Archive for January, 2012
A Theatre Isn’t a Building, But It Needs One
by Adam Leipzig
In Los Angeles, we have a downtown four-theatre performing arts complex called the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Last week the City Council sent an eviction notice to the Latino Theatre Company, which has operated LATC for the past six years. The company has a short window to work things out with the City.
Let’s be clear: I’m a partisa More...
The View from London
by Tim Sullivan
London was never the plan. I was going to be a big Hollywood star, or perhaps star in my own sitcom, and I knew I was destined to live a glamorous lifestyle in sunny southern California. So after being born and raised in Boston, I packed up all my belongings in two huge duffel bags and flew 3000 miles to Los Angeles to study at USC, where I was sur More...
Was It An Earthquake?
by Mame Hunt
I first saw Rinde Eckert in Slow Fire at the Mark Taper Forum sometime in the mid-1980’s. Having gone to graduate school in theatre and having spent the six years since then working in Los Angeles and Chicago, I thought I had a solid foundation in the world of theatre. I’d read SO many plays from the Western canon. I’d learned how to analyze More...
Why Historical Dramas Set Our World Right
by Norman Allen
All is well in American television now that Downton Abbey has returned to PBS. Rosy sunsets again cast their light over the stones of Lord Grantham’s vast home, the downstairs staff rises above their under-educated prejudices and the family upstairs lowers their standards while opening their hearts. And it never rains—in England.
Historic dr More...
Of Hard Work and Privileged People
by Rosa Maria Pegueros
My daddy had one necktie: It was permanently knotted, so on the rare occasions when he needed to wear it, he would just pull it over his head and tighten it. I could probably count on both hands how often I saw him wear it over the course of my life. He was a little guy, barely 5’3”, heavyset, with powerful hands. When I made brownies, he would More...
Beauty Queen and Drug Wars
by Adam Leipzig
It’s a full three minutes before we see Laura’s face in Gerardo Naranjo’s film Miss Bala. Until then we’ve been tracking Laura (actor Stephanie Sigman) over her shoulder, following her as she goes about the daily chores in her house, where she lives with her father and younger brother, in a border city in Baja, Mexico.
When Laura final More...
If I Should Die
by Richard Jones
If I should die this afternoon who will take care of my dog? Who will let her out this evening and walk her twice around the block, letting her stop now and then to sniff an especially delicious turd some other dog has left behind just for her, a gift hidden among leaves and tall grass that she discovers like a little girl at an Easter eg More...Indie Films at 7,000 Feet
by Adam Leipzig
Gritty and winsome, polished and raw, excitable and flat-lined: indie movies have multiple personalities. If they were a character in one of their own films, they’d be the bipolar one, always in a state of glee or desperation. The experience of being around them fills one with joy and dread.
This year’s Sundance is no exception. In the U.S. More...
