“Mockingbird” at 50 still soars

One of the most beloved books ever—adapted unforgettably on screen with Gregory Peck as stalwart Southern lawyer Atticus Finch—“To Kill A Mockingbird” comes to the Los Angeles stage as The Production Company celebrates the classic’s 50^th anniversary.

The only book  author Harper Lee ever published, it became an instant best-seller, Pulitzer Prize winner and, in a 1999 Library Journal poll, was voted “Best Novel of the Century.” In the intervening years, Lee rarely granted interviews, and outside of a few essays, she published nothing else.

But no one who ever read her novel or saw the movie could possibly forget the indelible characters of Atticus, Scout, Jem, Dill and Boo—or the profound moral lessons of courage, principle, tolerance and justice—that Harper Lee wove from her own experience growing up in the South.

The Production Company recently relocated to a new venue in Hollywood’s Theatre Row District at 6760 Lexington Avenue, just one block East of Highland Avenue and one block North of Santa Monica Boulevard. Learn more about the company history here, and get your tickets online here.

 Posted 1/27/11

Calling all construction lookie-loos

As every schoolchild knows, it’s nearly impossible to walk by a construction site without stopping to peek through the fence and watch the hard hats and heavy equipment at work. Now county photographers are making it easy for the public to peer through a virtual fence and check out the progress of the Civic Park as it takes shape outside the county Hall of Administration.

New photos are being posted each month on the Civic Park website, which also includes construction updates, news about traffic detours and parking and renderings of what the project will look like when it’s scheduled to be completed by the summer of 2012.

The park, which broke ground last summer, is on schedule despite the record winter rains, says Dawn McDivitt, a capital projects manager in the county’s Chief Executive Office who’s been overseeing the building effort. “It was a huge challenge, and [the contractors] came to the table and have been very accommodating.

“I can’t say enough about how smoothly everything is going.”

Workers have wrapped up much of the demolition and now can begin the building phase.

When completed, the 12-acre park will provide a green oasis stretching from Grand Avenue at the Music Center to Spring Street at City Hall. The four-level park will feature amenities including performance lawns, ADA-accessible walkways, a community terrace area showcasing plants from around the world and a restored historic Arthur J. Will Memorial fountain, complete with a new wade-able membrane pool.

The county workforce, McDivitt says, has been “extremely patient and very inquisitive” about the park construction in their midst.

“Out of all of our capital projects, it is one of the most exciting things that’s been happening, having it in our own backyard.”

Posted 1/27/11

Season tickets go on sale at the Bowl

For decades, summer nights at the Hollywood Bowl have been a highlight of Southern California’s cultural scene. The Los Angeles Philharmonic celebrates its 90^th season at the Bowl this year, and the ticket window is now officially open for current subscribers and those looking to subscribe for the first time to one or more of the Bowl’s themed concert offerings.

So what’s being offered this year? Five-concert packages for Classical Tuesdays and Classical Thursdays, featuring Music Director and Principal Conductor Gustavo Dudamel and special guest conductors including Leonard Slatkin and violinist Itzhak Perlman; a pair of five-date Weekend Spectaculars that feature the likes of Sarah McLachlan, John Williams, Dolly Parton and a full staging of the musical “Hairspray.” Of course, there’s also the Bowl’s legendary Fireworks Spectaculars.

A pair of four-date Wednesday evening Jazz at the Bowl series will showcase such artists as Bobby McFerrin, Robert Cray, Quincy Jones, Hugh Masekela, Gladys Knight and George Benson.

Sunday nights, KCRW’s World Festival returns with a pair of three-date series exploring the exotic worlds of Japanese pop with the Yellow Magic Orchestra, Reggae Night with Ziggy Marley and special guests, a tribute to French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, among others.

So what are you waiting for? And if this will be your first visit to the Hollywood Bowl, this newcomer’s guide will tell you everything you need to know.

Posted 1/27/11

 

Chabrol thrillers at LACMA

With generous dollops of envy, greed, lust and revenge, the late French filmmaker Claude Chabrol served up a darkly delicious stew of mystery and suspense in more than 70 films during the course of a career spanning just over 50 years. Though frequently compared to Alfred Hitchcock, Chabrol lacked the master’s lighter touch and commercial instincts. His characters never fully emerge from the haunted shadows of their own tortured psyches.

