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Los Angeles Times
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Downtown L.A.'s arts scene grapples with curfews and cancellations: L.A. arts and culture this weekend
Center Theatre Group temporarily canceled 'Hamlet' at Mark Taper Forum; the Los Angeles Philharmonic scuttled the final night of its Seoul Festival at Walt Disney Concert Hall; the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles' Geffen Contemporary and the Broad museum are both closed through the weekend; and the Japanese American National Museum fenced off its pavilion to prevent further vandalism — these are just some of the immediate effects felt by downtown Los Angeles' many arts organizations as ICE protests, an ongoing curfew and the arrival of thousands of federal troops upend daily life in the city's civic core. (On Thursday, Los Angeles city officials carved out a curfew exemption for ticket holders of indoor events and performing arts venues downtown including the Music Center, paving the way for evening performances of Center Theatre Group's 'Hamlet' and Los Angeles Opera's 'Rigoletto.') The Trump administration says it will deploy 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines to L.A. to protect immigration agents and federal buildings at a reported cost of $134 million. On Tuesday, the state of California requested a temporary restraining order blocking the deployments, so it's anyone's guess as to how this will ultimately unfold. The uncertainty, including how long Mayor Karen Bass' 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew will remain in effect, has added to the pall over downtown L.A., where businesses and restaurants are also struggling with security issues and the many unknowns of the swiftly evolving crisis. On Wednesday, I reached out to many of downtown's arts leaders, and they all issued statements in support of Los Angeles and all of its inhabitants. 'As Los Angeles' largest theatre company, located in Downtown LA, we are heartbroken by the events unfolding around us and affecting so many in our beautiful and diverse city,' CTG said. 'Our mission is to be a home for everyone who calls themselves an Angeleno.' This is a sentiment that abounds throughout this proud city of immigrants, where many with friends or neighbors who are undocumented feel sorrow to see the violence and destruction. As losses mount for the arts in downtown L.A., it is worth noting that if you add the cost of President Trump's Saturday military parade in Washington, D.C. — estimated to be about $45 million — to the aforementioned price tag for sending troops to Southern California , the total is about $179 million. The National Endowment for the Arts, which Trump has proposed eliminating entirely, requested a $210.1 million budget for 2025, and millions in grants for arts groups have been clawed back this year under Elon Musk's DOGE. I'm arts and culture reporter Jessica Gelt, standing with my community in support of all its members. Here's this week's arts news. Academy screeningsThe Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presents two very different films this weekend. On Friday, the North American premiere of a new 4K restoration of 1975 best picture winner, 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' starring Jack Nicholson, screens with supervising film editor Richard Chew and editor Lynzee Klingman joining screenwriter Larry Karaszewski to discuss the film. Then, the academy's Teen Movie Madness! series continues Saturday with a 25th anniversary screening of cheerleading cult fave 'Bring It On' in 35mm, preceded by a conversation with actor and artist Brandi Williams, who played Lafred in the film.'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' 7:30 p.m. Friday; 'Bring It On,' 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Academy Museum, David Geffen Theater, 6067 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. CinderellaLos Angeles Ballet closes out its 2024-25 season with this fairy tale classic featuring choreography by Edwaard Liang set to the music of Sergei Prokofiev. This reimagined version adds a modern sensibility, new twists, fantasy and humor to the story of a young woman, mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters, who is transformed for a date with a prince by a fairy godmother.7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Dolby Theatre, 6801 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood. Renée Fleming & FriendsBroadway and opera come together as vocalists Tituss Burgess, Lindsay Mendez and Jessie Mueller join the legendary soprano for a one-night-only concert presented by L.A. Opera. When Fleming appeared in the musical 'Light in the Piazza' at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 2019, Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote that the singer 'delivers the goods in the show's climax … Sound and sense are at last joined, making the distinction between Broadway and opera irrelevant.' (The performance is still planned as originally scheduled. Please check with L.A. Opera for updates.)7:30 p.m. Friday. