Arts & Entertainment A weekly guide to music, theater, art, movies and more, edited by Rebecca Wallace
Above: Cast and crew on the set of “Fifth of July” before its Sept. 16 opening at the Pear Avenue Theatre. Right: Palo Altan Diane Tasca, who founded the theater company 10 years ago. Below: “Fifth of July” actresses Citlali Pizarro, left, and Carolyn Power in the dressing room before opening.
A Decade of Drama
T
he saying may be well worn, but Palo Alto resident Diane Tasca insists there is no better way for her to express what she loves about the stage: “Theater is alive.” The founder of the Pear Avenue Theatre, which celebrated the opening of its 10th season on Sept. 15, explains that while she loves a good TV show or film, there is something much more personal and human about a play. “It’s not only that the performers are in the moment,” Tasca said. “The audience and the performers form a kind of unit that is different each night. The actors have give and take with themselves, but they also have give and take with the audience.” That give and take was easily observable on Sept. 16, as a cast of seven men and women performed Lanford Audience members arrive for opening night of “Fifth of July,” a Wilson’s “The Fifth of July” to a small Lanford Wilson play. crowd of patrons at the Pear’s Mountain View venue. There isn’t a bad seat in the small black-box theater. The Pear’s 40 seats rise up and away from the ground-level stage, and audience members sitting in the front row can literally reach out and touch those actors who move close by Nick Veronin enough to the fourth wall. photographs by Michelle Le Michael Champlin, who is playing
Palo Altan wishes a happy 10th birthday to her Pear Avenue Theatre company
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