S IGNA L T R IBU N E Serving Bixby Knolls, California Heights, Los Cerritos, Wrigley and Signal Hill VOL. XXXVIII NO. 19
Your Weekly Community Newspaper
May 6, 2016
Four years of fourth-wall busting for Four Clowns An L.A.-based clowning troupe with Long Beach roots pushes the working knowledge of theatre and acting in its latest production. Amy Patton Design Manager
Fourth wall, meet Four Clowns. Four Clowns, meet sledgehammer. Boom. The fourth wall is smashed into a million gritty bits of metaphorical plaster and debris in this Los Angeles-based clown troupe’s most recent production, Lunatics and Actors. The brainchild of founder and California State University, Long Beach graduate (2006) Jeremy Aluma, Four Clowns is known for pushing the boundaries of live performance, marrying clowning techniques with raw acting on stage. In theatre, the fourth wall is an imaginary wall just as much crucial to the set as the other three physical walls making up the set. The fourth wall is the “front” one, separating the play and actors from the audisee LUNATICS page 10
Courtesy Andrew Eiden
(Left) Thaddeus Shafer as Dr. Duchenne beckons for volunteers from the audience as his patients (seated from left) Tyler Bremer as Bon-Bon, Alexis Jones as Fifi, and Andrew Eldredge as Pepe during Four Clowns’ most recent production, Actors and Lunatics, which is running now through May 28.
Living off the parched land Environmental advocates say residents can still feast on their homegrown flora despite the drought. CJ Dablo Staff Writer
Long Beach resident Gabrielle Weeks understood long ago that she needed to save water, but she was determined to make her Bluff Heights home a place where she could enjoy her garden and, as a bonus, grow more of her own food. In a phone interview this week, Weeks excitedly described a signature meal featuring her own garden bounty– Swiss chard or kale cooked up with eggs and topped with fresh cilantro. Sometimes, she’ll mix in some chopped tomatoes or salsa. It’s no surprise that she has a passion for the garden, where even in
the front yard, cauliflower, cabbage and eggplant will peek out amongst the other plants– she’s also the chair of the Long Beach Group of the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club. Even before the Long Beach Water Department bumped up the warnings to conserve water by declaring a Stage 2 Water Supply Shortage last year, Weeks had already torn out the front lawn in favor of a more drought-friendly landscape. She opted to choose more Mediterranean plants. She acknowledges that some homeowners have opted for a sparser desert landscape for their home, but she prefers a more colorful area that would still look good throughout the year. “The whole English-cottage garden that we were very enamored with as a society has no place in Southern California either,” she said in a phone interview, explaining that the giant green lawns might be great
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Courtesy Gabrielle Weeks
Long Beach resident Gabrielle Weeks tore out the grass in the front yard of her Bluff Heights home in favor of drought-friendly landscape, which she waters by hand. The landscape includes vegetables like cauliflower, lettuce and eggplant in the front yard.
in England, but not in this region. “But they don’t belong here any more than Eskimo igloos belong here,” Weeks said. “They’re just from a completely different climate.” She’s been able to save H2O by
watering her plants with a spray hose, not a sprinkler system, and she’s been able to tend to the plants individually, keeping the plants that need a little more frequent watering closer to the water spigot. She doesn’t have
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Swiss chard and cabbage are among the variety of vegetables that Long Beach resident Gabrielle Weeks grows at her home in Bluff Heights.
to water every day. During the summer, she might use the hose every other day and then less frequently during the cooler months. She makes see GARDENING page 11
Mother’s Day May 8th!