Theatre and Dance, and The Manhattan Project-Cleveland Lab.

convergence-continuum opens its 2017 season with the Ohio premiere of Harm's Way by Mac Wellman, directed by Clyde Simon. Harm's Way, the darkly humorous fable of an angry man on a rampage through a fantastical wilderness, chronicles the exploits of very angry Santouche as he tries to make sense of his understanding of law and order in a nation of other angry people.

'Single Black Female' is now on the Crossroads Theatre company Stage through October 23rd. Written by Lisa B. Thompson and directed by Shirley Jo Finney, this play is a theatrical gem.

 Pandora Productions continues the 2015-2016 season with an oldie but a goodie. Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band is the quintessential 'gay' play, breaking down boundaries and exploring new topics in its Off-Broadway run of over 1000 performances in the Spring of 1968. Before Boys, gay men were 'fops' and 'dandies' but this play changed it all. Since it was on stage a full year prior to Stonewall, Boys proved to be quite prescient in retrospect. Some historians have said that the play's production in advance of Stonewall set the stage for the events that unfolded there, gays would no longer be kept in the closet. The dark comic play explores issues of self-loathing, internalized homophobia, racial biases and more.

Lovingly ripped off from the 1975 classic film Monty Python & the Holy Grail, Spamalot is a highly irreverent spoof of the quest of King Arthur and and his Knights of the roundtable.

Rock & Sock Records announced today that their recording artist, Tokyo Rosenthal, will be releasing his sixth studio album on their label on August 1, 2015.

In a city as culturally rich and vibrant as Louisville, it's a true shame there aren't more opportunities for local playwrights to showcase their work. Without being spoken aloud by actors, brought to life by directors and ultimately performed in front of an audience, it seems difficult for a playwright to critically gauge the potential perception of their work. Thanks to "Finnigan's Festival of Derby City Playwrights," twelve local playwrights have such a stage, and the result provides much hope for some of these burgeoning playwrights.

North Raleigh Arts & Creative Theatre brings the tongue-in-cheek, award-winning hit Broadway musical Xanadu to the Triangle for its local premiere tonight, September 5th through 21st.