John Tejada, a frequent guest on Touched Music compilations, hatched the idea of turning the final project for his CalArts “Advanced Electronic Music Production” class into a compilation album for the established label. John Tejada Presents Future Stars features 15 of Tejada’s students at their best, as well as an exclusive original track by Tejada himself called “NYC83,” which imagines an alternative of a classic b-boy breakin’ tune. Established as a non-profit, the record label benefits Macmillan Cancer Support in the UK among others. Touched Music will release Future Stars digitally on Friday, May 15, 2020, with 100-limited edition CDs to follow shortly after. The best way to support the charity—and the only way to procure the beautiful physical CD—is to purchase from Bandcamp. The release will also be available on Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, Bleep and many other platforms.

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Wajatta—the musical duo of Reggie Watts and John Tejada—kicks off the Natural History Museum’s season opener of its popularFirst Fridays series on Friday, March 6, 2020 with a performance celebrating the release of the duo’s sophomore album, Don’t Let Get You Down. Wajatta and a host of other performers and lecturers, including Ologies podcast host Alie Ward and KCRW’s Novena Carmel, will appear at the “after-hours” event that runs from 5:00 to 10:00pm.

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REDCAT presents the Los Angeles premiere of Infinitely Yours by animator, designer and performer Miwa Matreyek for the debut of her latest work. Running for three performances from Thursday, January 16 through Saturday, January 18, 2020, the award-winning interdisciplinary creator brings her nightmarish vision of climate grief to Los Angeles audiences before heading to Park City, Utah for the works’ world premiere during Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier program. Infinitely Yours will then embark on a North American tour throughout June. All music for Infinitely Yours was composed, recorded and performed by Morgan Sorne who will join Matreyek for the REDCAT show as live musical accompaniment.

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Highways Performance Space & Gallery is pleased to present Film Maudit 2.0 from Thursday, November 14, through Sunday, November 17, 2019, its inaugural film festival celebrating the work of outré filmmakers. Conceived and curated by Highways’ Artistic Director, Patrick Kennelly, the festival program will include six feature films and 40 shorts from around the globe with work from Belgium, Canada, Columbia, Estonia, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands and the UK. 50% of selected films are by female-identifying filmmakers. Each feature and short film in the program will make its Los Angeles premiere. Awards will be given for Best Narrative Feature, Best Experimental Feature, Best Narrative Short, Best Experimental Short and Best Animated Short.

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4 Times Entertainment in association with The Montalbán is pleased to announce the World Premiere of The Soul of Broadway – Impossible Dreams starring Terron Brooks with musical direction by Mark Vogel on Sunday, November 3, 2019. This special one-night-only concert experience, produced and directed by Brian Purcell and choreographed by Leah Seminario, will bring a fresh perspective to Broadway songs—including classic and contemporary favorites —as Brooks reinterprets them all. The award-winning Brooks, best known for portraying Eddie Kendricks in NBC’s Emmy Award-winning miniseries The Temptations, has starred on Broadway in The Lion King as Simba and Hairspray as Seaweed.

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Saudade Theatre, the first Portuguese theatre company in the United States, presents the World Premiere of My Favorite Suicide, written and directed by acclaimed Portuguese playwright Mickaël de Oliveira, in a co-production with Lisbon-based theatre company Colectivo 84. My Favorite Suicide is an apocalyptic play that pits society and nature against each other, in which one extreme situation is debated in the context of another, even more, extreme circumstance. Performances of My Favorite Suicide will run from Friday, October 18 through Sunday, November 3, 2019, at 905 Cole Theatre at Anthony Meindl’s Actor Workshop in Hollywood, CA. 

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Imagine Project is proud to announce its inaugural production, The Tale of Turandot, a World Premiere running for two weekends at The Colony Theatre in Burbank, California, from Thursday, November 7, through Sunday, November 17, 2019, with Opening Night taking place on Friday, November 8. Inspired by the centuries-old story, Armina LaManna wrote and will direct this family-friendly production, which is geared toward children between the ages of four and twelve years old. It incorporates puppetry and video projections, with many other creative elements. Imagine Project is Los Angeles’s new Equity theatre for young audiences. The company is dedicated to telling stories that spotlight a diverse array of female heroes.
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Highways Performance Space presents American Standard: A Story of Enough, written by and starring Lilly Bright. Directed by award-winning soloist performer, Valerie Hager, American Standard will run from Thursday, September 19 through Saturday, September 28, 2019. This original solo show is based on Bright’s true life story of surviving a near two-decade battle with bulimia and various “not-enough” demons, propelling her on an often comical, always poignant search for a cure, resulting in discovery of a path to imperfect wholeness and, ultimately, the courage to finally feel enough. 

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William Shakespeare’s Macbeth gets a daring new production in Downtown LA’s arts district thanks to 134 West. Directed by Alyssa Escalante, this Macbeth, set in a near future desert landscape, will have a limited engagement at Art Share L.A. from Thursday, August 15 through Saturday, September 7, 2019. Produced by Susan Lambert Hatem, Macbeth persists as one of Shakespeare’s most popular and most produced plays because of its deeply human themes. And yet, there remains so much to be discovered in its haunting poetry. 

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The Montalbán, a theatre in Hollywood with a rich history (celebrating three anniversaries in 2019, read more about that below), announced its June screening schedule for its popular Rooftop Movies at The Montalbán. In addition, the venue is also rolling out a new creative curation initiative: weekly themed “Binge Weeks” for the rest of the season. The curation team is programming movies within designated themes that will screen each week including “Bad Ass Denzel,” “Sci-Fi Classics,” “Wild and Crazy Guy!,” “Loaded Weapon 1,” and various series such as “Director Series: Pedro Almodovar.” Read the rest of this entry »