Performing Arts

‘With Love and a Major Organ’: Boston Court’s Last Play for the Season

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

Originally published on 27 September 2017 in the Pasadena Independent, Arcadia Weekly, and Monrovia Weekly

Boston Court Performing Arts Center in Pasadena ends its 2017 season with the West Coast premiere of Julia Lederer’s ‘With Love and a Major Organ’, from September 28 through November 5, 2017. 

Directed by award-winning co-artistic director, Jessica Kubzansky, ‘With Love and a Major Organ’ is a whimsical, quirky, and wildly original play that dissects physical human interaction in the age of technology. Its title alone is startling and it was what attracted her to the play at the outset.

Says Kubzansky, “I love this title and I think it’s deliciously funny. The story is about trying to connect in our ever more virtual world. There’s a character in the play who has been enclosed for years in her own privacy. She’s seeing an online therapist, Google Shrink, who recommends that she see more people so she speed-dates online. What’s contrapuntal to this is that she falls in love with a stranger she meets on the subway. She then gives her actual beating heart to this man and he disappears on her.”

‘With Love and a Major Organ’ follows the protagonist’s quest to retrieve her heart, accidentally cracking open those of others she meets on the way. The play is eccentric and edgy comedy about what it costs to give your heart away, and what happens when you discover you actually have one.

“To me one of the most profound ironies of our time is that we have never been more connected yet we have never felt more isolated,” Kubzansky declares. “There’s this amazing animation that someone made about people running around looking down on their phones – technology is changing their lives but they’re completely missing out on life around them. Technology is significantly improving our lives while considerably reducing our ability to connect.

Julia’s play is both truly hilarious and powerfully heartbreaking. She’s mining both the absurd lengths to which love will drive us and the deep loneliness that emanates from protecting our frequently bruised and broken hearts. Her text is poetry for the theatre and she pushes metaphor to its most surreal and deeply truthful limits.”         

Boston Court Performing Arts Center was founded in 2003 as a non-profit arts center dedicated to new and original works by living artists. Led by co-artistic theatre directors, Jessica Kubzansky and Michael Minetti, it has successfully established its place among the numerous theatre companies in Pasadena.    

“The journey has been exciting, challenging, and wonderful,” proclaims Kubzansky. “I’ve been extraordinarily privileged to have founded Boston Court with Michael. We had the thrilling task of creating the mission and vision for this place – it’s always stimulating for an artist to create what you want to share with the world.

We knew when we started that Boston Court is only four blocks from the Pasadena Playhouse; we realized we needed to offer something different. Frankly, the design of the place dictated many things: it’s beautiful but it’s also very intimate. It’s important for us to do risky, adventurous work because we have fewer seats to fill; we can afford to take chances in our programming.

Also, it’s imperative for me to do work that challenges both the artist and the audience – plays that encourage each artist to passionately pursue his own unique voice and vision. We don’t want cookie-cutter productions or something our audience can see somewhere else. We look for a variety of styles and we significantly reinvent the classic. The only time we wouldn’t re-envision a classic is when it’s  highly theatrical, textually rich, and visually arresting on its own – something we call a ‘Boston Court play’.

We put on four productions per season – usually one wildly re-envisioned classic; a world premiere; maybe one we had in our New Play Festival that subsequently ends up on our stage; and one that’s timely and needs to be done now. It’s all about passion and balance, but always the mandate is the same – it has to be highly theatrical, textually rich and visually arresting.”  

Kubzansky and Michetti actively seek out like-minded collaborators. She states, “When Michael and I meet with directors we would like to work with, we ask ‘What has been burning a hole in your gut? What do you need to talk about right now?’ Both of us have really astonishing experiences when it comes from our gut.”  

According to Kubzansky it took a while for them to fully grasp what sets Boston Court apart from other theatre companies in the area. She states, “It was much later, when our season had entirely world premieres and we had to extend every show, that it became clear to us that our audience liked the plays they’ve never heard of before. People now know that when they come to Boston Court, they will have a quality ride; they are confident that no matter what they see here it’s going to be a great evening.

Because our work is adventurous, it occasionally divides or offends people. But they also trust that they will see artistic excellence and the experience will be unlike what they get elsewhere. It’s incredibly important to us to take part in a cultural conversation that reflects the world as it is today. We ask our audience to be moved and to think – to crack open their heart and mind a little bit.  

In Los Angeles, you see a play, get in your car, and drive away. But in New York, after the show you go to a bar next door, bump into people who also saw the play, and have a discussion about it. We want to bring that kind of engagement in the L.A. theatre scene. Every Friday we have complimentary wine, sparkling water, and Chex Mix to encourage people to sit in our beautify lobby and have a dialogue about they had just seen.    

