Sample Press Announcement: Shakespeare's Henry VI Trilogy, Presented by The Porters of Hellsgate

The Porters of Hellsgate are excited to announce the opening production for their 10-Year Anniversary season, The Year of the King.

Opening on April 29, our daring interpretation of the Henry VI Trilogy will present the first two parts in a single evening (with each part streamlined to a single act). This briskly paced production will then be performed in rotating repertory with Henry VI Part 3. The rotation is scheduled to run for five weeks at the Whitmore-Lindley Theatre Center at the heart of the North Hollywood Arts District.

Adapted by Artistic Director Charles Pasternak and directed by Thomas Bigley, this production will offer an uninhibited exploration of human nature at its weakest, and how it can threaten to destroy even the most promising political legacies.

Tickets will soon be available on brownpapertickets.com, at which time an official press release will be distributed to offer further details and updates.

We are already certain that this will be a special production, and we’d be honored to share this experience with you. If you have any questions about this production in the coming weeks, email our press officer at porterofpress@gmail.com.

Filmmaker Profile for Little Minx (2014): Luca Guadagnino

Luca Guadagnino is an award-winning director whose transcendent work has been described by critics as “visually stunning” and “unrepentantly grandiose.” His 2009 film, I Am Love, garnered 14 major wins and 26 nominations, including Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes. He has also received a number of other prestigious awards and nominations for his outstanding work throughout the course of his illustrious career. Some of his most notable achievements include:

• For The Protagonists:

  • 1999 Win for The Protagonists at the Venice Film Festival

• For I Am Love:

  • 2010 Nomination for the Best Non-English Language Film from the Alliance of Women Film Journalists

  • 2010 Win for Best Feature Film at the Boulder International Film Festival

  • 2011 Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film from the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards

  • 2011 Nomination for Best Comedic Director from the Golden Graals

  • 2010 Nomination for Best Original Story from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists

  • 2010 Win for Best Foreign Language Film from the Nation Texas Film Critics Association

• For Bertolucci on Bertolucci:

  • 2014 Nomination for Best Documentary About Cinema from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists

Critical Acclaim

Luca’s films have received high praise from some of the world’s most esteemed critics. Roger Ebert wrote, “I Am Love is an amazing film. Not about rich and poor but about old and new.” And according to the Associated Press, “Words like ‘lush’ and ‘gorgeous’ don't even begin to scratch the surface in describing I Am Love.”

Upcoming Projects

Luca Guadagnino is currently working with Little Minx collaborator Michael Costigan on A Bigger Splash, which promises to be the acclaimed director’s most ambitious work yet. The film stars Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, Dakota Johnson and Matthias Schoenaerts and was written by David Kajganich and Alain Page.

The narrative tells the story of the politics of desire between a man and a woman lost in the Mediterranean. American couple, Marianne and Paul, spend their vacation at a villa near St. Tropez. Marianne invites Harry, her former lover, and his teenage daughter Penelope, to stay with them on their holiday.

Luca is also working on the much-anticipated thriller A Reliable Wife, based on the novel by Robert Goolrick, featuring a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker. The Hitchcockian film is scheduled to begin filming this winter and follows a mail order bride agreement gone deadly.

Recent Works

In addition to creating award-winning feature films, Luca Guadagnino has produced a wealth of acclaimed content work over the past four years, including Walking Stories for Salvatore Ferragamo, Bertolucci on Bertolucci (an independently-produced documentary), One Plus One for Giorgio Armani, Here for Starwood Hotel Group’s Luxury Collection, Destinee for Cartier, Inconscio Italiano (a documentary produced by First Sun), and Chronology for Net-a-Porter.

Through the medium of branded content, the seasoned director is able to translate his evocative storytelling abilities to create impactful, story-driven work, featuring powerful narratives that capture the human experience. This versatile body of work has allowed him to collaborate with industry-leading script writers, including Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who also wrote Skyfall.  Whether he is documenting the remarkable life of Bernardo Bertolucci, chronicling a young woman’s search for love across three continents, or producing an ethereal ad campaign for Giorgio Armani, Luca Guadagnino has an uncanny ability to elevate his subjects through majestic artistic expression.

Luca Guadagnino and Tilda Swinton

Luca maintains a long-time friendship with actress Tilda Swinton, which dates back 22 years. Their first encounter took place at an industry event, when he confronted her to ask why she never responded to his requests to work with him on his adaptation of William Burroughs’ Penny Peep Show Arcade. Tilda was charmed by him and immediately agreed to work with him at her next available opportunity. While they never made the Burroughs film, they have worked together on a number of other projects, including The Protagonists, The Love Factory, and I Am Love. Their working relationship continues to this day.

Explore our website often to stay up to date on the latest projects and achievements by this inventive and forward-thinking filmmaker.

Title Tag: Luca Guadagnino | Little Minx Filmmaker Profile

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Write-Up for Pajiba.com: Laura Roslin, One of TV's Great Protagonists

At the beginning of the series, Secretary of Education Laura Roslin learns she has terminal cancer. A few hours later, she survives a holocaust only to learn that as highest ranking government official left alive, she is now President of humanity's remaining survivors.

