To the Tetons with Lear: loving memories of Christopher McHale 7
Sep
18
2023
It was April 2008, and a glorious time to be in the region of the Grand Teton mountains of Utah. I was there, of course, for the majestic scenery but also to hunker down, indoors, in a dark theater, watching my longtime friend Chris McHale (1954-2023) scale his own high peak playing the titular role ...
Opening the floodgates of early-cinema disaster movies at Laemmle Theatres
Sep
18
2023
Irving Cummings’ THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD (1926), a pioneering disaster and special effects movie, starring Janet Gaynor and George O’Brien, re-creates one of the greatest disasters in American history, when, in 1889, over 2,000 people in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, lost their lives. In her first major role, Gaynor plays a teenage girl smitten with dashing engineer O’Brien, ...
Home to world-class museums now address of Jack Rutberg Fine Arts
Sep
9
2023
jack rutberg in gallery september 2023courtesy pasadena now ed. note: Longtime admirers of Jack Rutberg, among Los Angeles’s most esteemed gallerists, we’ve been following news of his new location, on Lake Avenue, one of Pasadena’s grand commercial boulevards. With permission from Pasadena Now, artsmeme is excerpting a story by Eddie Rivera, Editor of the Weekndr ...
A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham, in third foray to Long Beach’s Carpenter Center
Sep
6
2023
a choreographer of our timekyle abraham, courtesy u.s.a. today That the MacArthur Genius Award-winning choreographer Kyle Abraham could bring his dance wares to any stage in Los Angeles — as he has in the past — is an understatement. We’ve seen him at UCLA; last year at The Soraya; and at The Wallis. This season, ...
A Martha Graham/Agnes de Mille meet-up in the 21st century 5
Sep
5
2023
in photo kathleen tovar, center, victor barbee, john gardner, american ballet theatre Ed. note: This story by Debra Levine, commissioned and previously published by the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for the Arts, is reprinted with permission. During the Second World War, with American men losing their lives in the overseas fight against fascism, Agnes ...
A ‘Hungry Ghost,’ satiated, at Skylight Theatre
It’s everyone’s nightmare … to have a very weird white man, a hermit who lives in the woods, pry apart your sliding-glass doors and invade your crib, your private space, your digs, your boite, your last-ditch barrier of bricks-and-mortar against … people like him. And yet, that’s exactly what happens in Hungry Ghost, a new ...
Cowgirl lassos Metropolitan Opera House 2
Sep
3
2023
In 1942, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, which, during the European war, toured in exile extensively across the American heartland, en route picked up marvelous dancers and dances. Following the success of Eugene Loring’s Billy the Kid (1938) for Ballet Caravan, the Ballet Russe invited Agnes de Mille to create yet another Americana-themed work, ...
Meet Ernest Belcher’s prize pupil, Pola Negri 2
News of the digital restoration of The Spanish Dancer (1923) by Milestone Film & Video and the Eye Film Museum caught our fancy for several reasons. The silent movie is promoted as a “great romance epic,” and gosh, you can never get enough of that, right? In its making, director Herbert Brenon employed a “cast ...
Rock mogul Lou Adler in WeHo convo
Sep
1
2023
The City of West Hollywood presents Lou Adler and Nic Adler in conversation for the City’s Artists & Icons series. Adler, of course, is an American record and film producer and the co-owner of the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood, California. He developed and produced, among others, The Grass Roots, Jan & Dean, The Mamas & ...
Made in Los Angeles: dance-manufacturing by Raiford Rogers, Tony Testa
Los Angeles has long been an industrial hub; over this city’s relatively youthful history, we’ve been a maker of stuff: first oranges and lemons; then a film industry begun on a wooden platform under the noonday sun; next, aerospace and widget manufacturing to prosecute a world war and man’s first step on the moon; then ...