Carols By Candlelight – Pacific Chorale Offers Stunning Music and Setting

Posted on by Diversions LA

Held at Our Lady Queen of Angels in Newport Beach, the Pacific Chorale’s performance of Carols By Candlelight was the perfect embodiment of all that is beautiful about this holiday season.

Under the skilled guidance of artistic director and conductor Robert Istad and assistant conductor Kibsaim Escarcega, the twenty-four members of the Chorale presented a lovely, moving, and ambitious program that did not disappoint. Musical accompaniment by Jung-A Lee on the church’s magnificent organ and David Clemensen on piano were both perfect.

The 75-minute concert began with the Chorale positioned in the church center and side aisles, with the prelude “In dulci jubilo” and a medley of “Away in the Manger,” before moving to the performance space in the front of the altar.  From start to finish, the voices soared and spun their acoustic magic.

Live Performance

With the enormous organ pipes and soaring church ceiling as a backdrop, the chorale proceeded through a wonderfully varied set that included several musical choices that allowed audience sing-along on certain verses, including “The First Nowell” and “Silent Night.”

Live Performance

Among the many highlights were a delightful version of the traditional Scottish folk melody “Auld Lang Syne (1788),” featuring mezzo-soprano Emily Border, and a fabulously moving, serene piece Taylor Scott Davis’ “Solstice (2020)” followed by the haunting “Come Healing,” featuring sopranos Rebecca Hasquet and Joslyn Sarshad, mezzo-soprano Denean R. Dyson, and David Clemensen on piano.

The concluding “Dona Nobis Pacem,” featuring mezzo-soprano Stephanie Shepson and baritone Matthew Kellaway was truly memorable, soaring, emotional, and profound. The audience was appropriately reverent when listening to such a graceful rendition of a lustrous work.

While singling out these beautiful works, that is not to give short shrift to the rest of the fine program that included the joy of watching the entire program by candlelight; several works accompanied by Chorale members on guitar; and a bevy of musical works that also included Herbert Howells’ “A Spotless Rose,” a moving arrangement of “Angels We Have Heard On High” by Benjamin Harlan, Nico Muhly’s “Magnificat from First Service,” and Peter Phillips’ “Christmas motet O Beatum et Sacrosanctum Diem.” The entire program was a true delight to hear and see. The Chorale is both beautifully voiced and exudes palpable joy when performing the music.

Coming up this coming Monday the 18th, you have another quite different chance to see the Chorale perform this time a family-friendly program, Tis the Season! at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Joining the choir for this performance will be the Southern California Children’s Chorus, members of Pacific Symphony, and The Man in Red himself, Santa Claus.

Carols By Candlight was an enormously uplifting and joyous evening of great music and visual beauty. Be sure to add this annual event to your must-do list in the future, and take in the Pacifc Chorale’s rich vocal oeuvre whenever and wherever you’re able.

  • Genie Davis; photos in gallery, Genie Davis; images throughout the story provided Courtesy of Pacific Chorale 

 

Get Your Zen On

Posted on by Diversions LA

With Zen Psychosis: Anatomy of a Dream, at CSULA’s Ronald H. Silverman Gallery, the lustrous pinhole photography of Osceola Refetoff melds with the theme and written words of Shana Nys Dambrot’s lyrical book of the same name.

Curated by Mika Cho, the exhibition makes strong use of Refetoff’s hypnotic pinhole images, many of which were published in the book Zen Psychosis, whose poetic/surreal dream memoir aesthetic is aptly brought to real life (is it real? Or just a dream) in the exhibition. The book mutably blends Refetoff’s evocative visuals with Dambrot’s prose.

Both ask you to recall what do our dreams look like – both in the hidden world of sleep and if they should appear in the waking world. Perhaps they most closely resemble Refetoff’s large-scale Kinematic pinhole, “Whale Spotting,” shot in Antarctica, or the mix of Claymation and live-action stop motion animation swirling through the artist’s short film, “The Savage Sleep.” Also the stuff dreams are made of: sculptural images culled from the photographic artist’s collection of found objects, including an adorable black cat; and of course, the hypnotic words that propel readers into a dream state when reading Dambrot’s book.

Like Refetoff’s mysteriously magical pinhole images themselves, the exhibition is blissfully seeped in surrealism and respectful wonder at the natural world, of which dreaming is an intrinsic part. The pinhole process requires long shutter times, as images are shot thru a tiny pinhole instead of a lens; likewise, both exhibition and book require of viewers a slow survey of the strange beauty that surrounds us – the stuff of dreams.

