Allynne Noelle as The Rose in Los Angeles Ballet's "The Nutcracker" / Photo by Reed Hutchinson

LA County’s resident classical ballet company, Los Angeles Ballet opens a sixth season with Thordal Christensen and Colleen Neary’s original staging of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker.”  This sweet holiday treat is currently making its annual three-week tour from Glendale’s landmark Alex Theatre to UCLA’s Royce Hall to the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center.

The ballet opens on sumptuous storybook sets designed by LA artist Catherine Kanner. As a festive Christmas party gets underway at the Steinbaum house, young Clara – danced by Mia Katz – and her friends play with their favorite dolls. New to the role last year, Katz shows a deepening dramatic and technical artistry. Clara’s bratty brother, Franz, is played with devilish glee by Aidan Merchel-Zoric.

Sweeping into the party, the children’s Uncle Drosselmeyer brings mechanical dancing dolls to entertain the guests. Revealing himself as a fine dramatic dancer in last season’s Sonya Tayeh world premiere, the charismatic Nicolas de la Vega commands the stage in his first performances as the wizardly uncle.

Sparkling Isabel Vondermuhll repeats last year’s spicy performance as the commedia dell’arte Columbine Doll, partnered by Angel Lopez in a bravura company debut as Harlequin. Following his electrifying performance as Hilarion in last year’s acclaimed “Giselle,” Chehon Wespi-Tschopp brings the audience to a screaming frenzy with the virtuoso leaps and turns of Drosselmeyer’s Cossack Doll. Eighteen-year-old Pacific Northwest Ballet guest artist Nathaniel Solis guides his compact frame through perfect double tours en l’air and grands jetés with flashing eyes and a brilliant smile. This handsome young man is clearly one to watch.

The midnight battle between the brave toy soldiers and menacing mice is delightful, led by Zheng Hua Li as the high-leaping, hilarious Mouse King. As ever, the women’s corps de ballet presents a breathtaking Dance of the Snowflakes to end Act I.

Act II begins in the Palace of the Dolls, all brought to life by magical Uncle Drosselmeyer. Allyssa Bross and Christopher Revels made auspicious LAB debuts as presiding dolls Marie and her Cavalier in last season’s “Nutcracker.” In the short year since – which included their partnering in both “Giselle” and Balanchine’s “Raymonda Variations” – Bross has developed a confident insouciance to go along with her perfect technique and superb balance, flirting shamelessly with her adoring audience during the fiendish variations of a long and arduous Pas de Deux.

One year ago, Revels made an indelible impression with his ebullient, sky-high leaps and enormous strength and stamina. Now only 20 years old, he exhibits an authority and refinement rare in so young a premier danseur. The fortuitous partnership between these two young artists, carefully and wisely mentored by Christensen and Neary, brings out the best in both of them. Newly named company principals, they exude considerable star quality, which has created a national flurry of anticipation for their pairing in LAB’s upcoming “Swan Lake.” In alternate performances, the Cavalier is danced by returning guest artist Kenta Shimizu, who has parlayed his spectacular jumps, turns, and enormous lifts into a blossoming international career.

Second-act highlights included a sizzling, Flamenco-flavored Spanish Dance, featuring passion and precision from soloists Kate Highstrete, Kelly Ann Sloan, Alexander Forck and Zheng Hua Li.  Lithe and lovely Julia Cinquemani and majestic Alexander Castillo repeated their mesmerizing Arabian pas de deux from last year. Wespi-Tschopp vaulted through a show-stopping Russian Dance, joined by buoyant and acrobatic Christopher McDaniel and Tian Tan.

Always enchanting, the Waltz of the Flowers is especially striking with Allynne Noelle as The Rose. Her strong debut as Queen of the Wilis in last season’s “Giselle” marked her as a brilliant addition to LAB’s impressive roster of soloists. This season Noelle and Bross share performances as Marie and The Rose.

The children’s corps de ballet offers disciplined and precise step-work, and a rollicking sense of fun throughout the evening – no doubt inspiring the throng of young audience members, who can be seen whirling and leaping through the lobby after the show.

For five years, LAB has presented every one of its productions in at least three locations. A recipient of large grants from LA County Arts Commission and the Schubert Foundation, the company has announced two additional performance venues – in Long Beach and Northridge – for its production of “Swan Lake” in March.

“The Nutcracker” plays at UCLA’s Royce Hall on Saturday, Dec. 17, and Sunday, Dec. 18, at 1 and 5 p.m.; and Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center on Thursday, Dec. 22, and Friday, Dec. 23, at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, Dec. 24, at 1 p.m. For tickets and information, please visit www.losangelesballet.org.

—Penny Orloff, Culture Spot LA

Tara Windley and Ann Colby Stocking in "Bhutan" / Photo by John Flynn

Daisy Foote’s gripping “Bhutan,” now in its West Coast premiere at LA’s Rogue Machine Theatre, is a time-bending tragedy that chronicles the disintegration of a small New Hampshire town. Focusing on one hard-luck farm family, Foote expertly weaves the personal with the socio-political, delivering a grim, last-gasp portrait of rural America.

The Conroy clan appears plucky and insular. Mary, a disabled widow played with white-hot intensity by Ann Colby Stocking, hangs on to the family farm by her shredded fingernails. Having raised her two children by herself after the bizarre accidental death of her husband, she employs a mix of despotism and emotional blackmail to keep the family together against the incoming tide of change. But she is ultimately no match for the unforgiving reality that unravels her fiction of a stable home. For people like the Conroys, change really does mean the end of the world.

