Asher Bank presents THE MAGIC BOOK

Only you control your story!
Santa Monica, California - The Magic Book: A cool, mysterious musical revue about a book and its wonderful secrets! Using original songs from the Santa Monica Playhouse repertoire of plays, The Magic Book explores the challenges and triumphs of its young teenage characters. Through music, dancing, and dialogue, the characters find their own voices and learn the importance of being true to themselves. The story is fun, upbeat and will even surprise the audience with an alien or two!!


Asher Bank wrote and produced this show, with help from his fellow young actors, as part of his Bar Mitzvah Tikkun Olam (or "repairing and restoring the world") project. It is designed to help bring the wonderful experience of theater to kids who would otherwise never see a live theater performance.

One free show will be performed for pre-teen and teen kids from the Vista Del Mar Residential Treatment Program and other area organizations serving children in need.

A second show, open to the public, will be a benefit performance for the Santa Monica Playhouse Diversity-

“Salt Marsh Open House”

San Pedro, California - Marshes are more than mud.  Step out into nature at the Salinas de San Pedro salt marsh.  Bring your binoculars, camera, sketch pad, journal or just your curiosity!  Discover the many animal residents of the salt marsh with guidance from Sea Ranger naturalists and Cabrillo Marine Aquarium Education staff on Sunday, February 17, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Watch for resident and migratory birds, fish, and other inhabitants as you observe tidal changes.  Learn about native wetlands, coastal sage scrub, and the benefits of native plants.
While you’re here visit the aquarium exhibit hall, exploration center, aquatic nursery and outdoor tidepool touch tank. Wander upstairs and learn something new in the tranquil setting of the Virginia Reid Moore Research Library.  Also, plan to stop by CMA’s volunteer-run gift shop for a wide selection of gifts and books.
The Aquarium is located at 3720 Stephen M. White Drive in San Pedro and is a facility of the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks with support from FRIENDS of Cabrillo Marine Aquarium.  Open to the public on weekends from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Tuesday through Friday from 12 noon to 5 p.m.
For reservations, further information, or to receive a calendar of events, please call (310) 548-7562 or visit our website at www.cabrillomarineaquarium.org.

CUTTING BALL THEATER HIDDEN CLASSICS READING SERIES “ELECTRA”

San Francisco, California - Cutting Ball Theater presents the third installment of this season’s Hidden Classics Reading Series. Set a few years after the Trojan War, Electra’s father Agamemnon has been murdered by her mother Clytemnestra.  Her brother Orestes has been missing for years and is thought to be dead. In order to avenge her father’s death, she must do the unthinkable and kill her mother. ELECTRA is in many ways the female version of Oedipus Rex and Hamlet, exploring the complexities of mother/daughter relationships. It is from this Greek tragedy that we get the psychological concept “Electra Complex.” Rob Melrose directs this new translation by Anne Carson, featuring Ponder Goddard as Electra, Courtney Walsh as Clytemnestra, Patrick Jones as Orestes, Paul Gerrior as the Tutor, Derek Fischer as Agisthus, Maura Halloran as Chrysothemis, and Maryssa Wanlass and Sarah Moser as the Chorus.

This season, Cutting Ball’s Hidden Classics Reading Series presents a variety of extraordinary works ranging from the ancient Greeks to the Elizabethans and modern experimentalism. The series offers a profound look at some of the greatest authors ever to write for the stage in a program that continues to be one of San Francisco’s best-kept secrets.

Co-founded in 1999 by theater artists Rob Melrose and Paige Rogers, Cutting Ball Theater presents avant-garde works of the past, present, and future by re-envisioning classics, exploring seminal avant-garde texts, and developing new experimental plays. Cutting Ball Theater has partnered with Playwrights Foundation, and the Magic Theatre/Z Space New Plays Initiative to commission new experimental works. The company has produced a number of World Premieres, West Coast Premieres, and re-imagined various classics. Cutting Ball received the 2008 San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldie award for outstanding talent in the performing arts, and was voted “Best Theater Company” in the 2010 San Francisco Bay Guardian Best of the Bay issue. The company also earned the Best of SF award in 2006 and “Best Experimental Theater Company” in 2012 from SF Weekly, and was selected by San Francisco magazine as Best Classic Theater in 2007. Cutting Ball Theater was featured in the February 2010 and 2012 issues of American Theatre Magazine.

WHEN:           Sunday, January 27, 2013, 1pm

WHERE:         The Cutting Ball Theater in Residence at EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor St., San Francisco

TICKETS:       Readings free and open to the public. For more information, visit cuttingball.com or  call 415-525-1205

The Cutting Ball Theater’s 2012 - 13 season is made possible in part by The Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, The Columbia Foundation,The Compton Foundation, The W.A. Gerbode Foundation, Grants for the Arts / San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Mental Insight Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, The RHE Foundation,
The San Francisco Arts Commission, The Zellerbach Family Foundation, and by individual donors.

THE PASADENA PLAYHOUSE IN ASSOCIATION WITH ONE NIGHT PRODUCTIONS WILL PRESENT ONE NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN

HIT MUSICAL EVENT HAS HAD SOLD-OUT RUNS
IN THREE MAJOR CITIES AND WILL NOW PLAY
AT THE PASADENA PLAYHOUSE
MARCH 15 – APRIL 11, 2013


Pasadena, California - The Pasadena Playhouse (Sheldon Epps, Artistic Director and Elizabeth Doran Executive Director), in association with Todd Gershwin and Daniel Chilewich of One Night Productions, LLC, the Estate of Janis Joplin and Jeff Jampol of JAM, Inc. announced today that ONE NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN will fill the fourth production slot in the current 2012 – 2013 season. Hailed by critics in Cleveland as a “feel-good, fist-pumping, must-see” show, ONE NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN has left audiences clamoring for tickets in Portland, Cleveland and Washington D.C. Now coming to The Pasadena Playhouse in celebration of the Los Angeles area’s great Rock ‘n’ Roll history, performances will begin March 15 through April 11, with a press opening night on Sunday,