NEW RELEASE ▪︎ TRANS CHORUS OF LOS ANGELES MAKES RENBERG THEATRE DEBUT at LOS ANGELES LGBT CENTER ▪︎ APRIL 7 & 8 at 8pm

The Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Presents

TRANS CHORUS OF LOS ANGELES
 Lindsey Deaton, Artistic Director

 Performing

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

Friday & Saturday, April 7 & 8, at 8pm

The Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center has announced it will be welcoming the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles (TCLA) to its Renberg Theatre for the first time. The musical ambassadors will perform two nights only, Friday, April 7 and Saturday, April 8, at 8pm. TCLA will perform planet Earth’s first staged concert production of the full The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars by David Bowie. As Bowie intended, additional hit songs will complete the entire musical saga.

Said TCLA Artistic Director Lindsey Deaton, “There has never been a staged concert production of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars as envisioned by Bowie and told to William Burroughs. The chorus is very thrilled and excited to sing the music of Bowie while telling the story of the ‘Starman.’ Many of us grew up with Bowie who somehow, we felt, allowed us to live our truth and express ourselves authentically.”

TCLA is the largest group of trans and gender non-conforming people anywhere in the world who gather together regularly to raise their voices in song. Its performances are intended not only to empower its members, but also to change the way others see the transgender community. Since their founding in late 2015, TCLA has drawn attention to the trans community and trans issues through live performances, community engagement, and social and traditional media. With a strong belief that TCLA is uniquely positioned to offer the trans narrative in a truly significant and impactful way, its mission is to fiercely empower the transgender, non-binary, and intersex community to discover, love, develop, and use their voices to change the social ecology everywhere.

In its inaugural year, the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles performed at the 2015 West Hollywood Transgender Day of Remembrance with Alexandra Billings and Our Lady J from Transparent; the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles’s (GMCLA) Fifth Annual Voice Awards; True Colors debut concert with TCLA, GMCLA, and Vox Femina;  LA Pride, Long Beach Pride and TransPride LA; Kol Tikvah Temple; St. John’s Cathedral, Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles (the first Trans chorus to perform in a Cathedral anywhere); the opening ceremony of LGBT Heritage Month with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and the LA City Council; the Williams Institute UniTy Awards with Laverne Cox; and Interscope Records’ song “Hands,” a musical tribute to benefit Orlando victims and LGBT organizations.

Artistic Director Lindsey Deaton is a conductor, guitarist, singer, speaker, and a fierce transgender and LGBTIQ youth advocate. She is the Founder/Artistic Director of the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles. Ms. Deaton served as the conducting apprentice to Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. She has guest conducted the San Francisco Ballet, Louisville Orchestra, Spokane Symphony, Winston-Salem Symphony, Youngstown Symphony and Chorus, Schenectady Symphony, and numerous orchestras at the Aspen Music Festival, among others. An active music educator, in 2002 Ms. Deaton received the Dalcroze Certificate and the Dalcroze License from the Juilliard School in New York City. Her principle teachers were famed conducting pedagogue Leon Barzin in Paris, Gunther Schuller, Murry Sidlin, and Celin Romero. She studied with Dalcroze experts Robert Abramson and Marta Sanchez. She received her MFA in Conducting from Carnegie Mellon University.

General admission tickets are $35 and may be purchased online at www.lalgbtcenter.org/theatre or by phone at (323) 860-7300. Net proceeds from all ticket sales will support the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles and the full range of free and low-cost programs and services offered by the Los Angeles LGBT Center.

The Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Renberg Theatre is located at 1125 N. McCadden Place (one block east of Highland, just north of Santa Monica Boulevard), in Hollywood, 90038. During construction of the Center’s new facility, free parking is limited. Please allow extra time to find parking, or choose public transportation or a ride service such as Lyft or Uber.

#   #   # 

03-08-17

NEWS RELEASE ▪︎ THE OPEN CIRCLE THEATRE COMPANY PRESENTS “WAITING FOR GODOT” ▪︎ OPENS SATURDAY 3/25 at 8pm

THE OPEN CIRCLE THEATRE COMPANY PRESENTS

WAITING FOR GODOT

BY SAMUEL BECKETT

DIRECTED BY DANIEL J. WILNER 

OPENS SATURDAY, MARCH 25

FOUR WEEKS ONLY

THE OTHER SPACE @ THE ACTORS COMPANY

PREVIEWS THURSDAY, MARCH 23 & FRIDAY, MARCH 24

The Open Circle Theatre Company has announced a new production of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, directed by Daniel J. Wilner. There will be two preview performances on March 23 and March 24 at 8pm, and opening is set for Saturday, March 25 at 8pm. Waiting for Godot will play a limited engagement through April 16 at The Other Space @ The Actors Company in West Hollywood.