As local farms are increasingly bought up and subdivided, the town is altered to accommodate the influx of educated, upscale new arrivals – among them, the well-traveled, retired university professor next door. Although the sophisticated neighbor never appears, her presence is the inexorable catalyst that finally vanquishes Mary’s illusion of safety. In befriending Mary’s young daughter, Frances, the old lady opens a door that cannot be closed again. Having been introduced to literature and music, and spellbound by her new friend’s photographs of faraway places (Bhutan, for one), Frances dreams of college and travel to Bhutan. As Frances, the incandescent Tara Windley is the heart of the drama. Appearing about 15 and very fragile, this subtle young actress commands the stage, imperceptibly growing in stature and resolve, until the final shattering scene.

Foote begins the play in the shabby kitchen of the farmhouse on Frances’ older brother Warren’s 18th birthday. Cast too early as Man of the House, the doomed Warren struggles under the relentless decay of the aging farmhouse and his mother’s increasing need.  Marco Naggar inhabits this character with a raw and shocking vulnerability. His metamorphosis from clueless schoolboy to hardened prison convict chills the blood.

Mary’s alcoholic sister Sara is played with a ferocious and desperate jollity by Tracie Lockwood. A kaleidoscope of conflicting emotions, Lockwood is by turns hilarious, repugnant, and pathetic. Among many compelling production elements, this performance, alone, is reason enough to catch “Bhutan.”

Director Elina de Santos has created an ensemble tour de force, an uncomfortable and arresting intimacy that simultaneously fascinates and repels. Set designer Mark Guirguis ably delivers the cozy working-class farmhouse kitchen at the center of this family’s life. Leigh Allen’s lighting design offers seamless transformation from kitchen to prison, morning to midnight, dream to reality. Christopher Moscatiello’s distinctive soundscape illustrates the impending death of a failing furnace, the dream of foreign travel, and the reality of prison doors.

–Penny Orloff, Culture Spot LA

“Bhutan” continues through Dec. 19 at Rogue Machine Theatre, 5041 W. Pico Blvd., LA. For information and tickets, call (323) 930-0747, or visit www. roguemachinetheatre.com.

Los Angeles Ballet presents "Giselle" at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica. / Photo by Reed Hutchinson

The oldest surviving Romantic ballet and one of the most popular ballets of all time, “Giselle” (1841) was the very first “ballet blanc,” featuring the corps of women in long white tutus which has become the symbol of classical ballet.

As staged by Los Angeles Ballet Co-artistic Director Thordal Christensen, this timeless masterwork is a living example of the Romantic ideal: the vengeful, supernatural Wilis contrasted with the innocent, ethereal Giselle, whose love for Albrecht transcends heartbreak and death. Christensen’s pedigree — internationally renowned Bournonville specialist, celebrated premiere danseur and former artistic director of the venerable Royal Danish Ballet — perfectly fits him to the task. His choreography modifies the original Coralli-Perrot-Petipa stagings, effectively updating certain classical conventions, without modernizing away the 19th-century magic.

As Giselle, Alyssa Bross’ first act presents a beautiful, happy girl in the blush of first love.  Her piquant footwork and stylish ports des bras paint her character as confident, even flirtatious. Only when Giselle’s mother — played by Co-artistic Director Colleen Neary — expresses grave concerns for the girl’s frail health, do we notice something amiss. Bross seems to pale before our eyes, presaging the tragedy to come.  Her “mad scene” and death are touchingly effective.

Bross is partnered by Christopher Revels as Albrecht. Both of these young artists debuted with LAB a scant six months ago, as leads in the company’s annual “Nutcracker.” Partnered again for March performances of Balanchine’s “Raymonda Variations,“ the two have established an easy rapport, their complementary styles and personalities creating wonderful onstage chemistry.

In his first “story” ballet, Revels could not be more ideal for the role.  His extreme youth — he is 19 years old — and ebullient personality create an Albrecht whose only sin is his infatuation with a beautiful and charming peasant girl.  Physically, Revels is tall and handsome, with admirable stamina and enormous strength in his lifts. His calling card is his jump — the sheer height and hang time take one’s breath away. When he performs the multiple entrechats-six — Albrecht’s signature move — there is a collective intake of breath out in the audience, followed by an eruption of applause and cheers.

In the second act, Bross’ childlike joy is transformed to transcendent compassion. Made weightless by her own perfect bourrees and Revels’ effortless lifts, Bross’ ghostly Giselle seems made of mist as her undying love rescues Albrecht from the Wilis’ wrath.

Having dazzled an appreciative audience with her virtuoso performance in the March production of “Raymonda Variations,” Kate Highstrete offers an icy, implacable Myrta, Queen of the Wilis.  Etched by her long, slender limbs, Highstrete’s arabesque penche — the most enduring leitmotif of the ballet — gives this vampire-like creature a majestic beauty.  Founding LAB dancer Kelly Ann Sloan and recent arrival Molly Flippen bring a spectral buoyancy, a filigree line, and their own gorgeous deep arabesques to the Queen’s attendants, Moyna and Zulma.