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. Black Cowboys: An American StoryBeyoncé earned accolades (including her first best album Grammy) for 'Cowboy Carter,' bringing the iconography of the Black West to the mainstream. For those whose appetites have been whetted for more, this exhibition at the Autry Museum of the American West, conceived and organized by the Witte Museum in San Antonio, delivers a deep dive into that underreported slice of history. Tales of how Black men and women deployed their equestrian skills to great effect as they tamed and trained horses, tended livestock and embarked on cattle drives across the country come to life through historical and contemporary objects, photographs and personal recollections. The Autry's presentation also highlights Hollywood's influence on the Black cowboy image with movie memorabilia, including vintage film posters and the costumes used in the 2021 Netflix film 'The Harder They Fall.'Saturday through Jan. 4. Autry Museum of the American West, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Griffith Park. 'Broadway finally got its groove back. The 2024-25 season was the highest-grossing season on record and the second-highest in terms of attendance,' Times theater critic Charles McNulty writes in a column about last Sunday's Tony Awards. That resurgence could be attributed to the many high-powered film and television stars on New York stages including George Clooney, Kieran Culkin, Jake Gyllenhaal, Denzel Washington, Bob Odenkirk and Sarah Snook — but the real reason audiences flocked to live theater this season, McNulty concludes, was 'unadulterated theatrical fearlessness.' The Smithsonian Institution's standoff with President Trump took a new turn Monday evening when the Smithsonian issued a statement that could be read as a rejection of Trump's late-May firing of National Portrait Gallery director Kim Sajet. The Smithsonian said the organization's secretary, Lonnie G. Bunch, 'has the support of the Board of Regents in his authority and management of the Smithsonian,' after a lengthy meeting by the board. This seems to imply that, for now, Sajet isn't going anywhere. On Wednesday, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., announced a major gift of modern and contemporary drawings from longtime museum supporters Lenore and Bernard Greenberg. The collection of more than 60 works of art includes pieces by Vija Celmins, Willem de Kooning, Alberto Giacometti, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Franz Kline, Brice Marden, Bruce Nauman, Susan Rothenberg, Ed Ruscha, Shahzia Sikander and Cy Twombly. 'Adrien Brody's art is horrendous. Why are some people pretending it isn't?' senior ARTnews editor Alex Greenberger argues in a pointed, sometimes hilarious takedown of the Oscar-winning star's paintings. 'Adrien Brody has received due attention for his acting abilities: his Oscar-winning performance in last year's film The Brutalist is the kind of work most actors would be lucky to pull off once in their lifetime. Last week, however, he started receiving undue attention for the hideous art he debuted in New York at Eden Gallery, which — based on its press coverage, anyway — is one of the most talked-about exhibitions of the summer,' the column begins. If you need a chuckle, it's worth reading in its entirety. Unlike his assessment of Broadway's season, Charles McNulty wasn't so positive about a recent L.A. theater offering. He did not enjoy director Robert O'Hara's world-premiere adaptation of 'Hamlet,' starring Patrick Ball from MAX's hit show 'The Pitt.' The new material places the story in a noir landscape in modern-day L.A. and features a second-act twist when a detective comes to investigate the play's bloodbath a la 'CSI.' 'O'Hara's audacious antics are stimulating at first, but there's not enough dramatic interest to sustain such a grueling journey,' McNulty writes. A massive Barbara Kruger mural titled 'Questions' on the side of MOCA's Geffen Contemporary began appearing in news broadcasts and social media posts across the country as ICE protests unfolded over the weekend. This proved prophetic, since the 1990 artwork is composed of a series of pointed questions that interrogate the very nature of power and control. Read all about it here. Pasadena Playhouse has announced its 2025-26 season, its first since buying back its historic 1925 building. Theater lovers can gear up for the shiny new Tony Award-winning best revival of a play, 'Eureka Day,' as well as Peter Shaffer's 'Amadeus,' a world-premiere adaptation of 'Brigadoon' and the novel two-person hip-hop musical, 'Mexodus.' — Jessica Gelt There is nothing more delectable — or truer to the diverse fabric of Los Angeles — than a good street taco. The Food team has pulled together a delicious list of 19 street vendors to support from the 101 Best Tacos guide.
