The first work of Shakespeare’s I ever saw ... [more]
Arts & Culture
For the Birds: Orange County Was Once the Ostrich Capital of the Nation
There’s something about central Orange County that attracts people to enter into bizarre enterprises involving animals and tourists. Yes, Walt Disney and his mouse are the most exemplary example, but the city has had a storied history filled with folks capitalizing on animalistic entertainment long before Disneyland took over. (In Anaheim, the Mouse owns you!) […]
Though Bumpy at Times, Cambodian Rock Band Is an Exhilarating Ride
Part play, part rock concert, part eccentric comedy set against the backdrop of the Cambodian genocide, Lauren Yee’s new play, Cambodian Rock Band, is many things stuffed into one undeniably entertaining package—stuffed being the operative term. Commissioned by South Coast Repertory (SCR), it’s now receiving its world-premiere production, and the play’s relative newness shows. While […]
Bruce Brown Tributes by Surfing Heritage & Culture Center
The Surfing Heritage & Culture Center (SHACC) has two ongoing tributes to the late, great filmmaker Bruce Brown, who passed away surrounded by loved ones in December of last year: The exhibit “Bruce Brown: A Life Well Lived” and the special-interest license plate that’s in the process of becoming available for California vehicles. Once a […]
Crimes of the Heart Is a Southern Gothic With Legs, But It Lags
Beth Henley won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1981 for Crimes of the Heart. What made it surprising wasn’t so much that the play wasn’t great (it was one of the more competent ones amid a meager lot of plays during a period of commercial transition in mainstream American theater), but her gender. She […]
Laguna Art Museum’s ‘Tony DeLap: A Retrospective’ Conjures the Thrills
“Tony DeLap: A Retrospective” begins where exhibits usually end at Laguna Art Museum, in the medium-sized gallery. It’s as if curator Peter Frank needed a larger space to contain DeLap’s great turning point in the early 1960s. Reminiscent of Joseph Cornell’s boxes, thick assemblages under glass hang on the left wall, including Charlie McCarthy (1963), […]
Movie Town, OC’s Last Great Video-Rental Store, Set to Close After 25 Years
On a recent Friday night, Movie Town in Anaheim bustled with more customers roaming the aisles than usual. It appeared that the video-rental store enjoyed the kind of foot traffic needed to continue making it an OC rarity in an era of digital streaming. But far from a display of resurgence, loyal customers began bidding […]
The Great Parks Huell Howser Showed Us on View at Orange County Great Park
Huell Howser exposed Orange Countians (and other Californians) to the Golden State’s great parks (and beaches and lakes and mountains and rivers and etc., etc., etc.). So, it is only fitting that the Orange County Great Park is the venue for the art exhibition “Golden Parks: Huell Howser.” Opening Sunday with a reception from 1-3 […]
Our Man In Malta on His Semi-Annual Theatrical Pilgrimage
Every two and a half years over the past decade, I’ve had the opportunity to go to Malta and direct a play. After more than 25 years in the business, I rarely direct locally because most local theaters don’t pay; they’re too busy chasing audiences to do anything adventurous, so there isn’t much opportunity to […]
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This Carnage Stops Now—Except for Real Carnage [Lost In OC]
I hate to think I’m prone to racial profiling, but when I hear a mass shooting announced on TV, they might as well have a stock photo of an angry white guy because that’s who it’s going to be. Angry, pimply, teenaged white guy shooting up an Arby’s or a classroom. Old, angry white guy […]
Historic Japanese Site in Huntington Beach Is in Danger of Being Torn Down for a Self-Storage Facility
There are currently five branches of Public Storage’s self-storage facilities in Huntington Beach, with talks of adding a sixth. Coincidentally, there are just five buildings that remain from the earliest days of the Japanese settlement in Orange County during the infancy of the 20th century in what is now Huntington Beach. On the corner of […]
![Oh, Baby! [Special Screenings, Feb. 22-March 1]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/screenings-baby-driver_sony-pictures-1-348x180.jpg)
Oh, Baby! [Special Screenings, Feb. 22-March 1]
Call Me By Your Name. Charming American doctoral student Oliver (The Social Network’s Armie Hammer) goes to an Italian villa to serve as the annual summer intern for an eminent Greco-Roman culture professor (Boardwalk Empire’s Michael Stuhlbarg). But Oliver and the professor’s son Elio (Timothe Chalamet of Interstellar and Homeland) fall in love. Director Luca […]
The Most Important Play You’ll Ever See Is at Cal State Long Beach
The most important play you will ever see is currently in production at Cal State Long Beach (CSULB). Okay, that’s a bit hyperbolic, but after experiencing Dreamers: Aquí y Allá, a living piece of theater ripped from the proverbial headlines that directly addresses the uneasy, uncertain status of nearly a million people living in the […]
Well-Dressed Tots, Thanks to Saxon & SunRa!
