Anyone who survived the deadly HIV plague time of the ’80s, when the best and brightest of the arts community was virtually wiped out by the disease, can’t help but be moved by the pathos of playwright Evelina Fernández’s AIDS melodrama. And while the urgency of the play might have diminished somewhat in the intervening years of antiretroviral successes, director José Luis Valenzuela’s re-staging of the Latino Theater Company’s acclaimed, 2002 production has lost none of its rousing panache or theatrical luster. Sal López reprises his tour de force performance as Moises, a flamboyant theater director drifting in and out of consciousness on his deathbed in 1995. He spends his lucid moments planning his final exit scene in a party to be attended by his close associates, which include his lifelong friend, the gay hairdresser, Martin (the excellent Danny de la Paz), and best straight friend/writing partner, Eddie (Geoffrey Rivas), and Eddie’s wife, Alice (Lucy Rodriguez). Moises’ less coherent spells are spent in phantasmagoric dialogues with his conscience and drag-queen alter ego, Lupe (Ralph Cole, Jr. in a show-stopping performance), who belts out disco dance hits in between haranguing Moises about coming clean with his ex-wife, Raquel (Fernández), on the circumstances surrounding their 15-year-old break-up. A first-rate production design, including François-Pierre Couture’s evocative lights, Nikki Delhomme’s Mackie-inspired gowns and Christopher Ash’s expressionist-surrealist set, underscores Fernández’s Eros-trumps-conventional-morality theme with elegance and eloquence. Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., downtown; Thurs.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat. 3 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; thru May 30. (213) 489-0994 ext. #107 or http://www.thelatc.org A Latino Theater Company Production (Bill Raden)

via LA Weekly

In this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes, Back Stage’s Jenelle Riley talks to award-winning playwright Erik Patterson about his new play “Sick.”

Patterson recently won the WGA Award for “Another Cinderella Story,” starring Selena Gomez and Jane Lynch of “Glee.”

Here, he discusses his new play, becoming a songwriter by accident, and hypochondria.

via Backstage

Once the cast files in to sit on either side of designer Victoria Bello’s fragmented backstage set, manager Nacirema Naibun (Robert Clements) welcomes us. Charles Gilpin (Dwain A. Perry), an international sensation in O’Neill’s drama in 1920, is appearing one last time as the Emperor Jones.

With a dressing room shift, we follow Gilpin’s 11-year passage from stardom to alcoholic obscurity –  replaced by the emerging Paul Robeson (Jah Shams) after clashing with O’Neill (Jonathan Palmer) over his script’s use of the N-word.  Throughout, the action revisits a key scene from “Jones,” which accrues wider relevance by the eulogizing ending.

Director Ben Guillory has some bright ideas:  a pool hall depicted solely by lighting designer Phil Kong and sound designer Eric Butler; an overhead solo of “Nobody” from Bert Williams (Ted Wynn); various onlooker reactions.

The actors, smartly attired in costumer Naila A. Sanders’ period wear, are capable, with Perry’s commitment self-evident, his colleagues all on the same page. Michael Kass, Kellie Roberts, Ibrahim Saba and Peter Trencher complete their competent ranks.

Johnson’s writing is technically proficient, albeit a shade over-compressed and academically explicated. The work’s brevity almost impedes the larger statement of Gilpin’s story. Even so, “The Emperor’s Last Performance” is hardly inconsiderable, and not just for its historical significance.

– David C. Nichols

“The Emperor’s Last Performance,” Los Angeles Theatre Centre, Theatre 4, 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Friday, 3 and 8 pm. Saturday, 3 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Ends Sunday. $30. (213) 489-0994, Ext. 107, or www.thelatc.org. Running time:  1 hour, 15 minutes.

Photo: Jonathan Palmer, left, and Dwain A. Perry. Credit: Ed Krieger.

via LA Times

by Ryan Vaillancourt
Published: Friday, March 26, 2010 4:42 PM PDT

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES – The central conflict in the Robey Theatre Company’s The Emperor’s Last Performance revolves around a racial slur, a word whose use is as controversial now as it was during the 1920s, when the world premiere is set.

Against the backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance, the play centers on African-American actor Charles Gilpin and his personal battle with the n-word.

“Some things never change,” said Ben Guillory, artistic director and co-founder of the Robey Theatre Company, a resident company of the Historic Core’s Los Angeles Theater Center for the past three years.

Guillory, who also directs The Emperor’s Last Performance, knows that the play is first and foremost a period piece that strives to be true to a cast of real life characters, from Gilpin to playwright Eugene O’Neill to Paul Robeson, the luminary for whom the Robey is named. But if the cultural references in Melvin Ismael Johnson’s script reflect 1920s New York, some of its themes are just as relevant in 2010 Los Angeles.

