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2nd Annual SCI-FEST 2015 Los Angeles, CA
Group B
May 14, 2015
A short time ago in a city not too far away…
The 2nd Annual SCI FEST LA 2015 kicked off this month and like last year’s festival, it had me wanting to see more.
The festival itself, which is a series of one-act science fiction plays live on stage, is the brainchild of actor/producer David Dean Bottrell, and co-producers Michael Blaha and Lee Costello. The majority of the plays are cast with actors from science fiction TV and film such as Star Trek, Alien, and Babylon 5 among others.
Last year 350 plays were submitted and 10 were selected to be in the festival. With the success of last year’s festival, the 10 plays to be produced this year were selected out of 750 plays submitted including one from legendary writer Clive Barker. This year’s festival includes celebrity readings of two different high school science fiction short story contest winners as well as a science fiction short story contest for adults.
The four-week festival is separated into two alternating viewing groups throughout the month of May at the Acme Theater on North La Brea Ave in Hollywood. Bottrell announced to the audience prior to the start of the performances that in October of this year there would be a Sci-Fest London!
I had the opportunity to see Group-B last Thursday evening which from the start had my inner fan boy all atwitter with a video of the king of cameos Marvel Comic’s Stan Lee welcoming you to the festival and admonishing the audience to shut off their cell phones, texting and no photography culminating with his signature line; Excelsior!
The first play, A Billion Tuesday Mornings written by Nathan Wellman and directed by Jeff Liu is the story of an autistic man who claims he has invented a device that alters reality in various degrees of change, and his doubting daughter who takes care of him. The play stars Nicki Aycox (“Supernatural”), Tim Chiou and Tracy Winters. The play runs the gamut from poignant to comical to disturbing and back again. Each of the actors gives a polished performance as their reality constantly shifts around them with every click of the device. You can say, life is like a multi-dimential changing orb in the hands of an autistic man, you never know what you’re gonna get and this cast delivers with every click of the device.
Access, written by Spencer Green and directed by Steve Kaplan is a comical look at the life of one person’s attempt to break up with his significant other throughout multiple dimensional realities and the perils of using an outsourced tech support line. All five of the versions of the main character and his significant other are acted out simultaneously with comic precision. The ability of this cast to act and react with such precision adds to comedic affect as chaos ensues with the breakdown of the multidimensional network.
The first half of the evening ends with Efficiency (pun intended) the oldest known sci-fi play that was written in 1917 by Perley Poore Sheehan and Robert H. Davis. The play received a rave review by then president Theodore Roosevelt. Directed by Jaime Robledo, the story encompasses three characters; a mad with power emperor at war played by Alan Polonsky (Aliens), a scientist who is “recycling” the mortally wounded soldiers of that war played by Cullen Douglas (Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and his Frankenstein-like creation played by Tom Berklund (Enchanted and Broadway’s Addams family as Lurch). A special nod should be made to the makeup people who created the creature makeup and steam punk like special effects. Efficiency was a controversial hit 1917 with an anti-war message that still resonates today.
The evening ended with the hilarious Moby Alpha brilliantly written and performed by Chuck Armstrong and Charlie Stockman. This innovative play is Moby Dick set in deep space with all the characters played by the two actors. Moby Alpha in this rendition is not the great white whale of the Herman Melville novel, but it is a rogue gas cloud Captain Ahab, his sidekick StarBOT (Starbuck) and crewmembers Ishmael and Quiquag are chasing. The play pokes fun of not only the famous novel, but it sends up almost every sci-fi movie every made. Starting from Moby Dick, the two actors manage to skewer Star Trek, Alien and 2001 with side splitting, rapid-fire dialogue. The only way you can keep track of which character they are playing is the ingenious use of changing the color of the interior lighting of their space helmets, which the actors do manually on stage to comedic effect.
My only regret is that I will not be able to see the Group-A plays and an original live radio play later this month in Group-B due to my work schedule.
Earlier this year in January, the infamous radio play, War of the Worlds was performed live at the ACME that included cast members representing almost every Star Trek series.
Sci-Fest LA once again is an unparalleled success with upcoming performances quickly selling out.
The performances run Thursday though Saturday at 8:00pm with a 3pm matinee on Sunday.
Group-A runs through May 23
Group-B runs through May 31
For ticket and information:
ACME Theater
135 North La Brea Ave
Hollywood CA 90036
Http://sci-fest.com[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
