‘Joe Turner Has Come and Gone’

When my theater companion suddenly canceled and I was scrambling to find someone who would want to join me, for this sensitive production of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” I was surprised that people didn’t know who August Wilson was. Wilson who died in 2005 (2 October at age 60), won two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama and is best known for the ten plays which make up “The Pittsburgh Cycle.”

You might be thinking what could possibly be interesting in Pittsburgh? Wilson was born in Pittsburgh and he writes about what he knows. Wilson’s ten plays are each set in a different decade and illustrate the changing situation for African Americans in America. He won the Pulitzer for the 1985 “Fences” and the 1990 “The Piano Lesson.”

“Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” is about the 1910s. When this play went to Broadway, Delroy Lindo played Herald Loomis and Angela Bassett was his wife, Martha. The play tells about the Great Migration of African Americans from the South. The title comes from an old blues song:

Joe Turner

They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone  (Oh, Lordy) Got my man and gone.

He come with forty links of chain He come with forty links of chain (Oh, Lordy) Got my man and gone.

The song is about true events and Wilson’s play expands and explains the possible background behind the stereotype of an African American husband deserting his wife and children. Instead of disappearing to shirk his responsibilities, we come to understand that a white man, Joe Turner, has been trumping up charges and giving stiff sentences for minor legal infractions in order to build up free labor chain gang style. If you had the right connections, you could order up your own labor crew in those days. The men would then just disappear, abducted and enslaved. In today’s media driven world, that wouldn’t be unlike the three unfortunate women who were kidnapped and raped in Cleveland.  No doubt women were subjected to such treatment as well during those dangerous times.

Yet Wilson begins his play in a boardinghouse. Scenic designer John Iavocelli’s dusky brick red and sunflower yellow set is cozy. This isn’t a flophouse for losers. This is a respectable home run by Seth (Keith David) and Bertha (Lillias White) Holly. Seth complains about Bynum Walker (Glynn Turman) and his folk rituals that involve a dead pigeon. We don’t get to see his doings in the garden and Seth is much more concerned about Bynum stepping on his prized vegetables. Any gardener can easily understand that anxiety. However in Seth’s case, it’s not just green thumb pride.

Seth worries about money and earns a bit on the side making things for a white traveling salesman, Rutherford Selig (Raynor Scheine). Rutherford is a people finder because he travels around. Bynum uses magic to bind people. Along comes Herald Loomis (John Douglas Thompson) with his young daughter Zonia Loomis (Skye Barrett). Herald is dressed in a dark long coat. He’s the man who was abducted by Joe Turner. For seven years, he was on a chain gang thought constantly of escaping and finding his wife and daughter. He found his daughter, left with her grandmother, but he now seeks his wife.

The play exposes the differing morals of the African American community in 1910s as compared to the accepted standards of the American society at large and each of the characters is attempting to define themselves in a legal system that barely recognizes them as people. The concept of migration considered–that of African American individuals looking for economic opportunities and people forced to move without the benefit of contacting their loved ones. Migration and identity are both tied to the racial discrimination that is in flux after the end of slavery.

At the boarding house, a young man, Jeremy Furlow (Gabriel Brown), lives life without long-term planning and takes love where he can find it. He finds it with Mattie Campbell (January Lavoy), a former slave who can’t quite adapt to independence and without a master, she needs a man to tell her what to do. We also see other women who have learned to survive alone.

Director Phylicia Rashad infuses this production with warm humor, more than you’d expect in what ultimately is a tragedy of a whole community.  Yet you get the impression that all will survive even when love does not. Under Rashad, you see Thompson’s Loomis as a husband you might not want to return to. He’s bitter and burnt down to his soul with hate and anger. Not a spark of joyous love survives, even in the presence of his daughter. He’s a man still in survival mode with an armor built over seven hard years. That contrasts sharply with the wisdom of David’s Seth Holly. Seth knows the precarious nature of being black in a white world, you can hear that in his dealings with Rutherford and in his warnings to the more careless Jeremy Furlow (Gabriel Brown).

Wilson brings the tragedy of those years to us in a lyrical language, like the blues with a buoyant beat, softening it all with a bit of magic. “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” continues at the Mark Taper Forum until 9 June 2013. $20-$70. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. For more information, call (213) 628-2772 or visit their website.