Just as the Eurythmics sang in the fever dream years of the 1980s, “Sweet dreams are made of this/ Who am I to disagree/I travel the world and the seven seas/Everybody’s looking for something.”

Should that something be a trippy beauty, or a porthole to some other ArtWorld (or even this one), get your Zen on while you can.

The gallery is located on the CSULA campus in the Fine Arts Building. The exhibition will have a closing reception with a reading and book signing by Dambrot Tuesday November 14th from 6- 8 p.m.; it runs through the 16th.

  • Genie Davis; images provided by gallery

Boney Island Exudes – and Exhumes – Spooky Charm

Posted on by Diversions LA

Skeletons tell your fortune…clever video card tricks invite you to play…optical illusions of disappearing blackbirds and mysterious snake-like rope tricks fascinate, while charming, yes charming displays of the recently departed depict fishing trips and pirate lore, cowboy life, and strange gardens.

Such is the world of Boney Island, returning after a 3-year hiatus due to Covid and relocation. Now happily positioned outdoors near the Exposition Park Rose Garden on the Natural History Museum grounds, this enchanting Halloween world is immersive, interactive, and alight with eerie illumination now through October 31.

We walked through the museum’s garden pathways at dusk and into a world that includes skeleton dinosaurs, carnival barkers, and even carnivorous plants. Both witty, amusing, and properly spooky, the attraction was originally created by Rick Polizzi, producer of The Simpsons, for his family. It was designed as a riff on the Coney Island amusement park, and over the course of 20 years, expanded from a front yard exhibit to a large-scale attraction in Griffith Park. And now, it’s found what appears to be its rightful bones – or rather, home at NHM.

The museum’s nature gardens are a great setting, allowing visitors to wind their way through various themed areas. The carnival barker/Coney Island-themed skeletal attractions are the first portion of Boney Island visitors will enjoy, and it would be just about impossible to walk through it without laughing delightedly at the illusions and tricks offered here. In a small clearing, a compact stage offers a lively information from museum staff about fiendish-looking fossils and creatures from the distant past, as well as magic shows.

Attendees will stroll among the skeleton horses and cowboys, pirates and their buried treasures in Deadwood Forest, view a skeleton orchestra in performance and the somewhat carnivorous appearing plants in Hauntington Gardens, and watch skeletal Teradactyls fishing for boney fish among the other prehistoric creatures in Prime Evil pass.

There’s also a Haunted Halloween Light Trail, and at the far end of the attraction, a large stage featuring a Haunted Mansion water and light show with musical amusements ranging from the classical to the Adams Family theme song conducted by a delightfully snarky skeleton host. And don’t forget your camera! Set pieces such as a Dias de la Muertes skull, massive pumpkins, and a tilted quarter moon are also on hand for photo ops that are perfect for the whole family.

In fact, the entire event is not only family-friendly, its adult-friendly, too. Kids will love the tricks and amusements, adults will revel in the old-time flavor, smart artisanry, and lively quips that abound.

Additionally, there are pop-up demonstrations conducted by the Natural History Museum’s Live Animals team, and a rotating selection of local food trucks and food vendors as well as the museum’s café, the Neighborhood Grill from Post & Beam, as well as both Boney Island and NHM-branded merchandise and light up toys for take-home fun.

This unique and super fun Halloween spooktacular is ticketed at $25 per person; $20 for NHM members. The event runs Thursday–Sunday, and on October 30 and 31st. Entry times are at 6 and 8 p.m.; doors open at 6 and guests are invited to stay until closing. Allow two hours to enjoy all the tricks and treats.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis

Julien Nitzberg and Puppeteer Robin Walsh Go Wild Creating For the Love of a Glove

Posted on by Diversions LA

For the Love of a Glove, a wacky, weird, irreverent satire, is writer/director Julien Nitzberg’s alternative-reality tale about the once “King of Pop,” and the way in which an alien named Thrihl-Lha is contained in a sparkly glove and trying to overtake all of humanity.

Nitzberg is joined in this wildly comic adventure by globally renowned puppeteer Robin Walsh, and the talented actors who operate her puppets and star in the show. The puppets are life-sized and lush, and the show uses them well along its completely irreverent, zany, yet pointed path as it examines everything about Michael Jackson including his skin whitening, his sexuality, abuse accusations, and his religion – all in a defiantly ribald, non-p.c. way.

