Los Angeles/San Diego trip report March 2024

[inception]

Posted: 1/9/24 at 10:14am

Looking for some advice for a visit to LA the first week of March.

I'm also going down to San Diego to see Redwood.

I already have tickets to The Wiz, & will see one of the Madonna shows that week.  Originally I was going to try to see a couple of those but changed my mind & got a ticket for the LA Opera.

For remaining nights I have a few options: there are a couple smaller concerts by artists I am not familiar with or not a big fan of at the Wiltern & the Theatre at the Ace Hotel - that's Rufus Wainwright who I'm not a big fan of, but he's playing with a full orchestra.   Mainly for either show my interest would be in seeing the Art Deco theatres.  Is one nicer than the other? At the Wiltern the same night is a UK singer Arlo Parks.

The same week at the Geffen in their smaller Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater they have a new play Black Cypress Bayou by Southern writer Ktistwn Adele Calhoun with some inexpensive tickets available. 

The tour of Chicago also plays the Pantages right after Wicked, but I'm going to pass on that.

Not sure if there us anything else going on late Feb/ early March thst should be on my radar?

Updated On: 3/3/24 at 10:14 AM

[BalconyClub]

Posted: 1/9/24 at 12:57pm

If I was in LA in March, I would attend one of the Friday talks at the Academy Museum.  JOHN WATERS: POPE OF TRASH TOURS

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 1/9/24 at 1:33pm

BalconyClub said: "If I was in LA in March, I would attend one of the Friday talks at the Academy Museum. JOHN WATERS: POPE OF TRASH TOURS"

[inception]

Posted: 3/3/24 at 3:08am

After flying into LA this morning I went to a matinee at a small theatre near to the Sawtelle neighborhood.  "Brushstroke" is by John Ross Bowie, best known for his recurring role on Big Bang Theory, and he also starred as Minnie Driver's husband for 3 seasons on the sitcom Speechless.  The play set in 1956 was inspired by a real program of the CIA's to sponsor abstract expressionist artists in an effort to counter Communism.  It has comedic moments early on but turns into a more serious spy drama. It offers a meaty role for the lead character of the agent making contact with an artist and his sister, here played by actor Malcolm Barrett.  There is now only one more performance left Sunday afternoon.  It's a very interesting piece that deserves a further life with either a remount somewhere with this cast or future productions.

I had read a review a couple weeks ago, but didn't buy my ticket until I found the matinee listed on TodayTix this morning while sitting at the airport waiting to board.  So I wasn't aware that this was going to have a Q&A afterwards with the author, moderated by his friend Patton Oswalt.  Oswalt had already seen the show once earlier in the run & obviously had done a lot of thinking on it as he actually had many good questions and there really wasn't any audience participation; but he brought out a lot from Bowie as well as the four actors who all sat in.  It only went for maybe 30 minutes but was really good because Oswalt had prepared very well and got them all to talk about how the script changed during rehearsals  Also there was a funny joke I think from Bowie about a dangerous agency with too much power... CAA? Oh no! The CIA!   

 

Tonight out of all the options in this city I went to a concert by the LA Chamber Orchestra at the Wallis Center, mainly because I could get a ticket for $20.  This is one if those places with a terrible parking garage where it is gridlock getting out.  I'm writing this while sitting in my car waiting for the place to empty instead of waiting gas in the line to get out. 

 

Tomorrow night I'm seeing the last LA performance of The Wiz.

[inception]

Posted: 3/4/24 at 1:58am

I'm double posting this here as well as the Wiz tour thread, just for my personal ease of finding it later. 

Went to the final LA performance of The Wiz tonight.

Is this Wiz everything everyone will want? No.  Is it still good?  I say yes. 

The projections as a set are projections as a set.  Most of the costumes are OK, but the Lion looks terrible.   It looks like he's wearing a diaper the whole show.  The weather this weekend in LA was around 50°.  That's cold enough that people brought out their fur coats - so there were people in the audience better costumed to play the Lion than poor Kyle Freeman. 

Sets and costumes aside the show is peppy & moves at a good pace.  Everyone's singing is great.  Melody A. Betts milks the audience for every laugh right from the first scene as Aunt Em; and that's nothing compared what she does later as Evilene.  Philip Johnson Richardson is sex in a tin can. For me, those were the two stand out performances. 

Wayne Brady & Deborah Cox both are collecting easy pay cheques.  Both do their parts well, but they aren't doing the heavy lifting here.  That's on Nichelle Lewis, and to some extent Avery Wilson. I've seen the film too much so I found myself comparing Wilson's Scarecrow and Lewis's  Dorothy to MJ & Ross.  Wilson brings enough of a silliness that he makes the role his own by the end.  Nichelle Lewis was good, but she doesn't have the vulnerability of the film Dorothy, so it's different.  But she was good.  I'd like to hear her sing "Home" again.  It brought the crowd to their feet. 

Some more negative: I would like to see better choreography for the ensemble, especially in the second act opener in Emerald City.  The audience liked it.  But they haven't seen Camille Brown's work in Hell's Kitchen yet.  Compared to that, this looks lazy.  It tries to be an homage to Ballroom culture, but doesn't go far enough and isn't tight enough.

Altogether though I had a good time. It could be a lot better.  But I still had a very good time.