India Today
13-06-2025
- Politics
- India Today
LA protests: Court blocks Trump from deploying National Guard; curfew extended
A US judge has issued a temporary order preventing President Trump from deploying the California National Guard in Los Angeles. The ruling, which limits the military's operations in the city, is set to take effect on June 13 at noon Pacific Time. Additionally, the judge has directed that control of the California National Guard be returned to Governor Gavin Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced on Thursday that the nighttime curfew will be enforced for the third consecutive day in downtown Los Angeles to prevent property damage during violent protests against federal immigration enforcement curfew will be in place from 8 PM to 6 AM (local time) in a one-square-mile area of downtown. Mayor Bass said this decision was made to keep the area safe after incidents of vandalism and looting were reported. "My hope is, after continuing it for a few more days, that people will get the message that we are serious," said also said she does not believe the restricted area needs to be expanded beyond its current the city loosened curfew restrictions for ticket holders for Thursday's show at the Mark Taper Forum. The performance of Hamlet at the theatre is scheduled to go as planned after prior shows were developments in Los Angeles anti-immigration protests: A US judge has ruled that the California National Guard must be returned to the control of Governor Gavin Newsom. This decision comes alongside an order temporarily blocking President Donald Trump from deploying the Guard in Los Angeles, with the restrictions set to take effect on June 13 at noon (local time). California Senator Alex Padilla was briefly detained and handcuffed during a tense moment at a news conference in Los Angeles, where federal agents removed him while Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was speaking. The incident happened amid growing protests in the city over recent immigration raids. LA Mayor Karen Bass called it "abhorrent and outrageous." What just happened to @SenAlexPadilla is absolutely abhorrent and outrageous. He is a sitting United States Senator. This administration's violent attacks on our city must — Mayor Karen Bass (@MayorOfLA) June 12, 2025 Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem lashed out at Democratic leaders in California during a news conference in Los Angeles. She blame them for making immigration enforcement more difficult. She defended the ongoing ICE operations and warned protesters of strict action. Protests over immigration enforcement have spread across several US states, with demonstrations reported in California, Washington, Texas, Colorado, Illinois, Nebraska, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. These protests have also drawn crowds in major cities like Los Angeles, Seattle, San Antonio, Chicago, and New York City, as well as in smaller cities such as Omaha and Santa Ana. Families across Los Angeles are living in fear as immigration enforcement actions increase across the city and surrounding areas. According to the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids have become more frequent throughout Southern California. As these operations spread beyond the city limits, uncertainty is growing among those who call LA home. Tune InMust Watch
Los Angeles Times
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Another act of vandalism in downtown L.A. as Robert O'Hara defaces ‘Hamlet' at the Taper
Playwright and director Robert O'Hara has turned his puckish attention to 'Hamlet,' treating Shakespeare's tragedy not as an august cultural treasure that has held the world's attention for more than 400 years but as a squeaky plaything that can be exploited for eccentric fun and games. It goes without saying that his new adaptation of 'Hamlet,' which had its premiere Wednesday at the Mark Taper Forum, isn't for purists. But Shakespeare's drama can withstand even the most brazen attack. Oh, the crazy stagings I've seen! None more so than the 1999 New York production by performance theorist and director Richard Schechner that turned the play into a pop-cultural hallucination, featuring a weed-smoking Hamlet with a Jamaican lilt, ghostly reminders of Marilyn Monroe and Shirley Temple and a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern costumed as rats. By this standard, O'Hara is proceeding quite tamely. Some might be startled that his Hamlet (Patrick Ball from Max's 'The Pitt') goes from pleasuring a lusty Ophelia (a gritty Coral Peña) in public to getting hot and heavy with his visiting college buddy Horatio (Jakeem Powell). But O'Hara's film noir approach has precedent in none other than Laurence Olivier's Academy Award-winning 1948 movie, still the most prestigious screen adaptation of the play, no matter how dated