This Thursday night features DAC member and curator of the Wine+Words poetry series Lorine Parks reading from her new book of poetry Catalina Eddy. The open mic begins at 8PM at Mari’s Wine Bar, 8222 Firestone Blvd in Downey.
“Lorine Parks’s Catalina Eddy is one of the most surprising and hilarious poetic romps I have ever read. Weather is “the Family business” of these meteorological guys and dolls, molls and mobsters, of whom Eddy is only one of a charming and somewhat disreputable array of nourish figures…Yet the elegant music of these poems and their shifting emotional “eddies’ remind us that there is as often as not a dark and somber (not silver lining) to these particular clouds.”
We had a wonderful time producing what just might be the most contemporary theatre that’s been done in downey since the days of John Hume. Four new plays, presented as staged readings, at four locations around Downey. Best of all, it used the talents of a lot of creative people that have local ties.
On May 6th we had “In Case You Forget” by Ben Snyder, about a New York graffiti artist on his way to prison. Around 70 audience members showed up to watch the talented actors from Urban Theatre Movement, a company born out of the greater south-east LA county. UTM recently produced a successful run of “Short Eyes” at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in downtown LA. UTM member David Santana directed the reading.
Presented in the back parking lot of Number 34, a new barbershop near Florence & Lakewood Blvd. The street art theme was continued with a small art show in the front parking lot.
The highlight of the show was two extra wooden utility boxes that the public was invited to spray paint on themselves. Roy Anthony Shabla, who curated the show, had a piece of street art painted over by the city of Downey– the middle utility box that is now gray was formerly a work of art that Shabla designed and painted without city permission. The police stopped by, but were happy to discover that the utility boxes in question were only fake props.
Two weeks later we moved to Granata’s & Tapas on Downey Avenue in their banquet room to present two one-act plays, “La Vida Lucky (1974)” and “El Bobo Bruto (1951)” written by Daniel Houston Davila. Houston hails from neighboring Norwalk, and wrote a comprehensive historical novel Malinche’s Children about the Carmellas, a migrant worker bario located near Rosecrans and Shoemaker in Norwalk. The plays were workshopped in the Casa 0101 playwriting program, and this is their first public reading. Long time Downey resident Alistair Hunter directed the reading.
Much of the audience turned out for dinner beforehand, or drinks after the reading. It felt good to pack out the restaurant.
For the reading, the banquet room was stuffed with over a hundred people, standing room only. The Q&A included interaction with some locals who grew up in the Carmellas and experienced many of the same things in their lives.
The next week we were back with Urban Theatre Movement, with “Handball” written by Seth Zvi Rosenfeld, and directed by Downey resident and UTM founder Paul Tully. Tully has been one of the driving forces behind the reading series, and has championed this play about a New York neighborhood’s struggle with gentrification. Playwright Rosenfeld was in attendance and joined the Q&A afterward. The Epic Lounge on 2nd Street downtown hosted the event, with about 50 in attendance.
Finally on June 3rd we presented “Alexander the Greatest,” written and directed by Forrest Hartl, a Downey resident and one of the producers of our series. The audience of about 65 laughed their way through the roller coaster of an amateur actor’s rise to fame through cutthroat tactics.
The Downey Moravian Church on Old River School Road hosted the evening in their Hove Hall.
We enjoyed a spread of snacks and cake to celebrate the end of the series and thank everyone for seeing it through.
The audience response on “Alexander” led us to select the play to produce as our first workshop production, tentatively scheduled for September of this year. Currently Downey does not have a theatre showing contemporary plays produced by professionals. We’ve set out to change that, so I hope you’ll join us as we continue the work. There are also more staged readings planned for the future.
Special thanks to the producing team, led by Lana Joy Wahlquist, Paul Tully, Forrest Hartl, and myself. We also could have done it without the volunteer support of many from the DAC and UTM who put the pieces together.
Here is the UrbanActs_Playbill as a PDF, though it is in printing order so you’ll have to read it creatively.
Last, here is a gallery of photos from the series.
I had thought to myself, “Hey, we filled up this parking lot”
Join the Downey Arts movement by coming to our monthly meetings, on the 4th Saturday of the month at Noon. On June 23, the meeting will be held at the home of Andrew & Lana Wahlquist. Contact us on the email contact@www.downeyarts.org if you need directions. The meeting will be followed by a summer potluck barbecue celebrating the recent success of the staged reading series and other exciting things going on.
When you hear the Pajama Game, you’re probably more familiar with the movie. However, it was born out of the successful broadway musical, which is being revived this month by the Downey Civic Light Opera.
Running now through June 17, the performances run at the Downey Civic Theratre at 8:00 p.m. on June 1, 2, 8, 9, 15 & 16, then matinee 2:30 p.m. performances on June 3, 10 & 17.
