Production Design for Live Broadcast, Theme Parks and Experiential Events
Deck over and build a park on the 101 Freeway? Yes please!
So proud to join Martha Dempson and the Open Fist Theatre Company for the Sunday in the Park with Friends performance at this years Hollywood Central Park Gala. Donate @ https://hollywoodcentralpark.org/get-involved/donate for a better vision of the future!
As of May 30th of 2018, when Illinois became the 37th state to ratify, the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is only one state away from ratification! The ERA would provide basic civil and human rights to all Americans equally under Federal law, regardless of sex.
Equal Means Equal & the Heroica Foundation present five performances of Harold Pinter’s one-act play “The Lover” starring Kamala Lopez and Joel Marshall. Directed by Martha Demson.
Equal Means Equal is the only national organization focused on completing ratification of the original Equal Rights Amendment. Please join us and support our work at www.equalmeansequal.org
All proceeds from the play will go to support Equal Los Angeles, CA Means Equal’s programs and campaigns to ratify the ERA and are 100% tax deductible. Suggested donation: $100/person
Rita House is a private club; seating is limited and by invitation only. Refreshments will be served. Special guests to be announced…
BOTH: A Hard Day’s Silent Night will perform this year at 24th Street Theatre 1117 West 24th Street Los Angeles, CA 90007
(Exit 10 freeway at Hoover and head south a few blocks)
Limited parking available in theatre parking lot across the street- Additional street parking available
Wednesday, Dec 16; 8 pm, Thursday, Dec. 17; 8 pm, Friday, December 18; 8 pm, Saturday, Dec. 19; 3 pm, Open Fist Fundraiser Saturday, Dec. 19; 7 pm, Sunday, Dec 20; 3 pm Sunday, Dec 20; 7 pm
REVIEWS
A tale of two sisters who find each other again after the death of the beloved couch.
Director Benjamin Berdick Producer Laetitia Leon
Performances: Preview: August 3, 4 Opening: August 5 at 8pm Closes: September 10 at 2pm
Performance Dates: July 13- Aug 21
Theater review: ‘Quake’ at Open Fist Theatre Company – latimes.com
THE EXISTENTS
Book by Douglas Crawford and Jason Wooten, Music and Lyrics by Ty Taylor, Directed by Martha Demson
A new rock musical at the Open Fist as part of the First Look Festival Of New Plays
Performances: Saturday July 31at 8pm, Sunday, August 1 at 7pm, Saturday August 14 at 8pm, Thursday August 19 at 8pm, Friday August 20 at 8pm. Sunday, August 1 and August 22 @ 7pm. Matinee performances; Sunday August 15th @ 2pm & Sunday August 22 @ 2pm
Full Photo Gallery @ Existents at Open Fist
Backstage.com Review- The Existents
StageSceneLA Review- The Existents
StageSceneLA Best of 2009-2010 Outstanding Lighting Design
Directed by Scott Paulin
Produced by Ina Russell, Stephanie Terronez, and Martha Demson, Scenic Design • James Spencer, Costume Design • Christina Wright, Lighting Design • Dan Reed, Sound Design • Peter Carlstedt, Props • Ina Russell & Bruce Dickinson
April 2 – May 15, 2010 Fridays & Saturdays @ 8 pm, Sundays @ 2 pm call (323) 882-6912
by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber Directed by Barbara Schofield
Jan. 22 – March 13
Fridays & Saturdays @ 8 pm, Sundays @ 2 pm
Special Performances:
Preview Showings Jan. 14, 15, 16 and 17 • $15
Opening Night Friday Jan. 22 • $35 w/ Reception
Pay-What-You-Can Performances Jan. 17, 24 and 31
Tickets Adults $25 | Students & Seniors $20
call (323) 882-6912
LA TImes Review- Theater review: ‘Stage Door’ at Open Fist Theatre | Culture Monster | Los Angeles Times
LA Weekly Review- Stage Raw: Stage Door – Los Angeles Art – Style Council
Backstage.com Review- Stage Door
StageSceneLA Review- Stage Door
StageSceneLA Best of 2009-2010 Outstanding Lighting Design
“The Time of Your Life” Open Fist Theatre Company, 6209 Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends July 1. $15-20. (323) 882-6912. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.
