By Roger Park On Saturday night The Actors’ Gang performed a production of George Orwell’s classic novel 1984 at the Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT). Adapted for the stage by Michael Gene Sullivan and directed by actor-writer-director Tim Robbins, 1984 depicts a terrifying world where people fear their opinions cannot be expressed freely, where citizens are constantly monitored and lied to by their government and a perpetual war is waged against an unseen......

Camper Van Beethoven/Photo by "Friends of Camper Van Beethoven" via their website By Roger Park This June marks the 25th anniversary of one the most unique bands still rocking the sonic cosmos: Camper Van Beethoven. On Thursday, Camper Van Beethoven performed at the House of Blues in Hollywood as part of the Sunset Strip Music Festival (SSMF). On the same bill that night was Soul Asylum and Everclear. Combing elements of rock, Celtic, ska,......

It's classic romantic comedy formula--Boy Meets Girl, Boy Falls for Girl, Boy Loses Girl, Boy Gets Girl--but it has its roots in the venerable tradition of BritLit icon Jane Austen, whose mere six novels continue to capture the modern imagination. But imagine coming up with a full Austen-esque plot line, characters, witty repartee, and resolution in about 90 minutes? It's no easy feat, but for ImproTheatre's Unscripted Repertory performers (some pictured at right), it's simply......

Return to Forever is no "Boy Band"--they'd rather be called a "Man's Band." | Photo by Lynn Goldsmith/Used with permission By Roger Park Musical mastery is a rare beauty. On Friday, legendary jazz supergroup Return to Forever played two sets to an enthusiastic audience at the Gibson Amphitheater. Formed by keyboardist Chick Corea over 30 years ago, Friday’s classic lineup featured bassist Stanley Clarke, guitarist Al Di Meola and drummer Lenny White. The group......

Los Angeles really can be an amazing place sometimes. Where else will an artist the stature and as experienced as Elvis Costello decide to play a secret, free midnight show? Very, very few places. Luckily, we are in Los Angeles and this exact thing did happen Wednesday night. Announcing the show at 7pm on Indie 103.1, Costello came straight from his performance in support of the Police, and proceeded to rock the El Rey for......

A Chorus Line | Photo by Paul Kolnik First brought to the boards of Broadway in 1975, Michael Bennett's stark, blunt, and brilliant musical about being in musicals became one of the longest-running musicals of all-time. Now in revival after over a decade's absence on the Great White Way, the national touring company of A Chorus Line has landed in LA's Ahmanson Theatre for a limited engagement. Considering that Line is wholly emblematic of......

If there is a more beautiful place to see a concert than the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington please direct me to it. Each year, this is the home for the annual memorial weekend blowout known as the Sasquatch! Music Festival. A short two-hour drive east from Seattle takes you to the Gorge, built on the side of a cliff, overlooking the Columbia River. The scenery is as gorgeous as anywhere, when you add in some......

The 2008 installment of KROQ's Annual Weenie Roast Y Fiesta was decidedly nostalgic this year with sets from punk legends Bad Religion, Orange County rockers the Offspring and the biggest force in metal in its history, Metallica. It was a return to force for the latter band as they finally broke out of a touring holding pattern and "escaped" from the studio to show why they are one of the loudest and most commanding bands......

Miwa Gemini at the Hotel Cafe | Photo by Lindsay William-Ross/LAist When the opportunity to check out New York-based singer-songwriter Miwa Gemini live at the Hotel Cafe came up recently I jumped at the chance based on one line in the PR materials: "Think Nina Simone meets Sparklehorse meets Cat Power, and you're getting close." Intrigued, I showed up Sunday evening to the Hotel Cafe, nabbed a seat in the room's soothing darkness, and......

There is little doubt that by now you have seen them on MTV, heard them on KROQ or Indie or seen them on SNL, if you haven't then it must be dark in that cave. The ginormous hype machine known as Vampire Weekend came through LA Thursday night to play their first proper show in support of their debut self-titled album. With tickets reportedly going for upwards of $400 a pair on ebay, (!!) the......

