war |wôr| noun a…read morestate of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state The Barbara & Lawrence Fleischman Theatre at the Getty Villa once again serves to educate, to evoke, to entertain with this years' production "Persians". War by New Oxford American Dictionary definition (above), its impact on people, hasn't changed much since "Persians" author Aeschylus fought in the 472 B.C. waged at sea, Battle of Salamis, documented his experience eight years later with this play. Spears then, hackers, drones today, always boots on the ground... "Persians": September 4 -27 Tickets: http://www.getty.edu/museum/programs/performances/outdoor_theater_14.html

Located inside the Getty Villa you will find an outdoor amphitheater fit for the Gods. With the…read moreentrance to the museum being the center stage the backdrop to all performances is breathtaking. The Outdoor Classical Theater performances start in September and run through the first week of October. They alternate between Comedy and Tragedy from year to year. I watched 2009's comedy production of Aristophanes' Peace by Culture Clash and it was outstanding! From the actors themselves, to the sound, lighting, props and costumes these OCT performances at the Villa are truly a great show. I think the ticket cost is slightly on the high side ($40 per ticket) but the performances run about 90 minutes so you get your moneys worth. Cushions are put down for seating but I recommend dressing on the warmer side and bringing a blanket as the ocean mist rolls in pretty thick in the evening. The Cafe on site offers boxed meal pre-orders for the shows. If you miss the pre-order cut off not to worry as the Cafe is open for concessions and offer the same menu as well as beer and wine (No Red wine though as it stains the theater seating area and cushions when spilled). Yes I know we are all adults but at the performance last year the lady next to me kicked her wine glass all over on the lady sitting in the row in front of us. The lady was wearing all white. Can you imagine if red wine was served. Eek Gods! So no red wine. It stains and is not fun. This year in 2010 the performance Elektra, is a drama which is a continuation of 2008's Agamemnon. I did not see Agamemnon but was able to catch on pretty quickly to the story line. Tess M. was also kind enough to send me a cheat sheet link so I was able to read up on good ol' Agamemnon before I saw the complete show of Elektra. I would say that the OCT performances at the Villa are definitely worth seeing at least once. Just pick the right poison for you (comedy or tragedy) and sit back and enjoy the show.

How could it be possible that I am the first to review this amazing camp!?!…read more Maybe none of the other parents want to share the info so they don't have to compete for spots when enrollment comes around. That's a shame because EVERYONE should know about CCLO My kids were lucky enough to go there for one summer and I knew right away that this place was incredible. Diane, the teacher, is tireless. She knows how to stage a show and get these kids looking and sounding great. The kids learn all aspects of putting on a grand musical, from costuming and set building to singing, dancing and acting. If you have a kid, and six weeks to devote to a fantastic experience, send them here!

As a fan of both CASA 0101 and Little Casa, I think this is a great new addition to the Theatre Row…read moredeveloping in Boyle Heights on First Street. I attended their first event, "Naked" Stage Nights, to support my friends on Jan. 22nd and really enjoyed seeing young artists presenting their new and raw work. Playwrights, actors, singer/ songwriters, poets. Another monthly show offered there on the fourth Thursday of every month is Ah...Awkward! It's intimate night of just anyone getting on stage and sharing and embarrassing and or awkward experience. This show is kind of like stand-up because most of the stories are pretty fun. I've also attended the playwriting classes taught by Josefina Lopez and have really enjoyed them.

Everything! They were on time and performance was great, including getting the audience to…read moreparticipate. Sandra was very helpful and made sure all went well. I would give them 10 out of 10!

We absolutely loved the Samba dancers ! Sandra and the…read moregirls were absolutely amazing , friendly, so professional!! The show was perfect !! My son really enjoyed this as a surprise birthday gift . Definitely saved in my contacts for our next party!!!!

Fantastic. Actual live performance along side movie clips from the original movie. The Wallis…read moreAnnenberg Center in Beverly Hills is awesome. I plan to come back again for the annual holiday show and probably attend a few more shows in-between. Highly recommended.

This is by the far the worst show that I have ever seen in my entire life and the biggest waste of…read moremoney. I am a HUGE theater lover and I feel as though both my time and money were taken from me unjustly. I laughed and cried for all the wrong reasons. Save yourself the time and money and stay home and watch the movie instead.

