If you haven’t seen it yet, check out these clips and reviews – it has been a fun ride and we’d love for you to join us in the final two weeks!

Falcon Theatre: What inspired you to want to tell this story?

Damian Lanigan: I’m something of a classical music nutcase, and I’d been wanting to write about music for a while. I’d published a couple of novels, and was thinking about working a conductor into a story I was writing. Then I read Arnold Steinhardt’s book about his experiences as the first violinist of the Guarneris. A quartet is a group of clever, passionate, talented people working things out under pressure in a confined space: what could be better material for a play?

FT: What is the process like working together and with this particular cast?

DL: Fantastic. Every time I get the play produced I want to be challenged and interrogated by the director and the cast: it’s the best way to make the play better. What playwright wouldn’t want to use the talent available to him in a rehearsal environment? You can get notes, re-write, then test out your re-writes with real, warm actors. Crispin has been a joy in this regard: by always pushing and questioning, he’s in effect stating that he’s confident that I can come up with something better. I like that.  Also, everybody on the show – the actors, the director, the stage manager – has made contributions to the play, and yet it’s me who gets to have my name on it. Nice work if you can get it!

FT: What do you want the audience to take away from this play?

DL: The desire to pass the word on, and the only way I get that is by giving people a great night in the theatre. I’m aware that the subject matter may seem abstruse, but I’ve always been concerned to make the play speak to everyone: it’s a story about what happens to a family, in a sense. The English novelist Martin Amis says that good writing provides ‘various forms of complex pleasure’. I think that’s great. I’m not interested in teaching, or telling people what to think: I’m interested in giving them a good time.

FT: How has music influenced your work on the play?

DL: A lot. I like to try to write musically, whatever I’m doing. Rhythm, melody, harmony – the best writing has all of it. This is particularly true of good comic writing: this play’s not a comedy, but that doesn’t mean it’s not funny. In a way, the composer Joseph Haydn is a model for me: his work is witty, beautifully structured, emotionally expressive, and always has the capacity to surprise. That’s not a bad set of qualities to aspire to.

FT: What keeps you working in theatre? Do you find it to be an important and vibrant art form?

DL: You can write stuff for the theatre that just doesn’t work in other forms. There are lots of TV shows and movies I love, but – quite rightly – they are not as interested in language and ideas as the best theatre. This is not to say that I like theatre that consists of airy exposition and lectures on philosophy, but think about Mamet, Stoppard, Pinter: all in their own ways masters of language, and passionately interested in ideas.  Also, as is probably clear, I genuinely love the collaborative process. I’ve happily written books, journalism and TV and radio shows, but there’s nothing more fun than productive rehearsals. It’s not a huge surprise to me that I chose to make my first play about them.
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And as an added bonus, please enjoy your Daily Dose of Strings: “Snow” by The Red Hot Chili Peppers as performed by The Vitamin String Quartet.  Let the collision of rock stars and string quartets continue!

More string selections to come….

Katherine played Ralphie’s BB-gun in our latest holiday show “A Christmas Westside Story.”  That’s her in the picture there.  The one in the hat.  Not the crazy one in the blonde wig

Katerine Malak and Larry Cedar will really light up the stage together – so we hope to still see you at the theater tomorrow.  We know The Actors Fund will sure appreciate it!

Larry Cedar

And we are excited to announce that Larry Cedar and Christine Lakin will be starring in this funny and touching play!

Larry Cedar has been seen on many LA stages, including  the Colony Theatre , the Geffen Playhouse, Reprise, Odyssey Theatre and the Mark Taper Forum.  He has received numerous Ovation Award nominations and won the Ovation Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his role in She Loves Me at Reprise.  Larry recurred for three seasons as Leon, the opium-addicted card dealer, in the HBO hit series Deadwood, among other great television and film credits.

Christine Lakin

Christine Lakin has appeared on the Falcon stage in eleven Troubadour Theater Company productions, including Alice in One-Hit-Wonderland, Frosty the Snow Manilow, and the latest holiday show A Christmas Westside Story.  Lately, you can catch her in the films You Again and Garry Marshall’s  New Year’s Eve.  She created and produces Worst Audition Ever.  She choreographed and starred opposite Bette Midler in next years’ Parental Guidance for FOX and is the voice of ‘Joyce Kinney’ and others on Family Guy.

This production is a one-day staged reading with scripts-in-hand – and all proceeds will go to benefit the Actors Fund!  This is a great way to support theater and give back to the community of artists in LA.

Class tells the story of Elliot, a veteran acting teacher in New York City who is visited in his studio by Sarah, a mysterious young actress.  In the course of their work together, they learn more about themselves than acting – and in doing so change each others’ lives forever.

Back in the day (“the day” meaning 1782-1785 or so), Mozart wrote a series of string quartets, one of which is known as the “Dissonance” Quartet, characterized by a slow introduction that begins with an ominous sound from the cello, followed by the viola, and first and second violin, creating a lack of harmony and “dissonant” sound until they finally come together.

The first movement:

Though nowadays we consider Mozart one of the greatest composers of all time, he had quite a bit of mixed reviews in his day (which should make all of us feel just a tiny bit better about our own work, right?).  Here’s an annoymous review of these quartets from the day:

Mozart’s works do not in general please quite so much as [as those of Kozeluch] … [Mozart's] six quartets for violins, viola, and bass dedicated to Haydn confirm … that he has a decided leaning towards the difficult and the unusual. But then, what great and elevated ideas he has too, testifying to a bold spirit! – Cramer’s Magazin der Musik in 1789

So what does this have to do with the play?

Dissonance by Damian Lanigan follows a string quartet as they rehearse for their 10th anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall – and of course, Mozart is one composer they are rehearsing and arguing over.  So the term “dissonance” also plays deeply into their interpersonal relationships, both with each other and their own fates and careers.  “Dissonance” is a clashing, an inconsistency, a lack of agreement, an unresolved and sometimes painful state of being.  When the cellist, Beth, begins giving music lessons to Jonny, one of America’s biggest rock stars, this quiet dissonance in the group gets thrown into chaos.

Dissonance is about music and musicians – but it is also about dealing with the dissonance in your life and having the courage to find the harmony between career, passion, love and the fragile egos that affect our every day life choices. We all have a little bit of the “difficult and the unusual” in our lives – but if we play it right, the dissonance will eventually be resolved into a beautiful movement – much like Mozart’s string quartet.

The Cast of DISSONANCE (from left to right): Peter Larney (Hal - the second violin), Daniel Gerroll (James - the first violin), Elizabeth Schmidt (Beth - the cello), Jeffrey Cannata (Jonny - the rock star) and Skip Pipo (Paul - the viola).

You’ve given us so much, and we hope you get what you want this year!  Enjoy a few laughs on us: