If you are looking for something innovative and unusual to catch in Los Angeles, this just might be your thing. The Family Crest has teamed up with The Commune Presents for Shakespeare’s "Romeo & Juliet", an interactive and fragmented production of the classic featuring 5 actors, 2 dancers and 1 band for 2 nights only on March 19 and 20.
The Family Crest will provide the music for the production. The idea of adding music to Shakespeare's plays is nothing new given Mendelssohn's "Incidental Music for A 'Midsummer Night's Dream'." A rock band providing the incidental music is a bit new.
Part play, part concert, part movement piece, this production is a first of its kind, and promises to give the audience the experience of the year. The Commune Presents is a fierce and passionate new production team from Los Angeles. which envisions creating an instant community with the audience as the final member of the cast.
The Family Crest’s epic experiment welds classical and pop elements into a grand musical vision where full-throated, anthemic and wide-ranging arrangements weave formal vocal, string and wind elements into a single pop sound that allows for quiet moments of solo or paired voices and instruments as well as epic climax.
Liam McCormick (guitarist/singer/songwriter) and friend John Seeterlin(bass) set out to recruit a group of musicians to record a cycle of pop songs McCormick had written while strolling the Quays of Paris: acoustic guitar driven power ballads of romance and conflict.
The resulting album, The Village, inspired the genre-bending band to perform with as many people as possible and retain them as part of their "family." As the extended membership grew, the group focused around the nucleus of McCormick and Seeterlin, drummer Charlie Giesige, flautist and singer Laura Bergmann, cellist Lucas Chen, and violinist Owen Sutter which toured extensively.
This devotion to celebrating music with as many people on the planet as humanly possible has won them an exploding cadre of devoted fans. Perhaps you aren't a fan of theirs yet, but you love Shakespeare and haven't seen enough of it lately. This is definitely something worth checking out.
For more information, check out a link to the event. You can also visit www.lastbookstorela.com or call them at (213) 488-0599. The event is 21 and over with a cash bar. The Last Bookstore is located in downtown Los Angeles at 435 S. Spring Street on the ground floor. They have a great many events, including open mic nights which may be of interest.
Find out more about The Family Crest and their extended family at www.thefamilycrestfamily.com where they have preserved their entire family of 300 members as well as their links to Facebook and Twitter. If you are a musician you might even get to play with the band at some point. If you have a big house, you might be able to have them over for a house concert. If you are going to the SXSW Festival, you will see them there.
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