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48 Hour Film Project to Include SDFP Video-Journo Horacio Jones’ ‘Wingin’ It’

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By Staff

San Diego Free Press contributor Horacio Jones, who recently garnered an award from the San Diego chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, has produced a short film with co- director Fabrice Murgia for the 48 Hour Film Project San Diego. Titled Wingin’ It, the work is the story of a rebellious angel who must be coached on how to take souls to the after-life.

The 48 Hour Film Project is a worldwide film competition in which local teams have 48 hours to write, shoot and edit a 4-7 minute short film. A little over 100 teams signed up to compete. To keep the process honest, contestants randomly picked a genre one Friday night at 7pm. They were also provided a prop, line, and character to use in their film.   [Read more…]

Socially Relevant Issues Abound At the 2015 Fringe Festival

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By Mukul Khurana

Continuing the trend of “fringy” but world-class dance and dance theatre, Save My Soul (presented by Wingrove Studios) kicked off a weekend of elevated entertainment at the San Diego Fringe Festival. This aerial dance was set in New Orleans and made references to voodoo and consisted of other dark elements.

But there was nothing dark about the amazing talents on display, not to mention the technical expertise and perfection of the production. We have known that San Diego has a scene to rival Los Angeles and other cities. In addition to the excellent fare from other regions and countries the local talent was more than up to par at the Fringe Festival.   [Read more…]

Creative Tornado Known as the Fringe Festival Comes to San Diego

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Affordable prices, no holds barred subject treatment and engaged audiences

By Mukul Khurana

If you were asked to describe what Fringe Festival was about, you might say that it’s an art festival that fosters genres as diverse as dance, drama, comedy, music, buskers and more. With a strong focus on artists, creativity, and community, the San Diego International Fringe Festival is a progressive undertaking (and as the name states, it has an international scope). But you would be missing the point.

On the opening day of the 2015 San Diego International Fringe Festival (SDIFF) on Thursday the 23rd of July, you would have witnessed the return of the 2014 SDIFF award winner Jack Lukeman. Hailing from Dublin, Ireland, Luke would have seduced you with his smooth accent and beautiful music. He presented Phantasmagoria as songs of “wickedness and wonder.”   [Read more…]

Diversity and Parity in Theatre: Notes from the Dramatists Guild Conference in San Diego

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Licensing, royalties, and writing were the main topics when the National Dramatists Guild (DG) convened at Torrey Pines. The Dramatist Guild is a community of playwrights, composers and lyricists dedicated to protecting, informing and promoting the interests of dramatists everywhere.

Hundreds of people came from different parts of the country and even the world this past weekend to passionately discuss how when, where and why they are guided by the pen. The conference is held every two years in a different city.

There were many known names, those who have and are still writing what everybody is talking about (ahem Frozen…Wicked)   [Read more…]

La Jolla Playhouse’s ‘Come From Away’ is a Different Take on 9/11

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By Mukul  Khurana

On 9/11 of 2001, Gander was discovered by America. To put it correctly, this small Canadian town on the island of Newfoundland was rediscovered by America. It is the location of Gander International Airport.

Here comes an important fact—it was, by virtue of its geography, an important refueling site for transatlantic aircraft as they had to stop somewhere after crossing the ocean.

Here is another fact—most of the streets in Gander are named after aviators—Earhart, Lindbergh, Yeager, and the like. To this day, Gander International Airport still serves as the airport of choice when it comes to medical or security emergencies–hence the 9/11 connection.   [Read more…]

PLACAS: Family, Roots and Loyalty

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It had always been difficult for me to watch a Chicano/Chicano-type play in San Diego. I always feel that they present a stereotype instead of an authentic story. Looking at it another way, I guess those past productions achieved their goal on the most basic level of using the art of theater to provoke thought and analysis.

My feelings about this subject of theater changed this past April when I saw “PLACAS: The Most Dangerous Tattoo,” a play written by Paul S. Flores, developed with and directed by Michael John Garcés. The play screamed “This is it! This is the way it is.”   [Read more…]

‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ Is a Resource-Conscious Blockbuster for Our Time

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By Kate Aronoff / Yes! Magazine

When the first Mad Max was released back in 1979, the era’s reigning existential threats were nuclear winter and, to a lesser extent, peak oil. Set in a not-too-distant dystopian future and against the harsh backdrop of rural Australia, viewers’ ability to map their own fears onto the screen was crucial to that film’s success.