While haunted by her prognosis, Roslin rejects self-pity and takes on her responsibilities with stoic resolve. She learns quickly, develops a necessary ruthlessness, and stands firm against her challengers. Though Roslin rarely laughs, when she does, it's an effervescent, unaffected cackle. While slow to anger, her wrath is a force of nature.

Roslin keenly feels the gravity of her position, yet she never makes apologies for who or what she is: not for her illness, her spirituality, or her relationship with the fleet's admiral. She maintains a nearly unshakable grace warmed by a motherly, heartfelt compassion.

For all of this, Laura Roslin is more than a political figurehead. She is a figurative guardian angel, a surrogate mother, and a symbolic queen. She is also quite possibly the strongest fictional role model for women in recent television history.

Book Review for Pajiba.com: Come Closer, by Sarah Gran

While I could not bring myself to take a break from reading this book, I needed copious amounts of wine to see myself through to the ending. That is because Sara Gran's novel Come Closer offers an evocative first-person account of a demonic possession—my personal Achilles’ heel when it comes to horror.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, ghosts are essentially harmless. Zombies are slow (unless they're RAGE infected, but I figure you'd get used to having to fight even those suckers off after a while), vampires can be dispatched with garlic and pointy wood. Demon possession is another matter. It starts off subtly enough, its symptoms innocuous or vague enough to be explained away by a plethora of alternative causes. Once any connections are made to possession, the victim is pretty much screwed.

And it's not that you've been eaten or beaten or gnawed on or had "boo" whispered in your ear. Like the weeping angels in the Doctor Who episode "Blink," human-possessing demons rob you of your life and yourself without technically killing you. Once past the point of no return, the victim is forced to share his/her body with an evil entity, watch all the hope and happiness of his/her old life slip irrevocably away, and accept the consequences of unspeakable actions committed by the entity that's decided to stake its claim on him/her.

In Gran’s novel, the first-person aspect is both refreshing and deeply moving. I face-palmed every time she rationalized or laughed off an odd occurrence that clearly spelled D-E-M-O-N to the reader. At the same time, Gran makes these occurrences intentionally banal to make the reader question all the times they've acted out of character, shrugged off an unexplained noise in their home, spotted things out of the corner of their eye that seemed to vanish as soon as they were noticed.

Gran ratchets up the gut-wrenching factor of her story by adeptly juxtaposing the narrator's genuinely sweet nature, her good intentions and love for her husband, with the awful actions she commits under the demon's influence. As the story escalates, the narrator's sense of helplessness, that her body and soul are no longer her own, that perhaps nothing can help her, evoke a heart-rending pathos to accompany the fear. As readers, we feel her life slip away from her with each chapter. Near the end, she lists many of the hopes and dreams she once carried that now seem irretrievably lost.

It left me trembling and heartbroken for the protagonist.

If you like to be genuinely disturbed, saddened, and haunted by your horror, this book should be right up your alley. For my part, Come Closer tops the list of Best Books I Never Ever Want to Read Again.

Never ever again.

Sample Press Release: Breaking Bard, Presented by The Porters of Hellsgate

Fresh off of their sold-out, critically acclaimed run at this year’s Hollywood Fringe Festival, The Porters of Hellsgate are proud to announce their upcoming remount of BREAKING BARD, winner of the Ezra Buzzington Spirit of the Fringe Award for Best Writing (Gus Krieger).

BREAKING BARD posits one of humanity’s greatest, most enduring questions: what if television’s Breaking Bad had been written by William Shakespeare? The Porters of Hellsgate present the most lamentable tragedie of Walter of Albuquerque: containing his treacherous plots, his pitiful murther, his tyrannical rise to power, and most deserved death.

Image by Drina Krieger

The play has been revised and expanded to include even more key moments and favorite characters from television’s Breaking Bad, while still maintaining a brisk, one-act format.

“For never was a tale more dark and quirky,
than this, of Walter, of Albuquerque.” -- Chorus, Breaking Bard

Written by Resident Playwright and Associate Artistic Director Gus Krieger (Deity Clutch, Sherlock Through the Looking Glass), BREAKING BARD stars the playwright himself, Gus Krieger, as the villainous Lord Walter, with resident artist Kate O’Toole as his Lady, Skyler. A very special Chorus will be provided by William Hickman.  Jesse James Thomas will reprise his Spirit of the Fringe nominated turn as the squire, Jesse.

The following gifted actors round out the cast, each playing a variety of roles: Thomas Bigley, Dylan Booth, Dana DeRuyck, Sean Faye, Kipp Moorman, Burl Moseley, Mikel Parraga-Wills, Timothy Portnoy, Frank Weidner, and Troy Whitaker.

Nominated for Best Director at the Spirit of the Fringe awards, Drina Durazo is returning to helm this bigger, badder, Bardier production.