The Downey Civic Light Opera was born out of the Downey Children’s Theatre, having produced its first musical in 1973, and has run consistently since then, even in a time when other CLO’s have struggled and closed. They always put on a lavish production with old-school fun.
Join us this Sunday night for the final staged reading in our series “Urban Acts: New Plays from the Street.” DAC member Forrest Hartl has written a hilarious mash-up of one man’s life as a theatre actor, social media addict, and the violent pursuer of success.
Sunday night, June 3, 7PM at the Downey Moravian Church, Hove Hall — 10337 Old River School Road.
Art on the Vine this Saturday features two artists that dare to be different: Michael Temple, who is as deft with a paintbrush as he is with a brushes on a drum set. Robert Thome, who paints with a brush in his mouth, because of his disability. Also a special performance of the James Harman band– Harman has been a fixture on the Blues scene for decades, and its a rare opportunity to have him here in Downey with us.
7PM this Saturday, June 2nd at Mari’s Wine Bar, 8222 Firestone Blvd, Downey. Food, music, wine, community and inspiring artwork.
Urban Theatre Movement and Downey Arts Coalition presents a staged reading of new play about suburban warfare.
Meet Laurie & Chris, New York hipsters. They moved to the suburbs, and now they want to clean up their new neighborhood by demolishing the old Handball court to pave the way for an urban facelift. But not all the locals want a gentrified neighborhood, and this court is ground zero for the debate. Are the new residents just trying to help, or are they selfish opportunists? You decide.
This Sunday, May 27, Epic Lounge, 7PM. Great actors from the SoCal theatre scene produced by Urban Theatre Movement.++ DAC member Paul Tully directs the reading.
Stay afterward for drinks & Epic music, but first a Q&A with the playwright, Seth Zvi Rosenfeld.
Cast List
Christopher. . . . . . . Sean Zilke Escalante
Laurie. . . . . . . . . . . .Isabel Davila
Orlando. . . . . . . . . . Rich Martinez
Barry. . . . . . . . . . . . Jon Duran
Gee. . . . . . . . . . . . . Alex Alfaro
Lil Lucy. . . . . . . . . Elisa Noemi
Javier. . . . . . . . . . Charles Sanchez
Ra Ra. . . . . . . . . . . Donte Wince
Panama. . . . . . . . . Gary Perez*
++Be warned: some explicit language may not be appropriate for all audiences
Downey Art Vibe is back with a new event– this one’s to recognize the talented artists in our local high schools. Also, a free pastry from Porto’s Bakery just for showing up. All the art will be on sale, with over a hundred pieces on display. Don’t miss this one, they really know how to put on a show.
Thursday, May 31st @ Porto’s Bakery, 8233 Firestone Blvd, Downey, 5 to 9PM.
“La Vida Lucky (1974)” is a short play written by Daniel Houston-Davila, based on stories out of his book, Malinche’s Children, which chronicles the rise of a small barrio in Southern California throughout history, to what it is today located in Downey’s neighboring city, Norwalk.
This story follows a young hispanic father of five grappling with the idea of getting a vasectomy, which is practically unheard of in his culture.
The staged reading will be directed by DAC member Alistair Hunter, who has a long history of leadership in the Southern California theatre community, such as artistic director of the Scorpio Rising Theatre and Los Angeles Theatre Projects.
Sunday, May 20th at 7PM begins the reading, followed by a Q&A with the cast and playwright. We are hosted by Granatas and Tapas, located at 11032 Downey Ave, Downey CA 90240. Granatas has generously extended its Happy Hour deals to audience members of the reading before and after the play, so be sure to come out and take advantage of gathering with the Downey creative community.
Thursday May 17 is the next Wine+Words poetry night. 8PM starts the open mic, and 8:30PM will feature poet G. Murray Thomas.
G. Murray Thomas newest volume, News Clips and Ego Trips,, has just been released from Write Bloody Press. Thomas will also read from My New Kidney Just Arrived, published in 2011 by Tebot Bach. His collection bristles with the gentle intelligence and humor of a poet of great maturity…”Thomas’s great gift as a poet is to see and be bewildered by the thoroughly weird things most of us take for granted”—Victor Infante . … Gadfly and long time fixture on the Long Beach poetry scene, his poetry has been published in numerous literary magazines, including Chiron Review, Pearl, Caffeine and Spillway. He has also published Cows on the Freeway, and five chapbooks, Death to the Real World, Opposite Oceans, Poetry Spilled All Over the Carpet, A Rare Thing, and Songs of Inappropriate Desire. In 2005, iUniverse reprinted Paper Shredders, an anthology of surf poetry Thomas first published in 1993.
Lorine Parks curates the evening, an intimate gathering of Downey’s literary lovers. Mari’s Wine Bar is at 8222 Firestone Blvd, Downey, CA. Handicap accessible, 21+ only.
