Tune in to Experience Talks, our weekly “Radio Magazine for the Experienced Listener,” on Sundays at 5:30 PM PT on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles, 98.7 FM Santa Barbara, 99.5 China Lake, 93.7 N. San Diego, streaming live online, and now syndicated on up to 100 Pacifica Network stations! Experience Talks is produced by the non-profit EngAGE, Inc.
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APRIL 29, 2018 @ 5:30 PM PDT
NORTH HOLLYWOOD SENIOR ARTS COLONY
SARA DEBEVEC, PROGRAM DIRECTOR
ERROL MORRIS
SUZANNE KNODE
with host CYNTHIA FRIEDLOB
Sara Debevec, EngAGE Program Director at NoHo SAC is a proficient artist, education arts specialist, and event planner. She holds a degree in Sociology from Goldsmiths College London and a Masters in Urban Studies from University College London. Sara has taught theater and performing arts at universities and art centers around the world including University of Pittsburgh, The Roundhouse Center in London, and Lazarski University in Warsaw. In addition, Sara has five years experience in leadership roles in events planning and marketing for international schools, architecture companies, and fundraising platforms. She is also an accomplished and internationally recognized performance artist and writer who thrives on sharing her knowledge and experience with others.
North Hollywood Senior Arts Colony
NoHo SAC is an EngAGE flagship Arts Colony located in the vibrant NoHo arts district. Built by Meta Housing, it opened in 2012 with many arts amenities, including a 78-seat professional theater run by the award-winning Road Theatre Company, which puts on a series of professional plays and musicals each year. Learn more in an L.A. Times article entitled, “At NoHo Senior Arts Colony, it’s never too late to be creative.”
The EngAGE Arts Colonies provide an opportunity for older people who have never explored their creativity to experiment freely, and for those who have never had the time to focus on their creativity to enjoy that opportunity. And yet, when it comes to being creative, is there a great difference between a long-time creative professional and an older person who is being creative for the first time? Perhaps less that one might imagine.
Errol Morris is best known for his 1988 documentary, The Thin Blue Line, commonly cited among the best and most influential documentaries ever made. In 2003, his film, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Morris’s work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a MacArthur Fellowship. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was a graduate student at Princeton University and the University of California-Berkeley. At the age of 60, he fulfilled an ambition to write for a newspaper when the New York Times invited him to provide a series of essays.
Suzanne Knode, a 60+year-old from Boston, had spent a considerable part of her life as a single mother raising two children. She felt like there was nothing to look forward to and that she had lost all the things that made her interesting. That changed when she moved into the Burbank Senior Artists Colony and began taking a writing class. Though she’d never written before, she created a screenplay that was made into a short film by EngAGE. The production was documented by This American Life, the NPR radio show hosted by Ira Glass, for their TV show on Showtime. The delightful and moving Bandida was accepted in the Valley Film Festival in the NoHo Arts District of Los Angeles, where Suzanne watched its premiere with an audience of more than 300 people — and received a standing ovation.
Interview updates:
Currently playing at the Road Theatre on Magnolia (in NoHo SAC): White Guy on the Bus.
Cynthia Friedlob’s 25 Year Art Retrospective in the NoHo SAC/Road Theatre Lobby Gallery closed last month. You can visit her website at www.ArtByCynthia.com.
In 2013, Long Beach Senior Arts Colony resident Barbara Fay organized a Reader’s Theatre troupe and for the next five years the group, who shared a love for theater, met every week to read through plays, scenes, monologues, and poems. Over the years they produced and performed 25 productions which were enjoyed by the residents and invited guests in the theater at LBSAC. The final farewell show, entitled “Simply Human,” played to a full house and included a festive food reception, poster boards with pictures and flyers of favorite past productions, and a moving tribute to all of the cast members who participated during the past five theatrical seasons. During the show, each actor took a star turn and the audience stood on their feet to show their admiration and appreciation!
Mitchell Danton was born in Burbank, California and grew up in the Hollywood Hills. He’s the son of the late actor/director Ray Danton and actress Julie Adams (best remembered as the lovely Kay in the Universal feature film classic, Creature From The Black Lagoon).
