Last week, I was privileged to attend three wonderful productions. Interspersed with these outings were three events through the LA Regional Food Bank (my go-to volunteer spot), an Angel City Football Club victory on Wednesday evening at BMO Stadium, and the Santa Monica Coastal Cleanup Day on Saturday. It was a jam-packed week of activity! There’s been nothing retiring about my retirement!

Earlier in the week, I’d seen an ad for The Ford/Hill Project, a Verbatim Theater project presented by Lee Sunday Evans and Elizabeth Marvel of Waterwell Productions at RedCat, the sleek Gehry-designed end-on theater in the southwest corner of the Disney Hall building. I had a visceral reaction and had scoured my calendar for an opening in my already jammed schedule. Friday I was going to The Turning at the Taper, Saturday was Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom at A Noise Within, and Sunday was The Visit at the Pasadena Playhouse. I just couldn’t come up with the energy to go out Thursday night as it was the one night I’d be home all week. So on Thursday afternoon when my friend Jill called to say The Turning had been postponed for a year, “but there’s something at the RedCat that I would like to see,” I jumped up and down at the Food Bank, and said, “Yes Please!” And so she and I attended on The Ford/Hill Project on Friday evening.

The Ford/Hill Project

There was a full house, animatedly chatting before the show, the set in front of us, 9 judicial-looking oak chairs in a semi-circle facing the audience. Verbatim theater is sort of an acquired taste I think. My mother had done her best to prime me to study law with the hope that I might get past my thespian enthrallment. Even while she drove me to the summer theater at St. Vincent’s College in Latrobe, PA. “You can always perform in the courtroom, Elsbeth,” she would say to me before I went off to Princeton. I think we all knew I was destined for a life in the theater long before that but it may be as a result of those early nudges that I am enthralled with the intersection between law and drama. I remember watching the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings in 1991 and being amazed at the resilience and poise of a young Dr. Anita Hill facing the all male, all white Congressional body and still recounting the terrible workplace harassment she underwent by her boss Clarence Thomas. Similarly, I had watched the 2018 Senate Judiciary Committee as they interviewed Christine Blasey Ford about the party where she was sexually attacked by a young Brett Cavanaugh, now under consideration to join the Supreme Court. Both events were inherently dramatic.

This Waterwell production dramatizing the events of these two hearings was powerful, with multiple characters besides the original judges and survivors. The production deftly shifted the text between all four actors, and the direction by Lee Sunday Evans allowed the fluidity of their words and movement to surprise us, with unexpected gender swaps; at one point, Rich Summer portrayed the Ford role, and Dulé Hill portrayed Hill. The most vulnerable moments were when Rosemary DeWitt shared Ford’s reluctance to come forward at all. I remember Ford’s testimony at the time, and how that vulnerability became chum in the water with the members of the hearing. Betty Gabriel’s poignant embodiment of Hill’s telling of the humiliation of testifying and her fear of losing her job and damaging her career was as electrifying as the original testimony had been. Both Ford and Hill were and are accomplished professors and yet they were not believed. Seeing this project now, with Epstein’s survivors standing unsupported in the wake of cultural disbelief and acceptance of such horrible events going unprosecuted is enough to rile an audience. It certainly riled me. The production was powerful and impactful; when it came time to enrobe the judges, the bystanding Ford and Hill watched them don their robes, Gabriel with a knowing smirk and DeWitt with unflinching sadness. I found it to be incredible theater. DeWitt and Gabriel came out after to participate in a post-performance discussion with Rebecca Melendez, Associate director of East LA Women’s Center , now in their fiftieth year of providing bilingual services to women after experiencing violence and abuse. It was a powerful discussion of what had/hadn’t changed since 1991 and 2018 about how these stories are received and processed by our society. The discussion was led with care and compassion by Melissa Kievman, who encouraged the audience to take a break after the performance and before the discussion.

Mission & History

The mission of the East Los Angeles Women’s Center is to ensure that all women, girls and their families live in a place of safety, health, and personal well-being, free from violence and abuse, with equal access to necessary health services and social support, with an emphasis on Latino communities.

HEAL THE BAY COASTAL CLEAN UP DAY
Saturday morning I was up early and over to my friend Art’s house to join him as his site co-captain at the Santa Monica Pier Northside site of the Coastal Clean up. This was Art’s 18th year as the site’s captain, and he had persuaded me to join him as his co-captain for this year. We’d been preparing for several weeks, attending a training on line and also meeting with the Heal The Bay staff at their Santa Monica office. Art has tentacles out into the community at Universal Studios, at Cal State Fullerton, and multiple other places where they have sent volunteers to assist at this event. I understood how it should go from our conversations, but it was great to see the planning blossom into action. We were also joined by several of our LA Regional Food Bank friends and some new co-captains who had done the event before and stepped up to help in a more leadership capacity. It was a beautiful day, and nearly 600 volunteers ranging in age from two to eighty-two. Here are a few photos from the day, which was a great success, collecting 368 lbs of trash from the surrounding beach area. Overall, LA County totals for CCD 2026 are…. 5827 volunteers who removed 24,758 pounds of trash and recycling from our beaches, waterways, parks and neighborhoods. Please check out the Instagram page for more on this amazing event! And plan to come out next year!

MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM

Saturday after the beach clean up, I soaked in my ridiculously long tub for about a half hour, then napped, getting up at 5 to eat supper before driving to A Noise Within in East Pasadena. I met my friend Rob there, who had instigated the purchase of tickets to Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, by August Wilson. The scenic design by Tesshi Nakagawa felt modular and a tad familiar from their rendition of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, but with a clear architecture of three levels in the Chicago recording studio. I hurry to say that I appreciate re-use of scenic elements (if that’s what happened) and understand the efficient use of elements from show to show. Here, the forestage area, sported a couch and two other seats, a coffee table which allowed the musicians to put down their instruments and rehearse prior to going up to the studio, separated by a door and a second means of access from SL near the main door of the studio. The studio level, about two feet above the forestage, had a piano and limited seating in the under-loft area where Ma’s traveling companion Dussie Mae (CJ Obilom) sat in her hot pink dress, right behind the chair where Levee (Jamar Gilbert) played his trumpet. The top level of the studio, where the two white producers, Irvin (Bert Emmett) and Sturdyvant (Matt Foyer) recorded the tunes was far enough away from the studio to merit significant effort and resulting dissatisfaction in having to come down to address the artists. Director Gregg T. Daniel did an excellent job in keeping the action flowing from the offstage spaces via several entrances. Wilson’s play depicts a recording studio by a popular singer with her usual musicians. The expectations from the white producers are clear, and Studyvant expects her manager Irvin to handle and “take care of” Ma’s requests, which he does as they come up. The production yields strong performances from every member of the company, especially from Jamar Gilbert, the pain of whose character unfolds in an increasingly unsettled cadence. Amber Liekhus’ Ma Rainey is confident in voice and expectations of what she’s worth in terms of respect. She remains fiercely commanding with her musicians, Cutler (Kai A. Ealy), Toledo (Gerald C. Rivers), Slow Drag (Alex Morris), and her nephew, Sylvester (Francis C. Edomobi) whose voice she inserts into the intro of the titular song of the recording session and to whom she is ferociously loyal. This production was worth seeing and I’m so glad I snuck in before it closed on Sunday. You can see the excellent guide to the play here.

THE VISIT

The Visit by Friedrich Dürrenmatt has been one of the most elusive plays in my literary canon. I remember trying to get the rights to produce it while at USC and being refused. I thought the play was pertinent then at the time I had requested the rights (at whose instruction? Stephanie Shroyer, maybe?). Anyway, I was thrilled to see it pop up on the Pasadena Playhouse’s slate. In fact, I can confess that I subscribed because of The Visit being on the slate.

I decided I would make a theater party out of it, and invited my dad, brother and his wife, and two other denizens of The Village at Sherman Oaks who have gone on theatrical adventures with us to attend this past Sunday to the matinee. The articles I read prior to going included the very fair review with spectacular photos by Charles McNulty of the Los Angeles TImes, as well as another article about the collaboration between Darko Tresnjak and Jefferson Mays, who plays the former lover Anton Schill and ultimately unwitting foil to the visitor, Clara Zachanassian, played with superhero power by Melinda Page Hamilton. This production is gorgeous, as was the last collaboration between Darko Tresnjak and Jefferson Mays, their production of Amadeus last year also at the Pasadena Playhouse. Kudos to Danny Feldman, who celebrated his tenth year as the Artistic Director at the Playhouse. He has taken risks, and in doing so, has filled the houses to capacity (every time I’ve been there anyway) with plays that appeal to young and old audiences.

This production is no exception. The gorgeous scenic design by Alexander Dodge proves it’s elasticity from the first scene, where the train platform at the forestage allows him to put many scenes down at audience level, while later allowing the action to be raised to a more dramatic level. Aaron Rhyne’s projection design combined with the lush sound design of Jonathan Burke creates the extremely effective impression of a train arriving, slowing and stopping. It almost feels as though we are seeing the blur of it’s passage right in front of us. In addition, on the facade of the run-down buildings is a trippy effect of projections which makes the window up center oscillate like we’re on an LSD trip. Combined with the brilliantly hued lighting design of Matthew RIchards, the morality tale takes on a well-deserved cartoonish tint, supported by the neon colors of the costumes as the town succumbs to the riches offered to them. I will stop now because I don’t want to spoil the premise of the play for future viewers, but I was really pleased to see such a well-rendered delivery of this tale. The show is very competently stage managed by David S. Franklin.

Performances were terrific. I always love to see Jennifer Chang on any stage, and Jefferson Mays played Anton Schill with sincerity and acceptance. Melinda Page Hamilton, who appeared in The Royal Family at the Ahmanson in 2005 here finds extraordinary confidence in her footing in the role of the visitor who reshapes the little town of Gullen by her visit. Rush to see this production. It is truly worth the time. After we left the matinee, we wandered up the street and had a sumptuous early dinner at Star Leaf on the corner of Colorado and El Molino. Highly recommend that combo!

All in all, it was an exhilarating week of entertainment and activities. Thanks for playing along!