Center Theatre Group Blog

Mike Sablone is CTG’s Literary Associate, starting left fielder and third-string shortstop for Dark Monday, the CTG softball team.

I was working on a blog posting of the favorite rap and hip-hop tracks/videos from the creative team of VENICE, but along that way got distracted by various YouTube videos. I mean, how could I not watch the extended “Fight The Power” video over and over again?

But it wasn’t just old Public Enemy videos that got me excited. It was a handful of remixes. That I shall share with you.

Just because. Stop asking so many questions. Jeez.

I start, first, with the Auto-Tune The News guys, Michael and Andrew Gregory. Their newest: Obama Flashback, is pretty great, but to me nothing matches “Auto-Tune the News 2: Pirates. Drugs. Gay Marriage.” Good god I love this video.

Before you watch, a warning: It’s insanely catchy. Seriously, I’ve had it in my head for the past two weeks. Mostly because Katie Couric is a genius. The other parts are great, but better once you understand the lyrics. Helpful hint: download the mp3, specifically for that Angry Gorilla section which is unintelligible in the video.

I’m thinking about telling the guys for VENICE that if we need more laughs, we kick up the auto-tune. Because, frankly, everything does sound funnier with auto-tune.

Case in point. Who doesn’t love Vince Shlomi? Who is Vince Shlomi, you ask? Do the words ShamWow and Slap-Chop mean anything to you? They don’t to me. But you know what does mean something to me? Rap Chop.

Side note, if anyone knows where the kid is that shows up 1:18 into the video wearing the Nike sweatshirt, please tell me. I need him to teach me his sick dance moves.

You know what the songs in VENICE are not like? This Domino’s Pasta commercial:

Dominos Pasta DUDE!

The best thing about this is not the terrible, terrible “rapping pasta” but the families justifiably frightened response to a rapping piece of pasta. It’s like the ad execs had an idea, then were so mortified by it that they had two of the people in the ad revolt. Good work Domino’s, good work.

This last one isn’t auto-tuned, or rap, but the spirit of cutting and pasting and remixing is brought to another level with “Thru You: Mother of All Funk Chords”:

What Kutiman (the artist) does here and in seven or so other videos available on YouTube is phenomenal. Sampling, remixing, cutting and mashing-up these video and audio snippets to make not only his own song, but a clever video as well, is a rare talent.

I’ll have more hip-hop postings soon, but those will have to wait a bit. I’m heading to New York next weekend to see BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON and need my brain to switch from hip-hop to post-punk power-pop.

I’m hoping this mashup will help me put the nail in the coffin of the bastardization of the rap/rock genre by creating JUDGEMENT NIGHT: THE MUSICAL.

Caitie Hannon is the Grants Associate for Center Theatre Group

Three exciting things happened last Thursday - I got to hang out in the Douglas lobby with a group of young professionals talking about what kind of theatre they love; I got to see a really exciting and promising workshop of a hip-hop musical; and I ate dinner at Chipotle.  All in all, a very exciting evening.  Let me break it down for you.

We’re planning to start a Young Professionals group at CTG and thought we’d talk to people from our target age range (22-35) to get feedback.  So we told some of our corporate donors to spread the word that we were looking for young professionals to survey, expecting 25 or so to show up.  We ended up getting 50 RSVPs, which is how I became involved - we had only been planning on having two staff members, and since that wasn’t going to be sufficient, I was asked to come along.  I was thrilled, as much of what I do involves sitting at a computer and writing grant applications … I definitely enjoy writing, but human to human contact is always a nice change.

The discussion was great - my group had a lot of good ideas, and was very excited about all of the possible benefits we discussed.  If I didn’t already work here, I’d totally join - who wouldn’t want to meet lots of young, fun L.A. folks and see some good theatre?

So after the discussion, the focus group members went to Rush Street for dinner and drinks, and I met up with my brother at Chipotle.  More on that in the last paragraph…

After dinner, we all met back at the Douglas to see a workshop of Venice, the aforementioned hip-hop musical.  Having seen Clay last season at the Douglas (which was written by the same folks that wrote Venice - Matt Sax and Eric Rosen), I was really looking forward to this sneak peek at their latest adventure.  They had invested a lot in this piece already, and their passion definitely showed.  The performance was a blast - the cast was incredibly talented, some of the music and lyrics were stuck in my head all night (in a good way - an “I want the soundtrack” way, not an “I can’t get that song from Annie out of my head” way), and it was great to see a new side of Matt and Eric’s writing.  The talkback with Matt and the cast afterward was fascinating and we got to hear all about their process (they learned their roles over a few weeks amidst constant re-writes - and yet most of the cast members were impressively off-book).