Giselle’s jealous village suitor, Hilarion — whose discovery of Albrecht’s disguise precipitates the girl’s tragic death — is all smoldering intensity in the masterful interpretation of Chehon Wespi-Tschopp.  This charismatic dancer drives the drama in the first act; his spectacular leaps and turns in Act II make his death scene riveting.

The first act bravura Peasant Pas de Deux was danced by LAB debut artist Allyne Noelle, alternating as Myrta, and second-season leading dancer Zheng Hua Li. Noelle’s technical brilliance and bright exuberance in this dance contrast with her grave imperiousness as the Queen of the Wilis.  Li is the quintessential danseur noble, combining physical beauty and regal bearing with exceptional grace, purity of line, impeccable leaps and turns, and great strength in the lifts.  Meant to alternate as Albrecht, in this performance his painful landings of pitch-perfect jetes and double tours en l’air revealed the serious injury that has sidelined him for the rest of the run.

Replacing Li as Albrecht is returning guest artist Kenta Shimizu, who flew in from Japan last Wednesday to partner Chelsea Paige Johnston as Giselle.  Having performed the role numerous times, Shimizu delivers a fully realized interpretation, infusing the considerable technical challenges with dramatic depth and nuance. Named “One of 25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine, he is a consummate artist, currently enjoying a blossoming international career.

Dancing her first lead for the company, Johnston’s characterization of Giselle proves that she is more than capable of carrying a full-length work on her slender shoulders.  Appearing slight and fragile, Johnston certainly suggests the vulnerable young peasant girl of Act I; but she absolutely embodies the otherworldly spirit she becomes after her death, returning from the grave to dance in the moonlight. Her perfect balance, ravishing extensions, and graceful arms and hands perfectly suit the unforgiving 19th-century style. Johnston’s incandescent portrayal makes her Giselle feel inevitable and unique. In their final scene, Johnston and Shimizu are heart-stopping in their virtuosic delicacy.

Also notable in the second cast are Grace McLoughlin with Christopher Revels in the Peasant Pas de Deux. An audience favorite, McLoughlin danced Effie in “La Sylphide” two years ago, before her dazzling breakout performance in Balanchine’s “Kammermusik” in season four, and her radiant Rose in the “Nutcracker” Waltz of the Flowers last December.

The strong dancing and acting in all the principal roles reveal the excellence of Christensen’s detailed coaching.  But it is the female corps in Act II, breathtakingly perfect, that leaves the lasting impression.  The immaculate portrayal of the Wilis in the work’s signature image — the rows of women in perfect symmetry, not a limb out of place, hopping forward in arabesque — is the crowning moment of the evening’s magic.  Here is the real proof of this company’s excellence: a group of dancers so disciplined and filled with the spirit of the work.  LAB’s “Giselle” showcases the emergence of a world-class company, currently at the top of its game.

LAB’s “Giselle” continues at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica on Friday, May 27, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, May 28, at 6 p.m. (sold out); and Sunday, May 29, at 2 p.m. (sold out). For tickets and information, visit www.losangelesballet.org.

Grace McLoughlin and Chehon Wespi-Tschopp in "My Greatest Fear" / Photo by Reed Hutchinson

The human mind arrives at stunning truths which, once known, cannot be unknown. The most life-altering of all insights – the inescapable reality of Death – comes to all of us at some point. The force of the blow that precipitates our dark understanding, and our age when it comes, color forever how we approach the rest of our lives. Some bury their knowledge under pleasant distractions; some hide the dark shadow in drugs and alcohol; some wait, in fear and suffering, for Death’s inexorable approach. And some sublimate that suffering into Art.

Arguably one of America’s greatest commercial choreographers, Sonya Tayeh proved herself a significant 21st-century artist as well with “My Greatest Fear,” her March 5 world-premiere work for Los Angeles Ballet’s CELEBRATION at Glendale’s Alex Theatre.

Tayeh’s horrifically tragic early childhood and subsequent PTSD led to decades in constant, crippling fear of death.  A shockingly personal work, “My Greatest Fear” elevates her journey from inarticulate grief to eloquent expression. For a preview, go to http://www.losangelesballet.org/html/news_video1.htm.

The performance features remarkable commitment and synergy among Tayeh’s 12 dancers, who collaborated on the piece through a development process which included sharing personal stories of loss and photographs of deceased loved ones. Tayeh’s rehearsals incorporated guided meditations to bring her dancers into deep contact with their own experiences of grief.  She admits, “It was a risk. I didn’t know if they could – or would – go there with me.”

“Go there,” they do. In performance, the dancers achieve a level of emotional intensity and an intimacy rarely seen in the theater. Grace McLoughlin and Chehon Wespi-Tschopp are heartbreakingly tender with each other throughout an extended pas de deux full of complex combinations and gorgeous lifts. For all their technical virtuosity, it is this emotional depth that sets them apart. Tyler Burkett’s solo tour de force of leaps, turns, and acrobatic floor work is dramatically motivated and completely organic. Large and powerful Nicholas De La Vega exhibits striking vulnerability, dancing with total conviction and brimming eyes.

Chelsea Paige Johnston, who suffered broken ribs during a rehearsal, leaves the stage with tears streaming down her cheeks after the opening tableau. “An injury lets us know how fragile we really are. Unable to dance, I felt the total loss of my identity,” she says. “But, rather than replacing me, Sonya altered the choreography to let me still be a part of it.”  Completely cohesive, later in the piece the other dancers react to Johnston’s absence as to a wound, to the severing of a limb.

