"Thank you so much for putting out this great resource! I just saw the hot air balloon festival and am over the moon happy about it!
Thanks & have a GREAT weekend:-)" - Ann
"Eye Spy LA is the greatest events calendar for LA. Period. Not only do we always list our Spirited Woman events in it and have pulled great results - but it is my own weekly "whats-going-on" bible, and I personally don't make a plan before checking the listings." - Nancy Mills Founder, Spirited Woman
"I so look forward to this [newsletter] every Friday. Thank you" - Icetea3
"Thank you for writing wonderful editions of Eye Spy LA. Every Fri. I look forward to open my e-mail. It comes so handy to know about places or events that my family and I can attend on the weekends. Wishing you and your loved ones a happy and safe holiday season!!!!" - Patricia Arias
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| SCENE IN L.A.
Guides, Reviews, Editorials, Photos & Videos
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 THIS WEEK IN L.A. (03/16/2010 Things To Do in Los Angeles by Eye Spy LA Editor) Shamrocks have been hung near the barstools with care in hopes that the Irish soon will be there. Everyone's Irish on ST.PATRICK'S DAY and so are all the local bars. This year catch the free St. Patrick's Day Festival at Nokia Plaza downtown. HOT TIPSY: ride the Metro Red or Blue Line to this event.
Don't forget that Sunday is L.A. Marathon day. Good to know about even if you don't plan to be a spectator.
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 CATCH IT BEFORE IT’S GONE: A PRAYER FOR MY DAUGHTER @CROWN CITY THEATRE (03/15/2010 Theatre Review in NoHo Arts Dist. by M.R. Hunter) What is most surprising about the revival of the late Thomas Babe’s 1978 cynical dramedy set in the grungy bowels of an NYPD precinct’s holding room is how little has changed and if anything, has only gotten worse. A pair of crooked, rogue cops on the graveyard shift—each battling their own personal demons, extorts justice through a series of manipulative interrogations on a pair of petty criminals caught inside their sinister web.
As a work of social commentary, Babe’s play proves it is still relevant, speaking to the unethical and apathetic brutality of those who are supposed to uphold the law...
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 THEY GOT ME IN MY PJ'S! (03/11/2010 Tales of Downtown in Downtown LA by Nancy Mills) Remember when I wrote my post "Is Downtown LA an Episodic TV Show?" and my answer was YES. Well, it is also a movie set. BIG TIME. The film shoots seem to be everywhere these days. If you don't watch out you will electrocute yourself on a cable, get bumped in the head by a swinging camera, or mistakenly become an extra.
Filming is just a part of life for downtowners.
But......there are limits my friends, limits...
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 LIVIN' LARGE IN SIERRA MADRE - PLUS SIZED PLANT TAKES OVER TOWN (03/08/2010 Things To Do in San Gabriel Valley by Eye Spy LA Editor)
Big is beautiful, all 250 tons of the world's largest blossoming plant (according to the Guiness Book of World Records) are lovely to look at. The only chance to see this vigorous vine comes once a year at the Annual Wistaria Festival in Sierra Madre. This year's festival is on Sunday March 14th...
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 "UP WITH DOWNEY" TOUR - DOWNEY CA, MARCH 27, 2010 (03/06/2010 Things To Do in Los Angeles by Charles Phoenix) Downey's pop culture legends and landmarks are amazing and I want to share them with you! Join me in Downey, CA, on Saturday, March 27, 2010, for this one-time only "Up With Downey" tour - a 5-hr field trip adventure in "America's Greatest Space Age Suburbia!" We're even gonna meet Miss Downey!
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 THIS AIN’T NO DISNEY WONDERLAND! (03/05/2010 Film in Downtown LA by Kelly Hargraves)
REDCAT’s 10th Annual International Children's Film Festival!
What a great way to show kids the world, without strapping them into seatbelts—well just a short ride anyway! Cartoons, comedies, short films of all sorts, make kid’s feel good. We parents feel good, if we’ve gotten them off the couch on a Saturday morning! So this event is a perfect blend!
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 LAST WEEK IN DANCE (03/04/2010 Dance in Los Angeles by Kelly Hargraves) Point Shoes and Helmets: Alberta Ballet (Over)does Joni Mitchell
I call it tragically hopeful. Take a folk singer with aspirations of saving the world through song-- not unreasonable considering Joni Mitchell’s place as a voice of a generation – add it to a young upstart ballet company and choreographer, intent on visualizing the songstress’ images and it’s all a bit too much—the camouflage painted skin, with minimal cloth incorporated; the waving flags; the toy guns; the helmets, the huge earth covered balloon, the gimmick girl child, etc, etc.
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 FIRECRACKER RUN IN CHINATOWN (03/04/2010 Things To Do in Downtown LA by Eye Spy LA Editor) Last Saturday turned out to be a perfectly beautiful day for a run about town as 5000 or so people came from all over the greater Los Angeles area to participate in the annual Firecracker 5/10k Run Walk event in Chinatown. Luminaries included Councilmember Ed Reyes, actor James Hong, the Laker Girls, and of course Miss Chinatown and her court.