Press Release: Three-Week Camp Interactive Acting Classes

Unique Three-Week Camp Features Interactive Classes in Acting, Movement, Stage Combat and More

June 24 – July 13, 2013

A Noise Within (ANW), the highly regarded classical repertory theatre company and a leading force in arts education, presents SUMMER WITH SHAKESPEARE, a three-week summer program for youth ages 10 to 18 which demystifies Shakespeare’s verse and grooms young artists to be Shakespearean performers.  On a deeper level, this camp, which runs from June 24 to July 13, 2013, at the company’s new state-of-the-art theatre in Pasadena, illuminates a connection to the patterns of the human condition inherent in Shakespeare’s works.

Summer With Shakespeare, a conservatory-style program of acting, improvisation, stage diction, text analysis, kinetic exercises and stage combat, is led by classically-trained, professional actors, choreographers and designers.  Participants gain appreciation for Shakespeare’s verse through a unique exposure to the Bard’s classic comedies, tragedies, and history plays.  They also have the opportunity to enhance their acting and public speaking skills and build self-confidence on the stage.  At the program’s conclusion, participants perform scenes and monologues from Shakespeare’s plays for an audience on A Noise Within’s main stage.

Classes are weekdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  The cost for the three-week camp is $825.  Space is limited.

A Noise Within, led by Producing Artistic Directors Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, is the only year-round classical repertory company in Southern California and one of only a handful in the entire country dedicated solely to producing classical dramatic literature in the repertory tradition of rotating productions with a resident company of professional artists.  It has been lauded by critics as a “premiere classical theatre company,” and an “outstanding ensemble” whose “vibrantly theatrical” “brilliant productions” are “freshly imagined,” “exceptional,” “invigorating,” “riveting,” “brilliantly atmospheric,” “inspired,” and “masterfully crafted.”  Founded 21 years ago, ANW quickly established itself as one of the region’s key theatre companies, attracting fiercely loyal audiences and consistently high praise from the media for its productions and as a key force in arts education.  The company has presented more than 140 plays from the classics of world literature, each season producing works from authors ranging from Shakespeare and Molière to Ibsen, O’Neill and Shaw to Miller and Williams.  A Noise Within completed its milestone 2011-12 Season and 20th Anniversary in its permanent new home, a 33,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art venue in Pasadena, in May 2012.

 

NOISE WITHIN is located on the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Sierra Madre Villa Avenue at 3352 East Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, CA  91107.    To register for SUMMER WITH SHAKESPEARE or for questions, call 626-356-3104 or visit www.ANoiseWithin.org.

Press release: Pasadena Playhouse’s Affair to Remember fundraiser

I’ve been fortunate to have been invited once to the Pasadena Playhouse’s gala and it is a wonderful, glamorous but thoroughly fun event. It is truly something to remember even if you don’t have an affair, you can always pretend to be having one. 

The Pasadena Playhouse (Sheldon Epps, Artistic Director and Elizabeth Doran Executive Director) announced today that the “best party in Pasadena” annual fundraiser entitled PREMIERE GALA  “DESTINATION”: AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER would be held at a private club in Pasadena on Saturday, June 1, 2013 at 6:30 p.m.  This year’s event will honor Playhouse Alumni/supporter and Broadway producer Kathleen K. Johnson. The Playhouse Board of Directors will be spearheading this red carpet gala event inspired by the Hollywood glamour of the 1940s and 1950s.

Gala honoree Kathleen K. Johnson’s love affair with The Pasadena Playhouse began in her teenage years where she was a student at the theatre’s dramatic arts college.  Although she never pursued an acting career, she went on to be come a successful, Tony Award-winning Broadway producer (Hair, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Best Man, The Lyons).  Her affection for The Playhouse remained with her over the years and when the theatre was in need of financial support in 2010, Kathleen was a major factor in the matching campaign tied to the million-dollar donation by Mike Stoller and Corky Hale Stoller.  Her on-going generosity and history with The Playhouse makes her designation as this year’s Gala honoree most apt and deserved.

 

“Our annual Gala event provides us with a welcome opportunity to celebrate our recent successes and recognize the people who help us accomplish our ambitious goals.” stated Playhouse Artistic Director Sheldon Epps.  “This year, I find it hard to find a more deserving honoree than in Kathleen Johnson, whose roots are firmly grounded in the history of our theatre. From student, to producer, to supporter, her heart has been committed to seeing our Playhouse thrive.  I am tremendously grateful for her friendship and support and for her on-going commitment to our future success.”