A master of composition, Tayeh uses not only a unique movement vocabulary, but stillness as well in her shattering confrontation with death. In the end, the dancers find not acceptance, but surrender. Tayeh’s moving tone poem to music of Max Richter and Arvo Pärt is underscored beautifully through Kanique Thomas’ dramatic costumes and Ben Pilat’s imaginative and evocative lighting. Judging from the extended ovation for Tayeh and her dancers and the furtive repairs to streaked mascara in the ladies’ room at intermission, many in the audience were as moved as I was.

Opening the CELEBRATION program was the ”Raymonda Variations,” Balanchine’s 1961 tribute to the 1898 ballet choreographed by Marius Petipa to music by Glazunov. Balanchine’s characteristically narrative-free distillation provides a lush showcase for a principal couple and five soloists from the women’s corps de ballet.

A Fragonard painting come to life, the lovely opening tableau – featuring fluffy pink tutus from the original Karinska designs, on loan from Pennsylvania Ballet – drew appreciative applause. Principals Monica Pelfrey and Christopher Revels delivered the goods with energy and refinement. Pelfrey’s graciousness and warmth, no less than her perfect balance and lovely ports des bras, announce her as an ascending star. All of 19 years old, Revels is a major find, conquering the ballet’s technical and partnering demands with ease. Bravura solo performances from McLoughlin, Isabel Vondermuhll, Julia Cinquemani, Kelly Ann Sloan, and Kate Highstrete in the variations, and the celebrated perfection of LAB’s women’s corps, reinforce the company’s growing national reputation.

Balanchine’s 1954 “Western Symphony,” set to Hershy Kay’s honky-tonk saloon-piano and country fiddles arrangements of traditional American folk tunes, provides the evening’s boisterous finale. Costumes – again by Karinska – and scenery are courtesy of San Francisco Ballet. The women are tarted up in pink, blue, red, or green bustiers with multi-colored tutus; the men are duded up in black western shirts and Stetsons, against a Wild West street scene backdrop.

Everything about this piece works.  One minute, amorous couples dance a soft prairie waltz; and the next, four dudes are kickin’ up the dust with bounding double tours en l’air. The choreography permits the dancers to add personal touches of comic characterization to their roles. LAB’s resident dramatic ballerina, having scorched the scenery in “The Evangelist” and “Prodigal Son” in past seasons, Melissa Barak is brilliantly deadpan and scintillatingly saucy in the Allegro. She blazes through the intricate footwork with a devil-may-care panache. Alexander Castillo, who partnered the Arabian Dance in his company debut in December, partners Barak effectively, especially in his effortless lifts. His long limbs and clean technique are a pleasure to watch.

In the Adagio second movement, vixen Pelfrey lures elegant rhinestone cowboy Zheng Hua Li away from four other females. All liquid arms and beautiful extensions, she toys with his affections, and then moseys on. Li gets the evening’s biggest laugh – with a simple shrug, as he returns to his four ladies.  Lovely Alyssa Bross is a witty saloon floozy in the Rondo third movement, partnered by Revels with tireless bounce and joie de vivre. Revels plays a charming “Aw, shucks!” ingenuousness, while soaring through a succession of unbelievably high jumps.

McLoughlin and Burkett joined the other principals in the hoedown of a finale. Their brief appearance is a reminder that, though at first the dance was in four movements – each led by a principal couple – Balanchine cut the Scherzo in 1960. All that remains for its leading couple is their appearance in the last roundup. The curtain comes down on the entire company, in a swirl of pirouettes in colorful rows.

Local audiences have three more chances to experience Los Angeles Ballet’s CELEBRATION: at Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center on Saturday, March 12, at 7:30 p.m.; and at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse on Saturday, March 19, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, March 20, at 2 p.m. Tickets and information are available at www.losangelesballet.com.

Helena Thordal-Christensen as Clara in LA Ballet's "Nutcracker" / photo courtesy of LA Ballet

In an era of catastrophic personal belt tightening and calamitous corporate downsizing, too many promising arts organizations have fallen face-first into the chasm of disappearing dollars. When even an established, respected old organization like the Pasadena Playhouse had to close its doors for a time, it is beyond astonishing that a new classical ballet troupe not only survives, but thrives.

Since the debut of its original production of “The Nutcracker” in November 2006, the Los Angeles Ballet has been met with critical and commercial success, nearly doubling its budget over five seasons without a penny of government support. “Considering the colossal events of the last five years – Katrina, the tsunami in Indonesia, the financial collapse and subsequent recession, the Haiti earthquake – LAB’s steady growth from $900,000 to $1,624,000 is nothing short of a miracle,” says Julie Whittaker, the company’s executive director.

The central ingredient in LAB’s success is the consistent high quality of the product. Artistic Directors Thordal Christensen and Colleen Neary are clearly the stars of this enterprise. Their uncanny selection and inspired mentoring of some of America’s finest young dancers have resulted in a world-class corps de ballet and several important break-out soloists. Their vision and tireless dedication to the work have produced a large and reliable fan base, and ever-increasing ticket sales.

