Entertainment Calendar from page 13. to John Williams in a special night featuring music from E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws, Memoirs of a Geisha, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and Harry Potter. Tickets cost $15 to $50 and are on sale now. The show begins at 7:30 p.m. with a stage-side chat with Hollywood Reporter Jeff Bond. Details: (310) 433-8774; www.gspo.com Venue: Warner Grand Theatre Location: 478 W. 6th St., San Pedro
May 20
Thies Consort Enjoy an afternoon with Robert Edward Thies and friends, starting at 4 p.m. May 20, at Trinity Lutheran Church in Manhattan Beach. The Thies Consort draws on Southern California premiere ensemble artists to perform innovative and unique programming with musical continuity based on a style, composer or other concept. Suggested donation is $15 and $5 for students. Details: (310) 937-7275 Venue: Trinity Lutheran Church Location: 1340 11th St., Manhattan Beach Rock of Ages Classic rock band Rock of Ages will be performing at 8 p.m. May 20. Cover is $5. Details: http://tinyurl.com/RockoA Venue: Best Western Golden Sails Hotel Location: 6285 E. Pacific Coast Hwy., Long Beach 4 Way Street CSN&Y - Tribute For more than 4 decades, the music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young has spoken to generations of audiences worldwide. From the gentle love songs like “Our House” and “Guinnevere” to the politically charged anthems like “Chicago,” “Long Time Gone,” and “Ohio”, CSN&Y’s powerful messages have never failed to excite and move audiences. Ticket Price $20. Details: (800) 403-3447 Venue: Alvas Showroom Location: 1417 W. 8th St., San Pedro
May 24
State of the Union Neo-jazz jam band State of the Union will be performing at 8:30 p.m. at the Seabird Jazz Lounge in Long Beach. Details: (562) 437-8355; http://Seabirdjazzlounge. com Venue: Seabird Jazz Lounge Location: 730 E. Broadway., Long Beach
ACE>> Arts • Cuisine • Entertainment
May 26
Minyo Station CD Release Minyo Station will be performing at 2:30 p.m. May 26 at the Alvas Showroom. Tickets cost $20 advanced and $25 at the door. Seating is limited and advanced purchase is recommended. Attendees are invited to bring their own food and alcohol (beer and wine). Details: (310) 806-1131; www.minyostation.com Venue: Alvas Showroom Location: 1417 W. 8th St., San Pedro Avengers Punk Rock San Francisco punk rock band Avengers will perform at 9 p.m. May 26. Doors open at 8 p.m. Tickets are $8. Details: www.alexsbar.com Venue: Alex’s Bar
May 27
May 18 –31, 2012
Gold Rush Country Country-rock band Gold Rush Country will be performing at McKenna’s on the Bay at 4 p.m. May 27. Details: (562) 342-9411 Venue: McKenna’s on the Bay Location: 190 Marina Drive, Long Beach
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Vince Falzone Vince Falzone will be performing songs from his new album Strip of Leather at 10 a.m. at the Namaste Science of Mind and Spirit Center May 27. Details: (562) 980-7610; http://tinyurl.com/ Falzone Venue: Namaste Science of Mind and Spirit Center Location: 1100 Iroquois Ave., Long Beach
May 30
Mike O’Bryan Blues and folk musician Mike O’Bryan will be performing between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. May 30. Details: (562) 342-9411; http://tinyurl.com/blues Mike Venue: McKenna’s on the Bay Location: 190 Marina Dr., Long Beach
Meme Cats with Nine Lives By John Farrell, Theater Writer
T
here is an old wives tale that cats have nine lives. Apparently meme cats live on even longer than their flesh and blood avatars. Meme cats are those funny and sometimes curious pictures of cats that have become a source of fun on the Internet. Cats that are hugely fat, cats that are dressed in human clothes, cats that, to humans, at least, are warm (and of course fuzzy) and have been unlucky enough to be captured on cell-phone cameras in embarrassing positions. They have been on the Net for a long time and are just as popular now, maybe more popular, than when they first appeared. (You can find them at www.icanhascheezburger.com.) They have been a source of fun for many, but for two people, composer Ellen Warkentine and librettist Andrew Pedroza, they have become a little bit of an obsession, so much so that the two have composed an opera, called LOLPERA, based loosely on the many funny pictures that they found on the Net. They started with one song, about the cat deity “Ceiling Cat” and before long they had a work of two hours in length that was premiered this past October at the Garage Theatre in Long Beach to critical praise (from more than just this critic, by the way). It featured a seven-piece orchestra that played Warkentine’s music and a cast of singers and dancers that included Pedroza in a starring role. Pictures captured from the Net were projected on the walls along with the text, and the story, a classic duel between the forces of good
(Ceiling Cat, who oversees everything) and Basement Cat (a black number who is the embodiment of evil) was not really about cats. “If you have you have already seen ‘LOLPERA’ and think it is about cats, you need to see it again,” Warkentine was quoted as saying in the Press-Telegram at the time of the works’ premier. Pedroza said at the time that the work needed to be seen again, and now it will be, as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival scheduled June 14 through 24 all over the theater scene in Hollywood, with previews that will begin June 7 and a big opening night party June 13. The Hollywood Fringe Festival, now in its third year, features dozens of plays and performances in comedy, musicals, dance, film, cabaret and operas, using different theaters all over the Hollywood area, more than 20 venues in all. (The actual boundaries of the festival are Franklin Avenue to the north, Melrose Avenue to the south, Wilton Place to the east and La Brea Avenue to the west., from Hollywood United Methodist Church in the north on Franklin to ComedySportsLA in the south, from the Actor’s Circle Theatre in the west to the Underground Theater in the east). The Festival, based on the more-than-50-year-old Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, offers theater companies from around the United States and the world a chance to produce a show in Los Angeles. There is a competition in the various categories and awards, with shows sometime competing in several Fringe Festivals all over the United States. LOLPERA will be going to the New York International Fringe Festival in
August after performances in Hollywood. The original Fringe Festival occurred in Edinburgh in 1947, when a number of performing companies came and presented their own productions in addition to the official Edinburgh Festival, which was itself an attempt to revive performing arts in a Europe recovering from more than 10 years of war. The “fringe” was a description for performances outside the Festival itself. The Festival continued, as did the “fringe” performances, which were themselves organized in 1959. Since then other Fringe Festivals have begun in locations as far apart as Minnesota and San Francisco, Melbourne, Australia and South Africa. “We’ve been rehearsing five hours or so on Saturday and six hours on Sunday” for the Fringe Festival performance, Pedroza said after a late night rehearsal this week. No, not a rehearsal of LOLPERA, but for performances of The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, in which Pedroza has a role and which opens at the Long Beach Playhouse Mainstage Theater May 19. Pedroza has a busy schedule. “We have been rehearsing all over the place, but now we have been given room at the Expo Building in Long Beach to rehearse, which gives us a lot of room.” Pedroza said his schedule is “difficult, but doable.” The version of LOLPERA they are rehearsing is close to the original. “It’s almost the same as the one we performed at the Garage Theatre last year,” Pedroza said. “We are clarifying and restoring the work. We are making the whole opera faster and funnier, with the pictures and the captions and everything.” LOLPERA will be performed in Hollywood at the Hudson Theaters on Santa Monica Boulevard. The larger and more traditional theater space, 99 seats and a large space for the production, are given the company room to refine the Continued on page 15.