“In the context of the play, that word and the use of it and who should use it if anyone, and who shouldn’t, is discussed in depth,” Guillory said.

The play chronicles Gilpin’s role as Brutus Jones in O’Neill’s play The Emperor Jones. In O’Neill’s work, Gilpin is sent to jail after killing another man in a fight. He later escapes from prison and moves to a tropical island, where he cons the locals into making him the emperor, though he must flee when the natives rebel.

Johnson’s piece, however, focuses on the relationship between Gilpin and the white playwright O’Neill, who wrote the racial slur intoThe Emperor Jones more than 30 times.

“These days O’Neill would have been considered a racist, but back then, he was doing courageous work,” said Guillory.

Ultimately, the Robey production deals with Gilpin’s objection to using the slur in the performance, and the consequences he faces for challenging O’Neill.

“The motives are suspect as to why it’s used so often when it’s written by a white man, and Charles challenges that,” Guillory said. “Then there are questions about the way he challenges.”

Earning the Stage

The Robey Theatre Company’s residency at the LATC coincides with its playwrights program. The effort is helping 18 writers develop works for the stage.

The Emperor’s Last Performance is one of three Robey productions scheduled for 2010 at the LATC. All are products of the playwrights program, Guillory said.

Founded by Guillory and actor Danny Glover 16 years ago, the Robey Theatre Company’s mission is to produce works that deal with the African American and black experience worldwide.

“This playwrights’ process is really about developing new work that deserves production, so the fact that we’re doing three world premieres this year, it’s because the work that’s coming out of the program is just deserving of production,” he said.

The Emperor’s Last Performance runs Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 3 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 and 7 p.m. It runs through April 4 at the LATC, 514 S. Spring St., thelatc.org. Ticket information at (213) 489-0994, ext. 107, or robeytheatrecompany.com.

Spring Season

The Emperor’s Last Performance kicks off the spring season at the LATC. The series of plays running at the venue’s four theaters has been dubbed “East of Broadway,” for its location a block east of L.A.’s own Broadway. On the docket are:

April 16-May 16: In Erik Patterson’s Sick, Pamela keeps digging herself deeper into a world of hypochondria.

May 1-30: In Dementia, a production of the resident Latino Theater Company, Moe has a going away party because he’s dying of AIDS.

May 7-June 6: 1951-2006 is a 50-year love story centered on the fourth floor of a brownstone on the east side of Manhattan.

June 18-27: The Robey Theatre Company returns with Transitions, written by Kellie Roberts. The three short plays deal with ordinary people struggling with a call from God.

June 19: The Slumber of Reason is a new dance theater piece developed and produced by the Latina Dance Project. It springboards off prints by Francisco de Goya.

via Los Angeles Downtown News

Gilpin’s irritation and growing discomfort over O’Neill’s persistent use of “the N word” in his play is the focus of Johnson’s fascinating drama; the scene where actor confronts playwright and forces him to defend his artistic choices is one of the highlights. There’s a terrific scene where stage reality blends with real life to a nightmarish degree. You have to admire Johnson for brevity in an era when most plays are overwritten, but at 75 minutes the piece could use a little more fleshing out. Instead of overemphasis on Gilpin’s boozing—which eventually costs him the star-making role—the actor’s early days as a minstrel might be explored.

Dwain A. Perry is captivating as Gilpin in this Robey Theatre Company presentation, conveying the entertainer’s distinctive personalities on and off stage. Robert Clements (as his manager, Naibun), Jonathan Palmer (as O’Neill) and Jah Shams (as Robeson) offer strong support, as do the others in the ensemble, under the careful direction of Ben Guillory—who co-founded Robey with actor Danny Glover circa 1996. Call 213-489-0994, ext. 107.

Seeking further information on Gilpin, I turned to “The A to Z of American Theatre: Modernism” by James Fisher and Felicia Hardison Londre, newly available in paperback from Scarecrow Press. (It’s easier to look things up in Wikipedia, of course, but the info can’t be trusted.) The entry on Gilpin is relatively short—we do learn he became a director in 1916 for the Lafayette Players, NYC’s first black stock company in a century.

More illuminating s is the summary of “The Emperor Jones” and the demon-plagued title character. The entry for African American Theatre is fascinating, with its details on such little known entities as the Astor Place Company of Colored Tragedians, founded in 1884. The 570-page tome covers virtually every aspect of American theatre in the age of modernism from 1880 to 1930, including economics, sexuality, religious drama, vaudeville, the Moscow Art Theatre, and the Yiddish Theatre.

via Examiner

LATC Theatre 4
General Admission: $30
Students: $20

Freed’s latest endeavor is “The Einstein Plan,” an interactive experience in which the audience is invited to participate in creating their political future. With the show slated to premiere soon at Los Angeles Theatre Center, I interrogated the perpetrator.

Jordan Young: I understand you were on Nixon’s enemies list?

