'Girlfriend,' A Sweet Coming Of Age Love Story

(l-r) Ryder Bach is Will and Curt Hansen is Mike

By Darlene Donloe

Regardless of what side of the fence you’re on regarding same sex relationships, you’ll feel good about the show Girlfriend, currently playing through Aug. 9 at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City.

The audience is witness to a high school coming of age love story between a nerd named Will (Ryder Bach) and a popular jock named Mike (Curt Hansen). It’s an unlikely relationship on a couple of levels. Traditionally high school jocks and nerds are polar opposites, do not associate, are not friends, wouldn’t be caught dead with the other and certainly wouldn’t become intimate.

Todd Almond’s brilliant Girlfriend explores the notion of this unusual, unexpected blossoming of love between two male teens who would otherwise never share air space.

The musical, inspired by Matthew Sweet's 1991 alternative rock album of the same title, takes the audience on a slow, but sweet journey to love.

This two-character musical, backed by a live, kick-ass, all-female rock band led by Julie Wolf and featuring Vivi Rama, Janet Robin and Jyn Yates, is now playing at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. 

The show takes place in Alliance, Neb., in 1993.

Will and Mike are leaving high school and about to embark on adulthood.  Mike, who loves music, is going away to college to study medicine in order to please his father. Will, who is just happy his high school days are over because of the lack of acceptance, is not sure what he’s going to do.

One day, unexpectedly, Will receives a call from Mike who invites him to the drive-in. Huh? Yeah!  The film, which Will doesn’t like but endures because he wants to get to know Mike, is apparently hilarious and very campy.  It’s a violent comic-book adventure about a nun who becomes a superhero and then morphs into a space alien.

When they first meet Mike gives Will a mixed tape of his favorite music. When he receives the tape, Will exclaims, "I thought: my life has finally become the musical I always suspected it was."

Mike, who has a girlfriend who attends a different school, has decided to throw caution to the wind and live in his own truth. While he’s still concerned about his reputation, he’s tired of the lies. On one of their drive-in dates, Will spots some of Mike’s friends in another car. Mike asks Will to duck down so no one can see them together. But as soon as Will complies, Mike regrets his requests and asks Will to sit up. He decides right then to stop the hiding.

Both Will and Mike are incredibly patient – to a fault.

After about a million trips to the drive-in to see the same movie, yes, the same movie, Will and Mike, who have only had superficial conversations that usually end up with one word answers like, “yep” and “ums,” finally decide to explore their feelings. First, it’s a simple touch, sitting closer and finally – du du duuuuu – the kiss.

Girlfriend is an incredibly romantic, sweet and touching story that could easily swap out the characters with two females, or a heterosexual couple. After all Love is Love!

Girlfriend, book by Todd Almond and directed by Les Waters, stars Ryder Bach and Curt Hansen. Choreography by Joe Goode, music and lyrics by Matthew Sweet.

Kudos to a fabulous set by David Zinn.

On the DONLOE SCALE: D (don’t bother), O (oh, no), N (needs work), L (likeable), O (oh, yeah), E (excellent), Girlfriend gets an E (excellent).

 Girlfriend, Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City; 8 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays; 8:30 p.m. Thursdays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; and 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays through Aug. 9; $25 to $59 (ticket prices subject to change); (213) 628-2772, www.centertheatregroup.org

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes, with no intermission.

James Bond Returns This Fall In 'Spectre'

A cryptic message from the past sends James Bond on a rogue mission to Mexico City and eventually Rome, where he meets Lucia Sciarra (Monica Bellucci), the beautiful and forbidden widow of an infamous criminal.  Bond infiltrates a secret meeting and uncovers the existence of the sinister organisation known as SPECTRE.  

Meanwhile back in London, Max Denbigh (Andrew Scott), the new head of the Centre for National Security, questions Bond's actions and challenges the relevance of MI6, led by M (Ralph Fiennes). Bond covertly enlists Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and Q (Ben Whishaw) to help him seek out Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), the daughter of his old nemesis Mr White (Jesper Christensen), who may hold the clue to untangling the web of SPECTRE. As the daughter of an assassin, she understands Bond in a way most others cannot . 