BACK STAGE WEST’s Wenzel Jones raves!
“Had John deGroot not written this engaging peek into a vodka-soaked afternoon in the life of Ernest Hemingway, then actor Adrian Sparks would have had to commission this one-man show elsewhere. Rarely does one witness a performer so completely inhabiting the skin of an historical figure. Hemingway prowls around the living room of his Cuban home railing against emasculating women and spinning out his ongoing romance with death while pouring ever pinker Bloody Marys. Unlike real people, this character becomes more captivating the drunker he gets. The script, constructed from interviews with many who knew the famed author, has both the ring of truth and the thrill of eavesdropping, as the portrait is not altogether flattering. It is never, however, unbelievable.
Sparks is a consummate raconteur as he draws the audience in. . . . The directorial hand is so deftly employed as to be invisible. Martha Demson has obviously not let her actor run wild–that kind of show has a special look all its own–but her vision and that of her actor meld so seamlessly as to cause the audience members to forget we’re watching a performance. By the time the show builds to an almost Homeric conclusion, with thunder crashing and Hemingway letting loose a few lighting bolts of his own, we are utterly in its thrall.”
LA WEEKLY’s Steve Mikulan Recommends!
“Playwright John deGroot’s one-man show, starring Adrian Sparks, displays a Papa Hemingway in full sunset glory as self-mythologist, raconteur and critic of American small-mindedness. . . . Under Martha Demson’s relaxed direction, Sparks’ Hemingway is a brawling, profane and surprisingly likable Hemingway who guides us along an anecdotal safari of his life. Sparks also bears an uncanny resemblance to the novelist, which doesn’t hurt. DeGroot may err a little on the side of laughter (Kenneth Rexroth once said a sure way to earn Hemingway’s lasting spite was “to loan him two bits,” a side of Hemingway that remains unexplored here), but his two-act, 90-minute monologue is a pleasant way to reacquaint ourselves with an American legend – and a hard-drinking male American obsessed with sexual swagger and fears of castration.”
Open Fist, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood
: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays
Ends: Feb. 18
Price: $15 to $20
Contact: (323) 882-6912, http://www.openfist.org
Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
LA Times Review- Hemingway captured, in looks and in form – Los Angeles Times
Play7.com- PAPA | PLAY7
Ovation Award – Best Set Design, Jeff Rack
Ovation Award Nomination – Best Production, PAPA
Ovation Award Nomination – Best Performance by a Leading Actor, Adrian Sparks
Ovation Award Nomination – Best Sound Design, Tim Labor
Ovation Award Nomination – Best Lighting Design, Dan Reed
From Play7.com
“A production of considerable beauty. . . . [Director] Smith sustains a gripping harmony of majesty and sardonic wit.” — LA Weekly Recommended!
“Compelling [and] entertaining” — LA Times Recommended!
“incredibly gripping story. . . . This is a powerful play with some very effective scenes–kudos to everyone in the cast for a fine performance.” reviewplays.com
Open Fist Theatre Company is proud to present the West Coast premiere of John Guare’s astonishing tale of the painful yet enduring power of American idealism, LYDIE BREEZE. Hurtling from comedy to tragedy, to satire to melodrama and back again, LYDIE BREEZE tells the gripping story of a disastrously failed utopian commune in late 19th century Nantucket and its aftermath. Years after its scandalous end, the children return to sift through the ashes of their tumultuous past. Aiming to heal the confusion in their lives, they find themselves enmeshed, yet again, in age-old rivalries and buried desires — all the while haunted by memories of the commune’s amorous founder and dominating spirit, Lydie Breeze. Old passions are rekindled, revenges taken and tragedies repeated – never in a way that one expects. (This version of Lydie Breeze is the original play — not the subsequent two-play cycle.)
