Mo`olelo Newsletter 6
July 21, 2009
Mo`olelo’s latest semi-annual Newsletter is up on our website. This current issue includes articles about Good Boys, our education program Mo`olelo Bridges, an interview with Board Member Freda Statom, and news about our grants and greening initiative. You can read the Newsletter here.
striiiiike!
June 15, 2009
Board members Kay Chandler and Desiree Bruce-Lyle with Patricia Prather
Today was the closing performance of Good Boys. La Jolla Playhouse’s Michael Rosenberg, Shirley Fishman, Dana Harrel, Stephen McCormick, and Rick VanNoy toasted the Company with champagne and strawberries to celebrate the completion of Mo`olelo’s residency at La Jolla Playhouse and the inaugural year of their Resident Theatre Program.
Then we proceeded to strike and load out of the theater:
Costume Designer Jeannie Galioto swinging by the dressing room before heading to the donor opening of Unusual Acts of Devotion at La Jolla Playhouse
The walls come down.
Ticket availability for Good Boys
June 12, 2009
As of 11:00 AM on Sunday, June 14, here’s the Good Boys ticket availability for the weekend….
Saturday, June 13, 7:30 PM - SOLD OUT!
Sunday, June 14, 2:30 PM - SOLD OUT
www.moolelo.net or 619-342-7395 for tickets
Good Boys Company BBQ
June 12, 2009
Thank you to Stage Manager Lurie Pfeffer who hosted a Good Boys Company BBQ at her home after today’s high school matinee. It was great to relax and socialize with each other as we gear up for the last three performnaces of the show.
social networking experiment
June 10, 2009
If you’re on Facebook or Twitter, find us for special discounts to GOOD BOYS. Seach for Seema Sueko on FB and Seemasue on Twitter….. Let’s see how good these social networking tools are!
Mahalo, Charlene!
June 9, 2009
Charlene Baldridge’s review of GOOD BOYS in La Jolla Village News:
Tillman and Good Boys
June 7, 2009
We wondered whether anyone would notice that actor Sacha Allen is wearing a Pat Tillman jersey as Marcus Thurman in Good Boys. San Diego Union-Tribune Theater Critic James Hebert did! Check out what he wrote on his blog.
hooray for Pat!
June 5, 2009
Pat Launer’s review of GOOD BOYS from San Diego News Network:
http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2009-06-03/things-to-do/pat-launer-on-san-diego-theater-good-boys-tiger
…….Seema Sueko, founding artistic director of Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company, loves to explore and lay bare complex social issues, engaging the community in dialogue and debate, raising awareness and consciousness. She has scored again. Bull’s eye. Partnering with the Tariq Khamisa Foundation, dedicated to preventing bullying and violence in schools, and the Jenna Druck Foundation, which provides support to bereaved families who’ve lost a child, Mo’olelo is reaching out to school kids, both as audience (for special matinee performances) and as participants (collages, hanging outside the theater, were created by Hoover High School students in response to the play). This is what theater was meant to do: inform, inspire, question values, alter perspectives and hopefully, change minds. The talk-back after the performance I attended was exceptional; the comments were incisive, the contributors ranging from a parent who’d lost a child, to folks who’d grown up around guns and can’t understand their gross misuse by young people today. The origins of violence were discussed; of course, no resolutions were reached, but it was deeply moving to hear the thoughtful, heartfelt comments.
Both the issues and the performances ignited and intrigued the attendees. And what performances they were! Sueko cast exceptionally well, and guided a gifted ensemble through the seesawing emotions and shifting sympathies of this well-crafted play, which managed not to be overly melodramatic or neatly concluded like a movie-of-the-week. “Closure does not exist,” we’re rightly told.
THE BOTTOM LINE: BEST BET
read the entire review here.
thank you, Pam!
June 4, 2009
Pam Kragen of North County Times wrote a terrific review of GOOD BOYS…
REVIEW: Moving ‘Good Boys’ mirrors real-life San Diego tragedy
By PAM KRAGEN – pkragen@nctimes.com | Wednesday, June 3, 2009 9:09 AM PDT
Since its creation five years ago, Mo’olelo Performing Arts has produced a series of plays about social, political and medical issues that tie into the San Diego community at large. None has been more relevant than the company’s current show —- “Good Boys,” a moving one-act drama about the repercussions of gun violence that mirrors a real-life tragedy that occurred in San Diego 14 years ago.
“Good Boys” is the fictional story of two fathers who are brought together by their shared pain. One father’s son has killed the other’s son, and both ultimately find healing in their shared forgiveness. That’s strikingly similar to the true story of Tariq Khamisa, a 20-year-old San Diego pizza deliveryman who was shot and killed in 1995 by 14-year-old gang member Tony Hicks (who was tried as an adult and sent to prison). In the aftermath of the tragedy, Khamisa’s father, Azim, contacted Hicks’ grandfather, Ples Felix, and together they formed a foundation in Tariq’s name that teaches nonviolence and gang alternatives in San Diego elementary and middle schools.
So as topical fare, “Good Boys” is local and timely, and as drama, Jane Martin’s gripping, 90-minute play is intensely moving and cathartic. The play, in production through June 14 at the La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Forum Studio, should be a must-see for teens in at-risk areas. It offers a powerful lesson on the enduring shock waves that senseless gun violence can leave in its wake.
Read the rest here…
Jennifer Chung Klam’s review of GOOD BOYS
May 30, 2009
The first review of the show is out! You can read it here.
‘Good Boys’ at Mandell Weiss Forum Studio
Mo’olelo explores lingering effects of violence
By Jennifer Chung Klam
Posted on Sat, May 30th, 2009
Last updated Sat, May 30th, 2009
How well can we know our children? It’s a common question among parents of angst-filled teens struggling to find their way in the world. But in “Good Boys,” it comes from the white father of a boy involved in a Columbine-type school shooting. James’ rhetorical question is meant as a sort of defense, in response to the relentless prodding by a black father whose son was killed in the shooting.
In its last production in residence at La Jolla Playhouse, Mo’olelo continues its mission of presenting socially conscious works with a well-cast, powerful production of Jane Martin’s emotionally charged play. Examining issues of parental responsibility, racial tensions and forgiveness, “Good Boys” peels back layers of “the puzzle of this thing” to get at a sense of healing.
….Mo’olelo capably demonstrates the devastating and long-lasting effects of this kind of all too common violence, crafting an intense, visceral and at times grueling journey well worth taking.
Read the entire review here.