As Bond ventures towards the heart of SPECTRE, he learns of a chilling connection between himself and the enemy he seeks, played by Christoph Waltz.

  

Directed by:

Sam Mendes

  

Written by:

John Logan and Neal Purvis & Robert Wade

  

Produced by:

Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli  

  

Cast:  

Daniel Craig  

Christoph Waltz

Léa Seydoux

Naomie Harris

Ben Whishaw

David Bautista

with Monica Bellucci

and Ralph Fiennes as "M"

  

This film is not yet rated by the Motion Picture Association of America.  

August Wilson's 'Fences' Opens Aug. 21 at ICT

LONG BEACH, Calif. (July 21, 2015) — International City Theatre continues its 30th anniversary season with a production celebrating the 30th anniversary of a modern American classic: Fences by August Wilson. Gregg T. Daniel directs Wilson’s powerful drama for an August 21 opening at International City Theatre’s home in the Long Beach Performing Arts Center. Two low-priced previews are set for August 19 and 20.

Set in 1957, Fences is Wilson’s sixth entry in his ten-play “Century Cycle,” a decade-by-decade exploration of the black experience in 20th century America. Michael A. Shepperd stars in the story of Troy Maxson, a former Negro League home run king who was shut out of the big leagues by prejudice and is now a garbage collector with little future. Fences is considered by many to be Wilson at his best: challenging the American dream through a poetic, powerful and deeply personal story.

“Here in America whites have a particular view of blacks,” Wilson explained in an interview with The Paris Review. “I think my plays offer them a different way to look at black Americans. For instance, in Fences, they see a garbage man, a person they don’t really look at, although they see a garbage man every day. By looking at Troy’s life, white people find out that the content of this black garbage man’s life is affected by the same things — love, honor, beauty, betrayal, duty. Recognizing that these things are as much a part of his life as theirs can affect how they think about and deal with black people in their lives.”

“Blacks see the content of their lives being elevated into art,” he continued. “They don’t always know that it is possible, and it’s important for them to know that.”

Two years after its 1985 premiere at Yale Repertory Theatre, Fences opened on Broadway where it garnered Wilson’s first Pulitzer Prize as well as Drama Desk and Tony Awards for “Best Play.” A 2010 production garnered the play its second Tony, for “Best Revival.”

Michael A. Shepperd — best known to L.A. audiences as co-artistic director of the multiple award-winning Celebration Theatre, where his producing, directing and acting credits include The Color Purple, Four, The Women of Brewster Place, Take Me Out, Coffee Will Make You Black, [title of show] and numerous others — is joined on the ICT stage by Christopher Carringon (A Dr Juess Christmas at Sacred Fools) as Troy’s best friend, Jim Bono; Matt Orduña (Clybourne Park at San Diego Rep) as his brother, Gabriel; Karole Foreman (Wedding Band at Antaeus) as his loving but beleaguered wife, Rose; Jermelle Simon (Livin’ Ain’t Easy & Dyin’ Ain’t Beautiful at Theatre Theater) as their son, Cory; Theo Perkins (In the Red and Brown Water and The Brothers Size at the Fountain) as Lyons, Troy’s oldest son from a previous marriage; andMma-Syrai Alek (Wedding Band at Antaeus) as Troy’s young daughter, seven-year-old Raynell.

Largely self-educated, American playwright and poet August Wilson's plays center on the struggles and identity of ordinary African Americans and the deleterious effect of white American institutions on black American life. His works draw heavily on his own experience. His “Century” cycle of ten dramas (sometimes called the “Pittsburgh Cycle” because all the plays but one take place in the Hill district of Pittsburgh, the black ghetto where Wilson grew up) focuses on the major issues confronting African Americans during each of the decades of the 20th century. The cycle begins with Gem of the Ocean, set in 1904, and ends in the 1990s with his final play, Radio Golf. In between are Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1910s), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1920s), The Piano Lesson (1930s), Seven Guitars (1940s), Fences (1950s), Two Trains Running (1960s), Jitney (1970s) and King Hedley (1990s). Written out of chronological order over a period of more than 20 years, the plays include various overlapping characters and themes. “This cycle is unprecedented in American theater for its concept, size, and cohesion,” noted theater critic Christopher Rawson. John Lahr wrote in The New Yorker, “No one except perhaps Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams has aimed so high and achieved so much in the American theater.” Following Wilson’s death from cancer in 2005, the Virginia Theater on Broadway in New York City was renamed the August Wilson Theater, and in 2006 the African American Cultural Center of Greater Pittsburgh was renamed the August Wilson Center for African American Culture.