This week the Los Angeles County Museum of Art begins a specially curated mini-series of Chabrol’s extraordinary, but in America little-seen, body of unforgettable work. The program offers four double-bills over the next two weekends, and kicks off Friday, January 28, with La Femme Infidèle (1969) and The Bridesmaid (2004).

More information on the whole series may be found in LACMA’s detailed film schedule. And everything you need to know to plan your visit—from directions and parking to dining options—can be found right here.

Posted 1/27/11

Gala bow for Valley’s newest venue

Blame it on Natalie Portman.

If you want to see “Swan Lake” in L.A. before the Oscars, there’s really only one show in town. And good luck getting tickets to the one-night-only, Feb. 8 performance by the Russian National Ballet.

That programming coup—coming on the heels of Portman’s star turn in the Academy Award-nominated “Black Swan,” which prominently features the Tchaikovsky-scored ballet—belongs not to Royce Hall or the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion but to the newest venue on the local stage: the Valley Performing Arts Center.

The Center, which has its gala opening Saturday, is making its mark with a diverse inaugural season that ranges from speakers like Joan Rivers, Arianna Huffington and Shirley MacLaine to the musical stylings of artists as varied as Patti LuPone, Marvin Hamlisch, Rosanne Cash, Loudon Wainwright III and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.

And “Swan Lake,” with its almost-too-good-to-be-true Hollywood tie-in, has proven to be a hot ticket for a new audience base.

“I should say, of course, I intuited this,” laughs Robert Bucker, executive director of the center and also dean of the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication at California State University Northridge, where the new performing facility is located.

“An amazing number of single ticket purchasers have just wanted to see the ballet.”

Bucker says there also have been “robust” single ticket sales for LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, appearing together on May 21, and for Hamlisch’s Feb. 26 appearance with Betty Buckley, who won a Tony for her performance in “Cats.”

“There was a tremendous response to Joan Rivers [March 1], as you might imagine,” he says.

Bucker says season ticket sales also are going well, with more than 800 sold for performances in the 1,700-seat hall.

Booking the center to serve all of its constituencies—people from San Fernando Valley communities, CSUN and the region as a whole—requires a certain nimbleness, along with connections to performers’ managers around the world.

“The moment that you enter into that community of facilities—I wouldn’t say it’s cutthroat competition, but when opportunities present themselves you truly take advantage of the opportunity,” Bucker says.

Having a high-profile new $125-million facility helps. “Folks are really excited about being part of ‘rubbing off the new,’ ” Bucker says. “It’s a very desirable place for an artist to perform.”

“It’s gorgeous. It’s like Disney Hall in the Valley,” adds artist relations manager Catherine Kimmel, who helped book the talent for the gala with the show‘s director, Robert Egan.

The opening of the 166,000-square-foot Valley Performing Arts Center represents the culmination of decades of planning. The project is being funded by a public-private partnership, and has received $80 million in federal, state and county funds—including $2 million from the office of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and $500,000 from the office of Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich— and $30 million from private individuals, corporations and foundations. The university is continuing a capital campaign to raise the rest of the money.

The tickets for Saturday’s red carpet gala, complete with a post-performance black-tie dinner, are still available for $1,000 a pop. (Call (310) 201-5033 for more information.) But those on a tighter budget can still get a ticket for the show and a champagne reception for $75 by calling the center’s box office, (818) 677-3000.

The gala promises to be a variety show in every sense of the word. How often do you get to see Calista Flockhart performing a bit of Shakespeare with fellow players including Benjamin Bratt, Keith David, Steven Weber, Noah Wyle, Jane Kaczmarek and Tyne Daly? Or to applaud Daly singing “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” from “Gypsy” as part of a Broadway segment that also features Davis Gaines singing “Music of the Night” from “Phantom of the Opera?” Or to watch Andy Garcia introduce Arturo Sandoval, the Cuban-born jazz trumpet great he portrayed in an HBO movie, opera star Carol Vaness sing Puccini and American Ballet Theatre stars Gillian Murphy and Jose Carreno perform a pas de deux from “Don Quixote?” There’s even a Cheech Marin comedy segment, not to mention taiko drummers, CSUN’s Jazz “A” Band and the Northridge Singers. (The full line-up is here.)

If you can’t make the gala, and are holding out hope for “Swan Lake,” don’t despair.

“We’ve started a waiting list,” Bucker says.

Posted 1/27/11

Next Page »