Mountain Views News, Pasadena Edition [Sierra Madre] Saturday, October 8, 2016

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Mountain Views-News Saturday, October 8, 2016 

On the Marquee: 

Notes from the Sierra MadrePlayhouse

Jeff’s Book Pics By Jeff Brown

Brain Maker: The Power of Gut 
Microbes to Heal and Protect 
Your Brain for Life by David 
Perlmutter (Author), Kristin 
Loberg (Contributor)

This bestselling author uncovers 
the powerful role of gut bacteria in 
determining your brain’s destiny. 
Debilitating brain disorders are on 
the rise-from children diagnosed 
with autism and ADHD to adults 
developing dementia at younger 
ages than ever before. But a medical 
revolution is underway that can 
solve this problem: Astonishing new 
research is revealing that the health 
of your brain is, to an extraordinary 
degree, dictated by the state of your 
microbiome - the vast population 
of organisms that live in your body 
and outnumber your own cells ten 
to one. What’s taking place in your 
intestines today is determining your 
risk for any number of brain-related 
conditions.Dr. Perlmutter explains 
the potent interplay between 
intestinal microbes and the brain, 
describing how the microbiome 
develops from birth and evolves 
based on lifestyle choices, how it can 
become ”sick,” and how nurturing 
gut health through a few easy strategies can alter 
your brain’s destiny for the better. With simple 
dietary recommendations and a 
highly practical program of six 
steps to improving gut ecology, 
BRAIN MAKER opens the door 
to unprecedented brain health 
potential.

Designing Your Life: How to 
Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life 
by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans 
Designers create worlds and solve 
problems using design thinking. 
Look around your office or home-
-at the tablet or smartphone you 
may be holding or the chair you are 
sitting in. Everything in our lives 
was designed by someone. And 
every design starts with a problem 
that a designer or team of designers 
seeks to solve.This book show us 
how design thinking can help us 
create a life that is both meaningful 
and fulfilling, regardless of who or 
where we are, what we do or have 
done for a living, or how young 
or old we are. The same design 
thinking responsible for amazing 
technology, products, and spaces 
can be used to design and build 
your career and your life, a life 
of fulfillment and joy, constantly 
creative and productive, one that always holds the 
possibility of surprise.


By Artistic Director, Christian Lebano

 I have written before about how wonderful our 
Special Events and Lobby Curator, Diane Siegel 
is. She always comes up with the most interesting 
angles to engage audiences with 
our shows – from fruitcake 
tastings to lingerie spelling 
bees to scenes on Route 66. 
Last night Diane organized for 
SMP to be a part of a special 
evening for PUSD Arts teachers 
at the Armory in Pasadena. 
We brought a scene from Bee-
luther-hatchee by Thomas 
Gibbons. You’ll remember that 
this play was to have been on 
the boards right now but that we 
had to postpone it to January.

Performing the scene with 
Tamarra Graham who will play 
the lead in the show was such 
fun. We had about 45 teachers 
watching and I could tell that 
the cutting of the play that we 
shared landed several punches. 
There were a few audible gasps at some of the 
revelations in the play. I think I have mentioned 
before how much I love this play and how long I’ve 
wanted to share it with our audiences. Last night 
showed me that this play will do what I hoped it 
would – in fact, several teachers came up to us to 
tell us that they would definitely be coming to see 
how the situation plays out in the show.

Last night also reminded me how much I’ve 
missed performing. I cannot wait to start 
rehearsals on November 21 and really dig 
into this play and this character. It has 
been way too long to be away from acting 
– last night the rush came back.

Late Nite is selling really well. We’ve placed an 
ad in this paper and several others – I really want 
the show to sell out so I 
can convince the Board to 
let me bring it back for a 
longer run or in a different 
version. Please come – I 
promise you, you’ll laugh 
yourselves off your chairs. 
A reminder that it opens 
on Friday, October 14 
and plays 6 performances 
through Saturday night, 
October 22.

Our next reading is Foxfire 
on Monday night, October 
17. This one is directed 
by Karesa McElheny who 
played Helga in Deathtrap. 
Come and hear them and 
tell me what you think. 
I’m excited about these 
readings, these are all 
plays I’m thinking would be a good fit for a full 
production. At the last reading we had about 
40 people. Makes me so glad to be able to share 
another event with you.

As always we do it for you – our SMP family – 
whose support and loyalty mean so much to us 
and for whom we hope we bring pleasure and joy 
and moving experiences in the theater. For tickets 
please call Mary in the box office at 626.355.4318. 
Hope to see you soon! 

A TOUCH OF BEE-LUTHER-HATCHEE


All Things By Jeff Brown


AN ACTIVE FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES

When Bill Clinton took office as president in 
January 1993, Hillary Clinton became the First 
Lady of the United States.She was the first first 
lady to have earned a postgraduate degree and to 
have her own professional career up to the time of 
entering the White House. She was also the first 
to have an office in the West Wing of the White 
House in addition to the usual first lady offices in 
the East Wing. She was part of the innermost circle 
vetting appointments to the new administration 
and her choices filled at least eleven top-level 
positions and dozens more lower-level ones. After 
Eleanor Roosevelt, Clinton is regarded as the most 
openly empowered presidential wife in American 
history.Some critics called it inappropriate for the 
first lady to play a central role in matters of public 
policy. Supporters pointed out that Clinton’s 
role in policy was no different from that of other 
White House advisors and that voters had been 
well aware that she would play an active role in 
her husband’s presidency.Along with Senators Ted 
Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, Clinton was a force 
behind the passage of the State Children’s Health 
Insurance Program in 1997, a federal effort that 
provided state support for children whose parents 
could not provide them with health coverage, and 
conducted outreach efforts on behalf of enrolling 
children in the program once it became law. She 
promoted nationwide immunization against 
childhood illnesses and encouraged older women 
to seek a mammogram to detect breast cancer, with 
coverage provided by Medicare. She successfully 
sought to increase research funding for prostate 
cancer and childhood asthma at the National 
Institutes of Health. She worked to investigate 
reports of an illness that affected veterans of the 
Gulf War, which became known as the Gulf War 
syndrome.Together with Attorney General Janet 
Reno, Clinton helped create the Office on Violence 
Against Women at the Department of Justice. In 
1997, she initiated and shepherded the Adoption 
and Safe Families Act, which she regarded as her 
greatest accomplishment as first lady. In 1999, she 
was instrumental in the passage of the Foster Care 
Independence Act, which doubled federal monies 
for teenagers aging out of foster care. Clinton 
hosted numerous White House conferences, 
including ones on Child Care on Early Childhood 
Development and Learning and on Children and 
Adolescents . She also hosted the first-ever White 
House Conference on Teenagers and the first-ever 
White House Conference on Philanthropy .In a 
September 1995 speech before the Fourth World 
Conference on Women in Beijing, Clinton argued 
very forcefully against practices that abused 
women around the world and in the People’s 
Republic of China itself, declaring that ”it is no 
longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as 
separate from human rights”.Delegates from 
over 180 countries heard her say: ”If there is one 
message that echoes forth from this conference, 
let it be that human rights are women’s rights 
and women’s rights are human rights, once and 
for all.” In doing so, she resisted both internal 
administration and Chinese pressure to soften 
her remarks. The speech became a key moment 
in the empowerment of women and years later 
females around the world would recite Clinton’s 
key phrases. She was one of the most prominent 
international figures during the late 1990s to 
speak out against the treatment of Afghan women 
by the Taliban.She helped create Vital Voices, an 
international initiative sponsored by the U.S. 
to promote the participation of women in the 
political processes of their countries.Next we look 
at some of the things she did as a U.S.Senator.


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