Gregg T. Daniel’s directing credits include Wedding Band: A Love Story in Black and White for the Antaeus Theatre Company (Stage Raw Awards for “Best Revival” and “Best Ensemble”) and the New Jersey premiere of playwright Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop at Cape May Stage. In 2013, he received a Best Director nomination from the NAACP Theatre Awards for the West Coast premiere of Kwame Kwei-Armah’s Elmina’s Kitchen. (The production won in the category of Best Ensemble.) For the Group Repertory Theatre, he directed a critically acclaimed production of Lee Blessing’s Cobb. Additionally for GRT, he has directed Tom Stoppard’s translation of Heroes and Frank McGuinness’s Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me. He is the artistic director and a founding member of Lower Depth Theatre Ensemble for which he directed the West Coast premiere of Mustapha Matura’s Three Sisters After Chekhov. He is a graduate of New York University’s School of the Arts and a member of the Antaeus Theatre Company.

Set design for Fences is by Don Llewellyn, lighting design is by Karen D. Lawrence; costume design is by Kim DeShazo, sound design is by Jeff Polunas, props are by Patty and Gordon Briles, wigs are by Anthony Gagliardi, fight choreography is by Edgar Landa, casting is by Michael Donovan Casting and the production stage manager is Victoria A. Gathe.

Fences runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., Aug. 21 through Sept. 13. Two preview performances take place on Wednesday, Aug. 19 and Thursday, Aug. 20 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $46 on Thursdays and Fridays, and $48 on Saturdays and Sundays, except opening night (Aug. 21), for which tickets are $54 and include a post-performance reception with the actors, and previews which are $34.

International City Theatre has formed a community partnership with the African American community in Long Beach to raise funds for college scholarships and to bring students to the production. A Community Partnership package, which includes a pre-performance Gala dinner as well as a post-show reception with the actors on opening night, is $125; tables of ten are available for $1,200. Community Partnership chairs: Dr. Minnie Douglas, Marva Lewis and Dr. Sharon Valear Robinson.

International City Theatre is located in the Long Beach Performing Arts Center at 300 E. Ocean Blvd. in Long Beach, CA 90802. For reservations and information, call the ICT Box Office at 562-436-4610 or www.InternationalCityTheatre.org.

'Sinister 2' In Theatres Nationwide August 28

Directed By: Ciarán Foy

Written By: Scott Derrickson & C. Robert Cargill

Starring: James Ransone, Shannyn Sossamon, Lea Coco, Robert and Dartanian Sloan

Sinister 2 is the chilling sequel to the 2012 sleeper hit horror movie. In the aftermath of the shocking events in Sinister, the evil spirit of Bughuul continues to spread with frightening intensity. The new story is a scary, suspenseful race against time to save a family from falling prey to the madness, movies, and murder conjured by Bughuul and his foot soldiers, the ghost kids.

9-year-old twins Dylan and Zach Collins (portrayed by real-life brothers Robert and Dartanian Sloan) have been spirited away by their mother Courtney (Shannyn Sossamon of Wayward Pines) to a rural house in Illinois. The home and property are just isolated enough to evade Courtney’s estranged husband Clint (Lea Coco), who has abused her and Dylan. This protective mother is unaware that the house itself is marked for death…

…but Ex-Deputy So & So (James Ransone, reprising his Sinister role), now a private investigator, has deduced that the family’s hideout is the next manifestation spot for Bughuul. Determined to avenge the tragedy he was privy to while on the police force, So & So journeys to the rural residence, intending to burn it to the ground and thereby end Bughuul’s chain of death. Finding Courtney and the twins there, he realizes that they are in danger from Clint and that he must step in to help them before he can implement a plan of attack against Bughuul. 