LAB’s “Nutcracker” – playing in venues around LA County this month – is proof of the company’s stature as a game-changing force in the realm of international ballet. The original choreography by Christensen and Neary is fresh and exhilarating, demonstrating the technical skill, individual virtuosity, and razor-sharp precision ensemble work that distinguish this young company. After several reports, I am running out of superlatives to describe the exemplary work of the women’s corps de ballet in the Dance of the Snowflakes and the Waltz of the Flowers, two highlights of the production.

Other highlights of this season’s LAB “Nutcracker” include the annual appearance of guest artist Sergey Kheylik as the Cossack Doll. The ecstatic cheers greeting his Act I entrance escalated to a roar as he flung himself into impossible leaps and turns. He was joined in Act II by LAB newcomers Aaron Bahadursingh and Christopher Revels, who matched Kheylik vault for astonishing vault. The off-the-charts athleticism of this Russian Dance whipped the audience into a prolonged, ear-splitting demonstration, literally stopping the show.

Returning as Marie (Sugarplum Fairy), Monica Pelfrey remained serene and confident through the long and demanding pas de deux. Her dancing showed off clean stepwork, lovely ports des bras, and marvelous balance. She was partnered by Zheng Hua Li, her cavalier in last season’s Balanchine “Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2.” Li’s emotional physicality contrasts beautifully with Pelfrey’s cool elegance, creating a wonderful chemistry. The audience rewarded his big, floating jetees and effortless lifts with ample appreciation.

Making her LAB debut in the Arabian Dance, Julia Cinquemani’s jaw-dropping beauty managed to stun a fairly demonstrative crowd into pin-drop silence. Wrapping her supple, snakelike torso in coils around her partner, newcomer Alexander Castillo, she mesmerized adults and children alike. The breathless silence was broken by an extended, vociferous ovation.

Also new this season is Allyssa Bross as the Rose in the Waltz of the Flowers. This young ballerina clearly won over the crowd, her incandescent smile radiating throughout her performance.

Thirteen-year-old Helena Thordal-Christensen plays Clara with fragile beauty and dramatic intensity. Having danced the role for the first time last season, this year she exhibits complete confidence and authority. Her long, slender legs extend forever, making an event of each arabesque. She has an arresting innocence about her, a lack of artifice which made her nightmare scene all the more harrowing as she darted, terrified, around the vast stage of Glendale’s Alex Theatre.  Perhaps the most moving moment in the performance, for me, came when Clara’s mother – played by Thordal Christensen’s real-life mother, the great Balanchine ballerina, Colleen Neary – kissed the little girl before walking off the stage, a symbolic passing of the torch from the past to the future.

Clara’s Nutcracker-turned-Prince is 18-year-old Jordan Veit of the Pacific Northwest Ballet School’s Professional Division. Dancing with strength and ease, and resembling a young Leonardo Di Caprio, this young man exudes charm. The long line of infatuated little girls waiting to meet him after the performance may be the harbinger of good things to come for Veit.

Fans in search of guaranteed holiday magic have several chances remaining for performances of LAB’s “Nutcracker” in venues around LA: UCLA’s Royce Hall, Dec. 18 at 1 and 5 p.m., and Dec. 19 at 1 and 5 p.m.; and at Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center on Dec. 24 at 2 pm., and Dec. 26 at 1 and 5 p.m.. Tickets and information are available at (310) 998-7782, or at www.LosAngelesBallet.org.

The world premiere production of Jennie Webb’s surreal comedy “Yard Sale Signs” plays through Nov. 14 at Rogue Machine Theatre, 5041 West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. Now in its third season, Rogue Machine offers up world premieres by established and emerging playwrights, as well as LA, regional, and American premieres of significant contemporary plays previously produced elsewhere.

Co-founder of the Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative and Playwright in Residence at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum — where she created and runs “Botanicum Seedlings: A Development Series for Playwrights” — Jennie Webb has had work produced on stages across America and internationally. Developed through readings at both Theatricum Botanicum and Rogue Machine Theatre, “Yard Sale Signs” concerns a random group of five women and one gay male, compelled to look beyond their reflections and projections by the forced intimacy of a communal dressing room.

With a decidedly absurdist edge, the play “throws light on the stuff we all accumulate as we move through life, and the unconscious maneuvering we engage in to convince ourselves we’re rid of the baggage,” says Webb. “While discussing this issue with a friend of mine, she said I should write a play set in a women’s dressing room — where the mirrors and bad lighting reveal everything we try not to notice.”

Elina de Santos directs with a light touch, an unselfconscious nonchalance, allowing the play’s increasingly wacky twists to unfold as if nothing unusual is going on. The skilled and nuanced performances from a seamlessly effective ensemble cast are simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious. But the special effects walk away with the evening. With the astonished audience gasping, incredulous, one woman slowly reveals her massive love-hate Mommy baggage, while another quite literally falls apart with the stress of coping with her own three children. Tech director David Mauer somehow accomplishes an escalating series of impossibly surreal events.

The six cast members effortlessly interact with the dozens of props and each other. Inger Tudor, Jennifer Taub, Ann Bronston (alternating with Maia Danziger), Corryn Cummins, Hollace Starr, and Jaxon Duff Gwillim offer completely committed and credible performances. Clothing designer Eva Franco’s racks of brightly colored dresses, suits, blouses and skirts — all for sale after the show — decorate the vast unit set by Stephanie Kerley Schwartz.