Artist and forager Nancy Klehm will be holding the last of her highly unique cooking classes at Echo Park gallery/performance space Machine Project this Monday, March 10th, from 6-9pm. There are still a few spots left (tickets cost $85 for members, $95 for non-members), so head on over to the website to sign up for a lesson on making your own fermented fruits and vinegars. Fruit wine sounds like a fantastic way to take......

As the culminating event of a fifteen week workshop that joined veterans, performing artists, and activists in a series of verbal and physical conversations about their lives and aspirations, "Action Conversations" was presented at Highways Performance Space for only three performances, February 8-9. Through a collaborative process under the direction of UCLA professor and choreographer Victoria Marks, the performers revealed some of the highlights of their explorations of identity, heroics, mortality and civic responsibility in......

They've brought luminescence to Burning Man nights and misting relief to blistering Coachella days. This Saturday, Do LaB sets out to light up your love life, whether you hate V-Day or not. Skip the roses and head downtown for a night of burlesque, nonstop beats, and a brand new performance by the Los Angeles' own Lucent Dossier Vaudeville Cirque. The Do LaB's transporting the naturific, visionary vibes you know from their Lightning in a......

The LA Improv Dance Festival exploded onto the downtown scene last week with classes and jams from Tuesday on though the weekend. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, audiences were treated to some amazing performances by the workshop faculty and local dancers/improvisers. I was lucky enough to get there on Friday night for the In-Site Collaboration Performance. When performers find their groove in these improvisations, it’s hard to tell that they are improvising. It looks like they’ve......

Tomorrow is the ribbon cutting of the third and newest downtown Famima!! at the California Plaza on Grand Avenue near MOCA. It's about time this part of downtown receive some new food options, even if this is quasi Japanese 7-11 style. However, a made-to-order sushi bar will be the centerpiece of this location. In addition to the few food options at the California Plaza, Performance Row (as we once dubbed it) has a Koo Koo......

Jazz performers improvise in front of an audience all of the time. At each sitting, different combinations of instruments and players create unique variations of existing sounds and tunes or develop something brand new to our ears. It’s thrilling to listen to the artists search for their individuality within the known arrangement of tones, scales, rhythms and meters. Or, it can fall flat. Still, when you bring the best together, even flat can be amazing......

Rainy days and Mondays may get you down, so check out these events tonight to make the first night of the workweek no so ho-hum. FILM As part of the LA Phil's Concrete Frequency series, the Arclight Hollywood gets into the game with screenings of films that are "designed to examine and celebrate the elements that define a city, and how they are affected by, and reflected in, music." On tap tonight is Fritz......

So maybe you holed up inside last night with a hot toddy and are thinking, "rain be damned! I'm going out tonight!" Okay, fine. If you make it out earlier, you can celebrate the Japanese New Year, or you can lay low until the evening hours and then get yourself so theatre. Or you could just stay home and keep drinking. We'll never tell... JAPANESE NEW YEAR/SAKE-TO ME There are multiple events going on today......

When I waited tables in New York City, we had a very popular item we sold called a quattroformaggio pizelle--a thin crusted pizza made from a flour tortilla with mozzarella, asiago, parmesan and fontina cheeses. It was light, it was tasty, but Barbara Walters once asked me if it was low fat and I could only smile and bring her a salad. That’s my history with the four cheese idea. Last weekend (December 14-15, 2007),......

2006 Performance of Unsilent Night in SF Unsilent Night @ Pan-Pacific Regional Park Tori Amos @ Nokia Theatre Spank Rock, LA Riots, Steve Aoki @ LAX Ingrid Michaelson @ Hotel Cafe Listing Ship, The Harpeth Trace @ Spaceland Bad Kitty Project @ Lighthouse Cafe The Evangenitals @ Mr. T's Bowl Wayne "The Train" Hancock @ Safari Sam's Ne-Yo @ The Wiltern Part Time Punks @ The Echo Carlos Guitarlos @ Liquid Kitty The Spazmatics......

