Fire up the time machine to August 27, 1953, sixty-six years ago yesterday. Eisenhower was President. The number one song on the radio was "Ebb Tide" by Frank Chacksfield & His Orchestra. Dr. Alfred Kinsey was on the cover of Time Magazine. And "Roman Holiday" premiered at Radio City Music Hall, starring the young Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck and Eddie Albert. The film was universally adored. As Pauline Kael wrote, “This is the picture that made Audrey Hepburn a movie star. W

"Amid the ongoing culture wars between urban-elite and blue-collar sensibilities, Melocchi’s period play slyly reminds us the division can be bridged by our fundamental human need to create." That's a quote from the LA Times rave review - one of many rave reviews - for "Andy Warhol's Tomato," Vince Melocchi's engrossing new play now running at Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice. Here are a few more: "Dana Jackson’s sure-handed direction draws terrific work from her cast." ~

It takes a special, very particular skillset to make a good CD: 1) encyclopedic knowledge and memory of the available casting pool -- which, in Los Angeles, amounts to hundreds of thousands of actors, with the landscape changing every day, 2) the ability to interpret an unrealized script in terms of what specific human qualities will bring it alive, 3) the advanced communication skills it takes to translate among the specialized vocabularies and priorities of producer, direct