Art & Literature Reviews
Art just off the freeway
Lincoln Avenue just north of the roaring Foothill (210) Freeway is a residential street where cars barrel up and down the road.
'Beyond Brancusi' invites a study of sculpture's space
Curator Leah Lehmbeck has been associated with the Norton Simon Museum for the last five years and was responsible for 2011's incisive-yet-panoramic "Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in Southern California" survey.
Inside the Huntington story
"Masterpiece Theatre" has nothing on the real-life, rags-to-riches saga that led to the founding of the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino.
Finding state-of-the-art tradition
The young contemporary Japanese artists whose work is most often put before us are typically splashy and bold. Recall last year's Pacific Asia Museum show of graphic works by Gaijin Fujita, with its exploding color and colliding imagery. The new PAM exhibition by Takashi Tomo-Oka is a comparative...
Dennis Reed to discuss 'Japanese American Photography' book at Glendale Central Library
Back in 1977, Dennis Reed read something that intrigued him: There once had been a vibrant society of Japanese American photographers, including first-rate modernists, but with the advent of World War II and U.S. internment camps, all of their work had been lost. “Nothing survived,”...
Armenian American painter Arthur Pinajian being shown and sold locally
For decades, artist Arthur Pinajian created vivid, abstract canvases under the cover of anonymity, painting thousands of landscapes and figure studies in varying abstract Expressionist styles. He worked out of a small cottage in Bellport, N.Y. that belonged to his sister Armen — it was here...
The Second City comes to Glendale's Alex Theatre
A staggering amount of modern American comedy has passed across the stages of The Second City, the acclaimed improv group headquartered in Chicago. Its alumni stretches from Oscar-winner Alan Arkin to Stephen Colbert and generations of “Saturday Night Live” cast members — John...
'Odysseo' is 'like a beautiful dream'
"In all my life I have always wanted to challenge what exists, wanted to bring together something no one has ever seen ... to challenge what exists in performing arts," says Normand Latourelle.
Annie Abbott's 'Giving Up Is Hard To Do' at the Victory Theatre Center
Getting back into the dating scene "when you're 100 years old — or might as well be," isn't for shrinking violets. Neither is breast cancer, losing your beloved husband unexpectedly, watching two brothers deal with mental illness, and hoping the bikini top that you're expected to wear for a...
Victory Theatre Center's one-man show 'Who's Your Daddy?' heading to New York
The Victory Theatre Center's one-man show “Who's Your Daddy?” written by and starring Johnny O'Callaghan is heading to New York — a first for the Burbank company.
Colony Theatre's 'I'll Be Back Before Midnight' is an uneasy night of diversion
In the mood for a few chills and things that go bump in the night? If so, the Los Angeles premiere of Peter Colley's 1979 seriocomic psychological thriller, "I'll Be Back Before Midnight," at the Colony Theatre in Burbank may be your ticket, despite hokey hiccups here and there.
Marc Chagall's literary illustrations on exhibit at the Forest Lawn Museum
Once again, the Forest Lawn Museum is host to the work of an extraordinary artist: the Russian-born painter Marc Chagall. Currently on its walls are 65 early monochromatic works, under the exhibition title “Chagall: The Early Etchings,” showing illustrations that are vivid and...
Maurice Merlin paintings and prints on display at Huntington Library
We've heard lately that America is trying to rise up from "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression." While economists, political scientists and historians will debate that point, an exhibition of paintings and prints by Maurice Merlin at the Huntington Library's Scott Gallery provides a...
Alex Theatre hosts event dedicated to writer-director Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was a lover of words, and a writer above all else. He said many times in interviews that his move into the director's chair was simply to protect his scripts. Wilder cared deeply about the language, rhythm and timing he spent months crafting with his Hollywood writing partners....
Emotional 'Lore' tells the story of a daughter of Nazis forced to watch after her siblings
Australian director Cate Shortland recalls the emotional moment when her film "Lore" was presented at the London Film Festival in October. The real-life Lore came on stage, finally prepared to acknowledge that the film was indeed based on her life and the experience of her family in post-World War...
Pasadena Playhouse falls for 'Fallen Angels'
"Fallen Angels," a comedy once considered too scandalous for polite society, opens Sunday at the Pasadena Playhouse. This sly and sexy Noël Coward play may be tame by today's standards, but its 1925 London premiere — starring Tallulah Bankhead — was lambasted by critics of the...
South Pasadena Strings will play L.A. to raise funds for trip to Carnegie Hall
Sometime in the last century, the great classical pianist Arthur Rubinstein is said to have been interrupted by a man on the streets of New York who asked, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” Rubinstein's response: “Practice, practice, practice.”
Pasadena Playhouse identifies anonymous donors who gave $1M in 2010
The Pasadena Playhouse on Wednesday identified a previously anonymous pair of donors whose $1-million gift in May 2010 helped lift the organization out of bankruptcy.
Author of book on man who created Philip Marlowe to speak at Huntington Library
One of the best-received Los Angeles-themed books of 2007 was Judith Freeman’s “The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Philip Marlowe, Chandler’s fictional private detective, has captured the imagination of generations of...
Stage Preview: A pared-down 'Pygmalion'
Lance Davis, the co-founder and artistic director of Parson's Nose, a theater company now based in Pasadena, recalls the time that a nervous potential audience member phoned the company's reservation line and asked, “Are you doing the real Shakespeare?”
Less is more at PMCA design exhibit
If you caught LACMA's great California design retrospective last year, “Living in a Modern Way,” you came away with the idea that Southern California was the tip of the post-World War II modernist spear. Along with the familiar names of architects Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler,...
Chorus belts out 'Holiday Spectacular'
The spirit of the holidays came in with a rush of wonderful music, dance and humor at the “Holiday Spectacular” performance by the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles last weekend at the Alex Theatre in Glendale.
Transferring art to video
Alanna Simone and Carolyn Radlo are two talented and creative artists based in Pasadena who collaborate on producing socially and politically provocative video art. They also happen to be mother and daughter, a fact they are reticent to admit when first meeting them. “I always refer to my...
Theater of survival
Actress Mariette Hartley has been through drama before, with decades of experience in film, television and on local stages, beginning with a Los Angeles production of “A Midsummer Night's Dream” with Bert Lahr. But she experienced suspense unlike any other during rehearsals for “...
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