I read David Auburn in college and was thrilled to finally get to see a production of "Proof" at…read morethis theatre. I'm partial to small theatres such as this, because they're not beholden to a big board/big donors/investors who dictate what they should should produce. Don't get me wrong, I love big theatres and big productions as well, however I do believe that smaller theatres do have more creative freedom and just more creative in general. When you have less funds to work with - if you're truly passionate and good at what you do- you'll figure out out a way to make things work. And this theatre gets it! It was my first time here and I'm so glad I dragged the Mr out as he enjoyed this production as much as I did! Not only did they pick a great play to produce, but the casting was great. I look forward to see what else they produce in the future! Plenty of parking on the streets in front of the theatre! The theatre is across from the Helen Bernstein High School. Cheers!

Circus Theatricals, an icon of Los Angeles theatre since 1983, has rebranded as The New American…read moreTheatre, which is an apt title considering the show of theirs I saw most recently. The show, called Titus Redux was just that: an original American-ized rendering of Shakespeare's bloodiest play, Titus Andronicus. New American's Founder and Artistic Director Jack Stehlin was mesmerizing in the lead role of war-weary officer Titus, here presented as returning home after presumably several tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. His wayward wife Tamora was played to the hilt by the equally daring and sultry Brenda Strong in a re-imagining of the classic that was as visually stimulating as it was provocative. Integrating film, acrobatics and indie rock, Titus Redux was an absolute triumph. It seems silly that Broadway continues to waste superfluous millions on Spider-Man while shows like this exist on a shoestring budget and only get a month-long run in LA. Such is life. Fortunately, Stehlin and his colleagues are a relentless and plucky crew armed with a slate of three indelibly American plays. To christen the New American mantle, the group will present Robert Anderson's I Never Sang For My Father from March 26 - May 1 at McCadden Theatre, As-Is by William Hoffman, and the World Premiere of Chuck Rose's Bedfellows. They also operate The New American Studio for Actors, offering several weekly acting classes designed to immerse students in a professional Stanislavski-based approach to the craft at an affordable price. The Studio invites actors from all backgrounds and ethnicities to audition for their Ensemble, whom BackStage called "a dynamic ensemble of committed artists." I auditioned and it's been the best decision I've made since I moved to LA!

We saw the Marriage of Figaro and LOVED it!…read more Everything was superb...the Orchestra, the Singers, the Costumes and the Set Design.... The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was the venue and the show was perfect

The problem is... no one gives a r**s *ss for the OPERA anymore. This is not the fault of anyone…read moreor anything except for the fact that the art world has not evolved with the times. Opera, Classical Music. In its pure and unadulterated form, is beautiful, without comparison, to any other "thing" that man has created. It is alone. It is the basis of many genres like rap, hip hop, rock, blues, etc. If a person did not appreciate classical music... then they were considered "lessor than". Very problematIc and very concerning concept considering how advanced we are today. Pavarotti and Domingo aside...(whom I've met)... the donors and patrons of the opera society have not figured out a way to "survive". From New York, to LA, to Paris, and Miami, I have been witness to and been honored to hear and experience the top classical performers of the world. Why? Because I enjoy classical music and I understand it. You can't be trained in music theory and not understand... The very fact, that people think that "good music" is only in the hands of the privileged...is disturbing. It is also not true. It is taken me a very long time to understand and enjoy hip hop/ rap/ base.... etc. It is not fair to think that I wouldn't and couldn't understand it. In fact, I LOVE it beyond all else! The ONLY way Opera is going to turn itself around is if it incorporates ALL of the other musical genres in order to create one giant spectacle for the entire world to see!

HARD PASS!!! The New Media Film Festival should be called the "Festival of Trailers."…read more Jess.R's review is 100% accurate! I want to start by saying I WON Best Pilot at this festival, and I'm leaving a 1-star review! I have removed their laurel from my website and any mentionings of this festival on my social media. You're going to be paying upwards of $86 to submit to a "festival" only to showcase your TRAILER! After I was accepted, I was told that the NMFF will only be showcasing trailers for the pilot category. Once I arrived at the festival, I quickly realized that 98% of the "nominees" were also forced to showcase their trailers, which makes no sense because all of our trailers are already available for public viewing on YouTube or Vimeo. My 1-minute trailer was "projected" from someone's laptop instead of the DCP of my 26-minute pilot. The whole point of film festival is to showcase your work in its entirety! There aren't $45,000 worth of prizes! The only prizes are other nominee's "artwork" that isn't even meant to be printed on foam core. One person literally won the "festival's" hideous schedule that was printed on foam core! The "press" you'll receive is only from completely unknown publications. The "photographer" on the "red carpet" clearly wasn't a professional photographer and didn't understand proper composition when taking photos. All in all, I was able to laugh at the absurdity of the poor quality of this "festival" with some lovely filmmakers. I will NEVER submit to this "festival" ever again. I would even dare to call this festival a SCAM!