What neither Courtney nor So & So are aware of is how the ghost kids have already been unsettling Dylan with their disturbing “home movies,” each more sinister than the last…

Rating: R

'American Ultra' Opens Nationwide August 21

American Ultra is a fast-paced action comedy about Mike (Eisenberg), a seemingly hapless and unmotivated stoner whose small-town life with his live-in girlfriend, Phoebe (Stewart), is suddenly turned upside down.  Unbeknownst to him, Mike is actually a highly trained, lethal sleeper agent. In the blink of an eye, as his secret past comes back to haunt him, Mike is thrust into the middle of a deadly government operation and is forced to summon his inner action-hero in order to survive. 

Directed by: Nima Nourizadeh

Written by: Max Landis

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Connie Britton, Topher Grace, Tony Hale, John Leguizamo, Bill Pullman & Walton Goggins

Produced by: Anthony Bregman, Kevin Frakes, Raj Brinder Singh, David Alpert, Britton Rizzio

Genre: Action/Comedy

Cast Announced For 'The Sound Of Music'

Music by RICHARD RODGERS

Lyrics by OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II

Book by HOWARD LINDSAY and RUSSEL CROUSE

Suggested by “The Trapp Family Singers” by Maria Augusta Trapp

Directed by JACK O’BRIEN

NEW NATIONAL TOUR LAUNCHES AT 

THE CENTER THEATRE GROUP / AHMANSON THEATRE

SEPTEMBER 20 – OCTOBER 31, 2015

TICKETS GO ON SALE TODAY, JULY 21

Casting has been announced for the brand new production of “The Sound of Music,” directed by three-time Tony Award® winner Jack O’Brien. This lavish new production launches this September at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, under the auspices of Center Theatre Group, and will then tour North America for multiple seasons, playing multi-week and week-long engagements. 

To purchase tickets for the Ahmanson Theatre presentation, visit www.CenterTheatreGroup.org, call (213) 972-4400 or visit the Center Theatre Group box office at the Ahmanson Theatre. Ticket prices start at $25.  The Ahmanson Theatre is located at the Music Center, 135 N. Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, 90012.

Ben Davis (Broadway’s “Violet,” “A Little Night Music,” “La Bohème”) will play Captain Georg von Trapp and Ashley Brown (Broadway’s “Mary Poppins,” NBC’s “The Sound of Music”) will play The Mother Abbess with Merwin Foard as Max Detweiler, Teri Dale Hansen as Elsa Schraeder, Dan Tracy as Rolf and Paige Silvester as Liesl. The von Trapp children will be played by Erich Schuett (Friedrich), Maria Knasel (Louisa), Quinn Erickson (Kurt), Svea Johnson (Brigitta), Mackenzie Currie (Marta) and Audrey Bennett (Gretl).

Jack O’Brien’s introduces his brand new discovery, Kerstin Anderson, as Maria Rainer.  A current student at Pace University, Anderson won the coveted role from hundreds who auditioned.  This will be her first national tour. 

'Fire Music' Doc Looks At Free Jazz Revolution

JULY 21, 2015 (New York)--FIRE MUSIC is a feature length documentary currently in production, which tells the definitive history of the Free Jazz revolution. Directed by Tom Surgal, produced by Dan Braun, and executive produced by Thurston Moore and Nels Cline, the film seeks to tell the story of an irrepressible art form that has inspired generations of fans the world over. 

FIRE MUSIC will launch a KICKSTARTER Campaign today to complete the documentary and bring the project to film festivals and theaters for fans across the globe to enjoy.

Commenting on the project, Executive Producer Thurston Moore stated: “Free Jazz is liberation, is the excitement of the new and now….. It is with respect, passion and knowledge that Tom Surgal captures the significance of this self proclaimed “Fire Music.” His work, like its subject, shines for the collective call of beauty and unity.”

FIRE MUSIC seeks to preserve this vital history and the music of a criminally ignored art form that has gone cinematically undocumented for far too long.

Free Jazz is one of the original outsider art forms that broke all the rules. Spearheaded by legendary mavericks like John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, it is the cultural precursor to all the other musical protest scenes that followed, such as Punk, Hardcore and Hip Hop. It gave voice to a disenfranchised generation galvanized by the burgeoning civil rights and anti-war movements. 

