Category: HowlRound
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Dispatches from LALA Land: Latino Theater in Los Angeles es Muy Bueno
Originally posted at HowlRound I can’t believe I don’t speak Spanish. I grew up in Texas, but I took German in high school. I lived in Washington Heights for three years, yet I never learned much more than huevos y queso sándwich (though I did like being called mami). Now I live in Southern California, but…
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Platonov and Anton Chekov’s Proto-Grunge Philosophy
Originally posted at HowlRound Before he shot himself in the head, Kurt Cobain wrote a suicide note in which he said, “I still can’t get over the frustration, the guilt and empathy I have for everyone. There’s good in all of us and I think I simply love people too much, so much that it…
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Dispatches from LALA Land: Radar L.A.
Originally published by HowlRound The 2013 Radar L.A. interdisciplinary theater festival brought artists from around the world to perform alongside and in collaboration with Los Angeles theater artists. Presented by REDCAT and CalArts in association with Center Theatre Group, and curated by Mark Murphy of REDCAT, Diane Rodriguez of Center Theatre Group, and Mark Russell of…
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Playing Shakespeare’s Men
Originally Published by HowlRound Though Shakespeare created around 798 male characters, his dramatic corpus contains only about 149 female ones. That’s a ratio of roughly sixteen to three. Yet every year the best conservatories accept at least as many women as men—if not more—and every year they graduate both men and women trained to act…
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Dispatches from LALA Land: California Women Got it On Lock
Originally posted at HowlRound In just one September weekend, Los Angeles theater patrons had at least three totally different productions of Shakespeare plays from which to choose. The Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company‘s all-female Hamlet was running at The Odyssey Theatre; a three-person adaptation of Richard II opened at The Theatre @ Boston Court; and…
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In a World Where Everyone Has Vocal Training
Originally posted at HowlRound. Actor Lake Bell has been making the press rounds promoting her new indie movie, In a World …, about a female voice over actor whose gender (and father) have kept her from achieving the same level of success as her male peers. Bell plays Carol, a goodhearted vocal coach that finally…
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Dispatches from LALA Land: The Evolution of Asian American Theater
Los Angeles is a very naturally post-modern city. There’s no center. There’s disparate elements jutting up against each other. It’s just so jagged and fragmented–even the start stop in the traffic. But I feel like it’s going to be the 21st-century American city because the internet makes it less important how the physical organization of…
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Dispatches from LALA Land: On the Fringes of Hollywood
Originally posted at HowlRound. This year’s Hollywood Fringe Festival–only the fourth in it’s history–featured 212 separate productions in 50 different spaces for a total of more than 1,000 performances. They took in $258,000, all of which went directly back to the individual productions. For a city not known for its theater, that’s no small beans.…
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Dispatches from LALA Land: Adventures in the OC
Originally posted at HowlRound. When I first moved to Los Angeles, I was wary of attending the theater. LA is an industry town, and if there’s one thing I’m not interested in, it’s staged screenplays. Don’t get me wrong–I love film. I just don’t want to see it on stage. Because technology allows for far…
Holly L. Derr 