Blanche A. Gardiner |
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April 2 through April 25, 2004, Los Angeles, CA: The Center for the
Arts, Eagle Rock is especially pleased and honored to sponsor Ken
Roht's theater-dance-arts extravaganza, Growing With Ghosts.
This production will be a grand scale assemblage of professionals
and community participants, in a historical setting, and utilizing
various art genres. In June 2003, Mr. Roht began to work on this
site-specific work, a progressive music theater piece that uses every
inch of the Center and its grounds. The actual stage will be the
Center itself, a restored 1915 Carnegie library, a National Historic
Landmark. The piece takes place in seven different theatrical installations.
As the audience walks through each, they will witness stages of human
growth, from before birth to after death. Books will supply the context
for each installation of this modern masque.
Ten men dressed like the original head-librarian, Mrs. Blanche
A. Gardiner, will lovingly guide the audience through dioramas
that depict the important stages of a person's development. Long-time
collaborator, Keith Mitchell, will be the designer, overseeing
many specialty artists creating this unusual landscape. John Ballinger,
an accomplished composer, will create an extensive, orchestral
sound collage. The brilliant literary interviewer, NPR's Bookworm,
Michael Silverblatt will serve as dramaturge. Literature, theater,
music, dance and the visual arts will combine to create this masterwork.
And, finally, the Orphean Circus' dynamic costume trio of Ann Closs-Farley,
Barbara Lempel and Anthony Garcia will be creating the surreal
fashions for the show."
Growing With Ghosts is a walk-through show, lasting fifty-minutes.
The audience for each performance will be limited to 60 people.
In this way, the experience will be more personal to each audience
member. The piece will be presented for one month (from April 2-25),
Friday through Sunday, 7:30 pm and 9 pm.
More information about the Center for the Arts may
be found at www.centerartseaglerock.org.
The Center is located near the corner of Eagle Rock Boulevard and
Colorado Boulevard at 2225 Colorado Blvd., Los Angeles, California
90041.
Press Reviews
 "Subversive
madcap Ken Roht sends his Orphean Circus forces (and audiences)
on an outré tour of the eternal cycle...it's musical theater
anarchy meets MOMA in a psychotropic PTA pageant... Roht's irreverent
ingenuity continues untrammeled, his company displays imposing
devotion and Keith E. Mitchell oversees hallucinatory designers.
Eagle Rock has never seen anything like it, and neither have
you."
--David C. Nichols, Los Angeles Times
"No one can deliver a riotous, twisting, theatrical thrill ride quite like
writer / director / choreographer Ken Roht can. Part rollicking musical,
part avant-garde dance piece, part site-specific tour of the historic Carnegie
Library, the work combines Roht's dizzying array of influences into a smart spectacle
that is as crisp as it is confident... Roht's choreography, so abundant and consistently
inspired, rises to the level of genius."
-- Laura Weinert,Backstage West
"Roht's vision is part dream - part nightmare - a sliver of fantasy and
some social commentary wrapped with a huge blanket of imagination and creativity.
By the end of the 55 minutes, you feel that you fell through Alice's rabbit hole,
and the images you saw are you, looking back at yourself."
-- Jose Ruiz,Entertainment Today
"... you become engrossed in the visual cacophony that [Roht] keeps throwing
at you... there’s death – birth – pre-birth and post death
imagines, all heavily dosed with music, dance, song and mirth, videos, pictures
and anything else you can imagine. This is a great production to introduce newbies
to a Ken Roht piece..."
--Reviewplays.com
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