For tickets, call (323) 960-4424 or visit www.roguemachinetheatre.com.

Noreen Green, founder, artistic director and conductor of the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony

The Los Angeles Jewish Symphony celebrates contributions of Jewish composers to film history with its annual concert program, Cinema Judaica, on Sunday, Aug. 8, at 7:30 p.m., under the stars at the Ford Amphitheatre.  The orchestra, led by Founder and Artistic Director Noreen Green, pays tribute to Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, Steven Schwartz, Danny Pelfrey, Charles Fox, Yuval Ron and other major composers. Guest artists include Ron, percussionist Jamie Papish, and Israeli-born pianist Andy Feldbau.

The program features music from two exciting Goldsmith works, Masada and QB VII; the expansive score of Bernstein’s Ten Commandments Suite; the thrilling music of Schwartz’s songs in The Prince of Egypt; Pelfrey’s Symphonic Suite from Joseph: King of Dreams; Fox’s riveting Victory at Entebbe Suite (with Feldbau); and Ron’s West Bank Story Suite, with the composer on oud and Papish on ethnic percussion.  Additional concert highlights include the world premiere of new arrangements from The Chosen and Thoroughly Modern Millie.

World music performer/composer Ron’s West Bank Story Suite, from the Academy Award-winning 2006 live-action short musical film, interweaves Arabic folkloric motives with East European Klezmer Jewish music. “My score spoofs Leonard Bernstein’s original West Side Story,” Ron says. “After our movie won the Oscar, I put together a 10-minute suite of highlights, a medley of the songs and dances. The music now has a life of its own.”

During the concert, Ron will play the song melodies on the oud, the Middle Eastern string instrument. A renowned educator and peace activist, he was invited to perform for His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. “My life changed substantially after the movie,” says Ron. “Suddenly, I had opportunities for speaking engagements around the world, with screenings of the movie, in workshops devoted to the peace process.”

Green will conduct the concert. Under her baton, Los Angeles Jewish Symphony has performed in concert with Billy Crystal, Randy Newman, Theodore Bikel, Lainie Kazan, Marvin Hamlisch, and others. “The orchestra is made up of musicians from the LA Phil, studio musicians, community members and high-level students,” she says. “It is exciting to work with them.”

Green talks about each piece during the concerts “to bring the audience into the concert experience as an active participant,” she explains. This process comes naturally to her. “I come from a choral background with a doctorate in choral music from USC. I also have a degree in education, and I love going back and forth between the two worlds. As the conductor, I feel like I am the conduit between the performers and the audience – with energy flowing through me between the two entities. It is quite a high!”

This event is part of the Ford Amphitheatre’s multidisciplinary arts series produced by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission in cooperation with Los Angeles County-based arts organizations. For a complete season schedule, visit www.FordTheatres.org.

The Ford Amphitheatre is located at 2580 Cahuenga Blvd., East Hollywood.  The grounds open two hours before show time for picnicking.  Food is also available on-site.

On-site, stacked parking costs $5 per vehicle. FREE non-stacked parking serviced by a FREE shuttle to the Ford is available at the Universal City Metro Station lot at Lankershim Boulevard and Campo de Cahuenga.  The shuttle, which cycles every 15 to 20 minutes, stops in the “kiss and ride” area.

Tickets, priced at $36 and $25, and $12 for full-time students with ID and children 12 and under, are available at www.FordTheatres.org or (323) 461-3673.

Jen Riley, Burl Moseley, and Caroline Aaron in "New York Animals." / Photo by John Flynn

“The process is completely fascinating,” says longtime theater lover Abigail Paine, as she leaves the small West Los Angeles theater.  “It really feels like a privilege to have watched something as unusual as ‘New York Animals’ evolve at Rogue Machine.” Paine says she has seen this mega-workshop of Steven Sater’s newest play three times. “And I’ll be seeing it once more, in the final weekend,” she vows.

The first-ever theater production of Steven Sater’s “New York Animals” is a fully staged workshop, a first stop on the road to New York, after a decade-long process of development. A four-actor cast plays 21 denizens of the Big Apple, as their lives intersect both humorously and tragically during one eventful day. “Paul Reiser read a draft in 2001 and loved it,” says Sater. “Sony bought it, and I wrote it as a TV pilot. We shot it, and in 2002, I wrote another six episodes.”

Sater says the process stalled, and he redid the series for Showtime, then rolled it into an NBC pilot involving Paul Reiser. “It was a year and a half of my life,” he says, “during which I spent a lot of time in LA. I missed my family, so we finally just moved to LA, to Larchmont Village.”

His new LA neighbor was Caroline Aaron, who had auditioned for the TV production of “New York Animals,” then had to drop out because of a family emergency. “She lived three houses from me, and passionately wanted to do the play,” Sater says. “When we would meet on the street, she continuously talked about it.”

Aaron, a well-known Broadway and film actress, told Sater about Rogue Machine Theatre, of which she was a member, and suggested bringing the play to the company’s founder and artistic director, John Perrin Flynn. “I was very moved by the play,” says Flynn. “Steven had another director in mind, but after we met and talked about the piece, he agreed to turn it over to me.”

“I was not going to be able to be involved in the rehearsal process,” says Sater, who was going to be in London during that time, writing a new version of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and simultaneously working on the movie of his Tony Award-winning musical, “Spring Awakening.” “I’m also working on a new musical with Burt Bacharach,” he says, “among other projects.”

