NEWS RELEASE — JP Karliak’s DONNA/MADONNA returns for 4 performances only — SEPTEMBER 10—13

DONNA/MADONNA
WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY JP KARLIAK
DIRECTED BY TIGER REEL AND MATTHEW CRAIG

RETURNS TO HOLLYWOOD’S LOUNGE THEATRE
FOUR PERFORMANCES ONLY
SEPTEMBER 10-11-12-13

Photo courtesy Rizzo 39 Productions

Donna/Madonna, the critically acclaimed, award-winning solo show written and performed by JP Karliak, will return to the Lounge Theatre in Hollywood for a special engagement of four performances only, it was announced today by Rizzo 39 Productions. Directed by Tiger Reel and Matthew Craig, Donna/Madonna is set to run Thursday, September 10 — Sunday, September 13 only.

In this autobiographical one-act, writer/performer JP Karliak wants desperately to be the perfect son for his adopted mother, a doting Catholic housewife from Scranton, PA. But realizing he will never be the ideal local boy, he seeks answers from a very different source: his fashion-writing, married-to-a-British-pop-star birth mother. Donna/Madonna is a tale of motherly love and finding acceptance told through stories, songs, and characters like Darth Vader, Carol Channing, and JP’s unforgettable mothers. Hilarious and poignant, this cross-country journey from Scranton to Los Angeles shows that sometimes you have to meet a “Material Girl” to truly appreciate “America’s Sweetheart.”

Donna/Madonna was the winner of the Best One Man Show Award at the 2010 United Solo Theatre Festival in New York and was recognized for Overall Excellence in Solo Performance at the 2011 New York International Fringe Festival. It won the Best of Fringe Award at the 2011 San Francisco Fringe Festival and StageSceneLA ‘Scenie’ Awards for Outstanding Production, Solo Performance, Best Direction of a Solo Performance, and Best Solo Performance (2010-11).

Of Donna/Madonna, the LA Weekly said, “GO! Karliak’s execution is top-drawer. His delivery is brisk … and … his sense of humor is contemplative but unsentimental. Inhabiting the skin of his drastically different mothers, Karliak’s range is gleefully apparent.” And Back Stage said, “Karliak has a startling skill for changing on a dime from flamboyant, extroverted, and stylized performance artist to a direct and sincere man. This breezily insightful presentation celebrates what his two maternal parents did for him. Critic’s Pick!”

JP Karliak hails from the “Electric City,” Scranton, PA. His voice-over credits include Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., Skylanders, Lego Marvel Avengers. On-Camera: Real Husbands of Hollywood, Ringer. Los Angeles theatre work includes The Mistakes Madeline Made; The Girl, the Grouch & the Goat; Into the Woods; Inherit the Wind; and Women and Wallace. Karliak is a graduate of the USC School of Theatre, iO West, and Second City Training Center. He has written numerous short films and plays which have been produced in various locales around the country.

Co-Directors Tiger Reel and Matthew Craig boast impressive credits in both theatre and television. Reel is the Founding Artistic Director of the Action! Theatre Company where his directing credits include the West Coast premieres of There Is a Happiness That Morning Is, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Cartoon, as well as his award-winning adaptation of The Merchant of Venice. Craig performed nationwide with The Second City Touring Company, worked as a writer on Saturday Night Live during the 2010-2011 season, and currently writes and produces Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production for WB animation.

Donna/Madonna will play four performances only: Thursday, September 10 at 8pm; Friday, September 11 at 8pm; Saturday, September 12 at 8pm; and Sunday, September 13 at 3pm. Run time is 70 minutes. General admission seating is $20 and tickets are available online at https://www.plays411.com/donna or by calling (323) 206-6427. The Lounge Theatre is located at 6201 Santa Monica Boulevard (at El Centro), in Hollywood, 90038. For more info, visit www.donnamadonnashow.com.