Far from an authorized biography, the production is an inventive cult-hit that features 20 puppets that are motion-filled, queer positive and drag-friendly works of art.  The puppets are just one part of a talented live cast including lead Eric B. Anthony.

From suggesting a relationship with Donny Osmond was the key to Jackson’s life to a cautionary tale about an aborted romance with Brooke Shields, the wild and crazy humor is just the means to an end: unveiling and dealing with issues ranging from racism and religious hypocrisy to abuse and cultural appropriation.

The inspiration for the musical began twenty years ago, Nitzberg relates. That was when he was “asked to write a Michael Jackson biopic for a cable channel. The production team was trying to figure out how to deal with all the controversy surrounding him. They had no idea how to deal with the allegations of child abuse and so many other controversial things. I had an idea that we could say his glittery glove was an alien who forced him to do all these bad things, causing trouble to ruin his reputation.”

Needless to say, the production execs didn’t buy this approach. “They laughed really hard and said it was the funniest pitch ever, but could I do a normal version?” Nitzberg recalls. “But there was no way personally that I could write a convincing story about Jackson without dealing with these areas of his life and the only way I could make sense of them was through this idea. So, cut to years later, and this idea came back to me as honestly the funniest ever, and I created the musical.”

Making a funny, highly political and satiric musical came naturally for Nitzberg, having written and directed a similarly themed piece, The Beastly Bombing, that played successfully in Los Angeles for over a year.

In For the Love of a Glove, the writer/director explains that there were some subjects that he absolutely wanted to deal with in the production. “One was cultural appropriation, another was racism, and another was being raised in a fundamental Christian Religion. While this is all pretty heavy stuff, you can deal with issues in a lighthearted way without people feeling like they are being lectured. They can learn and feel like they are having fun.”

Dealing with a story about aliens who look like gloves “naturally led to puppets,” Nitzberg says. “Not to mention in the first act, we needed to cover the Jackson Five years, and we certainly were not going to cast five kids in a show that’s honestly pretty filthy. So, it made sense to use puppets to represent the kids.”

He adds “Teaming up with the amazing Robin Walsh was phenomenal. She is a genius, internationally known puppet designer.”  Working together, it took close to five months working on different puppet prototypes to find what worked best for the production.

According to Nitzberg, “Something most people don’t know is that working with pupets can be dangerous. In Broadway shows like The Lion King, people get injured because the ppets are so large and heavy. We wanted to design puppets that are comfortable to wear and lighter, which is tough with life-size puppets.”

Describing the rewards of and challenges inherent in the production, Nitzberg says “One of the most rewarding things about working on this project is our cast. They are so funny and so great, and bring so much richness to the show every night. We are always having audience members tell us that their stomachs hurt from laughing so much. The cast gets standing ovations every time.”

While he calls the entire production experience “super fun,” there have been challenges. “When you add puppets, everything is a challenge. Most of our actors didn’t have previous experience working with puppets, so Robin did a two week puppet camp to explain and practice how to work the puppets and the psychology of puppets, the background of this art form, how they fit into theater history and all of that. Having written and directed a musical before, I knew it took a long time to rehearse and plan, but puppets very much expand that.”

The show features eleven actors and twenty puppets, with each puppet exhibition its own character and persona.  “They take on a life of their own and start to freak you out,” Nitzberg laughs.

Describing the show itself, he notes that “A lot of people assume its going to be like an SNL sketch, making fun of Jackson, but it’s actually about how a great artist goes astray. One of the biggest parts of it is exploring how being raised as a Jehovah’s Witness with their super restrictive sexuality affected him adversely. We try to understand and explain how becoming the most famous crotch-grabber in the history of the world comes out of that background. For us, the answer is that the glove made him.”

The show opened ran briefly in 2020, was shuttered by the pandemic, relaunched this February, and has had its run extended four times, including for the next two weeks.

For the Love of a Glove runs Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. June 23/24, and June 30/July 1st at the Carl Sagan-Ann Druyan Theater at the Center For Inquiry West (CFI), at 2535 W. Temple Street, Los Angeles, 90026. A Pride Month Price Drop special offers general admission seating in these final weeks for $30, and front row bean bag seats for $80.

Go see this almost indescribable, insanely incandescent show before it dances off into the future.  It’s a real “Thriller.”

  • Genie Davis, photos provided by the produciton