Donald Freed: There were any number of dirty tricks going on, income tax audits and so forth. In the 1930s, Hoover built an FBI dossier on every major writer… it was a paranoid world. Today theatre is so frail, dependent on season ticket holders—we’ve never recovered from the ‘50s. Theatres most noted for their political audacity were afraid of “The Einstein Plan.”

JY: What’s the significance of the title?

DF: Albert Einstein suggested that if 2% of the population refused to pay their taxes to support the war… it would render the bureaucratic system impotent. It forces it to the media, the airwaves, certainly the Internet today; it starts a creative agenda.

JY: I take it “The Einstein Plan” is a call to action? You’re telling us to wake up and take our heads out of the sand?

DF: It’s to appeal to those already historically and politically aware of a given culture. It’s a hope against hope of… a hero coming along to satisfy the pressing needs of the hour, whether it be health care, climate change…

JY: Basically, you’re advocating non-violent civil disobedience?

DF: That is right. This is adapted for the American scene of today—there are no heroes, no Gandhis, no Berrigans. This slow-moving civil disobedience doesn’t take the place of people marching against the war. But with the Internet as a kind of spine… civil disobedience is now possible. That’s the wager of the play.

JY: People may debate whether it’s actually a play.

DF: You’re right. It’s an event, with people being called up on stage to play theatrical games. But it’s not meant to be a simulation. People will have to exchange addresses at the end… the next stage will be how many show up…

JY: To take action?

DF: Only a few people need take the arrest. I will take one of the arrests. The media will be involved… there will be no surprises. Eventually what you want is a real town hall meeting.

JY: Are you afraid of damaging your career?

DF: Euripides was driven out of Athens and killed. “King Lear” was only performed once in Shakespeare’s lifetime. So there’s a long history…

“The Einstein Plan,” starring James Cromwell and Debra De Liso, performs March 27 & March 28 at LATC. Call (213) 489-0994 ext. 107.

[via Examiner, Bitter Lemons]

© Graphic Image: robbieconal.com

A NEW STATE OF
ART, MUSIC, PERFORMANCE, DEBAUCHERY
AT THE DOWNTOWN L.A. ART WALK
THURSDAY, MARCH 11 // 6:30PM TO 10:30PM

+ Art
Projections by Christopher Ash and Francois-Pierre Couture
Art work by GRONK

+ Musical Performances
All musical performances are located at the outdoor stage. Limited seating is first come, first served and the rest, standing room only.
6:30PM // Semyon Kobialka
8:30PM // Ash Riser

+ The Vault (Time TBA)
An original weekly cabaret featuring Los Angeles based writers, actors, directors, musicians, comedians, and dancers.

+ Beer and Wine Bar benefiting The LATC

This event is free and open to the public & all ages. Donations are welcome in any amount and will help to continue this and any other programs at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. To donate, please visit the Info Table located in the patio.

If you’re an artist or musician interested in performing at ESTADO, please e-mail an EPK to Charm Narong at charm@thelatc.org.

March 4

A multi-disciplinary ensemble creating an original weekly cabaret! This 8-week theatrical workshop under the auspices of The LATC aims to write and produce weekly variety shows (30-45 mins) that will be open to the public every Thursday night at 10pm.

+ Beer & Wine at the LATC Bar
+ Pay what you can donation!  No one will be turned away for lack of funds!

March 27 + 28
The Einstein Plan

A new play by Donald Freed
A performance, A teach-in, A town hall meeting
Fun, Provocative, Different every time
Come Join the Revolution!

Starring James Cromwell, Debra De Liso and YOU, the audience.

Saturday, March 27th at 8:00 pm
Sunday, March 28th at 3:00 pm

Regular Priced Tickets: $30.00
Students, Seniors Unemployed: $15.00
Tickets are available for purchase ONLINE or by calling 213-489-0994 ext. 107.

August 2 – 28
The LATC 2010 Youth Summer Conservatory
August 2-28, 2010
Monday – Friday: 10am – 3pm

Scholarships Avaialable!

The LATC Youth Summer Conservatory has been developed under the leadership of Latino Theater Company Artistic Director and UCLA professor, Jose Luis Valenzuela, to create an opportunity for high school students from under-served communities interested in careers in the arts, to experience and train in a conservatory setting, Now in its third year, the program integrates acting classes with rigorous physical training, voice and speech, movement, writing and improvisation. The Conservatory will culminate in a final performance conceived, written and performed by the students on stage at the LATC on Saturday, August 28th.

For Applications/Questions contact:
Chantal Rodriquez, Educational Program Coordinator
chantal@thelatc.org or 213.489.0994 Ext. 108

“We talk to the founder of the acclaimed Latino Theater Company about the details of the organization, their upcoming season (and beyond), and their new L.A. Art Walk events.”

via LX.TV