Finding chic, tasteful clothes for your baby isn’t impossible, but to find a brand of infant clothing that is cool, handmade and gives a portion of its profits to a cause is downright amazing! Enter Saxon & SunRa (www.saxonandsunra.com), a local apparel company that has adorned babies from the U.S. to Australia in well-made, spunky […]
Survios Takes Arcades to the Next Level with Virtual Reality in Torrance
If you’re still thinking of an arcade as the type of place you can go to throw quarters into games like Street Fighter, Pac-Man, The House of the Dead, and that classic side-scrolling version of The Simpsons (where the buttons to play as Bart were pretty much always broken), then you’ll probably be surprised by […]
Champagne, Chilaquiles and Drag Queens: Mary Prankster Does VLVT Lounge’s Drag Brunch
Orange County is the Stepford-wife, soccer-mom, cookie-cutter-housing-tract capital of Southern California. It’s a place that projects images of affluence accented by pristinely manicured lawns behind white picket fences. But the world that exists below the surface is a hell of a lot more colorful than that plastic projection. You can take a dip into this […]
World Music Troubadours Four Shillings Short Play San Clemente Art Supply
Musicians Christy Martin and Aodh Og O’Tuama of Four Shillings Short met in 1995. Two years later, the husband-and-wife duo’s first tour lasted 3 months, playing 60 gigs in 30 states and racking up 30,000 miles. Believing they’d never make a living in the Bay Area as musicians, they stopped paying rent and hit […]
Marigold Shadows Brings High Fashion to Goth Millennials
While most local boutiques lean more toward skin-revealing garments and beach-friendly casual-wear, one brand is bringing designer-inspired couture to your closet. Marigold Shadows’ refreshing array of individualist avant-garde clothing is a departure from on-trend retailers with its oversize fit, dark color palette and asymmetrical silhouettes. In fact, most of its inventory looks as if it […]
Chance Theater’s Violet Exposes America’s Cultural Fault Lines via a Mid-1960s Road Trip
An actor playing a character saddled with a physical impairment is no easy feat, Daniel Day-Lewis be damned. For every one that transforms the limitation into a second skin, there are many who use it like a prop. Rather than incorporating it into the character, it becomes the character, rendering the performance more gimmicky than […]
Three OC Sex-Industry Workers Share Their Personal Experiences—In All Their Gory, Glorious Detail
Editor’s Note: For this year’s annual sex issue, OC Weekly spoke to three sex workers in Orange County. Their stories are gritty and graphic, but they also reveal a sense of personal pride, dignity and even humor in a profession that, despite being known as the world’s oldest, remains tainted with shame, scorn and, perhaps […]
Still Lost in OC: Once-Old Weekling Is Still Old, Still Protesting
“Tonight, I shall make the moon disappear!” If I were Donald Trump’s speechwriter, that would have been the sole promise of his State of the Union speech, followed by 80 minutes of Kentucky Fried Chicken farts, to keep his base happy until they were cowering at his might under the smudgy Super Blue Blood Moon. […]
The Hendrix Project Delivers an Experience at Off Center Fest
Up-ending expectations of how storytelling should unfold onstage is one of the fascinating ways the spirit of the 1960s is infused into The Hendrix Project. Conceived and directed by the creatively fierce Roger Guenveur Smith with students at Cal Arts, the show has the audience watching spectators at Jimi Hendrix and the Band of Gypsys […]