The workshop of “New York Animals” opened to the public in June, and has seen several revisions during its run. “It’s been a really great, tremendous experience for me,” Sater says.

“‘New York Animals’ continues to evolve,” says Flynn.  “Steven keeps revising, and the actors keep getting better and better. It’s come a long way since it began.”

Paine agrees. “It’s really worth seeing again if you’ve seen it — and if you haven’t, what’s keeping you?”

The final four performances of Steven Sater’s “New York Animals” are Thursday through Saturday, Aug. 5-7, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, Aug. 8, at 3 p.m., at Theatre/Theater, 5041 W. Pico Blvd, West Los Angeles, (323) 930-0747, www.roguemachinetheatre.com.

Travis Wall

Back in the 1950s my ex-ballerina mother hoarded her housekeeping money in order to take my sisters and me to the ballet. Having fallen in love with Tchaikovsky and Petipa at a young age, she favored classic “white” ballets like “Swan Lake” and other traditional works of the late 1890s and early 20th century.

It wasn’t until I relocated to New York in the 1970s that I experienced what decades in the New World had done to an elitist European amusement. George Balanchine had revolutionized classical ballet, working with Stravinsky, Hindemith, and other giants of 20th-century music and creating a uniquely American style reflective of a post-war, increasingly urban culture.  My mother found it disturbing, but I was an avid member of the young audience that flocked to the New York State Theatre, taking ownership of this suddenly relevant iteration of a traditional art form.

In the 35 years since, I have seen the new audiences of the ’70s grow old and gray – like myself. Except for the young  mothers of each new crop of baby ballerinas, today the majority of my fellow balletomanes – like the aging devotees of classical music and opera – are on the far side of the hill, a disturbing percentage of our decreasing numbers rigidly clinging to an increasingly irrelevant artistic sensibility.

Or so I thought.

Last week I watched, incredulous, as the lobby of the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center filled with a hyperactive horde of tattooed and pierced twenty- and thirty-somethings, eager – nay, impatient – for the unveiling of the four world premieres featured in Los Angeles Ballet’s production of “New Wave LA.”

Inside the theater the electricity was palpable, the buzz deafening. No polite hand clapping greeted the appearance of co-artistic directors Colleen Neary and Thordal Christensen. Instead, cheers worthy of European soccer erupted as the couple stepped on stage to welcome their audience. Unfamiliar with ballet, most of this young crowd has discovered dance through “American Idol,” “Dancing With the Stars,” and “So You Think You Can Dance,” where passionate demonstration has supplanted decorous appreciation.

Sonya Tayeh

Mandy Moore’s “Wink” opens the show, dealing with the tangled web of Internet dating “and all the awkwardly beautiful moments along the path to finding true love,” she writes in the program notes. The curtain rises on a lineup of 10 characters who deliver “profile” introductions directly to the audience: “Hi, I’m Chelsea…” “I love walks on the beach…” “I’m an Aries…” The music by Cirque Eloise underscores Moore’s complex interactions. She expertly weaves the daring with the lyrical, the humorous with a thread of melancholy, as richly detailed ensembles give way to a quasi-traditional pas de deux. The audience, unused to the capabilities of bona fide ballet dancers, rewards individual virtuosity and group precision with a torrent of screams and applause – and just like that, we’re not in Kansas, anymore.

After a brief intermission, choreographer and former international ballerina Josie Walsh, founder of MYOKYO Renegade Rock Ballets, offers “Transmutation.” The specially commissioned, driving rock score by Walsh’s husband, Paul Rivera, Jr., pulses and throbs as three couples act out the visceral “interplay between the male and female energies” in a tour de force display of physical exertion. Walsh told me that the greatest challenge of this piece was the sheer endurance factor for the dancers. Pressed to their limits, all six reveal uncommon depth of personality and character. Tiny Grace McLoughlin, especially, unleashes a raw, wild abandon. She is like an animal possessed. Drew Grant, Andrew Brader, and Alexander Forck are individually and collectively astonishing, as they negotiate the tremendous athleticism of Walsh’s huge compound leaps and spectacular lifts. The audience screams itself hoarse, until shocked into pin-drop silence by the transcendent finale.

Travis Wall’s “Reflect. Affect. Carry On…” is a time-bending, nonlinear love story set to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” U2’s “With or Without You,” and Sigur Ros’ “Samskeyti.” His star is rapidly rising on the contemporary dance scene; nevertheless he is a master of classical ballet technique, infusing his sui generis style with enough tradition to satisfy the most rabid haters of the unfamiliar. Through a personal vocabulary of movement, Wall creates a surreal dreamscape of desire, memory, yearning. One cannot begin to guess what this 22-year-old phenom may become. The dancers execute the unique combinations with total commitment. At one point, their meticulous and precise delivery of an extended fugue provokes a long, audible gasp from the previously vociferous audience – literally taking our breath away.

Sonya Tayeh’s “the back and forth” is a sexy, wild ride of a finale to music of the Paris Gotan Trio, Björk, and tango king Astor Piazzolla. The alchemy of Tayeh’s quirky, signature style of “combat jazz” melded with virtuoso ballet elements whips the packed house into a frenzy. The bullfight-inspired dance features unexpected, increasingly dramatic interactions between the bare-chested men and flamenco-clad women. This is dance as unbridled passion, dance as spectacle, dance as Theatre.

