RUBICON THEATRE, Ventura County’s leading not-for-profit theatrical organization committed to entertaining, engaging and enriching the lives of the region’s residents and visitors through innovative live performances, has unveiled the company’s highly anticipated 25th Anniversary “Silver” Season, entitled TRULY YOURS.
Simon Levy’s production at the Fountain Theatre is a smartly-acted brain-tickler that makes its points and lands its blows with humor and intellect
What’s more important: writing the truth, or telling a good story? The Fountain Theatre’s West Coast premiere of the Broadway hit play, The Lifespan of a Fact, opens tonight at the Fountain Theatre in East Hollywood, with multiple award-winning director Simon Levy at the helm. Check out photos from the production here!
The Fountain Theatre west coast premieres Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell’s The Lifespan of a Fact opening February 18, 2023 (with previews starting February 15th). Fountain Theatre’s producing director Simon Levy directs the cast of Ron Bottitta, Inger Tudor and Jonah Robinson. Simon took some time between his rehearsals to give me some insight to the behind-the-scenes of Lifespan and the Fountain.
What's more important: writing the truth, or telling a good story? The Fountain Theatre will present the West Coast premiere of the Broadway hit play, The Lifespan of a Fact, by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell.
Sleep, awakeness, psychosis, enlightenment, coma. How thin is the veil that separates them? Odyssey Theatre Ensemble artistic director Ron Sossi explores some of the many states of human awareness with an evening of short “mind excursions” by Harold Pinter with Robert Coover and Hermann Hesse. Collectively titled Wakings!, the metaphysical adventure begins Saturday, April 30, with performances continuing through June 5.
The ability to totally transform yourself into the physical, emotional and intellectual persona of another person so believably that audience members will see the character and not the actor is one of the most fascinating elements of live theatre to me. This is especially true for actors I follow, seeing them in several productions and always being surprised at the new person presented in front of me, often having nothing in common with the real personality of the actor. One such actor is Ron Bottitta, an English-born actor who has called the USA his home since 1980, who I spoke with about his characters in WAKINGS! at the Odyssey Theatre,
Sleep, awakeness, psychosis, enlightenment, coma. How thin is the veil that separates them? Odyssey Theatre Ensemble artistic director Ron Sossi explores some of the many states of human awareness with an evening of short “mind excursions” by Harold Pinter with Robert Coover and Hermann Hesse. Collectively titled Wakings!, the metaphysical adventure begins Saturday, April 23, with performances continuing through June 5.
Here's my interview with director Simon Levy on Lucy Kirkwood's funny and astonishing Tony-nominated play is a taut and disquieting thriller about responsibility, reparation and what one generation owes the next. With the outside world in chaos following a devastating environmental disaster, two retired nuclear engineers live a quiet life in a remote cottage on the lonely British coast - until a surprise visit from a former colleague upends the couple's equilibrium and trust. LA. premiere at the Fountain Theatre from Saturday, November 6 through January 23. Featured in the cast are Ron Bottitta, Elizabeth Elias Huffman, and Lily Knight, all three well known around the L.A. theatre scene.
Honoring Veteran's Day, The Atlantic Council, NewYorkRep, and The United States Veterans' Artists Alliance present War Words, the Pulitzer Prize-nominated docu-play by Michelle Kholos Brooks, in the words of the men and women who served in the U.S. Military during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
What is our responsibility to the future? What legacy do we want to leave? The Los Angeles premiere of The Children, written by Lucy Kirkwood and directed by Simon Levy, asks those questions and more in its Los Angeles premiere at the Fountain Theatre.
Directed by Hollace Starr, an associate professor of theatre at Pepperdine University, a designated Linklater Voice teacher, and a lifetime member of the Actors Studio, with an innate understanding of feminine emotional turmoil, and John Perrin Flynn's keen eye for multimedia effects, EARTHQUAKES IN LONDON tackles our chronic inability to act in the interest of our future generations. At the center are three very different sisters who are left to raise and care for one another after their mother dies and their father abandons them. Now adults, the sisters find themselves navigating a 21st century London that is at the precipice of both an existential and an all-too-real environmental crisis.
