Posts by downeyarts:
Carpenters Legacy: A Christmas Portrait
October 22nd, 2023
Enjoy a tribute concert to The Carpenters in their original home town, Downey California. Sally Olson and Ned Mills have put together an astoundingly authentic concert featuring hit songs for the holidays in Carpenters Legacy: A Christmas Portrait. November 25, 2023 at 8PM. Tickets available at the Downey Theatre box office, or at DowneyTheatre.org.
TICKET LINK: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36187/production/1157006
PROMO VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq27a9hg2WE&t=4s
SHOW DESCRIPTION:
Saturday, November 25 @ 8:00pm at the Downey Theatre…
Direct from Las Vegas, Carpenters Legacy is the definitive show celebrating the music and legacy of the famed brother-sister duo. Starring Sally Olson as Karen Carpenter and Ned Mills as Richard Carpenter, Carpenters Legacy: A Christmas Portrait recreates the nostalgia of the Carpenters’ Christmas television specials, including the holiday classics “Merry Christmas, Darling”, “Sleigh Ride” and “The Christmas Song”, along with many of the Carpenters’ classic hits.
Carpenters Legacy maintains a Las Vegas residency in the V Theatre at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino. The show was voted “Best Impersonator” (Bronze Winner) for the 2021 Best of Las Vegas awards and was voted “Best Impersonator” (Silver Winner) and “Best Tribute Show” (Bronze Winner) for the 2022 Best of Las Vegas awards. Olson is the first-ever and only Karen Carpenter tribute artist to perform with Legends In Concert. Carpenters Legacy features a powerful live performance, historical commentary, lovely arrangements and video, taking audiences on an incredible journey down memory lane into the world of the Carpenters – the world’s ONLY authentic Carpenters tribute in sight and sound.
“Heartfelt and honest” ~ Randy Schmidt, author of Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter
“Sally Olson and Ned Mills perfectly embody Karen and Richard Carpenter. Carpenters Legacy is nothing short of astounding.” ~ Sam Novak, Vegas 411
“Musically sound, vocally spot-on, and will please any fans of the duo.” ~ John Katsilometes, Las Vegas Review-Journal
Dia De Los Muertos Festival October 29 2023
October 22nd, 2023
Join us Sunday October 29th for the Die De Los Muertos Festival. Deadline for artwork submissions extended to Wednesday!
Join the “Pet Altar” Ofrenda at the Die De Los Muertos Festival, contact Pat Gil by Thursday October 26th
Chalk Repertory Theatre’s “Space Flash!”
July 13th, 2019Downey Arts Coalition Welcomes Chalk Repertory Theatre
and its “Space Flash!” theatrical exploration of the
Apollo 11 Moon Landing at Columbia Memorial Space Center
Downey, CA, July 9, 2019 – The Downey Arts Coalition is pleased to welcome the L.A. Ovation Award-Winning Chalk Repertory Theatre to the City of Downey. Chalk Repertory is teaming up with Downey’s Columbia Memorial Space Center and the #OneGiantLeap initiative to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing by presenting a specially commissioned original play series titled “Space Flash!”
“Space Flash!” is a series of six 10-minute original, interactive and family friendly plays presented throughout the Space Center exhibits at various times on Friday July 19 and Saturday 20, 2019. There will be a special evening preview performance on Wednesday July 17th from 8:00 pm to 9:30 pm where all 6 of the 10-minute plays will be performed including a special post show Q&A panel moderated by current Downey Arts Coalition Board president, C Raul Espinoza. Panelists include Eric Reyes Loo, Downey born and raised professional TV writer and playwright; Claudia de Vasco, Producer of Space Flash! and current Artistic Producing Director of Chalk repertory Theatre; Ben Dickow, Executive Director of Downey’s Columbia Memorial Space Center.
Based on Chalk Rep’s popular FLASH Festival model, six playwrights have created 10-minute performances inspired by the Apollo 11 moon landing, the history of space exploration, and locations within the Columbia Memorial Space Center. Each interactive play will be performed in rotation multiple times each day as a part of the Space Center’s Apollo 11 50th Anniversary program.
Space exploration is often told through the lens of white males. Chalk Rep’s “Space Flash!” gives a diverse group of women directors, women playwrights, and one Downey native the opportunity share their perspectives on this historic narrative.
Original 10-minute Plays
Artifact by Aditi Brennan Kapil, Co-directed by Aditi Brennan Kapil and Claudia de Vasco
A collection of personal artifacts from a 1973 SkyLab mission include a cassette tape recording of his family, that the astronaut made before departure.
Go/No Go by Victoria Stewart, Directed by Hilary Ward
Margaret Hamilton is putting a man on the moon, setting her on a collision course with Jim, the accountant who is trying to budget it.