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08-03-15

_{Photo Credit: JP Karliak. Photo by Jason B. Chen.}

NEWS RELEASE — “The MisMatch Game” RETURNS TO LALGBT CENTER FOR TWO NIGHTS ONLY — SAT 8/29 & SUN 8/30

The Los Angeles LGBT Center’s
Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center
and Dennis Hensley
Present

The MisMatch Game
WITH HOST DENNIS HENSLEY

RETURNS TO
LOS ANGELES LGBT CENTER’S RENBERG THEATRE
FOR AN END-OF-SUMMER COMIC FREE-FOR-ALL
TWO NIGHTS ONLY!
Saturday, August 29 at 8pm
Sunday, August 30 at 7pm

It’s time once again to “get ready to match the stars” with a new edition of Dennis Hensley’s The MisMatch Game, the show the Los Angeles Times calls, “witty, ribald … an adventure in surrealist era bending.” The side-splitting parody of the 70s game show returns to the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Renberg Theatre for two hilarious nights, Saturday, August 29 at 8pm and Sunday, August 30 at 7pm.

Producer and host Dennis “Gene Rayburn” Hensley will be joined onstage by a panel of some of L.A.’s most creative, hilarious, and demented comic minds. Hensley and company are once again generously donating the proceeds to benefit the Center’s array of free and low-cost services. Since its debut in 2004, The MisMatch Game has raised well over $100,000 for the Los Angeles LGBT Center. With kitschy prizes for volunteer contestants pulled from the audience, it’s time to dig out that leisure suit for another run of the perennial cult favorite.

Fractured celebrity impersonations include such luminaries (living and otherwise!) as Zooey Deschanel, Bea Arthur, Harvey Fierstein, Cher, Ricardo Montalbán, and Tim Gunn. The casts for these shows will be posted at lalgbtcenter.org/theatre.

The MisMatch Game regularly fills the house at its irregularly scheduled gigs at the Renberg Theatre. Audiences keep coming back for the razor’s-edge improv and the racy, anarchic, and decidedly un-PC wit and wildness. The Advocate honored The MisMatch Game with a “10 Best Theatre” citation that said, “This recurring Los Angeles happening re-imagines the ‘70s TV game show The Match Game with full-camp press and excellent sub-lebrity impersonations.”

General admission tickets are $15 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 the Village at Ed Gould Plaza, 1125 N. McCadden Place (one block east of Highland, just north of Santa Monica Boulevard), in Hollywood, 90038. Free onsite parking is available.

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07-29-15

NEWS RELEASE — Brimmer Street Theatre Company Fundraiser Set for Saturday 8/15 at 7pm at Emerson College LA

BRIMMER STREET THEATRE COMPANY
ANNOUNCES 2015 BENEFIT GALA

VISIONS AND DREAMS:
a lucid performance fundraiser

SATURDAY, AUGUST 15 AT 7PM
AT EMERSON COLLEGE LOS ANGELES

Brimmer Street Theatre Company has announced its 2015 Benefit Gala, VISIONS AND DREAMS: a lucid performance fundraiser, on Saturday, August 15. Dreamtime will be from 7—11pm at the spectacular new campus of Emerson College LA. Net proceeds will help fund BSTC’s theatrical work including its flagship new play development programs — the Blueprint Series and Breaking Ground.

VISIONS AND DREAMS will showcase immersive performance art from the Brimmer Street ensemble, an open bar featuring craft beer and local wine, a silent auction featuring tickets to premiere cultural events, food and art created exclusively in Los Angeles, and open views from the beautiful outdoor terrace on the fifth floor of the brand new Emerson College LA. Semi-formal attire is requested.

Tickets for VISIONS AND DREAMS: a lucid performance fundraiser are $50 and are available online at http://brimmerstreet.org/. Emerson College LA is located at 5960 Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, 90028. Parking is available on Gordon Street just below Sunset.

Brimmer Street Theatre Company is a non-profit ensemble theatre that creates and produces new works of theatre in order to cultivate artists and engage audiences in Los Angeles. By working from a select core of talented artists, BSTC aims to produce a unique brand of American theatre that is rooted in a common experience and driven by their commitment to building better theatre that is challenging, extraordinary, and inspiring.

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07-27-15