Frank Lloyd Wright - The Stage Play in Los AngelesWritten by Don and Kim Tatera
Frank Lloyd Wright - The Stage Play in Los AngelesRead Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com To read this entire feature FREE with photos cut and paste this link: http://jetsettersmagazine.com/archive/jetezine/classic/calif/frank/frank.html Have you ever had one of those experiences that really made you believe that you were born too late? You know, not a few days or weeks late like a normal birth, but a number of years late, like 40 - 50 years. As devoted Jetsetters Travel Writers, always on go, we had not one, but three experiences in which we had déjà vu trippy experiences that really make us think we were born 40 - 50 years too late. For both of us having grown up in good old, corn-fed Midwest in Chicago, we're huge fans of architecture created by rightly self proclaimed "Greatest Architect in American History." Who is this, you ask and why? Read on, my friends and we'll explain in our three-part karma journey for our latest Jetsetters Magazine feature article. First, we went to always cutting edge Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art to view an excellent 90-minute theater production presented by The Theatre of Will Foundation. It was a one-person play about then 68-year-old Frank Lloyd Wright that occurred during a three-hour timeframe in 1935. The setting for this play was in drafting room at Spring Green, Wisconsin at Taliesin, initial hilltop architectural home for Mr. Wright's fellowship of architectural and landscape architect apprentices. This brilliant two-act play examines Wright's life, from personal adversities and professional set backs to design innovations and architectural achievements to his outrageous comments about American popular culture. In intimate Ahmanson Auditorium at MOCA, having approximately 160 seats, mostly filled with an eclectic, artsy crowd of thirty-somethings, we were privileged to experience this special engagement of this amazing theatrical production starring John Crowther. Not only did he write and perform entire play, but he even looks like a spitting image of Frank Lloyd Wright while he is decked out in his beret, gold ascot, and gray suit. Having personally seen interviews with F.LL.W, John is a very gifted and talented actor who convinced us that we were back in time witnessing real Frank Lloyd Wright. His body movements, mannerisms, and speech pattern were uncannily on mark. John cleverly portrayed F.LL.W.'s bombastic personality as this architectural visionary reminisced to his students for three hours while he speedily hand-drafted, or as he said, "shook design out of his sleeve," for one of his masterpieces - Fallingwater in Bear Run, Pennsylvania.
| | Abingdon Square Play Los AngelesWritten by Kim and Don Tatera
Abingdon Square Play Los AngelesRead Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com To read this entire feature FREE with photos cut and paste this link: http://www.jetsettersmagazine.com/archive/jetezine/shows/lax/abingdon/abindgon.html Recently we went to see Los Angeles premiere of this very dramatic play written in 1984 by Maria Irene Fornes. It was premiered by The Open Fist Theater Company at a funky little theater on La Brea, a mere stone's throw from Hollywood Boulevard, in heart of always happening Hollywood, California. The audience, primarily dressed in their best black, filled 99 seat theater to capacity, and from overhearing a few random conversations, was filled with screenwriters, playwrights and students studying theater in college. I wondered why there was such a large collective of students of theater here to view this production? Little did I know that this playwright, Maria Irene Fornes, is one of most distinguished female playwrights in America and has written over three dozen works for stage in last forty years. Not only is she a talented playwright, director, teacher, translator, and lyricist, but also she has received eight Obie Awards, with one in recognition of her Sustained Achievement in Theater. In addition, Maria received a Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1990 for one of her plays, "And What of Night?". Since her immigration from Havana, Cuba to New York in 1945, at age of 15, she has been primarily writing, and debuting her plays on East Coast. They are known and respected for being intelligent, thoughtful, often funny, delicate and quite profound experiences. With "Abingdon Square" having earned an Obie Award in 1988 for Best American Play, Kim and I were in for quite a theatrical treat.
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