Kathryn Bostic has a varied music career as a composer for film, stage and the concert hall, and a singer/songwriter; the Ford Amphitheatre in the Hollywood Hills is nearing the end of an extensive renovation; an unprecedented number of women comic book writers and artists are up for Eisner Awards.
The Ford Amphitheatre brings the past into the future
Even people who don’t live in Los Angeles know about the Hollywood Bowl. It seats more than 17,000 people and acts as big as Paul Simon, Diana Ross and Brian Wilson will play there this Summer. But across the 101 Freeway is another outdoor theater tucked into the Hollywood hills. It’s smaller, less flashy, and it’s been around for almost a century.
(The original interior of the Ford Theatre in 1931, which went under the name of The Pilgrimage Theatre. Courtesy of the Ford Theatres)
The John Anson Ford Amphitheatre has been closed for a year-and-a-half for a massive $65.8 million renovation that will be unveiled on July 8. The venue has been under construction since October 2014. Adam Davis, managing director of productions for the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, oversaw much of the renovation.
(The new crossover space is much larger than before renovations. Costume changes will happen here. Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC)
Davis walks through the widened corridors underneath the stage. This was one area where the old infrastructure, which had mostly remained the same since its original construction in 1931, was in dire need of a fix. "The crossover areas where artists had to go through hallways to make sure they get on stage on time was very tight," Davis says. "It was tight where, you know, you and I would have to pass and one would have to stand against the wall while the other one ran [by]."
The initial idea for the amphitheatre was to house a religious play about the life of Jesus Christ. In 1920, author Christine Wetherill Stevenson wrote “The Pilgrimage Play” and she needed an appropriate setting. Stevenson saw the picturesque mountainside of the Cahuenga Pass, bought 32 acres of land, and built a wooden outdoor venue called The Pilgrimage Theatre.
The play was performed there every year until October, 1929, when a brush fire completely destroyed the venue. That happened the very same week of the stock market crash that led to The Great Depression.
(The Pilgrimage Theatre was burnt down due to a brush fire in October 1929. Credit: Los Angeles Public Library)
In 1931, the local community and architect William Lee Woollett rebuilt the theater — this time with concrete — so "The Pilgrimage Play" could resume performances, which continued until 1964. A lawsuit from Los Angeles County forced its closure because public funds were being used to put on a religious play, but the theatre remained.
Laura Zucker, executive director of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, says the venue "was used sporadically, sometimes in great ways: Shakespeare, 'King Lear' — people fondly remember jazz concerts, but it was also leased to a rock and roll promoter who kind of trashed the place."
By the late '80s, acts such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Ramones, and Jane's Addiction would play the Ford. The venue was renamed for former Los Angeles County Supervisor John Anson Ford. He was a fan of the arts, and he helped found the county's arts commission. Zucker says when she came to the commission in 1992, she inherited a facility "that really had been neglected since 1931, when it was built. It had 100-year-old fuses, it had broken lights. There was nothing really here but the shell."
Adam Davis also encountered some technical issues when he joined the team at the Ford more than a decade ago:
At one point, one of my production managers told me the story where they had to put two wires together to turn a light on. No one was in charge of maintaining it over time.
(A sound wall to block freeway noise will be installed behind the seats during construction at the Ford Amphitheatre. Maya Sugarman/KPCC)
So Zucker started off by using the amphitheatre to feature local artists and called it the “Partnership Program,” in which The Ford covers the cost of marketing and technical assistance, and gives the artists 90 percent of the box office revenue. Zucker and her team want to find artists that reflect the diversity of Los Angeles — both culturally and artistically. Most importantly, they’re also looking for artists who can fill a 1,200-seat venue.
We’re really looking for artists and arts organizations that are ready to push the envelope. We believe that in order to excel artistically, you have to take risks. If you’re not taking risks, it’s going to be boring. So we’re willing to take a chance and help artists and arts organizations fill their dreams.
One of those artists is Andrea Miller. She runs the community arts organization called Mama Earth. "We always have a tradition of mixing pop music, cultural art forms," Miller says. "Afro-Cuban dance, Capoeira. So it’s funny that it’s come full circle but in a large venue." Mama Earth has about 40 performers on stage, including dancers and live musicians, which may have been a problem before the amphitheater was renovated. Adam Davis remembers one night when the narrow hallways underneath the stage of the old amphitheater became a bit too crowded during a dance performance.
I was backstage one night, and the artists laid in this hallway all of their costumes, and they would come run through, pick them up, put them on in the hallway all cramming together and trying to get back on the stage. The capacity that was in that hallway needed to expand.
