Look Back in Anger - - West End Articles Page 16

Happy Gay Pride! BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the 101 greatest LGBTQ songs and anthems from 1920-2020. See if your favorite songs or artists made the grade!

A pandemic may be an odd time to debut a play, but that's what The Perkins Players did. Their first play -- a comedy partially about the tensions that arise when two very different people live in close proximity to each other -- was performed in front of audience members who had very likely spent a significant part of the past few months being forced to live in close quarters with other humans (except for anyone who lives by themselves). Would that make audience members relate or yearn for an escape about anything except being trapped together in one apartment?

Don Barnhart brings the laughter back to Las Vegas as Delirious Comedy Club reopens at The Downtown Grand Hotel & Casino with nightly laughter at beginning July 4th holiday weekend with 2 shows nightly inside The Spare Room at 8 & 10pm.

More than 30 Bay Area theatres are joining forces to present a reading on Juneteenth, encouraging donations to support a bold Go Fund Me Campaign that aims to fundraise one million dollars for Black theatre projects in America. Spearheaded by PlayGround, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, and Planet Earth Arts, these Bay Area theatres (including TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Berkeley Rep, A.C.T, Cal Shakes, and many more) are co-presenting a livestreamed Zoom reading of Vincent Terrell Durham's Polar Bears, Black Boys & Prairie Fringed Orchids at 7pm PT on June 19 as part of the Juneteenth Theatre Justice Project, a national theatre movement to produce this reading of Durham's play to commemorate anniversary of the freeing of enslaved Black people. BroadwayWorld spoke with Aldo Billingslea, the longstanding pillar of the Bay Area theatre community who is producing the livestream and also leads the Juneteenth Theatre Justice Project. Billingslea is well-loved throughout the Bay Area as a man of many talents, including actor, professor, producer, collaborator and mentor.

BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the 101 greatest protest songs from 1939-2020. See if your favorite songs or artists made the list!

 Joe's Pub, a program of The Public Theater, continues JOE'S PUB LIVE!, its free series of live-streamed and archived performances from their iconic stage in New York City. Designed to facilitate social connection during this time of physical distancing, Joe's Pub will share multiple events with audiences worldwide each week.

The play was supposed to run after spring breaka?"a break that we never came back from. We left our play where it sat, our dorm rooms like museum exhibits. Sensing the mounting stakes, we threw together an open dress rehearsal, desperate to get the play in front of an audience just once. 

Scheduled to open in Spring 2021, Brixton House is taking the opportunity during lockdown to look back on some of its brilliant productions from its Ovalhouse days. Four productions that were filmed by LIVR, the 360° virtual reality theatre platform, will be released across four weeks. Random Selfies from Mike Kenny, WHITE and GREY from Koko Brown, and Derailed from Little Soldier will each be available free on the Brixton House website for one week only. 

'Ghosts of Bogotáa??, a new comedy on trauma by Diana Burbano will livestream on Saturday, May 23rd.

Julien's Auctions has announced the marquee lineup of Music Icons to take place on Friday, June 19 and Saturday, June 20 live in Beverly Hills and online at juliensauctions.com.

Celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May, WORLD Channel will showcase the stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States with 52 documentary films. With themes of social justice and courage, these films highlight the ways in which Asian Pacific Americans have triumphed and impacted history in a myriad of ways.

BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the greatest theatrical works (non-musical) from 1920-2020; see if your favorites made the list!

Who do we really want to be?

Trustus Theatre will continue their 35th Anniversary Season and their 'In the Round' series with the production of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.

For as long as it's existed, the American music industry has obsessed over Black music, co-opting it into a package to be marketed and resold. Many Black perspectives deemed too threatening were defanged or erased in the process—particularly in genres like country, bluegrass, and folk, which draw on African-American sources but are usually performed by and for white people. Banjo player and fiddler Jake Blount resurrects those perspectives on his new album, Spider Tales, out May 29, 2020 on Free Dirt Records. He's digging deep into the roots of the music, pushing all the way back to Africa; the album's title, Spider Tales, is a nod to the great trickster of Akan mythology, Anansi. “The Anansi stories were tales that celebrated unseating the oppressor,” Blount says, “and finding ways to undermine those in power even if you're not in a position to initiate a direct conflict.” Blount is also drawing out the coded pain and anger in the songs to give voice to those who were shunned from America's musical canon. “There's a long history of expressions of pain in the African-American tradition,” Blount says. “Often those things couldn't be stated outright. If you said the wrong thing to the wrong person back then you could die from it, but the anger and the desire for justice are still there. They're just hidden. The songs deal with intense emotion but couch it in a love song or in religious imagery so that it wasn't something you could be called out about. These ideas survived because people in power weren't perceiving the messages, but they're there if you know where to look.” Blount is determined to show that this music didn't form in a vacuum, but in the face of ruinous hardship.