Son of Semele presents 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane October 12 - November 3, 2019. Performances are Fridays & Saturdays @ 8pm, Sundays @ 5pm and Tuesdays @ 7pm.
Odyssey Theatre Ensemble kicks off its 'Circa '69' season of significant and adventurous plays that premiered around the time of the Odyssey's 1969 inception with Joe Orton's darkly comic masterpiece LOOT, which asks us to wipe the fluff from our eyes and see society the way he sees it. And as a gay man during a time when British society forced artists into the closet, his farce comically examines a sort of rigged system that benefits bullies and oppressors and controls anyone stupid enough to go along with the lies. As directed by Bart DeLorenzo, this tale of corrosive wit, dizzying intrigue and classic farce suggests that the only acceptable alternative is to become a criminal, with Orton supplying laughs at everyone's expense along the way.
Odyssey Theatre Ensemble kicks off its "Circa '69" season of significant and adventurous plays that premiered around the time of the Odyssey's 1969 inception with Joe Orton's darkly comic masterpiece Loot. Bart DeLorenzodirects this tour de force of corrosive wit, dizzying intrigue and classic farce for aJune 8 opening, with performances continuing through Aug. 10.
According to Wikipedia, the Rashomon effect occurs when an event is given contradictory interpretations by the individuals involved. The effect is named after Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film Rashomon, in which a murder is described in four contradictory ways by four witnesses. Such is the case in Irish playwright Brian Friel's uniquely structured FAITH HEALER which illustrates the healing power of faith over inner demons via four separate monologues performed by 3 characters travelling together through small towns in the United Kingdom in the 1970s. Their goal is to present small community meetings as best they can, in which they hope to occasionally prove that pure faith can heal even the darkest of maladies.
Is Fantastic Francis Hardy a miracle worker - or a showman in search of a dollar? Odyssey Theatre Ensemble continues its 50th anniversary season with Faith Healer, Brian Friel's mysterious, humorous and unforgettable work about an itinerant Irish healer. Odyssey artistic director Ron Sossi directs for a March 23 opening, with performances continuing through May 12.
Even though, we are just coming to the end of January, I can already nominate a prominent candidate for Most Horrid Theatrical Character of 2019 - Paige Connor, the matriarch in Taylor Mac's HIR. Paige condescends to her husband Arnold (long since stricken by a stroke) and orders him around like a slave (or an untrained chimpanzee). Paige has eliminated doing any everyday household chores (like cooking, dusting, or laundry) in retaliation to the orderliness Arnold used to demand. She 'nurtures' or 'empowers' her transgender teenager Max by encouraging Max to follow mom's ways of thinking - an unrealistic utopian view of the future, with the avoidance of any financial responsibilities, while all the while belittling and torturing Arnold. But it's during the final minutes of the second act that Paige tops all of her previous horridness.
"We are the new. Beyond gender. Beyond possessions. Beyond the past." Odyssey Theatre Ensemble opens its 50th anniversary season with the Los Angeles premiere of Hir, a darkly funny, shockingly absurd and endlessly surprising vision of a world in transition by MacArthur genius Taylor Mac. Bart DeLorenzo directs for a Jan. 19 opening at the Odyssey Theatre in West L.A., with performances continuing through March 17.
Those who lived through the World War II years will certainly recognize the name of ambitious and charismatic J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Berkeley-trained scientist who found himself called upon to spearhead the largest scientific undertaking in all of human history: the Manhattan Project and the creation of the Atomic bomb which the United States government believed would bring about a swift end to World War II. And although it did that, what was the cost on those involved with the project or subjected to its first tests without proper protection from the released radiation, as well as those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the bombs were exploded over those cities. Was it even wise to develop the ability to split atoms given how the world has changed since then or the threat of total annihilation which hangs over us daily?
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