Although the fears have changed, you could say the same thing about Mad Max: Fury Road, the series’ long-awaited fourth installment. Released this month in the midst of California’s historic drought and increasingly bleak studies about the likelihood of catastrophic climate change, the film plays more on viewers’ anxieties about a carbon bomb than a nuclear one.   [Read more…]

7 billion Others : A Sea of Stories at the Museum of Photographic Arts

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By Nat Krieger

One hundred years ago movies were a new technology and folks were getting excited. Humans had been making images since there were humans but for the first time ever pictures could move, and laugh, and cry. The possibilities seemed so deliriously infinite that in 1908 Brazilian essayist João do Rio was moved to declare that, “in the future, the man of our era will be classified as the homo cinematographicus.”

Breakthrough technologies are never only children and the telephone, motion picture’s slightly older sister, was also inspiring some pretty high hopes. Writing in 1891, AT&T’s John J. Carty doffed his chief engineer’s cap and slipped into a prophet’s robe: “Someday we will build up a world telephone system, making necessary to all peoples the use of a common language or common understanding of languages, which will join all the people of the earth into one brotherhood. There will be heard throughout the earth a great voice coming out of the ether which will proclaim, ‘Peace on earth, good will towards men.'”   [Read more…]

When Home Doesn’t Feel Like Home

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The Human Face Of Border Crossers

On Friday, May 8th The Front Art and Culture Center in San Ysidro presented a first reading of Raul Castillo’s Border Crossing, a play that explores the nuances of the migrant experience.

Micah Parzen, CEO of the San Diego Museum of Man, commissioned the piece as a way to launch a deeper conversation about immigration. He asked the La Jolla Playhouse to find a playwright and also contacted the National Conflict Resolution Center to collaborate. He then worked with The Front—located less than a mile from the largest land port of entry in the world—to host a trial reading with six actors sitting in a circle surrounded by an intimate audience.   [Read more…]

Barrio Bits: Placas, Chicano Park Day and Barrio Art Crawl

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Saturday is Chicano Park Day AND Barrio Art Crawl! I repeat. Saturday is Chicano Park Day AND Barrio Art Crawl!

For the first time in the history of the universe two of the greatest things (of the many) that Barrio Logan offers is happening on the same day. From 10am until 5pm you can enjoy the sights and sounds that is the annual Chicano Park Day celebration then from 5pm until 9pm you can crawl the streets of La Logan in search of artistic enjoyment at the various art venues within this creative community.

Chicano Park was founded on April 22, 1970 as a land takeover by community members after they found out that a California Highway Patrol substation was going to be built on the site instead of a park. In 2013, due to the beautiful murals that grace the pillars of the San Diego-Coronado Bridge, Chicano Park was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.   [Read more…]

Playwright Paul S. Flores’ PLACAS: The Most Dangerous Tattoo is Coming to San Diego

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Part Two of a Two Part Interview with the Former Chula Vistan and UCSD Student

By Brent E. Beltrán

For Part I of the interview please visit.

In this second installment of my two part interview with playwright Paul S. Flores he discusses the founding of Los Delicados, what poetry means to him, his novel Along The Border Lies, what attracted him to theatre, his play PLACAS: The Most Dangerous Tattoo, the casting of Culture Clash’s Ric Salinas in the lead role, the outreach for the play, him being named a Doris Duke Artist, and what advice he’d give to fledgling minority writers.   [Read more…]

Playwright Paul S. Flores Brings PLACAS to San Diego

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Part One of a Two Part Interview with the Former Chula Vistan and UCSD Student

By Brent E. Beltrán

Writer Paul S. Flores grew up in Chula Vista and attended UCSD. He moved to San Francisco to pursue his Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. While there he immersed himself in the Bay Area arts/activist scene, helped found Youth Speaks, co-founded the irreverent poetry troupe Los Delicados, wrote an award winning novel, Along The Border Lies, wrote and performed his original plays, had children, and was recently named a Doris Duke Artist. His play PLACAS: The Most Dangerous Tattoo is touring California with a stop in San Diego April 23-25.

I met Paul, along with his Delicado compatriots, at a Floricanto Festival in San Jose in 1999 while publisher of the grassroots literary publishing house Calaca Press. In 2000, Calaca Press produced the spoken word CD anthology, Raza Spoken Here 2, which featured their poem Presente! In 2001 Calaca released their full length CD, Word Descarga. Since then Paul has gone on to do some tremendous literary work.   [Read more…]

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