One look at the bill for Night Two of KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas one might think with all of the INDIE flavor that that LA's "other" rock station was behind the programming. But alas it was KROQ and Night Two featured great performances by Modest Mouse, Muse, Feist, Silversun Pickups, Jimmy Eat World, Spoon and a surprise unannounced performance from the Killers.......

If you want to laugh non-stop for an hour and a half, then go see Bob's Holiday Office Party at The Lounge Theatre in Hollywood. This slapstick Holiday play is hilariously fucked up and the riot that is the party at Bob's will leave you smiling like no other. The whole audience is LOLOLOLOLOLOLROFLOLOLOLOL the whole time -- pure insanity. Every year in a small Iowa town, insurance agent Bob Finhead throws an office party......

In 1987, U2 did a little guerrilla music video shoot on top of the Republic Liquor Store at 7th and Main in Downtown Los Angeles. Only announced hours before the shoot on the radio, thousands and thousands of fans poured into what many considered a bad part of town prompting the LAPD to have a little freak out and try shut down the show before anything happened. Luckily, in the name of rock n'......

Everyone's favorite perdedor, Beck, returns to Echo Park on Sunday to charm the kids at the Echoplex, the Echo Blast email stated minutes ago: Beck Announces a Special Los Angeles Club Performance SUNDAY NOVEMBER 25TH @ ECHOPLEX Tickets on sale Friday November 23rd at 5pm 2 ticket limit. The only way to retrieve your tickets is at will call the night of the show. You MUST bring the credit card you used to purchase......

In it's 3rd year of existence, this past weekend's Vegoose Music Festival featured quite the impressive lineup. Boasting the final North American Show of the ever incredible Daft Punk and the final stop of Rage Against the Machine's reunion (tour), the fest also included great performances from Gogol Bordello, Muse, M.I.A. and many, many more. Follow the jump for tonnnns (literally) of pics of Muse, Queens of the Stone Age, M.I.A., Gogol Bordello, Queens......

- JetBlue to match Virgin's prices to NYC - The final offer has been submitted by the union of clerks for the LA and Long Beach Ports. If not accepted, strikes could begin Monday, stopping work for 40% of cargo container traffic in the country. 15,000 longshoremen of a different union have also agreed to honor the picket lines. - West Adams, or WeAd is the black WeHo. - Harry Potter Fools! Why wait......

Remember when Sandra Bullock set aside her flourishing, if somewhat formulaic, Hollywood career to make compelling independent films that actually had something original to say? Yeah, me neither. Premonition continues a long slide that I predict will ultimately end in a USA series about a quirky female detective--Bullock to star, produce AND direct a few eps. Factory Girl also drops today. After seeing Sienna Miller in Interview and reading this, I'm renting it. Other......

London-born rapper Lady Sovereign will bust her rhymes this Friday, June 22nd at Avalon's Club 82. It’s a “Live PA Performance,” so this should be a one-woman show, with no pre-recorded tracks. Lady Sov is known by some as the female Eminem (Feminem?) and has been opening for Gwen Stefani on her "Sweet Escape" Tour. She’s gained some notoriety for onstage antics- at a show in New York she told the crowd to “Fuck......

6:51 - Some chick and some dude from The Hills grace us with their presence. Why are they here? Oh right, they're on a show that's on MTV. Notice the cross-promotion. Together, I will count them as 1 celebrity, and even that's stretching it. Total Number of Celebrities Who Have Visited the Blogghetto: 2. 6:49 - Johnny Depp wins Best Performance. Wearing a black blazer and jeans, he ascends the stage to a chorus......

6:22 - It's your last chance to text in your vote for Best Movie. I know it hasn't even opened yet, but I bet that somehow Transformers will win. 6:21 - Mike Myers gets a well-deserved laugh after he thanks his parents for teaching him to "never sell out" and immediately follows it with a deliberately over-the-top promo for a Pontiac sedan. Plug away. 6:19 - "Shall I shag him now or shall I......