And finally, Chipotle was delicious, and I had leftovers that I wanted to save for later, so before the show started I went backstage to put them in the fridge - and ran into Matt in the hallway.  Man, I hate it when I get star struck.  It’s embarrassing, I mean, this is a normal guy who just happens to be incredibly talented.  I was too speechless to say or do anything other than smile shyly and look down while bee lining for the fridge.  After we left the green room, I nervously turned to my brother and asked, “Did I play it cool?  Was it totally obvious that I’m a ridiculous fan of his?”  He reassured me that Matt probably hadn’t even noticed I was there, and I breathed a sigh of relief … and, of course, after the show I completely forgot that my Chipotle was in the fridge and left without it.  Sigh.  Oh well, hopefully the cast got to eat it.

Kelly Karbacz and Bryan Terrell Clark (front) and the company of “Venice” by Matt Sax and Eric Rosen in a workshop presentation in DouglasPlus at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.  Photo by Craig Schwartz.

Mike Sablone is CTG’s Literary Associate, starting left fielder and third-string shortstop for Dark Monday, the CTG softball team.

Highlights from my weekend in Kansas City! Missouri! Not Kansas! Like I originally thought! Me = terrible at geography!

Things I did in Kansas City:

- Experienced a snow and ice storm! We started with a nice layer of freezing rain, followed by a few inches of snow, added another layer of freezing rain, then more snow. I was excited about all this as I grew up in New England and haven’t really been around crappy weather for the past three years.

- Went to Oklahoma Joe’s, one of three suggestions from multiple natives for the best barbeque in town. Of course we decided to go during the snowstorm, which helped as there was no line. You know it’s a good restaurant when it’s in a converted gas station (er, at least I hope it’s been converted), and the only other people there are cops. 22 of them. I had not one, but two sandwiches (brisket and smoked turkey) which were pretty frickin awesome.

- Had three days of great script work with Matt Sax (writer, actor), Eric Rosen (writer, director) and Josh Horvath (music producer/sound designer) on VENICE.  (Technically this is the most important, but I’m not going to lie that the snow and brisket were pretty phenomenal.)

- Was introduced by Matt to Charles Hamilton’s track “Windows Media Player,” quite possibly the only thing that I’ve liked that Microsoft has (inadvertently) produced.

The four of us flew back to LA on Sunday to start rehearsals for the workshop on Monday in Culver City.

Luckily I was able to trade in my barbeque obsession for fried chicken. My Oklahoma Joe’s is Honey’s Kettle Fried Chicken in Culver City (the main aim of this post is to get free food. I’m not going to lie.). If only, somehow, we could have barbequed the fried chicken I might have died.

Literally.

Of a heart attack.

I managed to stay alive, and am glad I did, as I didn’t want to miss the work that Matt, Eric, Josh and an incredibly talented cast of ten (I’ll include Matt twice) put into the show. At some point later (uh huh) I’ll explain exactly what a workshop entails, but for now I’ll give this statement: By the end of the three weeks there wasn’t one page that didn’t have a rewrite on it.

As expected, we learned a ton from the audiences we had for our three presentations. We had a day off in-between our second and third presentation and took that time to completely rework the first 40 pages of the piece. We’ve now have a script that’s in really great fighting shape to go along with songs that, I’m not going to lie, were stuck in my head for a solid three weeks, and a clear road ahead for how the piece can get even better.

The main thing that keeps us going is Charles Hamilton and barbequed fried food.*

*Nothing about this statement is true unless person reading it is Charles Hamilton or from Honey’s Kettle or Oklahoma Joe’s.**

**At one point in my life I considered myself a journalist. Really! I worked for a real newspaper and everything. When I write something like this it makes me think of the days when I attempted to have journalistic integrity. I, obviously, gave up on this pretty quickly, including writing an article for my college newspaper entitled “I’ll Give You Journalistic Integrity.” Which was one of my favorite titles, along with “Something Has Sabloned,” which manages to sound dirty but was just a review of Jurassic Park 2.