 

Sheila Grether-Marion, Board Chair of The Playhouse added, “We anticipate a festive, large crowd for our annual Gala, An Affair To Remember, to be held June 1, where we will honor Katleen K. Johnson, prolific Broadway and Pasadena Playhouse producer, donor and friend.  Her many credits include Hair, Glengarry Glen Ross, A Night in the Theatre and South Street. The following night, we will present the world premiere of Sleepless in Seattle – The Musical.  Many of us have had a sneak peak and it looks and sounds fabulous!”

 

Corporate, patron, underwriting and other sponsorship opportunities are available from $1,000 – $25,000 and single tickets are $275 per person.  Print media sponsorship for the Gala will be provided by Outlook Newspapers and online media sponsorship will be provided by Pasadena Now.

 

PREMIERE GALA: DESTINATION is overseen by The Pasadena Playhouse’s development department led by Jennifer Berger, Director of Development together with Christine Franke, Major Gifts Officer and Kimberly Ruppert, Special Events Coordinator for Development.

 

For more information on the Gala sponsorship or ticket information, please contact Kimberly Ruppert in the Development Office at 626-204-7383 or gala@pasadenaplayhouse.org.

Press release: ‘Tesla” radio play reading at Pasadena Playhouse

The following is a press release from The Pasadena Playhouse. Science geeks, how could you not want to hear a play about Tesla (no not the car, the man for whom the car and company is named)

The Pasadena Playhouse (Sheldon Epps, Artistic Director and Elizabeth Doran, Executive Director) and The Experimental Performance Laboratory at Caltech announced that a special one-night-only staged reading of the new play TESLA, A Radio Play for the Stage by Dan Duling, directed by Michael Arabian (The Mark Taper Forum’s award-winning Waiting for Godot), with live sound effects by SFX artist Tony Palermo, will be performed on Saturday, May 4, 2013, at 6:00 p.m.  TESLA will feature French Stewart (“3rd Rock From the Sun”) who will be starring in The Playhouse’s production of Stoneface – The Rise and Fall and Rise of Buster Keaton this coming season and Sandra Tsing Loh (NPR’s “The Loh Down,” Contributing Editor at The Atlantic Monthly ) and will be performed on the mainstage of The Pasadena Playhouse.  A post-show conversation and reception with the playwright, actors, and director will follow the performance. A portion of the proceeds for the event directly supports Theater Arts at Caltech.

 

“Pasadena is the city of arts and science,” stated Playhouse Executive Director Elizabeth Doran.  “How better to celebrate this fact than through a partnership between The Pasadena Playhouse and Caltech?  Stories about science are exquisitely matched to theater – science is dramatic, bold, exciting, daring, miraculous…and these are the qualities we look for in creating great theater!  This Tesla radio play will be electrifying!”

“A partnership with The Pasadena Playhouse and Caltech is the perfect synergy of Science and Art,” said Theater Arts at Caltech (TACIT) Director Brian Brophy. “When my friends director Michael Arabian and Elizabeth Doran, the new Executive Director at The Playhouse, decided to come on board, everything came together. This project is unique because it features actors from the multi-talented Caltech/JPL community alongside professional actors from the theater and film world. The staging will be intriguing to Pasadena audiences as it is a rare opportunity to see a radio drama with multiple voices, archival footage, and live sound effects.”

 

TESLA, A Radio Play for the Stage tells the story of Nikola Tesla’s life as a brilliant but controversial inventor and futurist during the late-19th and early-20th century. The play is excitingly staged as a radio drama featuring live sound effects. Tesla’s volatile relationship with Thomas Edison, his allegiance with George Westinghouse, and his confrontation with the power brokers of American business are recounted from the perspective of the possible implications of his work to national security.  Special guest stars include Phil Proctor (“Big Brother,” Toy Story) as Thomas Edison; French Stewart (“3rd Rock from the Sun,” Stoneface) as Tesla; Sandra Tsing Loh (Caltech alum and NPR’s “The Loh Life”) as Katherine, Dr. Ashley Stroupe (JPL Mars Rover Opportunity Driver) playing multiple roles, Dr. Steven Collins (JPL Mars Rover Curiosity Engineer) playing multiple roles and Brian Brophy (“Star Trek: The Next Generation,” Director of Theater Arts at Caltech) playing multiple roles.

 

Playwright Dan Duling is an award-winning playwright/author of more than 20 plays, and the scriptwriter for the Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach.  Director Michael Arabian is well known to Los Angeles area audiences, and most recently directed Waiting for Godot at the Mark Taper Forum.

