A new ‘Cyrano’ at Pasadena Playhouse, and PST Art gets rolling: L.A. Arts and culture this week
One of the great gifts of being an artist — or an arts writer — is looking at the world through the fascinating prism of your vocation. Finding the art in everyday occurrences. In college in Boston I once wept at the sight of an old woman’s hand gripping the subway pole beside me. Something about the passage of time and the life I imagined she had lived left me feeling broken and alive all at once. Yesterday I lay on the ground beneath a Brazilian peppertree and marveled at the intricate criss-crossing of the tangled branches above — and the way the squirrels traversed them as part of nature’s thriving superhighway. Early this morning I savored the raucous jungle punk of the neighborhood’s wild parrots. I’m Times arts writer Jessica Gelt and these are the creative moments that sustain me. My colleague Ashley Lee and I hope this newsletter helps sustain you.
Best bets: On our radar this week
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1. “Earth Skin”
Lita Albuquerque’s fourth exhibition at the Michael Kohn Gallery utilizes white color pigments to honor the experience of light-reflecting materials in nature, like salt and snow. The PST Art offering includes a painting from her Auric Field series, rock sculptures dusted with white pigments, and a small figurative sculpture, all displayed “where the gallery’s concrete floor looks as though it has been meticulously removed revealing the earth below,” she said in a statement. (Elsewhere in PST, Albuquerque has an installation in CalTech’s “Crossing Over” exhibit and, later this month, a reimagining of the Malibu Line, her first ephemeral pigment earthwork and one of her most famous works to date.) “Earth Skin” runs Sept. 12 through Oct. 19. Michael Kohn Gallery, 1227 Highland Ave., Los Angeles. kohngallery.com
2. “Cyrano de Bergerac”
While many stagings of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 French classic have featured an actor wearing a fake nose, Times critic Charles McNulty reminds us in his list of must-see stage shows this season: “The monstrous schnoz isn’t really the point. This is a drama about the seduction of language. Bracingly metatheatrical, [Martin Crimp’s modern English] update turns romantic melodrama into something verbally thrilling.” Chukwudi Iwuji, Rosa Salazar and Will Hochman lead the ensemble cast of Pasadena Playhouse’s production, directed by Mike Donahue. Performances are Wednesday through Sunday through Sept. 29. Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena. pasadenaplayhouse.org
3. “Whittier Boulevard”
I missed this world premiere last year, but because it was such a hit, Latino Theater Co. is bringing back its ensemble-devised, future-set satire that exudes the company’s trademark blend of comedy, drama, music, dance and theatrical magic to explore ageism. Directed by José Luis Valenzuela, the show “jumps to the near future to look back at the Latino history of L.A. and tell the stories of the city‘s residents through a Chicano noir aesthetic,” wrote former Times staffer Steven Vargas last year. “Combining oral histories with noir themes, the show is quintessential L.A.” Performances run Thursday through Sunday through Oct. 20. Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., downtown L.A. latinotheaterco.org
— Ashley Lee
The week ahead: A curated calendar
MONDAY
Gracie Abrams The singer-songwriter plays three nights in support of her second album, “The Secret of Us.”
8 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Greek Theatre, 2700 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles. lagreektheatre.com
TUESDAY
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Phil, along with the L.A. Master Chorale, bring “Ode to Joy” and Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms” to the Hollywood Hills.
8 p.m. Tuesday. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood. hollywoodbowl.com
WEDNESDAY
Bright Blue Sky A new dramatic musical set on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday. Rose Center Theater, 14140 American Way, Westminster. rosetheater.booktix.com
Clarkston Samuel D. Hunter’s acclaimed 2015 play is a gay drama about two lost souls set in the titular Washington state town located just across the Snake River from Lewiston, Idaho.
Wednesday-Oct. 21. Echo Theater Company at Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village. echotheatercompany.com
Duel Reality Montreal-based artist collective the 7 Fingers deploys elements of circus, theater, illusion, music and dance in an acrobatic twist on “Romeo and Juliet.”
Wednesday–Sept. 22. Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave, downtown L.A. centertheatregroup.org
Kill Move Paradise Four Black men find themselves in a waiting room in the afterlife, struggling to make sense of the senselessness, in the Southern California premiere of this 2019 play by James Ijames, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Fat Ham.”
Wednesday-Nov. 3. Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. odysseytheatre.com
THURSDAY
Dudamel and Stars of Opera Jonas Kaufmann and Diana Damrau join Dudamel and the L.A. Phil for an evening of solos and duets by Franz Lehár and Johann Strauss II.
8 p.m. Thursday. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood. hollywoodbowl.com
Dispatch: ‘Love in the Time of Migration’
As a follow-up to its Oscar-winning short documentary “The Last Repair Shop,” which looked at the extraordinary people who mend musical instruments for public schoolchildren, L.A. Times Studios has released another short doc, this one looking at a Guatemalan couple who dream of building a new life in the United States. “Love in the Time of Migration” is part charming love story, part engaging drama, as we meet Ronny and Suly and learn just how much they are willing to test the strength of their love for a better life in America. Directed by Chelsea Abbas and Erin Semine Kökdil, the 21-minute film is available to watch from the Short Docs page of latimes.com.
Culture news and the SoCal scene
A play titled “October 7,” based on interviews with survivors of Hamas’ 2023 terror attack on Israel, makes its West Coast debut in a staged reading at UCLA on the one-year anniversary of the assault. The piece was created by the husband-and-wife team of Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, Irish journalists who flew to Israel in the wake of the attacks to record these stories. The couple have a long history of what they dub “verbatim plays,” which reconstruct actual historic events through documentary materials. Security will be present at the one-night-only event, although McAleer and McElhinney said that the play’s New York City run in May proceeded without any major incidents. Ashley Lee has the full story, here.
Creatives working in Hollywood art departments are in trouble. With production plummeting and the industry still reeling from the double punch of pandemic shutdowns and lengthy strikes by writers and actors, the production designers, set decorators, art directors, graphic artists, illustrators, model makers, scenic painters, construction crews and others who make aesthetic screen dreams into reality are looking for work elsewhere — and paying a steep financial and emotional price. David A. Keeps recently talked to a number of these workers about their prolonged state of flux.
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The J. Paul Getty Trust is bringing on Pierre Ouillet as executive vice president, finance and operations, with a start date of Nov. 11. Ouillet arrives from UC San Diego, where he is currently vice chancellor and chief financial officer. He will replace former Getty vice president, CFO and COO Steve Olsen, who retired this summer.
Artist Doug Aitken is collaborating with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Marciano Art Foundation on a multimedia artwork titled “Lightscape,” which is scheduled to receive its world premiere at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Nov. 16. You can check out a preview of the live-to-picture event — featuring a performance by the Master Chorale and the L.A. Phil New Music Group — here.
Geffen Playhouse announced its latest crop of L.A.-based writers selected to take part in the theater’s 2024-25 incarnation of the Writers’ Room: Sunny Drake, Keiko Green, Andrew Zepeda Klein, maatin, Samah Meghjee and James Anthony Tyler. The year-long program seeks to create engagement and collaboration between local playwrights. Participants meet monthly to share their work and get feedback from their peers. The residency culminates with a reading at the Geffen.
—Jessica Gelt
And last but not least
Feeling overwhelmed and irrationally angry about the early September heat? Enjoy these deeply weird Shutterstock images of people looking truly unhappy in cold pools.
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