The cast will include (in alphabetical order) Tommy Day Carey, Joseph Culliton, Perry Powell, and Douglas Scott Sorenson. Set design is by Liam Moore and the stage manager is Sarah Savitch. Waiting for Godotis produced by Meredith Treinen and Daniel J. Wilner for the Open Circle Theatre Company.

Named “the most significant play of the 20^th century” in a poll of theatre professionals, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is a hilarious, moving, disquieting exploration of human existence. The play follows two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, as they pass the time waiting for a mysterious figure who could save them from their troubles. This distinctive production will be staged in the round in a small black–box theatre, creating an intimacy between audience and performers that will offer a unique experience of the play’s empathy and humanity.

Director Daniel J. Wilner is a writer, director, and producer of theatre, film, and television. He studied philosophy at Harvard, and philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Along the way, he worked extensively in the theatre, most notably playing the title role inHamlet and directing Beckett shorts, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman. He is currently developing several film and television projects with executive producer Mark Gordon. Wilner has made short films for the Bravo! Channel, the National Film Board of Canada, and Aeon digital magazine. His latest short, Michael Lost and Found, will be released on Netflix in late 2017.

Preview performances of Waiting for Godot are on Thursday, March 23 at 8pm and Friday, March 24 at 8pm. Opening is set for Saturday, March 25 at 8pm. The running schedule is Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 2pm and 7pm through April 16 only. General seating admission is $45. Lower–priced tickets ($30) are available for online purchases made in advance for performances through April 2 (discount will not be valid at the door). Use code ‘earlybird’ when ordering. Tickets are available now at http://godotla.bpt.me or at (888) 693-8507.

The Other Space @ The Actors Company is located at 916A N. Formosa Avenue in West Hollywood.

#  #  #

03–03–17

NEWS RELEASE ▪︎ JACKIE BEAT and SHERRY VINE in “BATTLE OF THE BITCHES” ▪︎ SUNDAY 3/26 at 7pm — LOS ANGELES LGBT CENTER’s RENBERG THEATRE

The Los Angeles LGBT Center’s

Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center

Presents

BATTLE of the BITCHES

Starring JACKIE BEAT and SHERRY VINE

ONE NIGHT ONLY

Sunday, March 26 at 7pm

The Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center has announced a special, one night only performance by two legendary drag icons, Jackie Beat and Sherry Vine, in Battle of the Bitches. On Sunday, March 26 at 7pm at the Center’s Renberg Theatre, the two formidable queens will go head to head in a no-holds-barred, anything goes, musical melee.

Celebrating the 25^th anniversary of their friendship, Ms. Beat and Ms. Vine will take each other on in a singing contest unlike any other. Blindly choosing topics from a hat, each diva will belt out one of her world-famous, sick ’n twisted song parodies, each determined to out–sing, outshine, and out–scandalize the other. It’s all fiery ’n fierce. The gloves are off, the claws are out, and may the best bitch win!

Battle of the Bitches has wowed audiences in Anchorage, Fire Island, Long Beach, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Syracuse, and on the largest gay cruise in history aboard the Royal Caribbean Allure of the Seas for Atlantis Events. Jackie and Sherry’s electric onstage chemistry has been honed through a quarter century of performing together in such shows as Wigstock, the Off-Broadway hit Tell-Tale, and sold out runs as Dorothy and Blanche in The Golden Girlz Live.

General admission tickets are $30 and may be purchased online at www.lalgbtcenter.org/theatre or by phone at (323) 860-7300. Net proceeds from all ticket sales will support the full range of free and low-cost programs and services offered by the Los Angeles LGBT Center.

The Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Renberg Theatre is located at 1125 N. McCadden Place (one block east of Highland, just north of Santa Monica Boulevard), in Hollywood, 90038. During construction of the Center’s new facility, free parking is limited. Please allow extra time to find parking, or choose public transportation or a ride service such as Lyft or Uber.

#   #   #

02-21-17

^{L to R — Sherry Vine & Jackie Beat. PHOTO COURTESY OF LOS ANGELES LGBT CENTER.}