All stories by Deborah Vankin on BroadwayStars

Thursday, January 19, 2023

This arts nonprofit mapped a pre-gentrified Santa Monica. With a new $3-million grant, the project is going statewide by Deborah Vankin

18th Street Arts Center has been awarded a $3-million California Creative Corps grant from the California Arts Council to expand its Culture Mapping 90404 project statewide.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AM
Wednesday, September 8, 2021

The Academy Museum's quest for the perfect movie theater seat by Deborah Vankin

The art and science behind the design of the Academy Museum's new theater seats — and tips for the best seat in the house.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 01:00PM
Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Catherine Opie's plan to help UCLA art students graduate with way less debt by Deborah Vankin

Artist Catherine Opie, incoming chair of UCLA's art department, steps back from her role at MOCA and will fundraise for student scholarships instead.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 12:00PM
Thursday, June 3, 2021

How Disney Hall will reopen this month with a LACO concert (Hint: Vaccination required) by Deborah Vankin

Walt Disney Concert Hall welcomes audiences at long last with a June 26 Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra concert. Here's how it will work.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 03:05PM
Thursday, April 8, 2021

Tickets on sale for 'The Normal Heart' with Laverne Cox and Sterling K. Brown by Deborah Vankin

BIPOC and LGBTQ actors including Jeremy Pope and Guillermo Diaz will read the Larry Kramer play in an event organized by USC's ONE Archives.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 06:03PM
Wednesday, April 7, 2021

County supervisors make April 'Arts Month' and call for expansion of grant program by Deborah Vankin

L.A. County supervisors support continuation of community arts grants for nonprofits serving youth and other underserved communities.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 05:47AM
Monday, March 15, 2021

LACMA sets a reopening date. Six new shows are lined up after year of closure by Deborah Vankin

Los Angeles County of Museum of Art will reopen its galleries April 1. As of now, it's set to be the first major L.A. museum to welcome back guests.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:17PM
Tuesday, February 9, 2021

L.A. County's arts nonprofits get pandemic relief. How a $38.5-million fund will work by Deborah Vankin

The new L.A. Arts Recovery Fund initiated by the J. Paul Getty Trust will support small and medium-sized arts nonprofits.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 05:14PM
Friday, February 5, 2021

These 18 L.A. arts groups are getting urgent funding through Mike Kelley awards by Deborah Vankin

Mike Kelley Foundation is giving $400,000 in grants to help small, pandemic-hit groups paying salaries, making rent and 'just keeping the lights on.'

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 12:29PM
Tuesday, May 21, 2019

MOCA receives a $10-million gift to make admission free by Deborah Vankin

The Museum of Contemporary Art has announced that it will make admission free — a switch made possible by $10-million gift from MOCA Board of Trustees President Carolyn Powers. Powers made…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:14AM
Monday, April 15, 2019

Pulitzer for music goes to Ellen Reid for her first opera, ‘prism’ by Deborah Vankin

Ellen Reid, the Los Angeles composer whose debut opera centered on a young woman’s agonizing struggle with the psychological effects of sexual assault, has won the Pulitzer Prize for music…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:55PM
Tuesday, April 9, 2019

LACMA’s $650 million new building wins approval from county supervisors by Deborah Vankin

With Brad Pitt and Diane Keaton as its cheering section, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art won unanimous approval Tuesday from the county Board of Supervisors for a $650-million new home …

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 03:15PM
Thursday, September 27, 2018

Dissident artist Ai Weiwei lands in L.A. with 3 new exhibitions — but one work nearly didn't make the journey by Deborah Vankin

Ai Weiwei is weary from travel. The Chinese artist and human rights activist shuffles into the Marciano Art Foundation’s cavernous Theater Gallery — he arrived in L.A. from Berlin just l…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AM
Monday, June 18, 2018

'The Band's Visit' sees big uptick on music streaming sites since the Tony Awards by Deborah Vankin

“The Band’s Visit” may have claimed 10 trophies at the Tony Awards last week, but it also scored a big win offstage as well: a bump in music streaming. Since the June 10 ceremony, stre…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:30AM
Sunday, June 10, 2018

Bruce Springsteen gets his Tony Award: 'one of the most exciting things I’ve ever experienced' by Deborah Vankin

Bruce Springsteen may have been born to run, but Sunday evening, after an introduction by his buddy Billy Joel, the Boss casually made his way up to the Radio City Music Hall stage to accept…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:45PM
Friday, June 1, 2018

Eclectic Company Theatre must close its doors, but not before the 'Family Schmamily' festival by Deborah Vankin

There’s a thing or two to kvetch about at Eclectic Company Theatre in Valley Village. For one, parking is limited. And the building is old and idiosyncratic: Company members have to reach …

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 01:00PM
Friday, May 11, 2018

'Hamilton' tickets aren't so impossible for the musical's Segerstrom run in Costa Mesa by Deborah Vankin

The national tour that left Hollywood at the end of last year has circled back and landed in Orange County, where tickets are still available for $200 to $300 for many dates. The $10 ticket …

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00AM

'Hamilton' tickets aren't so impossible for the musical's Segerstrom run in Costa Mesa by Deborah Vankin

“Hamilton” ticket-buying frenzies may be legendary: the swiftly sold-out shows, the unwieldy lines, the digital ticket lotteries, the third-party ticket prices that soar into the thousan…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00AM
Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Paula Vogel's 'Indecent' will come to L.A. as part of the Ahmanson's next season by Deborah Vankin

Paula Vogel's "Indecent" and Matthew Bourne's "Cinderella" have been added to the Center Theatre Group's 2018-19 season at the Ahmanson Theatre.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 06:05PM
Saturday, February 24, 2018

'Letters Live' makes its U.S. public debut at Theatre at Ace Hotel by Deborah Vankin

The letter was more than 1,000 years old. In 1900, a Daoist monk named Wang Yuanlu unearthed an ancient Buddhist cave library near the town of Dunhuang in western China. When he pried open t…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 01:00PM
Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Hollywood Bowl 2018: Gustavo, 'Annie,' Diana Ross, the Go-Go's and 'Goblet of Fire' by Deborah Vankin

Here's an exclusive early look at the Hollywood Bowl's summer lineup, which features more dance (including Savion Glover and Lil Buck), some big classical names (Thomas Adès) and throwback …

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AM

Hollywood Bowl 2018: Gustavo, 'Annie,' Diana Ross, the Go-Go's and 'Goblet of Fire' by Deborah Vankin

With a 24/7 news cycle delivering one stress-inducing headline after another, it may feel like a hard-knock life. But when the Hollywood Bowl announces its 2018 lineup Wednesday, the summer …

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AM
Wednesday, October 11, 2017

MacArthur fellows for 2017: a tragicomic novelist, an 'Afropolitan' painter and more by Deborah Vankin

The 2017 MacArthur fellows have been revealed, and among the honorees are an experimental opera director, a freewheeling novelist exploring the moral complexities of the Vietnam War, a Niger…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 02:00AM
Thursday, September 14, 2017

Marc Masterson to depart as artistic director at South Coast Repertory by Deborah Vankin

Marc Masterson, artistic director of South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, will leave his post when his contract expires at the end of the current season, the theater announced Thursday eveni…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:40PM
Monday, September 11, 2017

Hotter than 'Hamilton'? Kusama 'Infinity Mirrors' frenzy prompts the Broad to offer 40,000 more tickets by Deborah Vankin

Just how high is the demand for the Broad’s upcoming “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors” exhibition? After 50,000 tickets sold out in less than an hour earlier this month, the museum anno…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 04:30PM
Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Geffen Playhouse's former artistic director files age discrimination lawsuit by Deborah Vankin

Randall Arney, the former artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles who was dismissed in February after 17 years at the theater, filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing the Geffen of…

SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:05PM

Geffen Playhouse's former artistic director files age discrimination lawsuit by Deborah Vankin

Randall Arney, the former artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles who was dismissed in February after 17 years at the theater, filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing the Geffen of…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 12:05PM
Thursday, August 17, 2017

'Hamilton' opening night in Hollywood: Stars, song and some tears by Deborah Vankin

When the curtain finally rose and those first familiar notes of “Hamilton” rang out inside the Hollywood Pantages Theatre on opening night Wednesday, the audience erupted in applause so …

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 10:35AM
Thursday, August 10, 2017

'Hamilton' hits L.A.: Behind the scenes of the landmark musical's arrival in Hollywood by Deborah Vankin

Hollywood Boulevard, 4:45 a.m. The sky is charcoal-colored and hazy, the nearly empty streets bathed in a blur of red, orange and green from a thicket of neon signage — the W Hollywood hot…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00AM

A 'Hamilton' timeline: How a single song grew into a global musical juggernaut by Deborah Vankin

The musical's storied rise from a single 4-minute, 20-second song to mixtape to Off-Broadway project to Broadway hit and worldwide sensation. London, you're next.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00AM
Friday, July 7, 2017

BeBe Winans on God's favorite song — and his musical, 'Born for This' by Deborah Vankin

Growing up in 1980s Detroit as part of the Winans gospel clan, music was a way of life for BeBe and CeCe Winans — and later it became a calling. After the teenage brother-sister duo joined…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 10:00AM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 17, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre
TBA: Titanic
TBA: Ragtime