 

TESLA, A Radio Play for the Stage will perform on Saturday, May 4, at 6:00pm at The Pasadena Playhouse. The Pasadena Playhouse is located at 39 South El Molino Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101. Single ticket prices are $20.00 each (General Admission) in advance, or Pay-What-You-Can at the door on the evening of the performance.  Service and theatre restoration fees apply to all purchases.  Tickets are available by calling The Pasadena Playhouse Box Office at 626-356-7529.  On non-performance dates, the Box Office is open Tuesday – Sunday from 12:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m.  On performance dates, the Box Office is open Tuesday – Saturday from 12:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. and Sunday from 12:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.  Tickets are available 24 hours a day at www.PasadenaPlayhouse.org. For additional information on The Pasadena Playhouse, please visit www.PasadenaPlayhouse.org.

A bright and bouncy ‘The Beaux Stratagem’ worth seeing

When you read the program notes about the torturous path that brought this version of “The Beaux Stratagem” to the stage, you wonder whether it was worth the wait of 67 years. Another caveat is that George Farguhar died two months after this play premiered in 1707 and the play is based on his dismal marriage. But if you want a lighthearted romance with a happy ending and a bit of swashbuckling sword fighting on the side, this A Noise Within production is made to order.

Farguhar married a widow whom he thought had money of her own. What she did have was 10 years on him and three children from her previous marriage. As divorce was illegal, Farquhar was trapped and supporting this instant family sent him into dept. He was poor and dying when his friend got him to write this play, his last of the seven plays he wrote in his brief lifetime.

In 1939, Wisconsin-born, Yale and Princeton-educated Thornton Wilder began adapting this play. This was after he wrote his 1938 classic “Our Town.” Wilder got sidetracked, getting stuck on how to finish up his adaptation and being seduced by the idea for a new play which would become the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1943 “The Skin of Our Teeth.”

After long after Wilder’s 1975 death, his nephew Tappan Wilder, as executor of Thornton Wilder’s estate found the unfinished manuscript and asked playwright Ken Ludwig to complete the work. Ludwig finished in 2005 and what a charming little love story this is.

In the play, two men Jack (Blake Ellis) and Tom (Freddy Douglas) arrive in Lichfield, a small down in the countryside outside of London, looking for good-looking women with some wealth to marry. They disguise themselves as master and servant, but that fools no one. The inn is owned by Boniface (Apollo Dukakis) who runs it with his fresh-faced but not foolish daughter Cherry (Alison Elliott). Boniface’s friend is both a man of the cloth and the leader of a group of highway robbers (Time Winters).

One of their marks is a woman who believes she has healing powers and professes to be a doctor, Lady Bountiful  (Deborah Strang), but those patients of hers who live rarely return. Her son Sullen (Robertson Dean) is a drunkard best described as “the sketch on which the oil painting is based. He’s married to the lovely but unhappy Kate Sullen (Abby Craden). Kate’s sister-in-law Dorinda is a proper lady looking for love.

Kate and Dorinda will find love and there will be a happy ending, but they know that “ox and Moron may describe many a husband” and that “men are not themselves when they court.”

Julia Rodriguez-Elliott directs with a sure hand–no one is over the top and some people even attempt British accents. Costume designer Angela Balogh Calin and scenic designer Michael C. Smith have made this a handsome production. Kate and Dorinda’s gowns are gorgeous, but contrast the hilarious over-teasted white mess of hair (is that a scissors stuck in Lady Bountiful’s hair) and untidy style of Lady Bountiful. Smith’s set design includes warmly toned natural and partially painted wood to represent the tavern and other pieces of furniture.

This isn’t high British humor, but a bit low with sexual innuendo and commentary on life, men, women, family and fortune.

“The Beaux Stratagem” continues at A Noise Within until 26 May 2013. A Noise Within is located 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena.

Funny, pathetic and utterly damaged Judy Garland in ‘End’

This is divas who doped themselves to death week in Los Angeles. Sunday 17 March 2013, the upbeat “One Night with Janis Joplin” opened with a block party with Mary Bridget Davies projecting the impish charm and belting out the blazing vocals of Joplin. Joplin’s will actually funded a party and so the Pasadena Playhouse’s block party seemed fitting. Wednesday night (20 March 2013), Tracie Bennett as Judy Garland in “End of the Rainbow” at the Ahmanson, was by turns playful, pathetic and funny despite a surprisingly foul mouth. Bennett’s Garland is broke, heavily addicted to everything and in love with the wrong guy and desperate to be the center of attention. Bennett’s seamless performance is well-worth seeing for many reasons.

Being the center of attention differs from being loved. The play begins by re-uniting Garland (Bennett) with one of her pianists, Anthony (Michael Cumpsty) at the London Ritz Hotel in December of 1968. Anthony is politely gay and in love with Garland as many gay men are. Garland is in love with the testy younger man, Mickey Deans (Miles Anderson).

When she enters the hotel, she is fashionably thin and complaining that somehow the hotel is smaller or her room is smaller. Garland at this stage has already been married and divorced four times. She and Deans have just become engaged. She is exuberant, but only until she needs her drugs and then Bennett’s Garland defines the word mercurial. She clever, imperious, simpering, playfully pouting and childishly needly and yet always manages to be charming, or charming enough at just the right time. She’s a practiced addict who knows how to wheedle and manipulate people, particularly people who need her to perform where once it was people who gave her the drugs to make her perform.

Deans had previously been a jazz piano player and a club owner. He was 12 years younger than Garland, tall and darkly handsome. The attraction is there and we understand what Judy Garland wants, and what Deans needs–he’s practical and he’s not used to owing money and believes he can manage a clever, well-practiced addict. Garland proves him wrong. Garland changes ploys and personality quicker than she changes her shoes.

The play shows the wild ramblings of Garland–a woman who can’t recall the questions she’s being asked and sometimes leaves the stage temperamentally to take a taxi to find more drugs. Unlike the Janis Joplin play, we see the effects of Garland’s addiction and her tragic road to an early death. Peter Quilter’s script is wildly demanding and Bennett is up to the challenge, transforming herself into a sly, manipulative woman, desperate to get what she wants. It’s as if Garland is channeling all her talent, all her intelligence and charm into being an almost functioning addict.

Director Terry Johnson adeptly keeps a whirlwind pace between Bennett’s quick personality changes. Bennett’s Garland seems young and old at the same time. Michael Cumpsty as someone who has watched Garland’s slow descent into a tormented always acting actor is touching and his Anthony has the best lines, providing comic relief. Erik Heger as the future last-husband has a thankless role, but Johnson doesn’t have him play it as a villainous gold digger. Heger’s Mickey Deans is a solid guy up against a genius of manipulation who wears him down into being her enabler.

What we don’t see in Quilter’s script is Garland as a mother. In 1968, Garland’s daughter Liza Minnelli was 22. Minnelli would be filming the 1969 movie “The Sterile Cuckoo.” Lorna Luft, Garland’s daughter with Sid Luft, would have been 16. Lorna and her brother Joey were 14 and 12 respectively when they shared a month-long engagement with Garland at the Broadway Palace Theatre in 1967 for one month.

Garland would marry Mickey Deans 15 March 1969; her divorce from husband number 4 Mark Herron was finalized in January of that same year. Not much is said in this play, but Garland and Deans were reportedly caught by Herron together and Garland’s infidelity was the reason for the divorce. Garland would be dead by 22 June 1969.

Fans of Garland, warts and wallowing in alcohol and all, will want to rush and get tickets. If you prefer the fantasy of the Judy Garland as a star as preserved by the silver screen, then stay well away. For some incredible moments of theater or as a fan of Hollywood history, Bennett’s performance in “End of the Rainbow” is a must see.  ”End of the Rainbow” continues until 21 April 2013 at the Ahmanson.

Tickets for “End of the Rainbow” are available by calling (213) 972-4400, visiting online at www.CenterTheatreGroup.org, or in person at the Center Theatre Group box office at the Ahmanson Theatre. Tickets range from $20 – $110 (ticket prices are subject to change). The Ahmanson Theatre is located at the Music Center, 135 N. Grand Avenue in Downtown L.A. 90012.

A Noise Within’s ‘Eurydice’

Do you imagine Elysian Fields, laughter and love in your after life? Are you looking forward to crossing the rainbow bridge to greet all your beloved and not forgotten furry friends? Then stay away from this depiction of the afterlife. A Noise Within’s production of “Eurydice” has its merits, but the play is a downer with creepy sexist undertones.

If you need to brush up on your mythology, Eurydice was the wife of a musician named Orpheus. When she died, Orpheus lamented to sweetly that the lord of Hades agreed to let Orpheus take Eurydice back to the land of the living. There was one condition–he must not look back. Of course, in a moment of doubt, Orpheus does turn back for just a glance and his love is lost to him, leaving in a wisp of fog and a cry of remorse.