The audience was on its feet, screaming even before the curtain came down. The dancers took a bow to deafening roars. The ovation surged again with the appearances of Neary, Christensen, and the four choreographers. After the show, hundreds of fans stood in long lines to get autographs and have their photographs taken with the young choreographers.  I’d conclude that Neary and Christensen’s experiment bodes well for the future of classical ballet.

Catch Los Angeles Ballet’s “New Wave LA” on May 22 at 7:30 p.m. at the Alex Theatre, Glendale; on May 29 at 2 p.m. (just added) and 7:30 p.m. (sold out) and May 30 at 2 p.m. (sold out) at the Broad Stage, Santa Monica. Tickets and information: (310) 998-7782 or www.losangelesballet.org.

Grace McLaughlin and Drew Grant in Josie Walsh's "Transmutation" / photo courtesy of Los Angeles Ballet

From May 15 to 30, the Los Angeles Ballet finishes its fourth season with the unveiling of four contemporary world premieres by acclaimed guest choreographers Mandy Moore, Travis Wall, and Sonya Tayeh of the FOX TV hit, “So You Think You Can Dance,” and LA’s Josie Walsh. Titled “New Wave LA,” the program presents cutting-edge, innovative movement from some of the brightest beacons on the choreographic horizon.

LAB Artistic Directors Thordal Christensen and Colleen Neary have commissioned new works each season — but presenting four world premiere dances on a single program is all but unheard-of for a classical ballet company. That three of the four young choreographers featured in LAB’s production come from the hit TV show “So You Think You Can Dance” is no accident. In 2008, dancers from Los Angeles Ballet made an impressive appearance on the series, and last July Christensen choreographed the first-ever classical ballet piece for the show. That some of the show’s resident choreographers return the favor seemed natural.

Mandy Moore’s caffeine-infused, witty “Wink” opens the show. Moore was inspired by “the world of Internet dating — profiles, coffee dates, second dates,” she writes in her program notes, “and all the awkwardly beautiful moments along the path to finding true love.”

In an early rehearsal in the company’s vast West Side studios,  two dancers catch each other’s eyes in passing and chuckle, and Moore hollers, “Keep it!”  Her rehearsal is focused and disciplined, yet full of humor. “Dance is so silly to me when people don’t react to each other,” she tells her dancers. “Don’t just ignore them — especially if they’re cute!” One of the choreographers for Celine Dion’s “Taking Chances” world tour, Moore’s eclectic style has delighted viewers regularly on “So You Think You Can Dance” and “American Idol.”

Down the hall in another studio, Los Angeles native Josie Walsh is working with another group of dancers. Walsh danced with the Joffrey Ballet, Zurich Ballet, and Oregon Ballet Theatre, before returning to LA to found MYOKYO Renegade Rock Ballets in 2000. Her ballet, “Transmutation,” was developed from a piece originally commissioned for LAB’s first choreographic workshop last summer. It evokes the visceral interplay between “the male and female archetypal energies,” she explains, “the friction of opposition creating balance. If we didn’t have opposition, we’d be looking for it, for the wisdom of the middle road.”

Walsh creates movement organically, empathically on the dancers, making changes as she works to achieve integration of body, mind, and spirit. “I don’t like to dictate,” she says. “I use what is, in the moment. My intention is to cultivate the presence of each individual dancer.” The music — specially created for this ballet by Walsh’s husband Paul Rivera, Jr. — inexorably throbs and pounds, ultimately leading to transcendent stillness.

Award-winning contemporary choreographer Travis Wall left home at 12, to appear in “The Music Man” on Broadway. Runner-up on season two of “So You Think You Can Dance,” Wall later returned to the show as a featured choreographer. This year he was assistant choreographer and dancer for the Academy Awards show, and created a piece featuring New York Ballet principal ballerina Tiler Peck for ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars.”

Wall’s “Reflect. Affect. Carry On…” for LAB is a bittersweet love story inspired by Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” U2’s “With or Without You,” and Sigur Ros’ “Samskeyti.” His unique style is a seamless hybrid, melding elements of classical ballet and contemporary dance. As he shares his very individual dance vocabulary with the dancers, I am struck with the sense that this remarkable 22-year-old may be the Bob Fosse of his generation.

Her stylized movement relying substantially on aggressive one-on-one physical contact, Sonya Tayeh directs “combat jazz” and contemporary dance as a choreographer on “So You Think You Can Dance.” Her dances incorporate a personal, quirky style with the essence of contemporary technique, producing startlingly original combinations.

In “the back and forth,” Tayeh has created a flamboyant, show-stopping finale for “New Wave LA.” With huge appreciation for their virtuosity, Tayeh’s shrieks of “Yes! Yes!” goad her six dancers into reckless, dangerous flight to Piazzolla’s “Libertango.” She is completely collaborative with the three couples, igniting fire and passion in their dancing. “When the matador meets the bull, the back and forth begins,” she says.

Performances of “New Wave LA” are on Saturday, May 15, at 7:30 p.m. at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center; Saturday, May 22, at 7:30 p.m. at Glendale’s Alex Theatre; and Saturday, May 29, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 30, at 2 p.m. at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica. For more information, visit www.losangelesballet.org or call (310) 998-7782.