it might seem to us today. To set the mood, the adaptation begins with a roll of cinematic credits. A grand staircase dominates Clint Ramos' set. The clean, gleaming surfaces leave an impression of what Elsinore castle might be like as a coastal McMansion on one of the 'Real Housewives' series. Footage of the sea serves as a lyrical backdrop. The setting is more California than Denmark, but location is dealt with subjectively in a first act that closely follows Hamlet's perspective. Projection designer Yee Eun Nam shifts the mood as Hamlet meets the ghost of his father on screen (Joe Chrest) and then spirals into a mania that's accompanied by surreal visual flourishes that seem indebted to the Netflix series 'Stranger Things.' The production, which runs two hours, is performed without intermission. O'Hara's audacious antics are stimulating at first, but there's not enough dramatic interest to sustain such a grueling journey. The first two-thirds of the adaptation offer a quick run-through of tragic events. The actors at times seem to be speed-reading their lines, rushing through the notoriously long play to get to the good bits. O'Hara simplifies vocabulary, reassigns lines and excises parts that don't interest him, but otherwise sticks to Shakespeare's template. The revisions in language, done for reasons of accessibility, diminish the poetry. Shakespeare can be ridiculously obscure to modern audiences but tweaking such a well-known play is like changing lyrics in a revival of 'Oklahoma!' The word substitutions prove jarring even when they're not veering off into raunchy slang. (I'll forgo mentioning the choice verbiage O'Hara employs when Hamlet, confronting his mother in her chamber, becomes enraged by the sight of her unsavory marital bed.) The clumsy use of voice-overs is more embarrassing still. But these are superficial distractions in a production that hasn't figured out why it's revisiting Shakespeare's play. O'Hara is in a riffing mode. Outrageousness is an integral part of his sensibility, as his plays 'Barbecue' and 'Bootycandy' have made unabashedly clear. As a director, he enjoys boldly iconoclastic strokes whether staging new work, such as Jeremy O. Harris' 'Slave Play,' or classic drama, such as Lorraine Hansberry's 'A Raisin in the Sun.' But in 'Hamlet' he seems content to toy around with Shakespeare's tale without probing its miraculous depths. In the final third of this 'Hamlet,' O'Hara takes the playwriting reins from Shakespeare and invents a novel character, Detective Fortinbras, a gumshoe fixer in a trench coat, who comes in to investigate the tragedy's spree of fatalities. Brought in by the board to shield the Elsinore Picture Corp. from damaging publicity, he sets out to determine what really happened, only to concoct a plausible narrative that won't get the company canceled. Hamlet, it is explained after his death, was an overage film student pursuing 'an over-budget period film noir piece of crap.' And all the talk about succession and the throne seems to have been about corporate control within a cartoonishly messed-up family. Who knew? I won't spoil all the humorous details, but the intermittent amusement can't conceal the fundamental incoherence of O'Hara's project. The level of artistic self-indulgence on display is impressive. 'Hamlet' will survive as will O'Hara, but I'm less confident about the Taper. What pleasures there are to be obtained from this ill-conceived 'Hamlet' are fleeting. The actors supply most of them. Ball, prancing handsomely around the stage in a leather jacket and see-through club shirt, leaves a stylish impression when in motion. But he seems completely adrift when speaking his lines. He inflects Hamlet's glorious speeches with modern color but little meaning. The text becomes a straitjacket for a princely son who doesn't seem accustomed to Shakespearean rigors. Gina Torres' Gertrude has no such trouble. She commands the stage with rhetorical finesse, making it all the more disappointing that her character isn't more complexly deployed by O'Hara. Peña's formidable Ophelia might be the production's saving grace. Fiercely independent, she answers to no one's morality but her own. I was delighted that she was granted a prominent place in the adaptation's second act, but it's a shame that, like all the characters, she becomes a pawn in O'Hara's prankish plot. If this description seems harsh, perhaps I should mention the cocaine revel Claudius (Ariel Shafir) instigates with the First Player (Jamie Lincoln Smith), Polonius (Ramiz Monsef) and a version of Rosencrantz (Ty Molbak) and Guildenstern (Danny Zuhlke) who would be right at home in a 'Dumb and Dumber' movie. These nimble performers gamely rise to the occasion, but the comic adrenaline at this point has a numbing effect. If you're going to do 'Hamlet,' at least probe some of the play's moral and psychological mysteries. O'Hara is more drawn to the plot puzzles that have encouraged interpreters to weigh in with their own crackpot notions. He would have been better advised to do what James Ijames did in his Pulitzer Prize-winning play 'Fat Ham' — respond to Shakespeare's classic through a completely autonomous work of art. Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' provokes endless fascination precisely because of its unresolved nature. T.S. Eliot famously called Shakespeare's tragedy 'the 'Mona Lisa' of literature.' O'Hara does little more than graffiti a mustache on this inexhaustible theatrical canvas.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