A Race for Some Space by Christina Ham, Directed by Alejandra Cisneros
William and Lorraine, pioneers of an African-American space settlement, have decided to go back to earth where their freedoms they have become accustomed to will surely be suppressed. As they grapple with this decision we meet their younger selves-filled with hope, frustration, and the will to establish a space of their own.
First Girl on Mars by Chelsea Marcantel, Directed by Claudia de Vasco
AIl 17-year old El has ever wanted is to be the first girl on Mars. But when she gets a letter that could change her life forever, her dream suddenly seems a lot closer and scarier than she anticipated.
The Future by Eric Reyes Loo, Directed by Jer Adrianne Lelliot
Four teenagers, representing “the best and the brightest the Earth has to offer are in a Space Shuttle on their way to colonize Mars and find out the real reason they’ve been chosen for the mission.
The Smallness by Chelsea Sutton, Directed by Hannah Wolf
Kat and Sal want to perform a big dramatic moon landing reenactment but get distracted by the small, seemingly insignificant details and realize that perhaps nothing is too small to notice.
Performances will run Friday and Saturday afternoons July 19-20, 2019 at the Columbia Memorial Space Center located at 12400 Columbia Way, Downey, CA 90242. Admission is free. A special preview performance and post show Q&A panel will be held Wednesday evening July 17, 2019 at 8:00pm. Please visit ChalkRep.com to RSVP for the preview performance.
Artist Bios
Claudia de Vasco, Producer/Director
Claudia de Vasco has been a performer, producer, and leader in Los Angeles & Minneapolis. She is the Artistic Producing Director for Chalk Repertory Theatre, and the Managing Director of Emerging Arts Leaders/Los Angeles. She has performed with companies like Mixed Blood, San Diego Repertory, and Independent Shakespeare Company. On screen you’ve seen her on shows like Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life and SWAT, among others. She has produced and directed with various companies such as Theatre of Note, Chalk Repertory, and Rogue Artists Ensemble. She is a current member of The Kilroys, a collective working to achieve gender parity in the American Theatre, and is a former Jerome Foundation Many Voices Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center. Claudia also has extensive experience working in government, the tv/film industry, and creative marketing.
Eric Reyes Loo, Playwright
Eric Reyes Loo is a playwright and TV writer based in his hometown, Los Angeles. He has produced and developed work with local theatres such as Pacific Resident Theatre, Rogue Machine, The Blank, Moving Arts and Chalk Rep and other places around the country like The Inkwell, Lark Play Development Center, Manhattan Theatre Source, George Street Playhouse and Rattlestick. He’s an alumnus of the Playwrights Union and is a part of Chalk Rep’s Artistic Circle.
In addition, Eric has an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, which he attended on a full-scholarship and was awarded a scholarship from the National Hispanic Coalition for the Arts. He has been a lecturer in playwriting, screenwriting and TV writing at San Diego State University and wrote for two years on the teen melodrama GUIDANCE from Awesomeness TV and Verizon’s Go90. Seasons Two and Three can be found on Hulu. Eric’s currently an Executive Story Editor on the upcoming Netflix series, A.J. AND THE QUEEN set to air in 2019.
Aditi Brennan Kapil, Playwright
Aditi is a television and theatre writer, actress, and director. She is of Bulgarian and Indian descent, and was raised in Sweden prior to moving to Minneapolis, and more recently Los Angeles. Current projects include Season 2 of American Gods on Starz, a new play titled 1933 commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse, two commissions with Oregon Shakespeare Festival (a translation of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, and an American Revolutions piece tentatively titled Pax Americana), and an as yet untitled commission with Audible. In the 2016/2017 season Aditi premiered SouthCoast Repertory commissioned play Orange at Mixed Blood Theatre (MN) and SCR, and Yale Rep commissioned play Imogen Says Nothing at Yale Repertory Theatre. She is a Resident Playwright at New Dramatists.
Christina Ham, Playwright
Christina Ham’s plays have been developed and produced both nationally and internationally with the Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, Center Theater Group, The Guthrie Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Goodman Theater, Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Tony Award winning producer Arielle Tepper Madover off-Broadway at Theater Row, and the Tokyo International Arts Festival among many others. Christina is an Affiliated Writer at the Playwrights’ Center where she is also a member of its Advisory Council and a member of the Playwrights Union in Los Angeles and The Dramatists Guild of America. She is a member of The Kilroys who have been advocating for the equal representation of woman, trans, and non-binary writers on American stages. Recently, American Theatre magazine named her one of the top 20 most-produced playwrights of the 2018-19 season. She holds a Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at Pillsbury House Theatre and is a writer on the new Amazon horror Anthology series THEM: Covenant.