I would also like to warn other filmmakers against submitting to this festival. I attended the 2024…read moreNMFF and found the entire experience unpleasant. First off, some transparency, for this year's festival, it was a 2 day festival. The first day was entirely digital (presenting accepted submissions online for ticket buyers to watch), and the second day was in person (movie theater viewing of another batch of submissions that lasted roughly an hour to an hour and a half of actual content to watch. If you take into account the 32 different categories they accept, and the very little time that the festival actually has to present those accepted submissions, you get a clear idea of what this festival is after. Here's a list of all the categories you can submit to (as of this post): ANIMATION any length, AR, AI, ER, 5D, XR, UHD, HDR, ART, Children, DIGITAL COMICS any length, DOCUMENTARY any length, DRONE, FAITH and FAMILY, FEATURE LENGTH - Media over 30 minutes, GAMES/ Gaming, METAVERSE, MIXED REALITY, MOBILE/TABLET any length, Music Only - NO VIDEOS, MUSIC VIDEO any length, NEW MEDIA any length, NFT, Photographs Only - NO VIDEOS, PILOT any length,  PITCHING, PODCAST, SCRIPTS, Script Feedback - add on to Scripts category only, SHORTS any length, SR - SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE any length, STEAM-Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math any length, STUDENT any length, TRAILER under 3 minutes, TELEVISION, VIRTUAL REALITY & 360, WEB SERIES any length.) It doesn't take a brain surgeon to piece together that a festival casting such a wide and unspecific net is more focused on taking your submission fee than by offering anything in return. The festival itself was incredibly disappointing. During the screening itself, which was at LOOK Cinemas in Glendale (a fine chain of theaters), the films shown were 90 percent trailers, which came as a shock to every festival attendee I spoke to. There was no direction or focus in the programming, or in the curation/order of the content, or in the event as a whole. After a "technical malfunction" halfway through the screening, we as the audience became witness to the Laptop Desktop screen that was playing the films. No DCP playlist (which I'm 100% sure the theater would've provided a technician for), and not even a mixed or mastered level of volume across the films (resulting in some film trailers being incredibly quite and some incredibly loud, which then resulted in shouts from the audience to turn the volume down). The films were being cued up, double clicked, and shown from a folder on a PC, which also meant that the larger trailer files (like mine and many others) BUFFERED the ENTIRE way through, resulting in skipping/lagging images and unsyncd audio! You have only to ask yourself, if the festival director cares this little about the quality of even presenting the work, then clearly she cares so little about the quality of the work itself or the quality of the festival. I was legitimately dumbfounded after my feeling of utter insult faded away. Oh also, someone messed up and clearly didn't QC any of this, because 1 of the film trailers was in an unsupported file format and so couldn't be played on the laptop. And another, which was programmed, wasn't even there at all to be played! A fact we as the audience and the festival director came to realize in real time as we watched her fumble through folders on her laptop to try and locate the file (resulting in shouts from the audience "try DRIVE E, no down, DOWN, TO THE LEFT, DRIVE E, LOCAL DRIVE E, TRY THAT OTHER FOLDER". The file was never located. I had not drank enough wine for any of this. Also the "Q&A" which she "moderated" was as tacky as everything else. Really hard hitting, thoughtless, insightful questions like "what was your inspiration when starting this project?", "what's a one word piece of advice you'd give to another person starting their project?". These questions were written down on a piece of paper, but clearly she didn't count how many questions she'd need because when she ran out of pieces of paper, she started from the top again and started the questions all over again! "what's a one word piece of advice you'd give to another person starting their project?". I could literally go on, but now I'm tired and should be working. The level of disrespect for the craft of filmmaking and creativity was personally insulting, and the unprofessional quality and rudeness (in basically all email exchanges, and frankly in some of the director's Q&A banter) as well as the shoddiness on display during festival, leads me to feel personally like I was taken advantage of as a submitter. There's clearly no other conclusion one can make than that the New Media Film Festival is a scam, meant tot take your money and run and give nothing back.