From 'The Pitt' to 'Hamlet': Patrick Ball and a twisty take on Shakespeare come to the L.A. stage
To be or not to be a crazed murderer, that is the question at the bloody heart of the world premiere adaptation of "Hamlet" opening Wednesday at the Mark Taper Forum with Patrick Ball in the central role, fresh off his star-making turn as Dr. Frank Langdon in the Max hit series "The Pitt." Co-starring Gina Torres from "Suits," this adaptation from director Robert O'Hara spins one of theater's most famous plays into a modern-day world of decaying Hollywood glamour. There is a mansion on the coast and the remnants of a 1930s soundstage. Hamlet's family runs a movie studio. The Danish prince is Hollywood royalty, and rather than being a tragic hero, his sanity and motive for murder are interrogated "CSI"-style in a bracing second act that flips the script on the first 90 minutes, which are viewed entirely from Hamlet's perspective. There are added scenes and plenty of salty language, with dialogue that shifts from classical to 21st century vernacular. To be in this position at all — with his face on billboards, bus benches and streetlight banners across the city — is a "miracle," Ball says. He was a relative unknown before scoring a starring role on the zeitgeisty medical drama "The Pitt," which premiered in January and averaged more than 10 million viewers per episode, becoming one of Max's top five original series premieres of all time. Prior to that his only screen experience was a single episode of "Law & Order." He had, however, spent a decade "grinding," he says, "auditioning for film and TV, getting close but never happening." He also spent four years traveling for regional theater, performing in shows including "Romeo & Juliet," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "The Lover" in places like Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Boston and San Diego. "I had settled upon the fact that that was going to be it for me. And I was happy with that," Ball says. "And the dream of Hollywood was something that I had let go of, and I made peace with the fact that that wasn't going to be my life." Then all of a sudden "The Pitt" happened — and it felt like kismet. The North Carolina native's mother is an emergency room nurse and his father is a paramedic. The stories told on the Noah Wyle-led drama resonated with him. His parents read through the pilot episode and said, "This checks out. This is real medicine," Ball says, recalling how excited they were for him. To be able to tell stories that are meaningful to the community he grew up in, he says, feels like a blessing. So does working with seasoned pros like O'Hara and Torres. O'Hara, who is also an established playwright, received a Tony nomination in 2020 for directing Jeremy O. Harris' critically acclaimed "Slave Play," which set a box-office record during its West Coast premiere at the Taper, grossing $1.4 million in five weeks. Ball says that after seeing the show in New York, he spent the next four hours straight discussing it with the friend he went with. Read more: ADUs made of shipping containers and robot-built bungalows are a growing trend as L.A. rebuilds post-fire O'Hara is obsessed with true-crime shows like "48 Hours," in which culprits stick to their stories of innocence even when faced with video replays of their guilt, so he built the second act of his production in a moody, film-noir, flashback style, with a detective questioning characters after the play's end-of-show massacre. Think David Lynch meets Alfred Hitchcock with a Salvador Dali-painted set. "I think that the audience watching will go: 'Wait a second, really, you put poison in his ear? Who puts poison in an ear?" O'Hara says during an interview after rehearsal, while Ball and Torres sit laughing beside him. "And where are you guys getting all this poison? Poison in the glass, poison on the sword. This is something I didn't make up, but somehow Claudius has a stash of poison." And what about that ghost? Shakespeare's Hamlet sees a ghost who tells him that his uncle Claudius murdered his father; O'Hara's Hamlet may or may not have seen a ghost. He might just be a crazy person pretending to act extra crazy in order to get away with murder. In the highly stylized universe of Hollywood noir, glamour and mental illness walk hand-in-hand; entitlement and privilege run amok. Shakespeare rarely writes about common people, O'Hara notes. "Which goes back to the L.A.