Go West: Utopian Vision for One City One Pride LGBTQ Arts Festival

Posted on by Diversions LA

One City 1

The city of West Hollywood’s One City, One Pride LGBTQ Arts Festival offers a wide range of programs and a utopian vision for 2017. Running through June 30th, the fest’s theme of “Go West,” references movement toward a utopian promised land, dreams of gay liberation, and the freedom to live openly in West Coast communities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and West Hollywood. Featuring interactive, performance, visual arts, and education events, this year’s programming explores LGBTQ history, culture, and art.

Dubbed a “Day of History,” on Saturday June 3rd, One City One Pride offers multiple events that will take place throughout the city.

At 11 a.m., Radar Productions presents Drag Queen Storytime in the West Hollywood Library Community Meeting Room. The free event includes children’s stories and crafts. Radar brought the same acclaimed program to the San Francisco Public Library. The meeting room is located at 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., 90069.

One City 6 timmons

Also starting at 11 a.m., the Stuart Timmons LGTBQ History Tour combines an urban hike with an entirely original performance art piece. Written by author and historian Stuart Timmons and directed by Jason Jenn, the tour leads participants to a variety of locations.

One City 4 Timmons

They’ll encounter over a dozen costumed characters, bringing the history of West Hollywood to vibrant life.  The experience includes a brief shuttle ride that drops passengers on Sunset Blvd.  Each tour lasts between 90 and 120 minutes, with departures scheduled every fifteen minutes between 11 and 1 p.m. Live music will be performed while participants wait to board. This is the third year for the charming tour, presented in a final staging to celebrate the legacy of the recently deceased Timmons. Timmons is the author of The Trouble with Harry Hay and GAY L.A., among other works.

One City 7 Timmons

ADA accessible throughout,  colorful parasols will be provided during the tour, offering shade from the sun and enhancing the lively interactive atmosphere. This unique event starts at the West Hollywood City Council Chambers at 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., 90069.

One City 8 Yozmit

From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., trans artist Yozmit, the first artist to receive a Trans Initiative Grant from the City of West Hollywood, presents the interactive performance installation “Totem Building.” Yozmit will create transformative visual wearable art pieces to be used as a ritual object or totem. The audience will be invited to create prayers and intentions which she will collect for part of a future performance.

One City PYRAMID

The artist will stitch a ribbon or bead onto her Pyramid Dress, as a symbol of exchange for those intentions and prayers. This interactive, transformative performance will be held on Santa Monica Boulevard near San Vicente Boulevard.

At 5 p.m., there will be a screening of Reel in the Closet, a feature-length documentary. The film connects viewers with queer people from the past, utilizing rare home movie footage that dates back as far as the 1930s. Filmmaker Stu Maddux also discovered recorded news stories and community productions, and regularly updates the documentary, encouraging audience members to share movies of their own pasts. Maddux notes that he embarked upon the project when he was searching “for a way to really understand the people who came before me, not just read about them.”  The film will be screened at the West Hollywood City Council Chambers, located at 625 N. San Vicente Blvd. 90069

Also at the City Council Chambers, throughout the day the film LA: A Queer History will be shown in a continuous loop; ONE Archives LGBTQ History Exhibits will be displayed in West Hollywood Park.

Later in June, One City, One Pride highlights include:

One City 9 LAAA

“Out There,” a group art exhibition at the Los Angeles Art Association’s Gallery 825 opening June 9th from 6 to 9 p.m. The exhibition will run through June 18th, with the gallery open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily except Monday. The gallery is located at 825 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, 90069.

Also on the 9th, from 6 to 10 p.m., the Annual Dyke March begins with a protest sign making workshop conducted by Sparkleblob’s Julianna Parr, followed by a march down Santa Monica Blvd. at 8 p.m. Confirmed speakers include Patrisse Cullors of #blacklivesmatter, and Supervisor Sheila Kuehl.  the The workshop takes place and march begins at Sal Guariello Veterans’ Memorial, 8447 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, 90069.

From 7 to 9 p.m. on the 9th, Yozmit’s Migration of the Monarchs and WALK will take place. Based on the idea that everything in life transforms, the trans artist will perform WALK as live ambient art along Santa Monica Blvd. between Robertson Blvd. and San Vicente Blvd.

One City 9 Reist

June 11th from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., LA Pride hosts a human rights march in lieu of a parade. The march starts at Hollywood and Highland in Los Angeles, and concludes near West Hollywood Park. 

One City 10 Cordova

And June 29th, at 7:30 p.m., there will be a world premiere film screening of Jeanne Cordova: Butches, Lies, and Feminism, a new documentary on the life and accomplishments of late activist and author Jeanne Cordova. Film director Gregoria Davila and Cordova’s partner Lynn Harris Ballen participate in a post-screening discussion. The screening takes place at West Hollywood City Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., 90069.

For a full calendar of One City One Pride events through June 30th, visit    www.weho.org/pride

One City One Pride is organized by the City of West Hollywood through WeHo Arts, the City’s Arts & Cultural Affairs Commission and Arts Division, with input from the City’s Lesbian & Gay Advisory Board, Transgender Advisory Board, and other community partners. 

 

One City 2

  • Genie Davis; Photos: Weho.org

Nothing Hazy in Bakersfield Mist at the Fountain Theatre

Posted on by Diversions LA

bakersfield-mist-2016_1nc

Now through January 30th, the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood offers a beautifully written, touching, and hilarious comedy in Bakersfield Mist.