(This Brazilian wood will cover the lower and upper stages as part of the renovation of the Ford Amphitheatre. Maya Sugarman/KPCC)
So Davis and his team have expanded those hallways, brightened the dim corridors, leveled the stage, and replaced the concrete surface with hardwood floors. The renovations will make things easier for performers, but there's another reason why some artists are excited about the Ford's rebirth.
Jackie Lopez is co-founder of the hip-hop dance company, Versa-Style. She performed with her group at the Ford in 2013 and will return later this year. "What separates The Ford is this community-based passion that they have," Lopez says. "It’s not just about producing a show, but it’s about building a community and believing in a certain group of people — or diverse group of people — to come and represent and tell the stories of Los Angeles. So that’s what inspires me."
As The Ford prepares for its re-opening, Laura Zucker hopes to continue to highlight the Los Angeles arts community and bring a new light to the historic amphitheater.
This is the opposite of the Hollywood Bowl ... [where] you sit in a natural amphitheater and you look at a beautiful, but man-made shell that’s changed over time. At the Ford, you sit in a man-made amphitheater and you look at a beautiful, natural hillside environment, and that’s what will always be special here.
The John Anson Ford Amphitheatre reopens on July 8 with a performance by TaikoProject and Quetzal.
Kathryn Bostic's many musical hats: composer, singer, songwriter, pianist
From a very young age, composer Kathryn Bostic was drawn to music.
She began playing the piano at just three years old. Today, Bostic not only composes, but also is an accomplished singer, songwriter and pianist.
Some of her recent work includes the score for director Justin Simien’s film, "Dear White People." Bostic has also composed music for three of Ava DuVernay’s films, including "Middle of Nowhere." And you can hear her score in the upcoming documentary, "Cameraperson," which debuted at Sundance.
And her composition, "Tres Osos y Una Playa," will be performed at the Hear Now Music Festival on April 24 in Los Angeles.
When Bostic stopped by The Frame recently, host John Horn asked how her mother influenced her lifelong love of music.
Interview Highlights:
Well, my mom was actually teaching a piano lesson when her water broke, so I came in ready to hit the ivories.
Was she your teacher?
She was initially, but that mother-daughter thing can kind of get in the way. But she was a great teacher initially and I learned so much from her. That, at times, was problematic for me because I would be playing my lesson, but then I'd start to hear things, and I'd want to veer off and do my own interpretation of what I was practicing. And it drove my mother crazy. It was an early telltale sign that she was not going to be a good teacher for me. Because I was always hearing things, hearing stories, hearing melody.
You're also a singer. What are the different challenges and satisfactions that come with singing compared to composing
I just love any music that's going to enable me to story tell. And singing — it's the voice, it's coming from a really deep and visceral place. So the singing is a whole other element for me because I'm able to go into a place in my body that allows me to capture a different quality, a feeling, and translate that into a song or a moment.
Tell us about the inspiration for your piece, "Tres Osos y Una Playa," which will be performed live at the Hear Now Music Festival:
That piece makes me smile because it was during the summer a few years ago ... these bears seemed to find their way into these really high-end gated communities that everybody's trying to be so selective about who comes in and out. Yet the bears don't care. They don't follow those rules and they end up in these people's swimming pools and they hang out. I was thinking about these three bears at the beginning of their day, starting with some sort a sense of adventure and mischief. This particular piece has different levels of tempo and interaction insofar as call-and- response and coming together, just as I envisioned the bears doing. Just having fun, you know?
We love to interview composers on this show, but when we are looking at the composers who are making films, they are almost always white men. I wonder what it's been like for you working in that world that has a very clearly defined idea of what a composer looks like?
People often say, Oh you have to work twice as hard, you're black you're a woman. I already have my own standard of excellence, so for me that's enough. I mean, yes, that's the big elephant in the room that most of the composers who do work in film and TV are white males. I do feel that a lot of it is because of the relationships that directors and producers have. You hire your friends, you hire people within your community, so it's not always so specifically a racist or gender-biased kind of a dynamic...
Ultimately, for me, it's just about the work, because if I get so focused on the inequality of things, then I lose sight of what got me into this in the first place, which is the love of music.
Really the bigger issue is music and the arts having been removed from the schools. A lot of incredibly talented kids aren't even being exposed to music, let alone the notion that they can be a film composer. I'm talking specifically about kids who are in pubic school systems, kids of color who are incredibly talented, but have no access to the resource. So there's this notion that it's an impossible task. In my own way, I want to demystify that.