Large flat-screen televisions cover almost every inch of Rocco’s Tavern’s rustic brick walls, broadcasting baseball, basketball and hockey games. Last year, what was formerly O’Hara’s bar on the corner of Gayley and Weyburn avenues transformed into Rocco’s Tavern, a compact yet homey restaurant and bar nestled in Westwood Village. Its central location makes Rocco’s the […]
Author Archives: Sarah Ahern
UCLA transforms ‘Cinderella’ into opera set in post-WWII France
Opera UCLA set an enchanting princess fairy tale during a bleak time, when people were starving, freezing and struggling for food and clothing. Students have vaulted the 1697 story of “Cinderella” 250 years into the future – post-World War II France in in 1947. The opera version of Charles Perrault’s classic fairy tale, “Cendrillon” – the […]
Grad student challenges traditional depictions of women in play ‘Eclipsed’
Jayongela Wilder is tired of seeing women in film and theater portrayed as fragile wives, submissive maids or incompetent lovers. Wilder, a graduate student in theater, seeks to change the stereotypical depiction presented in film and theater by directing “Eclipsed,” a play that tracks the tribulations and survival stories of five Liberian women during the […]
Concert Review: Miike Snow at the Shrine Auditorium
A small yet electrified crowd filled the cavernous Shrine Auditorium to dance to Miike Snow’s equally electrified pop beats. The Swedish trio graced Los Angeles with electro-pop sounds from its older hits along with tracks from “iii,” its newest studio album in four years. The band members kept the audience moving with the upbeat sounds […]
‘Barbecue’ sears off media misrepresentations of American families
“Barbecue” skewers racial stereotypes, addiction and typical representations of the American family and sears them to their very core. The delightfully crass comedy, showing at the Geffen Playhouse until Oct. 16, cleverly addresses false representations of the normal, politically correct American family portrayed in the media. The play oscillates between a black and a white […]
Dancer challenges sexuality stereotypes through unique choreography
Bernard Brown said he couldn’t hug another man growing up in South Los Angeles – doing so elicited scowls of disapproval. The graduate student wants to challenge the stereotype of gay men as inferior by questioning the gender roles he believes are generally assigned to sexual acts, such as the male being dominant, Brown said. As a […]
TFT professor explores cultural differences in film ‘August in Berlin’
A small coffeehouse in Berlin housed the fortuitous meeting of two strangers, a German man and a Canadian woman. Although the two were reluctant about each other at first, spending 48 hours together allowed them to overcome barriers crafted by their own assumptions about their cultures and romantic statuses. This is the central premise for […]