The Scene

I just received Scene, the quarterly magazine from LA's Music Center, and it's brimming with great stuff.

First off, FREE events:

At the Music Center:

09/05 and 09/19 Dance Downtown offers complimentary beginner dance lessons in Argentine Tango and Disco, respectively, as well as DJ/Live Music. 6:30pm to 10:00pm.

09/20 A Taste of Dance has $1 dance lessons from all over the world. 11am to 4pm.

09/28 Grand Avenue Festival features drum circles, flute choirs, a saxophone ensemble, art, music, entertainment and food. 11am to 5pm.

At Walt Disney Concert Hall:
(Arrive an hour early to get your free tickets - 11am and 12:30pm shows)

9/20 A Celebration of Armenian Arts with lyrical music and folk dancing. Arrive an hour early to get your free tickets.

10/11 Los Llaneros Ballet Folclorico do Brasil offers haunting melodies accompanying athletic Capoeira dances.

11/08 Kevin Locke Native Dance Ensemble celebrates Native American culture with hoop dancing, flute playing, story telling and more.

Clear your calendars! The Dave Brubeck Quartet is coming to town. I'd love to see them, but the cheapest seats are $36. And Sergei and I are cheap-asses. We usually prefer tickets in the $23 range. But, we might have to splurge for this occaission...


Some new edgy performances at RedCat:

10/09-10/12 Elevator Repair Service : In The Sound and The Fury: April Seventh, 1928 ERS takes on the opening section of Faulkner's most acclaimed novel. Director John Collins and the 12-member troupe fully embrace Faulkner’s free-flowing language and his radically fractured, multilayered narrative technique. I can't wait to see their interpretation of stream of conciousness! (God I'm a nerd).

11/29-12/01Degenerate Art Ensemble: In Cuckoo Crow the six-member ensemble uses frantic avant-garde music blended seamlessly with inventive Butoh-inspired movement and intense physical theater to invoke a fantastical landscape of dark poetry and offbeat humor as it stages the mythical resurrection of a fallen baby crow—whose egg had been pushed out of its nest by a pair of cuckoo hatchlings.

Phil the House, a free LA Phil Harmonic community concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on 09/25, 09/26, and 09/27. Call (323)850-2000 for your free tickets.

10/31 A Showing of a silent version of the Phantom of the Opera accompanied by Clark Wilson on the Organ. And what a fine organ it is.




And as far as their fine organ goes, Chelsea Chen's recital on 11/23 features the music of six composers plus her own orginal score, Taiwan Tableaux, 7:30pm.

Some plays at the newly remodeled Mark Taper Forum:

08/29-10/19 The House of Blue Leaves, a heartbreakingly human comedy that explores the lengths people will go in pursuit of the American Dream.

10/30-12/17 The School of Night an historical mystery thriller where William Shakespeare, Thomas Kyd, Sir Walter Raleigh and nearly everyone else are suspects and everyone has a hidden agenda.

Next May: Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov.

Next fall: The Lieutenant of Inishmore of which the NY Daily News says, "If Monty Python had ever tackled the issue of Irish terrorism, they might have created something as wild, as brilliant and as weirdly exhilarating as The Lieutenant of Inishmore."

And next December: Palestine, New Mexico. A production by Culture Class. Need I say more?

And, at the superbly small venue of the Kirk Douglas Theatre:

9/21-10/26 This beautiful City, I simply cannot wait. The play, complete with Music by the composer of Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson (excellent, excellent musical!), tackles the fervor behind the Evangelical movement, the effect its growth had on its unofficial U.S. capital, Colorado Springs, and the confusion of a community in crisis following the scandalous fall of pastor Ted Haggard. Sounds so great.

Next May: Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo is an eerily surreal and darkly humorous play about the madness of life in war and what it means to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Next summer: Heddatron, HALF A DOZEN ROBOTS. LIVE ONSTAGE. REALLY. And a quirky plot that is sure to be a unique theatrical experience at least.

I've seen a few good things at the Ahmanson, such as Edward Scissorhands, but they are usually large and mainstream productions. That is not bad, but I find that I oft prefer the whimsical, the eccentric, the undiscovered, and the intimate when it comes to live theater. Still, a couple worthy mentions:

Next March: Frost/Nixon, an historical play that tackles the question: How did David Frost, a famous British talk show host with a playboy reputation, elicit the apology that the rest of the world was waiting to hear from former President Richard Nixon?

Next April: Ain't Misbehavin' is a rollicking, finger-snapping, toe-tapping, Tony Award®-winning musical revue — a tribute to the black entertainers of the early 1900’s that centers on the music of one of the most prolific musicians of the time, Thomas “Fats” Waller.

Now, the LA Opera's new season is about to be underway. I have tickets to every opera but one (from the Recovered Voices series) and I will report back to you on just how splendid (and yes, beautiful) each production is. I recommend you cruise on over to LA Opera's site this instant and secure yourself some tickets because these opera's are not to be missed. We start with Woody Allen directing Puccini's Il Trittico, three one act operas, and swiftly move on to a brand new production and the US's premier of The Fly (yes, like the cult sci-fi film), and then right on to another Puccini, then glorious Bizet, then Mozart, and then some Wagner and finally Verdi. I just can't wait.