In this intermissionless adaptation, we’re in modern times, relatively so. Think 1950s. Eurydice (Jules Willcox) is in a belly-button covering two piece–bright red with white polka dots. Orpheus (Graham Sibley) is in long plaid board shorts. He’s thinking music; she’s thinking books. Their conversation is utterly banal. They find each other’s interests, “interesting.” They are in love.

Eurydice is apparently an orphan. Her father (Geoff Elliott) resides in the underworld and he held his breath and wasn’t properly baptized in the waters of forgetfulness. As a result, he remembers his beloved daughter (but not his wife) and writes to her. The father’s monologue is funny and touching, perhaps the most amusing part of the whole piece.

What follows is a wedding of Eurydice and Orpheus in the human world that is plagued by the devil. At least this devil and lord of Hades is well-dressed–billed as the Nasty Interesting Man (Ryan Vincent Anderson), but in a twist that might remind one of another myth–the abduction of Persephone–the Lord of the Underworld attempts to seduce Eurydice and failing still gets her to his domain. On arrival, Eurydice isn’t aware she is dead and meets her father who helps her remember the life on land and love–at least the comfort of fatherly love which is like sitting under the shade of a tree. Romantic love is like sitting under the shade of a tree…naked.

In Hades, there is a group of three blue stones who function as a Greek chorus (Kelly Ehlert (Loud Stone), Abigail Marks (Big Stone), and Jessie Losch (Little Stone) ).

Now we have the Electra complex (per Jung) although I’m not clear on what one should say about a father who encourages such dependence. So our poor Electra has the sinister attention of the lord of darkness, her father and Orpheus.

Although the program notes inform us that the playwright Sarah Ruhl was inspired by her father’s death from cancer in 1994 and that she has a clear feminist voice, that’s not what you come away with. Instead of that, the voice I heard was of a girl filled with regret and longing for her father, wishing to meet him, but unsure that their reunion in the afterlife would be pleasing.

As director, Elliott could tighten up the action and quicken the pace. Although Eurydice ends up in her father’s arms, blessed with forgetfulness, the reason for continued existence in a land where one remembers nothing and does nothing isn’t adequately explained except for women being playthings for the devil. Not quite enough for me but perhaps this version of Eurydice will satisfy an existentialist  fantasy of the hereafter. “Eurydice” continues at A Noise Within until 19 May 2013. For tickets and more information, go to ANoiseWithin.org.

Pasadena Playhouse parties hard with Janis Joplin

I don’t know where you were on St. Patrick’s Day, but if you were in Pasadena and didn’t make it to the Playhouse district, you missed one fine party and a little bit of rock history.  Even if you weren’t there, part of the party continues on inside the Pasadena Playhouse, Tuesdays through Sundays. You don’t have to be a fan of Janis Joplin to enjoy this concert disguised as a play, “One Night with Janis Joplin,” at the Pasadena Playhouse.

Mary Bridget Davies as Janis Joplin. Photo by Janet Mascoska.

As part of the official opening, the Pasadena Playhouse sponsored a block party that began at noon and went on after the show ended with professional bands and food trucks.

The Pasadena Playhouse stage has been transformed into a concert stage with the band in the background and three Joplinaires to get the audience going before we see Mary Bridget Davies as Janis Joplin. This is the time when Afros, baby doll tops, blue jeans, stringy and frizzy hair were fashionable. The cast makes the time warp back to there thanks to Jeff Cone’s costume design.

But this concert isn’t limited to Joplin’s music. This is a concert about musical influences, how the black female blues singers influenced Janis Joplin and how she translated them into her own style.

First, if you’re too young or too square to know who Janis Joplin was, the story starts in Texas. Joplin was born in Port Arthur, TX in 1943–World War II was still being fought in Europe and the Pacific. While her parents weren’t entertainers, they enjoyed musicals and music.

According to the playwright/director Randy Johnson, cleaning day at the Joplin home was put on the record player and sing with enthusiasm. And Johnson recreates that for us with a little George Gershwin. You probably didn’t expect that at a Janis Joplin concert.

Apparently, her time at Thomas Jefferson High School wasn’t a happy time for her. Identifying herself as a painter, she wasn’t one of the in-crowd. She dabbled in attending college in Texas. It was the sixties and Joplin embraced the rebellion of the times, styling herself after black female blues singer such as Bessie Smith (the Empress of the Blues), Grammy-award winner Etta James and civil rights activist Nina Simone. Two of these ladies, James and Simone, outlived Joplin. James died last year in 2012 and Simone died earlier in 2003.