Written and directed by Stephen Sachs, the production is a revival of an earlier incarnation of the play, and remains a two person tour de force, currently performed to perfection by Jenny O’Hara and Nick Ullett. As an out of work bartender and an uptight art expert, respectively, the performances are spot on.

bakersfield-mist-2016_4

Sachs is co-artistic director at the theater, and has written a wonderfully nuanced character study of two people who in their own, incredibly different ways, are passionate about a piece of art – which may or may not be a Jackson Pollock.

bakersfield-mist-2016_6

Based on a true incident, the play focuses on bartender and thrift-shop veteran Maude Gutman who may have uncovered a genuine Jackson Pollock. Summoned to her door is renowned art historian and analyst Lionel Percy, come all the way from New York to verify the providence of the painting. Though Maude makes a convincing and impassioned argument, and both reveal their past mistakes, sins, and dreams, the pair ultimately butts heads when it comes to whether the painting is genuine or not.

Emotions run high, amusement soars and recedes on a tide of self-doubt and recrimination, and who is the stronger survivor of the pair might very well come into question.

bakersfield-mist-2016_3

The two are each quite profound in their own disparate ways, and the question as to the meaning and purpose of art is matched to even deeper questions about the meaning of life itself, handling loss, and the burning spark of truth and desire the fuels everyone, regardless of pedigree, pride, or limitations.

Delightfully witty and yet deeply moving, this is a perfect two-hander, performed in one compelling act. It makes a great way to start the theatrical New Year.

The Fountain Theatre is located at 5060 Fountain Ave. For tickets visit http://www.fountaintheatre.com/event/bakersfield-mist-2016/

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by Ed Krieger

Waiting for Grace: Looking for Love at the Odyssey

Posted on by Diversions LA

grace-1

Above, actress and writer Sharon Sharth.

In the late ’70s, Joni Mitchell sang in the transcendent Hejira, “I know, no one’s going to show me everything/We all come and go unknown/Each so deep and superficial/ Between the forceps and the stone.”

 

In some inchoate but poignant way Sharon Sharth’s semi-autobiographical play, Waiting for Grace, reminded me of that song. While the play is often brilliantly funny, it’s also moving; the search for love and marriage by a no-longer-young, yet still attractive actress is both personal and universal, filled with longing and delight, despair and hope.

Directed by Lee Costello, the play is essentially a one-woman show, albeit ably supported by a brilliant cast playing various roles as Grace’s boyfriends, therapists, and parents.

grace-3

The plot is simple: Grace (Sharth herself, a burning spark both searing and sexy) long focused on her career, now wants marriage and motherhood, but cannot find a man able to provide her with a ring or a child. Some are too clingy, some angry, some distant – all are played by the chameleon Jeff LeBeau. Therapist, parents, and relationship counselor all come into play trying to advise her, until at last she meets “the one,” David (Todd Babcock).

grace-2

Her dream man isn’t perfect either, and in fact, until the last moments, the audience is never sure that even David will prove worthy of Grace’s somewhat neurotic love.

The play is warm and affectionate overall, with acerbic and bittersweet asides. The weakest link is when Grace tries to have a child with David, but that’s a quibble. The script is sharp, witty, powerful, and brave.

grace-4

Sharth takes on the pain of looking for love (in all the wrong places and with all the wrong guys), aging, feminism, the meaning of marriage — and comes up with the only conclusion that can possible be reached: waiting for grace isn’t easy, but in the end, she/it can be found.

Quoting Mitchell again, “I’m traveling in some vehicle/I’m sitting in some cafe/ A defector from the petty wars/Until love sucks me back that way.”

Running through December 11th, don’t miss the chance to find Grace.

  • Genie Davis; Photos: courtesy of the Odyssey

 

A Taste of Honey: Still Sweet

Posted on by Diversions LA

 

taste-4

A Taste of Honey, now at the Odyssey Theatre through November 27th is a deeply felt revival of a 1958 classic. Directed by Kim Rubenstein, the once shocking Shelagh Delaney play is in firm hands, with innovative staging and a terrific cast.

taste-1

On paper the play sound like a sad but pulpy tale. Teenage Jo (Kestrel Leah) is left by her mother Helen (Sarah Underwood) when the latter runs off with her latest paramour,  uncouth but moneyed Peter (Eric Hunicutt). Left unattended, Jo has an affair with a handsome black sailor Jimmie (Gerard Joseph), becomes pregnant, and with both mother and lover MIA, invites a tender, caring gay friend, Geoff (Leland Montgomery) to live with her. He’s ready to help her raise her baby until mama, rejected by her lover, decides to move back in.

taste-6

That Geoff’s character even existed as a serious and admirable member of the cast was shocking in 1958, now it hardly stands out. What does remain vigorous and noteworthy is the sharp and pointed dialog,  and the show’s equally-groundbreaking-at-the-time breaking of the 4th wall, as characters address the audience, and here interact with a live trio on set.

The music and the lighting here adds a quality of hip, slightly surreal, and intrinsically contemporary gravitas to the production, which is very much rooted to it’s setting in the U.K., and it’s time period.

taste-3

Yes, the story is the stuff of melodrama and neither the sexual orientation nor race of the characters are cutting edge today. All the same, this is a story of tragedy, loss, birth, death, and the potential, perhaps lost, for redemption. That makes it classic, rather than dated; and the Odyssey’s production is a fine showcase for the play. Directing and performances are both top rate, adding new lustre to an old jewel.

taste-2

The Odyssey Theatre is located at 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. on the west side. Performances run 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays (also 8 p.m. some Wednesdays and Thursdays) through Nov. 27th.