With a preview slated for Thursday, September 24th, BREAKING BARD will officially open Saturday, September 26th at 8:00 pm, with a Sunday matinee to follow at 2:00 on the 27th. BREAKING BARD will continue to run on Friday and Saturday nights at 8:00, with Sunday matinees at 2:00. There will be no performance on Saturday, October 31st, but an extra performance on closing day, Sunday, November 1st, at 7:00 pm. Possible extensions or extra Sunday shows will be announced to the press once confirmed.

All performances will be held at the Whitmore Lindley Theatre, located at 11006 Magnolia Blvd, North Hollywood, California, 91601.

Tickets are $25, and available at Brown Paper Tickets at the following designated URL: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2111875.

PRESS CONTACT: Kate O’Toole - (818) XXX-XXXX - porterofpress@gmail.com

PRAISE FOR THE HOLLYWOOD FRINGE PRODUCTION OF BREAKING BARD:

“...a fast paced madcap journey through all the seasons of Breaking Bad from beginning to its inexorable conclusion." -- Arts Beat LA

“Gus Krieger’s writing is smart, compact, wickedly funny, and exactly what you hope it will be when you picture a Walter White world with William Shakespeare dialogue.” -- Ellen Dostal, Shakespeare in LA

“This adaptation is hilarious, well acted, smart directing and entertaining the whole way through. A definite must see for Breaking Bad and Shakespeare lovers.” -- Benjamin Schwartz, Certified Fringe Reviewer

Thank you for your consideration! We hope to see you soon.

The Porters of Hellsgate

For Little Minx: Artist Profile - Teenage Engineering

The Absolut Choir, created by Teenage Engineering

Based in Sweden, Teenage Engineering serves as a studio composed of artists, musicians, and engineers collaborating under a shared mission: “To create products of superior quality, functional design, and top-class engineering.” Director and CEO Jesper Kouthoofd leads the small, tightly-knit team in the creation and manufacture of gadgets, instruments, and art installations that market client brands to worldwide audiences in innovative ways. Over the years, their projects for Ericsson, IKEA, New Balance, and more have earned international acclaim not only for originality, but also for reliability, elegant design, and user-friendly interfaces.

Ericsson’s Big Cheer Machine

To help promote the 2010 World Cup, Teenage Engineering was recruited to create an interactive machine that would allow fans all over the world to participate in the camaraderie and team pride inspired by the event. The idea was simple, yet whimsical: a giant, glass box rigged with colorful ribbons, capable of receiving messages from all over the world via Twitter, text, or web browser.

Upon receiving these transmitted messages, or “cheers,” the machine would print them out on the colorful ribbons, then cut the ribbons to confetti which would be sprayed into the glass box. Whenever a team scored a goal, the machine would celebrate with a real-time display of light, sound, and dancing ribbon pieces. At the end of the games, the confetti was divided into smaller, glass boxes, which were then distributed to participating nations all over the world. The project did much to garner additional attention for the World Cup, allowing fans to still feel immersed in the event regardless of their location.

The Knappa Camera for IKEA

Continuing on the theme of global interconnectedness, the team at Teenage Engineering developed the world’s cheapest, working cardboard camera for an interactive promotion for IKEA. Lightweight and easy to use, the device allows IKEA customers to photograph their own home designs and furnishings, then upload the images to the store’s website. Through the interface, IKEA customers all over the world are able to not only share their favorite ideas for home decor, but to also draw insight and inspiration from fellow shoppers across the globe.

The Absolut Choir

When Absolut Vodka decided to take its fine arts-driven campaign into the realm of interactive, three-dimensional art, the company commissioned Teenage Engineering to develop a touring installation that would allow for worldwide, remote participation. Jesper Kouthoofd and his team came up with a robotic choir of synthesized voices controlled by artificial intelligence.

With 22 singing dolls ranging from four inches to well over six feet, the machine was designed to receive commands in the form of lyrics input by everyday internet users from all over the world. By analyzing the phonetics of the provided words, along with themes and messages from recent users, the machine would come up with a melody for the command lyrics, develop harmonies and variations, and “sing” them for audiences near and far. The project earned Teenage Engineering international acclaim while furthering Absolut’s reputation as a brand associated with high culture and artistic innovation.

A New Approach For Branded Content

The team at Teenage Engineering has done much to drive branded content in bold, new directions. Through their work, they have proven time and again that one does not have to rely solely on commercials to draw an audience. Their innovative approach seamlessly combines marketing with high-concept art, taking the field of advertising in a bold, new direction. For instance, their digital synthesizer, the OP-1, was prominently featured in the music video for One by Swedish House Mafia. The keyboard served as a central focal point for the video, providing a striking visual aesthetic while simultaneously fostering powerful brand recognition. Such dichotomies are the hallmark of this trailblazing studio.

Title Tag: Teenage Engineering | Profile: Teenage Engineering

Meta Description: Through innovative gadgets and art installations, Teenage Engineering takes branded content in a bold, new direction. Follow their work at Little Minx.