By KAREN LEIGH Palisadian-Post Contributor Here’s an unusual recipe for success: four folding chairs, Palisades High School drama students with imagination, and a good old king named Lear. Add in one big goal’conquering the Drama Teachers’ Association of Southern California’s (DTASC) annual Shakespeare Festival’and cameras to film the journey, and you’ve got “Will to Win,” a documentary making its world premiere later this month as part of our local Friends of Film series. Prior to becoming head of PaliHi’s film/video department, “Win” director Kerry Feltham had also directed “Waltzing Policeman,” an official entry to the 1970 Cannes Film Festival. He produced television documentaries on subjects as varied as women in the Israeli Army, singer Louis Armstrong, and train spotters. And like other auteurs who capture real life, he is always on the lookout for new projects. “When you make a film, make sure you do it on people who are passionate about something,” Feltham says. “When I got to Pali, right at the beginning, I realized that the drama kids were emotionally involved in what they were doing.” He and writing partner and wife Diane Grant decided the young thespians’ quest to win DTASC’s annual Shakespeare Festival would make for interesting viewing. Every year, DTASC rules keep wannabe Shakespeareans on their toes, mandating that schools must divide students into groups no larger than 10. Those clusters must then appoint directors, create short scenes from the Bard’s full-length works, and visually transport audiences’and judges’with four folding chairs as their only stage props. Feltham’s cameras captured PaliHi students as they streamlined “King Lear” and “Merry Wives of Windsor” for the spring 2004 festival and, with costumes banned from competition, invented unique ways of color-coordinating outfits. “They were really concentrating,” he says of the students, who often practiced Shakespearean accents just feet away from a camera lens. “They barely realized I was around.” PaliHi differed from other schools in that drama department head Victoria Francis allowed students not only to act in the scenes, but direct. Palisadian Amy Gumenick, now a sophomore at UC Santa Barbara, directed “The Winter’s Tale.” “At first it was a bit awkward trying to get my cast’as well as myself!’to focus, and lead rehearsal as if no one was watching,” she says, “but we quickly got used to it and embraced the camera as simply another cast member.” Amy is one of several students whose individual story is featured in “Will to Win.” Viewers see Erica Horn board a school bus early to trek from South Central L.A. in time for morning drama class. Later we drive near the ocean and stop at Coffee Bean with Palisades resident Kallie Kerns. “They were just so stoked to be in drama, rehearsing ’til whatever hour they had to,” Feltham said. So was Feltham himself, judging from his 25 hours of dailies ‘ and the year it took to edit the film, which now clocks in at 82 minutes. Gumenick enjoys the fact that her experience has now been documented “in a way that can be kept for generations to come ‘ being part of this project was truly an honor.” Feltham’s favorite moment of the festival was “seeing people do things really, really well. Like seeing Kallie direct! These kids are better than a lot of professional actors working today.” They have stamina, too, which pleased the filmmaker. “I’m surprised by the way they all self-started. The dedication was tremendous.” That will to win was on display in the raw moments caught on tape, such as one student’s day-of-festival confession to a friend that “I didn’t sleep at all last night.” Then there was Kallie’s interview outtake’after a lengthy ramble on rehearsal particulars, she bubbled, “I’m being really spastic, I’m sorry. I’m just so happy when I talk about this.” That passion is still there’as Amy says now, the movie “gave us all a little taste of stardom.” The world premiere of “Will to Win” is presented by the Friends of Film on Saturday, January 29, at 7 p.m., 941 Temescal Canyon Road in Pacific Palisades. Tickets are $30 per head as part of a benefit to raise money for a new theater to house the award-winning PaliHi thespians. (DVD copies of the movie are available at www.kerryfeltham.com.) Call: 454-1970.