There’s a misconception that theatre-goers in Los Angeles don’t have the same passion for it as New Yorkers. It may be true that a much larger percentage of the population on the East Coast  sees a play on any given night – it’s so easy for them to go on the subway then get off after four stops. Los Angelenos are also passionate devotees and there are so many choices of theatres here, too. However, I think that geography has something to do with it – if you live in Venice and want to see a play here, you have to make a commitment in terms of the drive. Fortunately, Boston Court attracts subscribers from far afield – which is very thrilling. Pasadena is a beautiful place; it’s a really complex community and it’s exciting for us to be here.”

Before Boston Court existed the place it now occupies was a parking lot. It was purchased by philanthropist, Z. Clark Branson, to build a state-of-the art, intimate facility designed to bring artists and audience closer together. The 75-seat Marjorie Branson Performance Space and the 99-seat Main Stage are sites for the theatre’s season of bold, risky theatre and its eclectic, diverse music series. It is also the home of an annual New Play festival, an Emerging Artists Series, as well as Upfront, a rotating visual arts program.

As Kubzansky relates it, the theatre company’s name was born out of their desire to come up with a moniker that conjures permanence, heft, and gravitas. “We wanted something iconic like the Actors Theatre of Louisville or the Pasadena Playhouse – both of which were already taken. When we realized our building is located on Mentor Avenue and Boston Court, a lightbulb lit; we became Boston Court Performing Arts Center. We thought people will understand when they see that we named it after the street we’re on. 

What’s funny is that after we had our logo created, stationery printed, and signs put up, we received a letter from the City of Pasadena informing us that our address is in fact 70 N Mentor Avenue; Boston Court is actually our driveway,” Kubzansky says with a laugh.      

That inadvertent address error couldn’t have deterred its founders’ resolve to make their mark  on the city and theatre. Boston Court Performing Arts Center stands today as a stalwart advocate of artistic vision and inventive expression.                

DIAVOLO Debuts at Arcadia’s Performing Arts

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

Originally published om 5 September 2017 in the Pasadena Independent, Arcadia Weekly, and Monrovia Weekly

DIAVOLO, fresh from its performances on NBC’s ‘America’s Got Talent’, makes its high-energy Pasadena and San Gabriel Valley debut at Arcadia’s Performing Arts Center on September 23, 2017 from 7:30 – 9:00 pm.

Featured during this maiden show is DIAVOLO’s groundbreaking masterpiece, ‘Trajectoire’, which will be seen in its entirety for the first time on the West Coast this year.  Also performing on the stage are students of Arcadia High School’s ‘Orchesis’ and the Dance Conservatory of Pasadena.

This electrifying event is being presented by Jennifer Cheng, Artistic Director of the Dance Conservatory of Pasadena and Executive Director of DIAVOLO, and the Cheng Family Foundation.

“Jacques Heim, DIAVOLO’s Creative Director, and I wanted to bring the Aesthetic of Architecture in Motion to Dance Conservatory of Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley,” states Cheng.  “Dance in Los Angeles is experiencing tremendous growth; L.A. is fast becoming a new and exciting center for this art form in the world.  We want to share this extraordinary new phase in dance to Pasadena, Arcadia, and all of San Gabriel Valley.”

Cheng’s lifelong passion is dance.  Growing up in Pasadena, she started ballet at the age of five with Yvonne Cusack.  She then trained with Stanley Holden as one of his first students at the Music Center in Los Angeles and then later at his dance studio in West Los Angeles.

When she was 15 years old, Cheng received her Advanced Certificate from the Royal Academy of Dancing.  She was also the recipient of the Ford Scholarship for the School of American Ballet.  As a young dancer, she performed with Rudolf Nureyev and the Australian Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet, as well as dancing on various television shows like the ‘Brady Bunch’ and ‘The Odd Couple’.

However, Cheng’s parents didn’t want her to have the life of a dancer – eking out an existence in New York City, trying to find a job that was difficult to come by.  So she attended Pomona College where she received her bachelor’s degree in art history.  She then earned a law degree from UC Davis School of Law, and an MBA from UC Irvine School of Management.

Cheng went on to practice law but the dream of being in the dance world stayed with her all these years.  In 2011 she quit the law profession and founded the Dance Conservatory of Pasadena (DCP) on Waverly Drive.  Its mission is to provide the highest technical and artistic level of instruction for students to pursue careers as dancers, with an emphasis on offering performance opportunities.