Celtic Lion Productions  present a rare revival of LOOK BACK IN ANGER, John Osborne's searing portrayal of the savagery of the human heart. Called the 'most vivid play of the decade' by the New York Times, the influence of Osborne's 1956 masterwork on generations of playwrights cannot be underestimated. It is directed by Aimée Fortier at The Gene Frankel Theatre where it runs through February 29..

DUTCHMAN by Amiri Baraka has an essence all its own that is complicated, lyrical, and timeless. This production by Monument Theatre Company pushes at the edges of comfort and makes you as an audience member not only pay attention but also become a part of what is happening on the stage.

After a sell out and Offie-nominated a?oeHolding the Mana?? comes a revival of Look Back in Anger by John Osborne.

Essential Theatre is proud to announce the winners of the 2020 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award: The Outrage Machine by Daniel Carter Brown and The Wishing Place by Beverly Trader Austin. The Outrage Machine and The Wishing Place will each receive a full production in the 2020 Essential Theatre Festival this summer as well as a cash prize. Now in its twentieth year, the Essential Theatre Playwriting Competition is the only competition of its kind. The 2020 Award is sponsored in part by Corbin Real Estate Team.

Premiered in 1982, the staying power of Athol Fugard's 'MASTER HAROLD'... AND THE BOYS proves itself in its multiple revivals over the years, and Eric Abraham and The Fugard Theatre's latest 2020 production is one for the history books.

The more things change - the more they stay the same. L.A.'s Latino Theater Company explores the political and cultural climate in 2020 with an eclectic season of productions that looks back at our history and ahead to our future: revivals that reflect the company's past work and the tumultuous fight for Chicano civil rights; contemporary work that explores today's issues; and unique offerings by two guest artists from Spain. In addition, the company will present two free film series, the company's annual free play reading series, and, in December, for the 18th consecutive year, the beloved site-specific holiday pageant La Virgen de Guadalupe, Dios Inantzin at L.A.'s Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. All performances and screenings, except La Virgen, take place at The Los Angeles Theatre Center, a five-theater complex located in a landmark building in Downtown's Historic Core.

Celtic Lion Productions will present a rare revival of LOOK BACK IN ANGER, John Osborne's searing portrayal of the savagery of the human heart. Called the 'most vivid play of the decade' by the New York Times, the influence of Osborne's 1956 masterwork on generations of playwrights cannot be underestimated. It will be directed by Aimée Fortier who aims to highlight female characters that usually get downplayed and her youthful, age appropriate cast. Previews begin February 13 at The Gene Frankel Theatre. Opening is slated for Saturday, February 15.

Luke Wallace, acclaimed folk, Americana singer-song writer, embodies a new wave of politically charged folk music, writing the soundtrack for a movement of people rising up to meet the social and environmental challenges of our times. He is on a simple mission with this record, to help people find their voice and as he says “to step into the world, no matter how dark, and shine a light on both the beauty and injustice so prevalent today.” Luke Wallace has hit his stride on his new album, What On Earth, set for release on March 6th on Come to Life Music. 

LA-based singer-songwriter and guitarist Leah Capelle returns with 'on accident,' a violently honest song about mistakes and the inevitable aftermath. Balancing the line between alternative-pop and hard rock, Capelle wails over a massive punk-rock stack as she begs, 'did I hurt you? You know I didn't mean it... Did I hurt you on accident?' In their exclusive profile, American Songwriter calls the track '[a] vulnerable look at one's self-awareness, accepting our faults, flaws, and other selfish behaviors.' The rising artist also dropped by the Paste Magazine's studio in NYC earlier this month to give the world a sneak peak of 'on accident' stripped down. The release arrives as the third single off Leah Capelle's forthcoming full-length album entitled triptych due out this Spring via The Orchard/Little Cabin Entertainment.