With his new album, Year Of The Living Dead, out today, February 26, 2021 on Kompakt, Vienna-born and LA-based producer John Tejada finds a blissful extended moment of balance between the new and the familiar. Anyone who’s followed his career to date, which has included four previous albums for Kompakt, outings for storied labels like Plug Research, Playhouse and Cocoon, and numerous remixes and collaborations–most recently, his Wajatta duo with comedian and musician Reggie Watts–will immediately sense the warmth and eloquence that Tejada brings to his gilded, pliant techno and electro hybrids. But there’s more here, too; an explorer’s glimmer in the producer’s eye, as he gets to grips with new ways of working and being, while offering a reflective opening for the listener, something echoed in artwork by graphic designer and ‘contemplative artist’ David Grey.

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Wajatta — the musical duo of Reggie Watts and John Tejada — return with their second album, Don’t Let Get You Down, due out on the groundbreaking Brainfeeder label on February 28, 2020. Coming from different worlds, but sharing a passion for the rich history of electronic music, beat-boxer/comedian/musician Watts and electronic music artist/DJ/producer Tejada brings out the best in each other’s formidable skill sets. Where the duo’s debut album, Casual High Technology, hinted at the broad stylistic possibilities inherent in the marriage of Watts’ elastic, soul-stirring vocals and Tejada’s layered, melodically inventive productions, Don’t Let Get You Down makes good on that promise.

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4 Times Entertainment in association with The Montalbán is pleased to announce the World Premiere of The Soul of Broadway – Impossible Dreams starring Terron Brooks with musical direction by Mark Vogel on Sunday, November 3, 2019. This special one-night-only concert experience, produced and directed by Brian Purcell and choreographed by Leah Seminario, will bring a fresh perspective to Broadway songs—including classic and contemporary favorites —as Brooks reinterprets them all. The award-winning Brooks, best known for portraying Eddie Kendricks in NBC’s Emmy Award-winning miniseries The Temptations, has starred on Broadway in The Lion King as Simba and Hairspray as Seaweed.

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Electronic music-based nonprofit Give a Beat launched the Prison Electronic Music Program in two California correctional facilities in July 2019 as part of a contract awarded by California Arts Council’s Arts in Corrections (AIC) program. The goal of Give a Beat’s year-long program—which focuses on the fundamentals of DJing and beat production—is to help students develop their own sound expressions and technical acumen while also learning business development and music history. It is designed to help students return to the workforce with valuable technical, social, and entrepreneurial skills. Led by passionate DJs and music producers, currently the course is being taught at California City Correctional Facility (CAC) and Kern Valley State Prison (KVSP). This first Prison Electronic Music Program will run through June 2020. It is Give a Beat’s most expansive and long-term music production offering/course to date.

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Saudade Theatre, the first Portuguese theatre company in the United States, presents the World Premiere of My Favorite Suicide, written and directed by acclaimed Portuguese playwright Mickaël de Oliveira, in a co-production with Lisbon-based theatre company Colectivo 84. My Favorite Suicide is an apocalyptic play that pits society and nature against each other, in which one extreme situation is debated in the context of another, even more, extreme circumstance. Performances of My Favorite Suicide will run from Friday, October 18 through Sunday, November 3, 2019, at 905 Cole Theatre at Anthony Meindl’s Actor Workshop in Hollywood, CA. 

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Highways Performance Space presents American Standard: A Story of Enough, written by and starring Lilly Bright. Directed by award-winning soloist performer, Valerie Hager, American Standard will run from Thursday, September 19 through Saturday, September 28, 2019. This original solo show is based on Bright’s true life story of surviving a near two-decade battle with bulimia and various “not-enough” demons, propelling her on an often comical, always poignant search for a cure, resulting in discovery of a path to imperfect wholeness and, ultimately, the courage to finally feel enough. 

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William Shakespeare’s Macbeth gets a daring new production in Downtown LA’s arts district thanks to 134 West. Directed by Alyssa Escalante, this Macbeth, set in a near future desert landscape, will have a limited engagement at Art Share L.A. from Thursday, August 15 through Saturday, September 7, 2019. Produced by Susan Lambert Hatem, Macbeth persists as one of Shakespeare’s most popular and most produced plays because of its deeply human themes. And yet, there remains so much to be discovered in its haunting poetry. 

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Coin & Ghost, LA’s theatrical home for remixed mythologies, will present its latest World premiere, Bad Hamlet, at the end of July, as the inaugural production of its second season. The emerging theatre company’s new work—devised by the ensemble and directed by Rob Adler—is an irreverent, interactive, and inventive play that places Shakespeare’s masterpiece directly up against the many interpretations of it, whether accurate, misremembered, or re-invented entirely. Bad Hamlet will run from Thursday, July 25, through Saturday, August 24, 2019, at New American Theatre in Hollywood. The first show will be the designated preview performance, with opening night taking place on Friday, July 26th. Read the rest of this entry »

Hollywood’s drunkest magic show, DIRTY TRICKS w/ The New Bad Boys of Magic, enters its second smash(ed) year at the newly renovated Three Clubs. Headliners at the world-famous Magic Castle, The New Bad Boys of Magic (aka Daniel Donohue and Eric Siegel), are back to shock and delight audiences with their signature brand of NSFW character comedy and top-notch illusions. Joining them for each performance—generally running on the third Sunday of each month—is a rotating cast of the world’s foremost professional prestidigitators. Audience members (21-and-over, please) arrive early to grab drinks and enjoy close-up magic performed right at their tables. Co-produced by Greg Karber, the next DIRTY TRICKS event is scheduled for Sunday, July 21, 2019. Michael Rayner—a comedian and juggler seen on The Late, Late Show with James Corden, David Letterman and America’s Got Talent—is confirmed to join the debauchery. Read the rest of this entry »

Coin & Ghost, LA’s theatrical home for remixed mythologies, is thrilled to announce its second season: MYTH-REMEMBERED. The emerging theatre company will launch its season with the World Premiere of Bad Hamlet, an irreverent, interactive, and inventive play that places Shakespeare’s masterpiece directly up against the many interpretations of it, whether accurate, misremembered, or re-invented entirely. Devised by the ensemble and directed by Rob Adler, Bad Hamlet will run from Thursday, July 25th, through Saturday, August 24, 2019, at New American Theatre in Hollywood. The first show will be the designated preview performance, with opening night taking place on Friday, July 26th. Read the rest of this entry »