“Lydie Breeze,” the Open Fist Theatre, 1625 N. La Brea Ave., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Dec. 4. $18, Sundays pay what you can. (323) 882-6912. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.
L.A. Weekly Nomination – Best Revival Production
The Hysterica Dance Company Presents Victorious (PREMIERE)
July 23, 24, 29, 30, 31, 2004 at 8:00pm
Open Fist Theater 1625 North La Brea Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028
Tickets: $20, call 323 882 6912 or online at http://www.openfist.org for tickets
A previously anonymous man escapes from prison, kills his parents and embarks on a murderous quest through a labyrinthine metropolis. Who is Roberto Zucco, and why does he kill? While a dysfunctional community tries to ward off the trail of darkness as some demonic external force, the murderer himself, Roberto Zucco, appears to be the least callous, and most honest of them all. Based on the true story of a young Italian man, Roberto Succo, who went on a crime spree while on limited release from a psychiatric hospital.
The playwright, Bernard-Marie Koltes was born in 1948 in eastern France and died of AIDS at the age of 41. Bernard-Marie Koltes, through almost unknown in the U.S., outside of New York, is one of the most frequently produced playwrights in Europe, and considered the heir of Genet and Beckett. The London Times wrote that he was, “a creator of mythology of the underworld, a champion of the underdog and the lone wolf, and a pioneer of a wholly new style of dramatic writing.”
Open Fist Theater Company, 1625 N. La Brea Ave., Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; thru July 17. (323) 882-6912
From Play 7.com-Open Fist Theatre Company presents The Devils by Elizabeth Egloff directed by Florinel Fatulescu
BACKSTAGE WEST RAVES! “Director Florinel Fatulescu and the unflappable team of actors and designers gathered reverently to his side prove their bravery by tackling this piece and making it . . . a fascinating journey through the semantic mire of twisted ideals, as simple folk are led into cataclysmic action. . . . As this passionate ensemble works its magic, Dan Reed’s lighting shows the city behind the action systematically devoured by explosions and flames . . . all part of a brilliant director’s mad genius . . . a monumental production.”
LA TIMES RECOMMENDS! “Fatulescu . . . brings abundant black comedy to the Russian novelist’s densely layered probing of the human soul. . . . Particularly noteworthy, however, are the efforts of Patrick Tuttle as the suicidal but honorable Kirilov, Jennifer Kenyon as the hilariously condescending governor’s wife, Anna Khaja as Stavrogin’s servant lover and Mark Thomsen as the cold, scheming Verkhovensky, who carries Stavrogin’s abstract theories to deadly extremes.”
Idealism runs amok in Dostoevsky’s feverish black comedy about terrorism, boisterously adapted for the stage by Elizabeth Egloff. THE DEVILS charts the disastrous attempts of a group of incompetent, small-town conspirators to foment revolution in 1870’s Russia. As a rivalry heats up between the charismatic yet disturbed founder and his opportunistic disciple, the group plunges into a world of subterfuge and paranoia, culminating in murder — a story that seems as vital today as it was when first written 130 years ago.
