Tag Archives: theater

A Beautiful Wedding Among Friends… And Strangers

31 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in Inside Weddings

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Originally published in Inside Weddings

Pete Diederich was visiting Las Vegas for a bowling tournament in 2008 when he first saw Sara Vausbinder, who was also competing at the tournament. Although he felt drained after a night of partying, he says he instantly knew that he needed to talk to this woman. “She just had the brightest smile I’d ever seen in my life,” he remembers. They hit it off immediately, and since they both lived in southern California, continued seeing each other after returning home from the tournament. In fact, the couple began working together in 2011 – Sara is currently the Hollywood and Ventura County director of RAW: natural born artists, an international organization that aims to give artists resources and exposure in the first 10 years of their career, and Pete is a RAW videographer.

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“bare” Is Back, In The Wake Of Its Composer’s Death

09 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in LA Stage Times

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Originally published in The LA Stage Times

For Topher Rhys, producing the first Los Angeles revival of the rock musical bare since its premiere in 2000 at LA.’s Hudson Theatre has been a project nine years in the making.

He first heard a cast recording of the musical, which is set in a Catholic high school and explores the romance between roommates Jason and Peter, in 2004 when he was 16 years old. The story’s dark examination of religion intrigued him, and he has been “circling it” ever since.

“It’s interesting how this show has stuck with me for so long, to the point where we’re opening tonight,” Rhys says, sitting in the Hayworth Theatre just three hours before opening night on Friday. “And I succeeded in our goal of bringing the show back to LA.”

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TV Writer Elin Hampton Rings The Bells Of West 87th

06 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in LA Stage Times

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Originally published in The LA Stage Times

If you’ve owned a TV in the last 20 years, chances are you’re already a fan of writer Elin Hampton. She’s penned episodes of television series like Mad About You, Pinky and the Brain, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Dream On — not a bad portfolio for someone who admits that she “stumbled” upon her career in television after moving from the East Coast to Los Angeles to become an actress.

In fact, theater was her first love. And with her new play The Bells of West 87th, she says she’s returning back to her roots.

Theater is “like a sickness,” she says with a smile.

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The Vibrations In Ruhl’s “Next Room” Reach The Secret Rose

22 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by in LA Stage Times

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Originally published in The LA Stage Times

It’s a sunny Saturday morning in the San Fernando Valley, and actors Joanna Strapp and Michael Oosterom are discussing the finer points of Victorian-era sex.

“In the Victorian era, they were raised to never talk about sex until your wedding night, and then you better be making babies like crazy,” Oosterom explains. He and Strapp aren’t historians, but they’ve clearly done a lot of research on the subject. “It’s not just the brides — the grooms were like, ‘I don’t know what to do, no one told me what to do, all I know is that we’re supposed to do this’.”

Which makes it all the more surprising that these same 19th-century Victorians were the ones who invented a device now known as the vibrator. Back then, it was used to treat hysteria, a catch-all term used to describe a variety of female ailments; today, it’s the subject of playwright Sarah Ruhl’s2009 comedy In the Next Room (or the vibrator play).

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Eve Gets A Second Chance In Rubin’s “eve2”

09 Friday Aug 2013

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Originally published in the LA Stage Times

If you’re familiar with the biblical story of Adam and Eve, you know that Eve’s got a lot of blame resting on her shoulders. She did eat the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, after all, supposedly causing the fall of mankind and the beginning of pain and suffering.

But what if Eve realized that she got the raw end of the deal? What if she decided she wasn’t going to be blamed for man’s fall from grace and changed the end of her story — so eating from the Tree of Knowledge actually turned out to be a pretty good thing?

These are the questions posed by eve2, a feminist re-imagining of Genesis in which Adam and Eve are modern-day workers at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital morgue. After a blackout stops time and space, they realize that they have become the titular biblical figures, giving Eve a chance to transform her dreary ending. The surreal, dream-like play opens Saturday at L.A.’s Bootleg Theater.

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