-ness of it all," Ball chimes in. "My title is 'prince,' right? And what's the American equivalent of that? It's celebrity. The Elsinore of America is Hollywood. So to be able to tell this story, in that way, in this town, is a very cool opportunity." To Ball's surprise, O'Hara hadn't seen "The Pitt" when he decided to cast Ball as Hamlet. O'Hara, rather, reacted to the strength of Ball's audition, which Ball self-taped on his phone in a frenetic style that Ball later felt was "insane." "You have to have confidence, you have to have the audacity to believe that you are going to do Hamlet — and that you can do Hamlet," O'Hara says. "Because if I had to deal with someone who I had to pump up, or I had to make him believe that he can do it, it would be a whole different process." O'Hara knew one thing for sure: He wanted Torres to play Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. He loved her in "The Matrix" sequels and also as the formidable lawyer Jessica Pearson on "Suits." He was so certain that he didn't even ask her to audition. Torres, however, had reservations. "My first thought was, 'I don't know if my peri-menopausal brain can do this,'" she says, laughing. But then she read O'Hara's script and she was sold. "I was so seduced by the idea that we get to see a Gertrude that we've never seen before." Torres' screen resume is miles long but her stage credits, not so much. Which is funny, she says, because as a New York native, her only goal was to be a Broadway star. But she got cast in a recurring role on a soap opera, and then a pilot and away she went. "Talk to any New York actor, and they're like, 'I'm just doing enough TV so that I can go back home and do theater.' I hear it all the time. And then eight years go by," she says. Read more: Trump fires Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery Director Kim Sajet There is an electric moment between the time a stage manager calls "places" and the curtain rises, Torres says. That's the feeling actors live for. "We just fly," she says. "And we're chasing that sense of flight and connecting on stage, and if something goes wrong, we're using it. We're not starting over, we're not gonna stop. There's no safety net." That feeling is something O'Hara sought to harness with his adaptation. He doesn't ask for more than one run-through a day. He wants to keep things fresh, with the possibility of freedom and breakthroughs. The cast, he says, must have room to find the play. "I don't want it to be drilled in," he says. "I want there to be a little bit of titillating and vibration going on." Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
From ‘The Pitt' to ‘Hamlet': Patrick Ball and a twisty take on Shakespeare come to the L.A. stage
To be or not to be a crazed murderer, that is the question at the bloody heart of the world premiere adaptation of 'Hamlet' opening Wednesday at the Mark Taper Forum with Patrick Ball in the central role, fresh off his star-making turn as Dr. Frank Langdon in the Max hit series 'The Pitt.' Co-starring Gina Torres from 'Suits,' this adaptation from director Robert O'Hara spins one of theater's most famous plays into a modern-day world of decaying Hollywood glamour. There is a mansion on the coast and the remnants of a 1930s soundstage. Hamlet's family runs a movie studio. The Danish prince is Hollywood royalty, and rather than being a tragic hero, his sanity and motive for murder are interrogated 'CSI'-style in a bracing second act that flips the script on the first 90 minutes, which are viewed entirely from Hamlet's perspective. There are added scenes and plenty of salty language, with dialogue that shifts from classical to 21st century vernacular. To be in this position at all — with his face on billboards, bus benches and streetlight banners across the city — is a 'miracle,' Ball says. He was a relative unknown before scoring a starring role on the zeitgeisty medical drama 'The Pitt,' which premiered in January and averaged more than 10 million viewers per episode, becoming one of Max's top five original series premieres of all time. Prior to that his only screen experience was a single episode of 'Law & Order.' He had, however, spent a decade 'grinding,' he says, 'auditioning for film and TV, getting close but never happening.' He also spent four years traveling for regional theater, performing in shows including 'Romeo & Juliet,' 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' and 'The Lover' in places like Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Boston and San Diego. 'I had settled upon the fact that that was going to be it for me. And I was happy with that,' Ball says. 