In the late 1950s, when the Abstract Expressionists took the art world by storm and The Beats forever changed the face of literature, a new radical form of Jazz erupted from New York's Lower East Side. This new music was a far cry from the toe-tapping, post Bebop sound of the Jazz mainstream popular in the day. This was an angry form of Jazz that mirrored the more turbulent times in which it was being played. 

The coming together of these like-minded artists, iconic figures such as Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Eric Dolphy and Pharoah Sanders, was a historic occasion. Like the Dadaists, the Lost Generation and the Italian Neo-Realists before them, the early progenitors of the Free Jazz scene were initially met with skepticism and outright disdain. They were accused of being anti-Jazz and the music they played was dismissed as being pure noise. Undeterred by their critics, they would soldier on in relative obscurity and in the process create one of the most influential bodies of work of the contemporary age. 

Interviews, archival footage, and live performances combine to depict the sights and sounds of some of the most influential artists of the period including:

Sam Rivers, Wadada Leo Smith, Oliver Lake, John Tchicai, Roswell Rudd, Noah Howard, Dave Burrell, Marshall Allen, Prince Lasha, Sonny Simmons, Bobby Bradford, Sirone, Rashied Ali, Gato Barbieri, Evan Parker, Gunter Hampel, Han Bennink, Peter Brotzmann, Barry Guy, Paul Lytton, Keith Rowe, Gunter Baby Sommer, Trevor Watts,Tristan Honsinger, Joseph Jarman, and renowned Jazz historian and six time Grammy winner Gary Giddins.

Live, never before seen concert footage includes performances by: Peter Brotzman, Han Bennink, Gunter Baby Sommer, Urlich Gumpert, Dave Burrell, Paul Lytton, Ken Vandemark, Evan Parker, Gunter Hampel and Marshell Allen.

FIRE MUSIC is led by writer/ director Tom Surgal who is known for directing a series of groundbreaking music videos for leading alternative bands like Sonic Youth, Pavement and the Blues Explosion. Tom was a teenage protégé of Brian DePalma and has worked in a wide range of film production jobs, including production design, casting and writing. Tom is also a working musician who performs regularly with Nels Cline (Wilco), Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Jim O'Rourke and Mike Watt (Minutemen, The Stooges) and is co-leader of the improvisational ensemble White Out. He is also a curator who has programmed a number of celebrated music series at various downtown New York venues, including an entire month of shows at John Zorn's hallowed performance space The Stone.

Tom is also recognized as a leading authority on Avant-garde Jazz and boasts one the world's largest collections of Free Jazz recordings. 

Dan Braun, co-president of one of the top documentary production and sales companies, Submarine Entertainment, produces the project. Dan recently produced Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival and executive produced the award-winning documentary “Kill Your Idols” and the No Wave documentary “Blank City. Dan is also an Executive Producer on the recently released base-jumping documentary “Sunshine Superman.” 

Dan's company, Submarine Entertainment has represented and sold the Oscar winning documentaries “Searching for Sugar Man,” “20 Ft from Stardom,” “Man on Wire” and “The Cove.” Other films in the companies portfolio include “NAS Time is Illmatic,” “Muscle Shoals,” “Tales of the Grim Sleeper,” “Citizenfour,” “Keep on Keepin On,” “The Great Invisible,” “Blackfish,” “Cutie and the Boxer,” “Winter's Bone,” “Bill Cunningham NY,” “Tiny Furniture,” “Queen of Versailles,” “Chasing Ice,” “Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me,” “Super Size Me” and many more.

Executive producers are musicians Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) and Nels Cline (Wilco). ranked respectively #99 and # 82 on Rolling Stone' s rating of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". 

(Photo Credit: Fire Music Graphic Background Image: Eddie Gale/Ghetto Music. Design by Forlenza Venosa Associates. Photos by Richard Graf )

VIDEO SNEAK PEEK OF FIRE MUSIC:

Live Performance the immortal Marshall Allen (current leader of the Sun Ra Arkestra) shot at the Arkestra House, Sun Ra's legendary compound in Philadelphia:

https://vimeo.com/12239318

PW: firemusic

Social Media:

https://www.facebook.com/FIREMUSICFILM

http://www.instagram.com/firemusicfilm

http://www.twitter.com/firemusicfilm