Sabrina Elayne Carten as Blues singer. Photo by Janet Mascoska.

If they had pain, they somehow didn’t have the kind of self-destructive lifestyle that the queen of the Rock and Roll or the Queen of Psychedelic Soul did. Joplin was a speed freak and also used heroin. This isn’t something we see in this play although Davies’ Joplin takes a few swigs of alcohol from a bottle on stage. We never see her getting addiction tremors or manic. Instead, we’re channeling the sweet side and the gritty raw voice of the woman sometimes referred to as Pearl.

This isn’t Davies first outing as Janis Joplin. She won the title role in an off-Broadway musical, “Love, Janis,” in 2005 during an open casting call for a new lead actress. I never saw Joplin in concert, but her voice is certainly convincing with that painful rawness that contrasts the smooth mellow blues Sabrina Elayne Carten pours out as various blues singers.

Johnson spent time with the Joplin family–only Janis Joplin’s younger siblings are alive: Michael, Laura Sadly, both of Joplin’s parents would outlive her. Joplin died at 27  in Hollywood, California (4 October 1970). Her mother, Dorothy died in 1998. Her father, Set, an engineer at Texaco, died in 1987.

Unlike the Judy Garland piece at the Ahmanson, “End of the Rainbow,” “One Night with Janis Joplin” is about Joplin the performer, Joplin the white woman who sang the blues and Joplin who became a role model for other female singers when rock and roll was dominated by men and male chauvinism.

You’ll leave energized and with a bit of musical education. If you were there opening night, then you also got to be part of one really fun block party. Any other night, you’ll have to find somewhere else to go to put all that good energy to use after you see “One Night with Janis Joplin.”

Janis Joplin’s Porsche at the Pasadena Playhouse on 17 March 2013. Photo by Jana J. Monji.

“One Night with Janis Joplin” will play through April 21, 2013.  The Pasadena Playhouse is located at 39 South El Molino Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101.  The performance schedule is Tuesday through Friday at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday at 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.; and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Single show ticket prices for “One Night with Janis Joplin” range from $69.00 – $107.00, with Premium Seating available for $105.00 – $145.00.  Service and theatre restoration fees apply to all purchases.  Tickets are available by calling The Pasadena Playhouse Box Office at 626-356-7529.  On non-performance dates, the Box Office is open Tuesday – Sunday from 12:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m.  On performance dates, the Box Office is open Tuesday – Saturday from 12:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. and Sunday from 12:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.  Tickets are available 24 hours a day at www.PasadenaPlayhouse.org.  Group Sales (tickets for 8 or more people) are available by calling 626-921-1161. For additional information on The Pasadena Playhouse, please visit www.PasadenaPlayhouse.org.

Free reading of two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee Sarah Ruhl’s ‘Late: A Cowboys Song’

Event Is Part of ANW’s “Words Within” Resident Artists’ Reading Series

 

A Noise Within (ANW), the acclaimed classical repertory theatre company, offers a free, one-night-only reading of SARAH RUHL’s humorous and heartbreaking LATE: A COWBOY SONG on Wednesday, April 17, 7 pm, as part of its “Words Within” reading series at its Pasadena theatre.  Directed by Susan Angelo and featuring A Noise Within resident artists, Ruhl’s genre-defying ode to the contemporary cowboy pays homage to Frank Capra’s iconic film It’s a Wonderful Life.  In her signature quirky style, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright utilizes convention only to break with it, offering a meditation on the idiosyncrasies of American culture while challenging definitions of love, partnership, gender and tradition.  The Chicago Times describes the work, which premiered in 2010, as “gentle and knowing” and “a play about all manner of uncertainties.”  The New City Chicago critic proclaimed, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Late: A Cowboy Song quickly becomes a modern classic.”

 

The reading, for which reservations are recommended, is designed to complement ANW’s production of Ruhl’s critically acclaimed Eurydice, which plays in repertory now to May 19, 2013.

 

The cast features ANW Resident Artists Jill Hill (Mary), Stephen Rockwell (Crick), Alison Elliott (Red), and Claire Mannle (Stage Directions).

 

The free “Words Within’ reading series continues with Abby Craden directing three Thornton Wilder one-act plays, including The Long Christmas Dinner, The Wreck on the Five-Twenty-Five and Infancy, May 15, 2013; The Heiress by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, directed by Robertson Dean, June 5, 2013; The Ghost Sonata by August Strindberg, directed by Stephen Rockwell, June 19, 2013; Galileo by Bertold Brecht, directed by Alan Blumenfeld, July 24, 2013; and Long Days Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill, directed by William Dennis Hunt, August 14, 2013.