“We started six years ago with just two teachers and grew pretty fast – we now have four studios and over 200 students,” Cheng describes.  “Our classes are divided into the children division for three through nine years old; pre-professionals are 9 years to 18 years old; and advanced ballet for adults.  Sessions are held after 3:00 from Monday to Friday and on Saturday.  Adult lessons are held mornings from Monday to Thursday and Saturday morning.

My students perform and compete as well.  We just finished the second year of competition and we won first place at the semifinals at Youth American Grand Prix in San Diego, which automatically qualifies us for the New York City finals.”

Adds Cheng, “While I established DCP primarily as a ballet school, we realized contemporary dance is an important component of one’s dance education to make it as a professional performer.  I brought in DIAVOLO to DCP’s studio, and that enabled us offer two levels of contemporary dance courses.

DIAVOLO is recognized as a contemporary and physical movement dance company.  We’ve been in existence for 25 years and are known all over the world.  In February 2018, we’ll be performing at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., then touring the United States and internationally.”

DIAVOLO’s “In Flight” | Courtesy Photo

Established in 1992 by French-born choreographer and visionary Jacques Heim, DIAVOLO reinvents dance and reimagines theatre to create genre-bending stage performances with striking set pieces.  It is a cultural pillar of the Los Angeles community and has performed for hundreds of thousands of concertgoers worldwide and for millions on television.

“My students at DCP perform twice a year and we do a summer program,” discloses Cheng.  “We’ve presented ‘The Nutcracker’ as a full production ballet with 100 students participating.   We needed a professional venue which can accommodate a large number of performers and I discovered the Arcadia Performing Arts Center where we’ve performed it for two years now.

I personally think that there is no major dance, music, and media center in the San Gabriel Valley.  Most performing arts events happen at the Annenberg Center in Beverly Hills or the Broad Stage in Santa Monica and stop at downtown Los Angeles.  This year I met with a couple of PAC’s board members and told them I believe this theater should serve as the center of performing arts in this area.”

Cheng’s involvement with DIAVOLO led her to organize events where her students will be performing its dance style;  DIAVOLO’s debut at PAC is the result of that collaboration.  And because PAC is on the Arcadia High School (AHS) campus, she thought it makes perfect sense to invite AHS’s dance company, ‘Orchesis’, to perform as well.

Robyn O’Dell, dance teacher at AHS, says, “Orchesis is the advanced level dance course at AHS.  It is an art elective class for 10th to 12th graders and I currently have 30 students.  We hold four performances on campus and we go to different events and festivals.  Our biggest shows are Homecoming, the December Holiday program, and the spring dance production held in April.”

Continues O’Dell, “I teach a variety of dance techniques including contemporary, jazz, ballet, hip-hop, and modern.  Each year we bring a cultural style so students learn hula and Bollywood.  For our main show, which we gear up for every year, we perform 24 dances in an array of different styles and we bring in professional choreographers to work with the girls.”

“Ten of my students are working with DIAVOLO.  It’s a volunteer course, they rehearse after classes, and they don’t get grade credit,” O’Dell declares.

The Arcadia Performing Arts Center, one of San Gabriel’s Valley’s premier arts and entertainment venue, is a cultural destination and youth talent incubator that makes great art accessible to all.  Featuring a 1,163-seat main stage and black box theatre, this state-of-the art professional venue reaffirms the district’s 66-year legacy of arts excellence.  AHS alums include Stevie Nicks, Van Halen’s Michael Anthony Sobolewski, NFL Hall of Famer marching band member Bruce Matthews, and Emmy award-winning producer of ‘The Voice’ Barton Kimball.

Maki Hsieh, Executive Director of PAC, pronounces, “It is the Center’s privilege to host world-class treasure DIAVOLO which exemplifies integrity of artistic vision through the creative direction of Jacques Heim, and the executive leadership of Jennifer Cheng.  DIAVOLO’s infusion of power, precision, and passion in their groundbreaking performances, integration of up-and-coming artists, and global expansion are aligned with our Center’s focus on next-level immersive programing, and on advancing arts education in our new generation of cultural ambassadors.”

Ticket prices to the performance range from $15 to VIP $70; VIP Red Carpet is from 5:00 to 7:00 with appetizers, music, after-show meet-and-greet; and season passes at $10 – $45.

For Cheng, the event marks a step in the right direction for her, “I wanted to continue my passion and fulfil my dream.  I can’t be a dancer, but I certainly can bring dance to Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley and to the United States, through DIAVOLO.”