Nonprofit organization Overtone Industries presents the world premiere of its new opera The Woman in the Wall, with two weekends of performances opening Friday, March 23, 2012 at the Masonic Lodge in Culver City.  Reuniting the award-winning Overtone creative team of the critically-acclaimed 2010 Songs & Dances of Imaginary Lands, The Woman in the Wall is an operatic work by Composer O-Lan Jones and Librettist Kathleen Cramer, conducted by David O, and produced by Vibrant Production Management.  Inspired by the 14th Century tradition of The Anchoress, the opera is a “mystery play” in the ancient tradition; it explores the openings and paths inside that are revealed when all doors are locked shut.  For more information, please see http://www.overtoneindustries.org and https://www.facebook.com/overtoneindustries

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The Industry presents the world premiere of Crescent City, a hyperopera by composer Anne LeBaron and librettist Douglas Kearney, under the direction of Yuval Sharon, from Thursday, May 10 to Sunday, May 27, 2012 at Atwater Crossing in Los Angeles.  The massive new site-specific production, which audiences will experience in 360-degrees, is set in a mythical cityscape with abstract sets by an extraordinary group of six LA-based installation artists. The installations will be on view on select days for the run of the production, then transformed in the evening with performances of the opera.  For more information, www.TheIndustryLA.org.

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Photo credit Jeff Woodward.

501 (see three) ARTS and Highways Performance Space present Who’s Hungry -Santa Monica, part of an ongoing series of experimental tabletop puppet plays that give a voice and face to hunger, with four performances on Fridays and Saturdays from January 27 to February 4, 2012.  The plays, produced and written by Dan Froot, designed and directed by Dan Hurlin, with music by Amy Denio (a Meet The Composer commission), aim to raise awareness of the lives of those of us who, on a daily basis, must choose between life’s basic necessities – food or rent, food or medicine, food or bus fare. The upcoming production weaves together the stories of five homeless and/or hungry residents of Santa Monica, California, incorporating puppetry, dance, music, and text.

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Arts organization Create:Fixate (C:F) celebrates 10 years of existence with its next exhibit I Art You on Saturday, February 11, 2012 at the Premiere Events Center in Downtown Los Angeles. C:F’s signature blend features vibrant artwork and music produced by over forty local artists, DJs, and musicians. The excitement begins at 4:00pm with a three-hour gallery preview.  The main event starts at 7:00pm and closes at 2:00am.  Admission is $15.00 before 9:00pm and $20.00 for the remainder of the night. Premiere Events Center is located at 613 Imperial St., Los Angeles, CA 90021. For more information, including an image gallery of participating artists works, please visit www.createfixate.com. C:F can be reached by phone at 310-590-7199 for other inquiries.

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Hybrid Cinema, The Colburn School and the California Dance Institute (CDI) are pleased to announce the Los Angeles premiere of the feature length documentary Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance at Zipper Concert Hall at The Colburn School on Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 8:00pm.  Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance, directed by Bob Hercules, is the first film to chronicle how the legendary Joffrey Ballet revolutionized American ballet by daringly combining modern dance with traditional ballet.  The Los Angeles premiere will include a Q&A immediately following the screening moderated by Sasha Anawalt, Director, Arts Journalism Programs at USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, with panelists Leslie Carothers-Aromaa, Artistic Director of the Colburn School’s Trudl Zipper Dance Institute, Carole Valleskey, Founder and Director of CDI, Francoise Martinet Moriarty, former Joffrey dancer from the company’s earliest days in the late 1950s, and Jodie Gates, Artistic Director of the Laguna Beach Dance Festival, Associate Professor of Dance at UC Irvine and former Joffrey principal dancer.

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Save the Date:  The Industry presents the world premiere of Crescent City, starting Thursday, May 10, 2012 at Atwater Crossing in Los Angeles. The hyperopera is by composer Anne LeBaron, widely recognized for her work in instrumental, electronic, and performance realms, and librettist Douglas Kearney, a poet, performer and recipient of the Whiting Writer’s Award, and it incorporates installations by six contemporary LA-based artists.  Crescent City, directed by Yuval Sharon, tells the epic story of a mythical city, decimated by one hurricane and on the verge of being wiped off the face of the earth by another, and the voodoo priestess determined to save it. A roving band of revelers spreads chaos throughout the streets of the city, capturing the action of the opera with live video along the way.  www.TheIndustryLA.org
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(Photo credit: Fredrik Nilsen)

The Society for the Activation of Social Space Through Art and Sound (SASSAS) will transform Eagle Rock’s Welcome Inn into a six-hour tour through key moments in LA’s experimental music history with Welcome Inn Time Machine on Sunday, January 29, 2012.  Over a dozen concurrent micro concerts will transform individual motel rooms into venues for installations and live performances allowing key moments in Southern California sound and music history to be experienced simultaneously and sequentially in a single location. Welcome Inn Time Machine runs from 4:00pm to 10:00pm. The event is free.   Read the rest of this entry »

Photo credit: Jeff Woodward

501 (see three) ARTS and Highways Performance Space present Who’s Hungry – Santa Monica, part of an ongoing series of experimental tabletop puppet plays that give a voice and face to hunger, with four performances on Fridays and Saturdays from January 27 to February 4, 2012.  The plays, produced and written by Dan Froot, designed and directed by Dan Hurlin, with music by Amy Denio (a Meet The Composer commission), aim to raise awareness of the lives of those of us who, on a daily basis, must choose between life’s basic necessities – food or rent, food or medicine, food or bus fare. The upcoming production weaves together the stories of five homeless and/or hungry residents of Santa Monica, California, incorporating puppetry, dance, music, and text. Read the rest of this entry »

Due out on October 31, 2011, William Castle Productions proudly presents House on Haunted Hill: A William Castle Annotated Screamplay. The book features legendary horror filmmaker William Castle’s authentic working script from his 1959 classic thriller with original formatting and Castle’s own hand-written notes.  This collector’s item even comes with a new twist on Castle’s famous theater gimmick, Emerg-O. The 248-page book includes a foreword by acclaimed director Joe Dante (Gremlins, The Howling, Matinee), hailing the book as “an important artifact.” It also includes an introduction by William’s daughter, Terry Castle, who shares her personal thoughts on this seminal piece of film history. A critical perspective of the film by writer and illustrator Charlie Largent is also included as well as a special welcome from William Castle himself. The Screamplay will be available in print for $24.99 via Amazon and select retailers through the recently resurrected William Castle Productions (ISBN-13: 978-0578092928).

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Award-winning photographer Sam Comen’s first solo exhibition, 28 at 28, premieres with an installation of over 100 works at Culver City’s NextSpace starting on Saturday, October 22, 2011.  28 at 28 is a serial portraiture study that captures the evolving lives of Comen’s peer group in a crisp, saturated style.  Comen unveils the first three years of this new body of work at a free public reception on October 22, 2011 from 6:00 to 9:00pm – on his 31st birthday. The choice of this date to debut the ongoing project calls attention to time’s passage, the integral throughline in 28 at 28. The two-story atrium of NextSpace will be transformed into a larger-than life timeline of Comen’s subjects in a taxonomic display of environmental and studio photographs. Beverages will be provided by Crispin Cider. The exhibition will run for three months through Sunday, January 22, 2012.

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