 

A Noise Within, led by Producing Artistic Directors Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, is the only year-round classical repertory company in Southern California and one of only a handful in the entire country dedicated solely to producing classical dramatic literature in the repertory tradition of rotating productions with a resident company of professional artists.  It has been lauded by critics as a “premiere classical theatre company,” and an “outstanding ensemble” whose “vibrantly theatrical” “brilliant productions” are “freshly imagined,” “exceptional,” “invigorating,” “riveting,” “brilliantly atmospheric,” “inspired,” and “masterfully crafted.”  Founded 21 years ago, ANW quickly established itself as one of the region’s key theatre companies, attracting fiercely loyal audiences and consistently high praise from the media for its productions and as a key force in arts education.  The company has presented more than 140 plays from the classics of world literature, each season producing works from authors ranging from Shakespeare and Molière to Ibsen, O’Neill and Shaw to Miller and Williams.  A Noise Within completed its milestone 2011-12 Season and 20th Anniversary in its permanent new home, a 33,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art venue in Pasadena, in May 2012.

 

A NOISE WITHIN is located on the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Sierra Madre Villa Avenue at 3352 East Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, CA  91107.  The reading is free, but reservations are requested and can be made by calling (626) 356-3121 or visiting www.ANoiseWithin.org.

The right time for ‘Grapes of Wrath’

With so many people out of work and losing their homes nationwide, this is the right time for a revival of “The Grapes of Wrath.”  Yet A Noise Within gambles that audiences will want to be reminded of local and national woes. This production contrasts initial optimism with joy. Get there early or you’ll miss the pre-show performances that get us in the mood.

John Steinbeck wrote his 1939 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about destitute Okies migrating to California to work in the fields for a pittance, but Frank Galati wrote this stage adaption. This version was produced by the Steppen Theatre Company in 2009. Gary Sinise played the lead character Tom Joad on Broadway and PBS televised one of the performances.

Most people will remember the late Henry Fonda in the 1940 movie directed by John Ford. That movie differed from the novel and was made at a time when people were nervous about accusations of possible pro-Communist sentiment and public morality made the book’s ending controversial. Galati preserves the ending but it’s tastefully done so this is a production safe for older children.

Director Michael Michetti brings together a group of musicians for a pre-performance concert and throughout the play, music helps transition and set the tone. In the role of Tom Joad, Steve Coombs has a boyish honest as opposed to the bone-weary earnestness of Fonda. Tom has just gotten out of prison and his heading home when he meets up with the preacher who baptized him, Jim Casy (Matt Gottlieb). Casy doesn’t have the spirit any more and even when he did he was lead around by his carnal needs–something that Galati’s script lets you know was common knowledge.

Tom and Casy soon learn that things aren’t well in Oklahoma. Tom’s home is represented as an oversized shed with board loose. Something terrible has happened: The landowners are driving out the tenant farmers. The Dust Bowl is blowing hard and the farmers are bits of dust in the wind heading toward California.

Someone dropped in on the towns and handed out fliers offering good jobs so the Joads get into a rickety jalopy with more hope than good sense and head out for the West Coast. On their way, they lose three members of their extended family and they find growing prejudiced against the Okies. In California, they find the promises are false and without a home, they wander begging for jobs and hoping for kindness.

Getting good treatment was hindered by fear of Communism. Anything could easily be labeled as communist agitation and be quelled, but there’s a difference between communism and love for mankind. Casy and Tom find their calling to help their fellow man while Ma Joad (Deborah Strang) is left to support her husband and keep the family together.

Besides the transformation of Lili Fuller’s Rose of Sharon from a blushing newlywed with twinkling eyes to a tired deserted wife with blank eyes dead from depression, the merry music at the beginning heavily contrasts the more somber times in California. “The Grapes of Wrath” reminds us that the good old days weren’t always good. The Okies migration into California is a part of history, just as the exploitation of migrant field labor. Now at least we can have movements like Occupy Wall Street and police brutality gets videotaped and questioned.

If you can bear remembering the pains of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, this production is well worth seeing during our own economic hard times. Perhaps it will inspire random acts of kindness.

“The Grapes of Wrath” continues at A Noise Within until 11 May 2013. Go to ANoisewithin.org for tickets and the show schedule. Post-show conversations are scheduled for 12 April 2013, 8 p.m. (Friday) and 3 May 2013, 8 p.m. (Friday).