'And the dream of Hollywood was something that I had let go of, and I made peace with the fact that that wasn't going to be my life.' Then all of a sudden 'The Pitt' happened — and it felt like kismet. The North Carolina native's mother is an emergency room nurse and his father is a paramedic. The stories told on the Noah Wyle-led drama resonated with him. His parents read through the pilot episode and said, 'This checks out. This is real medicine,' Ball says, recalling how excited they were for him. To be able to tell stories that are meaningful to the community he grew up in, he says, feels like a blessing. So does working with seasoned pros like O'Hara and Torres. O'Hara, who is also an established playwright, received a Tony nomination in 2020 for directing Jeremy O. Harris' critically acclaimed 'Slave Play,' which set a box-office record during its West Coast premiere at the Taper, grossing $1.4 million in five weeks. Ball says that after seeing the show in New York, he spent the next four hours straight discussing it with the friend he went with. O'Hara is obsessed with true-crime shows like '48 Hours,' in which culprits stick to their stories of innocence even when faced with video replays of their guilt, so he built the second act of his production in a moody, film-noir, flashback style, with a detective questioning characters after the play's end-of-show massacre. Think David Lynch meets Alfred Hitchcock with a Salvador Dali-painted set. 'I think that the audience watching will go: 'Wait a second, really, you put poison in his ear? Who puts poison in an ear?' O'Hara says during an interview after rehearsal, while Ball and Torres sit laughing beside him. 'And where are you guys getting all this poison? Poison in the glass, poison on the sword. This is something I didn't make up, but somehow Claudius has a stash of poison.' And what about that ghost? Shakespeare's Hamlet sees a ghost who tells him that his uncle Claudius murdered his father; O'Hara's Hamlet may or may not have seen a ghost. He might just be a crazy person pretending to act extra crazy in order to get away with murder. In the highly stylized universe of Hollywood noir, glamour and mental illness walk hand-in-hand; entitlement and privilege run amok. Shakespeare rarely writes about common people, O'Hara notes. 'Which goes back to the L.A.-ness of it all,' Ball chimes in. 'My title is 'prince,' right? And what's the American equivalent of that? It's celebrity. The Elsinore of America is Hollywood. So to be able to tell this story, in that way, in this town, is a very cool opportunity.' To Ball's surprise, O'Hara hadn't seen 'The Pitt' when he decided to cast Ball as Hamlet. O'Hara, rather, reacted to the strength of Ball's audition, which Ball self-taped on his phone in a frenetic style that Ball later felt was 'insane.' 'You have to have confidence, you have to have the audacity to believe that you are going to do Hamlet — and that you can do Hamlet,' O'Hara says. 'Because if I had to deal with someone who I had to pump up, or I had to make him believe that he can do it, it would be a whole different process.' O'Hara knew one thing for sure: He wanted Torres to play Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. He loved her in 'The Matrix' sequels and also as the formidable lawyer Jessica Pearson on 'Suits.' He was so certain that he didn't even ask her to audition. Torres, however, had reservations. 'My first thought was, 'I don't know if my peri-menopausal brain can do this,'' she says, laughing. But then she read O'Hara's script and she was sold. 'I was so seduced by the idea that we get to see a Gertrude that we've never seen before.' Torres' screen resume is miles long but her stage credits, not so much. Which is funny, she says, because as a New York native, her only goal was to be a Broadway star. But she got cast in a recurring role on a soap opera, and then a pilot and away she went. 'Talk to any New York actor, and they're like, 'I'm just doing enough TV so that I can go back home and do theater.' I hear it all the time. And then eight years go by,' she says. There is an electric moment between the time a stage manager calls 'places' and the curtain rises, Torres says. That's the feeling actors live for. 'We just fly,' she says. 'And we're chasing that sense of flight and connecting on stage, and if something goes wrong, we're using it. We're not starting over, we're not gonna stop. There's no safety net.' That feeling is something O'Hara sought to harness with his adaptation. He doesn't ask for more than one run-through a day. He wants to keep things fresh, with the possibility of freedom and breakthroughs. The cast, he says, must have room to find the play. 'I don't want it to be drilled in,' he says. 'I want there to be a little bit of titillating and vibration going on.'
