Mountain Views News          Saturday, July 30, 2016

B2 
Mountain Views-News Saturday, July 30, 2016 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT 
On the Marquee: 
Notes from the Sierra MadrePlayhouse 
B2 
Mountain Views-News Saturday, July 30, 2016 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT 
On the Marquee: 
Notes from the Sierra MadrePlayhouse 
OVATION RECOMMENDED! CONUNDRUM 



By Artistic Director, Christian Lebano

We got wonderful news this week when welearned that Putnam County Spelling Bee is 
Ovation Recommended! That means that enoughOvation voters (working theater professionals all)
saw the show and scored it highly enough to placewithin the top 20% of all scores for shows this year.
This is our second Ovation Recommended in a row 
following the citation for The Glass Menagerie.

I loved being able to email the cast, crew, anddesign team of the show with this great newswhich is such a testament to their hard work and 
dedication. Unfortunately, I had to follow that emailwith another – cancelling the show this Saturday,
July 30 and next, August 6 because of incredibly lowticket sales. 

I am perplexed. We scheduled this show after 
being turned down for 3 other shows we wantedto do and deciding against a fourth as being tooexpensive. I was told by everyone I spoke to aboutit that this show sold well wherever it played andwas an audience favorite. I hired Robert Marra who 
did such a lovely job on Always…Patsy Cline lastyear and staffed the show with terrific designerswho all came through with great work. We received 
wonderful reviews (although I’m beginning todoubt the value of reviews), we have gotten acoveted Ovation Recommended from our peers(this may boost our sales – but we’ll have to see), 

AND, most importantly, audiences who have seenthe show LOVE it (but it is not turning into word-
of-mouth sales). There are no sure things in theater

– but this has me shaking my head.
Everyone has a different theory why this showisn’t selling: the political season, Summer, the heat,
low name recognition, the perception that it is a kidsshow – and now the Olympics will be starting. I 
would chalk it up to another learning experience if itweren’t so decimating to our already fragile budget.
We just can’t afford the loss that we are facing forthis show. So in the interest of saving some money,
we are cancelling those two performances.

Advertising would probably help, but we justdon’t have the money. All I can ask is that you, ourloyal patrons and friends, come see the show andbring people with you. We run until August 21 andI promise you a good time.
* * * 

This Sunday we are featuring Suburban Showgirlstarring Palmer Davis. It is a delightful one-womanshow drawing from her years as a showgirl in Vegasand on Broadway. It is funny and delightful anddefinitely family-friendly. The show is at 7pm. She 
will be performing the show again on August 7 atthe same time. It really is a blast.

This is your Playhouse. Please let me hear from you.
Please visit our website at SierraMadrePlayhouse.
org or call Mary at 626.355.4318 to purchase tickets. 

Jeff’s Book Pics By Jeff Brown 

Rise of the Rocket Girls: The 
Women Who Propelled Us,
from Missiles to the Moon to 
Mars by Nathalia Holt 

The riveting true story of thewomen who launched America 
into space.In the 1940s and 
50s, when the newly minted JetPropulsion Laboratory needed 
quick-thinking mathematicians 
to calculate velocities and plottrajectories, they didn’t turn tomale graduates. Rather, theyrecruited an elite group of youngwomen who, with only pencil,
paper, and mathematical prowess,
transformed rocket design, helpedbring about the first Americansatellites, and made the explorationof the solar system possible. Forthe first time, this book tells the 
stories of these women--known as 
“human computers”--who brokethe boundaries of both gender 
and science. Based on extensive 
research and interviews with all 
the living members of the team,
Rise of the Rocket Girls offers a 
unique perspective on the roleof women in science: both where 
we’ve been, and the far reaches 
of space to which we’re heading. 

Between the World and Me 

by Ta-Nehisi Coates 

Hailed by Toni Morrison as 
“required reading,” a bold and 
personal literary exploration of 
America’s racial history by “the singlebest writer on the subject of race inthe United States” (The New YorkObserver).

This book was a National Book 
Award Winner.“This is your country,
this is your world, this is your body,
and you must find some way to livewithin the all of it.”In a profound workthat pivots from the biggest questionsabout American history and ideals tothe most intimate concerns of a father 
for his son, Coates offers a powerfulnew framework for understandingour nation’s history and current crisis. 

Americans have built an empireon the idea of “race,” a falsehood 
that damages us all but falls mostheavily on the bodies of black womenand men,bodies exploited throughslavery and segregation, and, today,
threatened, locked up, and murderedout of all proportion. What is it liketo inhabit a black body and find away to live within it? And how canwe all honestly reckon with thisfraught history and free ourselvesfrom its burden?This book is Coates’s 
attempt to answer these questions ina letter to his adolescent son. Coates 
shares with his son and readers, the 
story of his awakening to the truthabout his place in the world througha series of revelatory experiences,
from Howard University to Civil Warbattlefields, from the South Side of 
Chicago to Paris, from his childhoodhome to the living rooms of motherswhose children’s lives were taken as 
American plunder. Beautifully wovenfrom personal narrative, reimaginedhistory, and fresh, emotionally chargedreportage, Between the World and Meclearly illuminates the past, bracinglyconfronts our present, and offers atranscendent vision for a way forward. 

Mrs. Queen Takes the Train: ANovel by William Kuhn 

Mrs Queen Takes the Train 
wittily imagines the kerfuffle thattranspires when a bored QueenElizabeth strolls out of the palace insearch of a little fun, leaving behinda desperate team of courtiers who 
must find the missing Windsor 
before a national scandal erupts.
Reminiscent of Alan Bennett’s The 
Uncommon Reader, this lively,
wonderfully inventive romp takesreaders into the mind of the grandmatriarch of Britain’s Royal Family,
bringing us an endearing runawayQueen Elizabeth on the town,and 
leading us behind the BuckinghamPalace walls and into the upstairs/
downstairs spaces of England’s 
monarchy. 

All Things Considered By Jeff Brown 

Your True Nature by Bentinho Massaro

Free Awareness is a term we use to point at our mostfundamental nature. It’s our intrinsic and natural 
condition already.Awareness is the uninterrupted‘knowing’ and the only source by which we know thatwe exist. Awareness is the only means by which weexperience everything we experience and it is alwaysfreely present in every experience,equally, as the awaresubstratum of the perception/experience.Awarenessis ‘free’ in the sense that it cannot be located anywhere,
and in that it isn’t affected by any experience that isperceived within its view.Awareness is that open spacein which all experiences are recognized. The slogan:
“Recognizing What is Always Already Present”
refers to the simple fact that we are not trying tobecome anything new. We are merely in the processof noticing and befriending that clear cognizance 

of Being, which is always already here. With a bit ofclear instructions and some pointers to remind youconsistently of your recognition of free awareness,
the freedom,fulfillment, love, wisdom and clarityof already available awareness, will become morenaturally obvious in your own direct experienceof life, just as it is. You don’t need to be a certainway, look a certain way, feel a certain way or act acertain way. Awareness is equally present in,and as,
everyone, and everyone can start to notice the verysimple fact that something knows that this presentmoment is here, regardless of what is experiencedwithin it. Just this confirmation of awareness 
being always already present, is enough to discovera stable presence of freedom and resourcefulnessthat will start to pervade and benefit your everyarea of living. 


Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com