Chelsea Marcantel, Playwright
Chelsea Marcantel is an LA-based writer, director, and collaborator. Reared by Cajuns in southwest Louisiana, Chelsea has lived and made theatre among the tribes of the Midwest, Appalachia, the Mid-Atlantic, and now the West Coast. In 2016, she completed a Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Fellowship at The Juilliard School. Her plays include AIRNESS, EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL, LADYISH, DEVOUR, and TINY HOUSES. They have been produced around the United States and Canada (and Chelsea is vigorously working on becoming a sensation abroad as well). Chelsea has been entrusted with young minds at Virginia Intermont College and Emory & Henry College, and loved every minute of it. As a writer, Chelsea is extremely interested in humans as small-group primates, and what happens when the rules and value systems of our chosen groups cease to serve us. She reads a lot of books, watches a lot of documentaries, and listens to a lot of podcasts. Chelsea is an avid self-producer, an enthusiastic member of The Writers Guild of America and The Dramatists Guild, and is definitely working on something amazing right this very minute.
Jer Adrianne Lelliot, Director
Jer Adrianne Lelliott is the founding artistic director of Coeurage Theatre Company. Theatrical directing highlights include Carla Ching’s The Two Kids That Blow Shit Up and Blackbird, as well as Vieux Carré, The Woodsman, and Andronicus for Coeurage. As an actor, she has appeared at The Kirk Douglas Theatre, The Pasadena Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, Chance Theatre, Laguna Playhouse, La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, MainStreet Theatre Company, and Disney on Broadway. Lelliott has been a theatre actor since early childhood, playing Chip in the original Los Angeles cast of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast at age 12. Television credits include Sweet Justice, Picket Fences, Journey of the Heart, Melrose Place, Walker Texas Ranger, Life with Louie, The Practice, Ambushed, Safe Harbor, Providence, 7th Heaven, Disappearance, Smallville, The Handler, NCIS: Los Angeles, and Ctrl Alt Delete among many others. Film credits include Jack, Ambushed, Diplomatic Siege, Betrayal, Race You to the Bottom, Driftwood, and more. Lelliott attended film school at Loyola Marymount University and upon completion returned to theatre. She earned an MFA in Acting at Cal State Fullerton, after which she started working professionally in regional theatres across California.
Alejandra Cisneros, Director
Alejandra Cisneros is a graduate of the University of California, Irvine. She directs and produces in Los Angeles with her work including the cult-classic superhero series El Verde!, Chisme y Queso for Center Theatre Group, the West Coast premiere of In Love and Warcraft at the Los Angeles Theater Center/Artists at Play and Los Vampiros del Norte for East LA Rep. She is committed to amplifying diversity, equity, inclusion and justice in all her work.
Recently Alejandra has collaborated with Center Theatre Group’s Community Partnership program through library readings, new work commissions and costume displays in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. Prior work includes producing events for Grand Park, Downtown LA and Kaiser Permanente’s Educational Theatre. Alejandra is an alumnus of Director’s Lab West, a NALAC Leadership Institute Fellow, a Directing FAIR Fellow at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and a Nathan Cummings Young Leaders of Color recipient. She was awarded a Leadership U: One-on-One grant, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group.
Organization Biographies
Chalk Repertory Theatre is dedicated to making Los Angeles theatre expansive, inclusive, non-traditional and rule-breaking while partnering with a variety of spaces as intimate as a living room and as public as an iconic landmark. Five graduates of the MFA Theatre program at the University of California, San Diego, founded the company in the fall of 2008. The first season kicked off in January 2009 with Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” in the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery and garnered two Ovation Awards for its production of “Family Planning” by Julia Edwards. Celebrating its tenth season, Chalk Rep has become a leader in site-specific theatre in Los Angeles, partnering with sites as grand as the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and as rustic as the garage of a private home. For more information please visit ChalkRep.com
Columbia Memorial Space Center’s mission is to ignite a community of critical and creative thinkers. The Space Center is a space museum and hands-on STEM learning center located in Downey, CA, on the site of the former NASA-North American Rockwell Space and Information Systems Division headquarters where all of the Apollo spacecraft and, later, all of the Space Shuttles were designed and built. The Space Center serves as the US memorial to the astronauts of the Space Shuttle Columbia mission STS-107.
Downey Art Coalition’s mission is to stimulate, develop, foster, encourage, and promote public interest in, and appreciation of the arts. We are a group of volunteers who work together to promote the arts in the city of Downey, by bringing together local artists, arts advocates, and arts organizations to work toward a shared vision of a local cultural renaissance.
SAMSKARA – Immersive Art Experience
July 11th, 2019Welcome to Wisdome LA – new immersive art park in Arts District
We are dedicated to presenting the avant-garde transformational experiences and unforgettable events in a unique Los Angeles Arts District multiple projection domes setup.