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 FOR A LIMITED AUDIENCE: BROADS! THE MUSICAL (03/01/2010 Theatre Review in NoHo Arts Dist. by M.R. Hunter) There’s nothing worse than seeing incredible talent go wasted on some schlocky material. Joe Symon and Jennie Fahn might have seen one too many Golden Girls episodes to crank out this recycled hash of banal one-liners, tired numbers and a predictable storyline concerning age and friendship. Senior citizens, the obvious target audience, might find this as irresistible as the Early Bird Special at NoHo Diner, but don’t let that fool you, I caught most of them snoozing in their seats.
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 THE BALLAD OF EMMETT TILL: A LYRICAL TRIBUTE OF LOVE AND LOSS @ THE FOUNTAIN THEATRE (02/26/2010 Theatre Review in Hollywood by M.R. Hunter)
“My life was short, but not uneventful.”
So begins the true story of one Emmett Till, a magnanimous fourteen-year-old with the gift of gab and a buoyant optimism that caused him to be the victim of hate, but whose murder sparked a call to action in the dawn of the civil rights movement.
The year was 1955—a time when race sharply divided a country into two unequal parts of equality and justice. In Argo, a small suburb outside of Chicago, whistling at a white woman or wearing a Panama hat might turn a few heads, but in the deep south of Mississippi, it could get a black man killed. For Emmett, race knew no bounds in his sheltered childhood with his mother and grandmother in Illinois. Using his charisma and mercurial wit to overcome his limp and slight stutter brought on by polio, Emmett’s personal strengths become a lethal liability when he spends the summer on his uncle’s plantation in the heart of Jim Crow country.
After its celebrated premiere at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, (garnering the 2008 Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award), playwright Ifa Bayeza refitted the play, whittling the original cast of 13 to a mere five with all but the titled character playing various roles throughout. The result is a compact, moving tribute integrated with lyrical movement, superimposed speech, and stunning tableaus.
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 THIS WEEK IN DANCE (02/26/2010 Dance in Los Angeles by Kelly Hargraves)
Whole Lotta Ballet!!
Say what you will about the fine art of ballet—I know I had a lot of curse words for it as I struggled through classes in college—but it is a demanding, gravity defying, beautiful thing...and, in light of all the Olympic skating, now might be the best time to experience it on stage. You’ll have more than enough chances this weekend in LA when no less than three ballet performances. Maybe it’s a record?
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 MYRTLE TURTLE & HER ROYAL COURT, INDIO, CA, 1967 (02/19/2010 Things To Do in Los Angeles by Charles Phoenix) A giant paper mâché turtle on wheels trails a trio of local teen girls perched on a Chrysler product parading through he heart of town. The beautiful bubble windshield tells us it's a Chrysler, but who cares what kind of a car it is when it's covered from stem to stern in spellbinding stripes of buttercup yellow and sea-foam green toilet paper flowers. I love America... but I love Americana even more! And if this isn't Americana I don't know what is!
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 MY FLAT TIRE LEADS TO A GOOD HAIR DAY
& SALVATION (OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT) (02/18/2010 Tales of Downtown in Downtown LA by Nancy Mills) When I drive, I must say I am a little spaced. Not so much outer spacey but inner spacey. I zone into a place that only I seem to know about. So it took three different cars honking - and two guys pointing, and one woman shouting, for me to realize that I had a flat tire...
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 MOVE OVER GOTTI. IT’S CRIS D’ANNUNZIO’S “DIGGING UP DAD” (02/17/2010 Theatre Review in Santa Monica by M.R. Hunter) While it’s no “Growing Up Gotti,” Cris D’Annunzio’s one-man show bravely chronicles his difficult Italian American childhood as he uncovers the source of his bitter resentment recently laid to rest. At least he knows where the body’s buried, but when he starts digging for the truth about his father’s suspicious death it only raises more questions, cash and mob threats in this heartfelt seriocomedy at the Ruskin Group Theatre.
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 THE WOOSTER GROUP: NORTH ATLANTIC - LOS ANGELES PREMIERE @REDCAT (02/12/2010 Theater Review in Downtown LA by Kelly Hargraves) Wooster Group might be the perfect mix of theatre for a town like LA and a place like REDCAT, where illusion, media saturation, exploitation of images run rampant, and luckily REDCAT’S Director Mark Murphy knows that and has started a four year residency between the historically experimental NY based theatre company and Cal Arts. From the get go, the company’s style made me proud of local theatre artists like Culture Clash and Heather Woodbury, who have created a myriad of characters and stories within one play.
What Wooster does is....well, it seems whatever it wants to. Not tied to the written word on the page and a clear narrative structure. That said, the writing is extraordinary and combined with a staging that is vital...
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ART THIS WEEK IN L.A.
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