Finally, the Hollywood Pantages Theatre is gorgeous!  And they don't allow food or alcohol inside the theatre! An observation deserving of an exclamation point.

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 3/4/24 at 8:32am

The Pantages is really stunning, a beautiful theatre. Even in the back of the balcony the site lines are brilliant 

[Owen22]

Posted: 3/4/24 at 9:01am

The Cygnet Theatre in San Diego does some really good work. I'm not sure what's playing while you are there, but I know this spring features "The Great Comet"...

[inception]

Posted: 3/5/24 at 2:57pm

I'm having lunch at the La Jolla Gliderport.  Alicia Keys house us right here,  so I went over a left some notes for improving Hell's Kitchen at the mailbox...

Just kidding!! I would never do that!!

But there is a strange hippie type guy here giving people directions to her house.  Some teenage girls went over & sang Girl on Fire at it when they saw some people outside.  The poor woman.

Tonight I see Redwood.

Edit: the teenagers are like "We must have been good! Somebody was filming us!"  Uh no, that was for evidence in case you turned out to super crazy & didn't just leave after a few minutes.

Edit 2: nothing playing at Cygnet Theatre right now.   I am going to Age of the Innocence at the Old Globe tomorrow. 

Updated On: 3/5/24 at 02:57 PM

[inception]

Posted: 3/6/24 at 10:15pm

Went to the Old Globe's adaptation of The Age of Innocence this afternoon. Shereen Ahmed was good.   Bare set, but they spent their money on gorgeous period costumes.  The adaptation itself was lousy, relying on a narrator in modern dress walking through & explaining every scene.  It might as well gave been a book on tape.  There must be a better way to tell this story on stage.  Scorsese found a way on film.  Ultimately this felt pretty pointless - little more than the sort of talky soap opera that might have been standard stage fare over 100 years ago.

Glad I went to the beach yesterday, as the weather turned this afternoon and it us now raining cats & dogs.  The drive from my hotel to LA Jolla Playhoyse is only about 10 minutes, but it took half an hour in this.

Tonight's performance starts in 15 minutes.

I couldn't stop thinking about Redwood all day.  Even though it may have been inspired by a true story, it is NOT telling that woman's story - & in fact in one scene Menzel's character googles and learns about that woman & is inspired by that woman's story.  Since it is not based on a true story, what confounds me is why they felt the need to add so many convoluted plot machinations.  So much could be cut and simplified and the emotional arc of the main plot wouldn't be lost.  The one song for the main male supporting character is also so lousy that it could easily be cut, but then I guess he'd have nothing.

[inception]

Posted: 3/12/24 at 7:34pm

Here's a brief recap of my last few days in LA.

Thursday I drove back up from San Diego.  I had tickets to the Madonna concert that night and had wanted to stay closer to the Kia Forum.  I was advised to stay in Manhatta Beach, and under no circumstances to stay anywhere in Inglewood right by the stadium.   I lucked out choosing that show out of her string of dates there and got to witness her dueting with Kylie Minogue. Fantastic venue as well, much better than the hockey arena all the touring artists play in Vancouver. 

The other highlight from Thursday was seeing the Watts Towers earlier in the afternoon.  I was nervous about driving into that neighborhood, but it was fine.  Thursdays is one of the days they offer short tours, and that was fantastic.  The guide really helped me appreciate so much more about the personality of the artist and the work - much more than you get from reading something like the Wikipedia article about the Towers.  Definitely one of the best experiences from this week. 

Friday was dedicated to the Getty Center & Villa.  I did both to take advantage of the 2 for 1 parking offer.  I really only saw the painting galleries at the Center. 

In the evening I went to the Geffen Playhouse & saw play Black Cypress Bayou.  The Geffen is doing a production of Fat Ham shortly, and this really felt like a companion piece touching on topics of being Black in the South, and including supernatural elements.  Yet it is its own thing - it starts with Mom carrying around the severed head of her arch enemy in a laundry basket, and everyone carries a gun or two.  While the family may be involved in marijuana grow operations & other criminal activities, the focus is on relationships between mothers and daughters. I would recommend it.  It runs until this coming Sunday.  I got a bargain ticket for $35, I don't know if any of those are left. 

Saturday was my last night, and while for much time I had contemplated seeing a second Madonna concert, in January I decided instead to go to the LA Opera and saw their double bill of two rarely performed works.

Highway 1, USA is a 1 hour work by Black American composer William Grant Still from the 1940's.  The music was interesting and the production artfully staged with some dancers costumed as a wolf & rabbit making allusions to Brer Rabbit tales. This was a choice by the director and not in the libretto at all.  While amusing it perhaps took away from the work instead of adding to it.

The second half of the bill was Zemlinsky's 90 minute work "The Dwarf" based on an Oscar Wilde short story.  It is glorious music, reminiscent of the works of Richard Strauss, telling a tragic story.   It is a sumptuous, traditional staging with a massive set and period costumes. I don't know that the production fully mines the psychology of the piece - especially compared to the blu-ray recording I recently watched of the 2019 Berlin Deutch Opera modern dress production.  Still worth seeing of you are in LA.  The night I went there were many empty seats.  There are two performances left, this Thursday the 14th & Sunday the 17th and both have discounted tickets available on TodayTix. 

It was a good trip.  I last visited LA in 1998.  I don't think I will let so much time pass before I go again.