THE DEVILS | At OPEN FIST THEATER, 1625 N. La Brea Ave., Hollywood | Through May 8 | (323) 882-6912
LA Weekly Review- The Devils Made Me Do It – Page 1 – Stage – Los Angeles – LA Weekly
Play7.com- The Devils | PLAY7
Open Fist Theatre Company presents Abingdon Square by Maria Irene Fornes Directed by Martha Demson
LA WEEKLY RECOMMENDS! “Martha Demson’s superb direction underscores the Jamesian ambiguity in María Irene Fornés’ period drama . . . [Demson] has an eye for creating gorgeous stage tableaux . . . Dan Reed’s moody lighting deserves special mention.” — Sandra Ross
LA TIMES PRAISES “Demson’s direction is appropriately calm and circumspect, and she creates some marvelously ambiguous, haunting stage pictures with Maureen Weiss and Josh Worth’s set and Dan Reed’s lights. . . . it’s to the credit of Demson and her committed cast, particularly Fox and Blakesley, whose striking mismatch proves to be as strangely moving as it is disorienting.” — Rob Kendt
CURTAINUP.COM RAVES! “. . . chiseled by Fornes into a play full of depths and unexpected byways. . . . Fornes is considered one of the most prominent American avant-garde playwrights. Seeing her turn her hand to a conventional form in a repressive period is of great interest and a testament to her infinite variety. . . . Heather Fox and James Brandon vividly express the pain and confusion of Marion and Michael. . . . Blakesley’s portrait of Juster shows a devastating transition to a man torn by anguish and fury.” — Laura Hitchcock
Open Fist Theatre Company presents the Los Angeles premiere of Maria Irene Fornes’ ABINGDON SQUARE. In turn-of-the-century New York, a grief-stricken girl of 15, recently bereft of her parents, finds comfort and relief in marriage to a man old enough to be her father. As this child becomes a woman, and desire for security turns to a desperate need for sexual fulfillment, what once was a comfort becomes a nightmare for both husband and wife. ABINGDON SQUARE shows us a tender yet frightening examination of the marriage bond.
“Abingdon Square” presented by the Open Fist Theatre, 1625 N. La Brea, Hollywood. Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 7 p.m. Jan. 9-Feb. 14. (323) 882-6912.
L.A. Weekly Award – Best Lighting Design, Dan Reed
L.A. Weekly Nomination – Best Director, Martha Demson
L.A. Weekly Nomination – Leading Female Performer, Heather Fox
LA Weekly Pick of the Week! “. . . directed by Stefan Novinski with a pristine blend of tenderness and humor. The precariousness of memory, a series of ironic coincidences, and phrases occasionally repeated by different characters in contrary situations all establish the wistful, poetical tone — through which Novinski and his perfect cast navigate so brilliantly.” — Steven Leigh Morris
Backstage West Raves! “[Greig] builds this play much like a composer builds a chord, each new note resonating with the note before while adding a new shade of color, until the final effect is a stunningly unified whole. Director Stefan Novinski’s intriguing vision of the play is brought to life here by a uniformly stellar and brilliantly cast ensemble.” — Laura Weinert
curtainup.com: “the message flows under the fluid direction of Stefan Novinski. . . . The ensemble aptly renders portraits of these lonely people, giving them dignity even when they are ridiculous or repugnant.” — Jana J. Monji
Scottish playwright David Greig’s mesmerizing tone poem on the limits of communication traces a web that connects such diverse characters as a Scottish civil servant and his wife, a Norwegian diplomat, a Russian exotic dancer, a French UFO researcher and a pregnant detective, to two cosmonauts orbiting endlessly above them.
Open Fist Theater,
1625 N. La Brea Ave. Hlywd.
Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; thru Nov. 22. (323) 882-6912.
L.A. Weekly Award – Best Production of 2003
L.A. Weekly Award – Best Director, Stefan Novinski
L.A. Weekly Award – Best Production Design
L.A. Weekly Nomination – Ensemble
L.A. Weekly Nomination – Lighting Design. Dan Reed
Opens October 11, 2002 and runs through November 16, 2002
at the Open Fist Theatre Company’s 99-seat home at 1625 North La Brea Avenue in Hollywood.
Show times are Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 7pm
Opening night-$20; Fri. and Sat.-$15; Sun.-Pay-What-You-Can
Reservations: 323.882.6912
Open Fist Theater, 1625 N. La Brea Ave., Hlywd. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m (all Sun. perfs pay-what-you-will) thru Nov. 23. (323) 882-6912
Jan 26 thru Feb 24 2001
Open Fist Theatre
1625 N. La Brea Hollywood CA Fri. & Sat 8pm, Sun 7pm 323.882.6912
L.A. Weekly Award Nomination – Comedy Ensemble
L.A. Weekly Award Nomination – Comedy Direction, Ron West
DAN REED LIGHTING DESIGN 