Location
Wisdome Immersive Art Park
1147 Palmetto St
Los Angeles, CA 90013
More info at www.wisdome.la
Pageant of the Masters
July 11th, 2019The Pageant of the Masters is the Festival of Arts’ crowning jewel and arguably one of the most unique productions in the entire world.
On each evening of the Festival of Arts summer schedule, ticket holders are amazed and enchanted by ninety minutes of tableaux vivants (living pictures), incredibly faithful recreations of classical and contemporary works of art, with real people posing to look exactly like their counterparts in the original pieces.
Get more info and tickets at www.foapom.com
Stardust Art & Film Festival Oct 2nd
September 28th, 2016On October 2nd, 2016, the Downey Arts Coalition and the City of Downey present a celebration of Art, Film, Space and Downey’s 60th Anniversary. “Stardust Art Festival” takes place 12PM to 6PM at the Downey Civic Theatre, with free movies provided by GlennFest Film Festival including Ice Age: Collision Course, the astronaut documentary The Last Man on the Moon, and the anime concert film Joe Hisaishi in Budokan: Studio Ghibli 25 Years. The Aerospace Legacy Foundation presents a panel discussion about Downey’s role in aerospace history, “Journey to the Stars and Beyond.” There will be artist booths on the plaza, live music, food trucks, and “Cosmic,” a special curated art exhibit in the theatre lobby.
Downey Arts Coalition in partnership with the Downey Symphonic Society, Aerospace Legacy Foundation, Glennfest Film Festival, and the City of Downey present:
“Stardust Art Festival”
Sunday, October 2
Downey Theatre and Ken Miller Plaza
Art Walk noon to 6:00 p.m.
vendors, music, food trucks, refreshments for sale
Opening of Art Exhibit “Cosmic” in Theatre Lobby
12:30 p.m. film Ice Age: Collision Course in the Downey Civic Theatre
2:30 p.m. panel presentation: “Journey to the Stars and Beyond” by Aerospace Legacy Foundation
4:00 p.m. film Last Man on the Moon (documentary on Gene Cernan and Apollo Program)
6:00 p.m. film Joe Hisaishi in Budokan: Studio Ghibli 25 Years (concert film by the composer for anime master Hayao Miyazaki)
introduced by Sharon Lavery, Music Director, Downey Symphony Orchestra
Artists
We’re proud to host a number of artists from Downey and beyond:
1 PM – Sean Blake & the Brethren
2PM – Merlot Embargo
3:30PM – Hikari Taiko Drummers + workshop to try Japanese drums
5:00PM – Prepare To Stop
About the Films
The Last Man on the Moon (4PM) is an impressively crafted, affectionate portrait of astronaut Gene Cernan and, by extension, the program that concluded with Cernan’s 1972 Apollo 17 landing. Conveyed in first person through the razor-sharp recollections of the now 81-year-old Texas rancher, the film traces Cernan’s career trajectory, going back to his days in San Diego as a hot-shot naval aviator, blending terrific archival footage with contemporary perspectives to quietly poetic effect. More information and trailers at www.thelastmanonthemoon.com.
Ice Age: Collision Course (12:30PM – PG) is the fifth movie in the popular series from Blue Sky Studios. Manny the mammoth starts to worry when his daughter Peaches announces her engagement. Still unlucky in love, Sid the sloth volunteers to plan the couple’s wedding. To Manny’s dismay, nothing can stop the upcoming nuptials, except maybe the end of the world. When Scrat accidentally launches himself into outer space, he sets off a chain reaction that sends an asteroid hurtling toward Earth. Now, the entire herd must leave home to explore new lands and save itself from Scrat’s cosmic blunder. Website.
Joe Hisaishi in Bodukon: Studio Ghibli 25 Years (6PM) Joe Hisaishi, one of the greatest composers of Japanese film music to date, conducts the New Japan Philharmonic (World Dream) Orchestra among a host of other musicians, including marching bands and choirs, numbering over a thousand musicians on stage, performing in the Nippon Budokan venue in Japan. This concert celebrates 25 years of collaboration between Joe Hisaishi and Hayao Miyazaki and is a jubilee of the music that Hisaishi has composed for an assortment of the Miyazaki films, some of them re-arranged here and there for concert performance. Selections from the films are projected onto the enormous screen that looms over the orchestra to go along with the music. The selections are from “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind,” “Princess Mononoke,” “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” “Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea”, “Laputa: Castle in the Sky,” “Porco Rosso”, “Howl’s Moving Castle,” “Spirited Away,” and “My Neighbor Totoro.” (Review source: Yu-Ten Lee via Amazon.com)
—
This event is FREE and open to the public. Handicap accessible. For more information contact Downey Arts Coalition at or call (562) 419-ARTS (2787)