Theater Review

When William March wrote his novel “The Bad Seed” in 1954, the question he asked in his novel was “Can sociopathic tendencies be inherited?” It’s a thoughtful, provocative question that analyzes the effects of environment versus genetics and is still relevant today. His book was adapted for the stage by Maxwell Anderson and ran successfully on Broadway. In 1957 it was adapted to the screen and won several Academy Award nominations. The story revolves around a mother’s suspicions that her daughter Rhoda may actually know more about an “accidental drowning” than she’s telling. The mother, Christine Penmark, is also struck by her daughter’s completely unemotional reaction to her classmate’s death at a school picnic that Rhoda had just attended. Rhoda’s father is a colonel and is frequently away on business for long periods, leaving Christine to essentially raise her daughter by herself’with some help from a busybody landlord, Monica Breedlove. Like any good mother, Christine senses that something isn’t quite right with her daughter and feels awful for even thinking ill of her. What could be wrong? Rhoda is a neat, polite, clever, little girl who constantly tells her mother that she loves her. Unfortunately, there is something very wrong. William March was born in 1893 and died in 1954. He attended the University of Indiana and studied law at the University of Alabama. During his life, the famous trial of Leopold and Loeb ensued involving two college-aged boys who killed a third. In a 300-page report compiled by psychiatrists, the report detailed Loeb’s criminal tendencies that began to exhibit themselves at the age of 8 or 9. Both boys had above average intelligence and came from exceptionally wealthy families. Some of the questions that March poses in the “Bad Seed” that could easily have come from that famous case are: Can children as young as eight be born with a criminal mind? Is it only children from poor homes who have criminal tendencies? Can those tendencies be inherited? As criminologist Reginald Tasker, Manfred Hofer performs a credible job probing these same questions, many of which are still pondered in 2006. The play is not an easy one to cast because the major character is nine-year-old Rhoda who appears in every scene. When Director Michael Macready originally held auditions for the role, only one child responded. Macready noted then that “I decided to double-cast the role.” He made phone calls to school teachers and casting agents resulting in 25 girls who auditioned. Madison McCann and Missy Jamieson (M&M) were chosen. They alternate weekends playing the role. McCann was in the role of Rhoda opening weekend. She displayed the appropriate combination of sweetness combined with a detachment that fit the character perfectly. She was exceptional in the role, exhibiting a strong stage presence. Even when she didn’t have lines, there was something about her that drew you to her character’your eyes focused on her, even when other older, more experienced actors were speaking. It’s an old show-business adage, “Never act with animals or children,” and in the case of this performance, it was obvious. McCann held the audience’s total focus. As Christine, Stacie Mistysyn has to be one of the most beautiful women to grace the Theatre Palisades stage in recent history. She and McCann have exactly the same shade of hair (blonde), and their skin tones are strikingly similar, which led to a chilling credibility of their relationship as mother and daughter. Leroy (Amos Cowson), the janitor of the building, sees through Rhoda’s feigned sweetness and taunts her with his observations. The stage was electrified at their interchanges. The energy’as he pushes her with accusations’and her resistance made for truly fine theater. The costume designer, Sherry Coon, chose a quote from Isaac Bashevis Singer “What a strange power there is in clothing,” as part of her bio. I won’t guess how she interprets Singer’s quote to dressing the actors, but the “strange power” Singer refers to carries over into “Bad Seed” because of Coon’s costumes. From the light little-girl innocent dresses that Rhoda wears, to the perfectly fitted clothes from the 1950s that Christine sports, they set the mood and subtly remind us that this isn’t a modern play. “Bad Seed” is truly a play of the ’50s in its story-telling and pacing. It was a time when the audience was content to sit as a story slowly unfolded, a time when the “fast food” generation didn’t need to have all the pieces at once. This is a play that’s designed to provoke conversation in addition to being entertaining. “Bad Seed” did that and more. I’d recommend it to anyone who truly wants to attend an evening of intelligent theater. “Bad Seed” runs Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. at Pierson Playhouse, 941 Temescal Canyon Rd. Box office hours 3:30-6:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. Contact: 454-1970 or visit www.theatrepalisades.org.

By KAREN LEIGH Palisadian-Post Contributor Let it be known that Shelley Greenwald is the unofficial mayor of the Loop. But unlike other heads-of-city, she presides’voluntarily’over Las Casas, Marquette, Grenola, and Baylor, the streets that comprise the community-within-a-community located just off Sunset in the El Medio bluffs area. It is here that Greenwald and her friends Rebekah Fleishman, Patti Fair, and Cyndy Ufkes have created the Loop Ya-Yas, a network of 39 neighborhood mothers who socialize, oversee kids’ playgroups, and keep an eye on each other. According to Ufkes’s husband, the Ya-Yas’ district has become “Mayberry U.S.A.” After first moving to the Loop in 2003, Greenwald, Fair, and Ufkes bonded with Fleishman. When the quartet decided that female neighbors needed to have a little fun, an evening of gaming was organized. But just six guests attended, and they seemed more interested in… socializing. The friends put their heads together and redesigned the event, which soon became neighborhood tradition’an eat-and-socialize, girls-only cocktail night. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Since then, the four’mothers all’have spearheaded such Loop events as a kids’ playtime and holiday potluck dinner, in addition to their monthly Ladies’ Nights. Fleishman, for one, knew that the Las Casas area had once been a hotbed of activity’from back-to-school ice cream socials to moms’ networks’and she wanted to restart the tradition. Says Greenwald, “there are lots of young kids on this street’at least 20 under the age of five.” Inspired by the novel “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood,” she and Rebekah coined the name “Loop Yas-Yas,” a fitting title for a group of women’today numbering 39’who, Fair jokes, “know each other as baby-sitters and friends.” Adds Ufkes, “A neighbor once came and asked me if I had a daycare center in my front yard.” But while the Ya-Ya network is a tremendous benefit for children and their busy moms, Fair is quick to point out that “lots of women come to Ladies’ Nights who don’t have young kids.” Attending other Las Casas gatherings was the local fire department, which sent a truck to last month’s First Annual Loop Holiday Party. “We had families bring unwrapped gifts” to the soiree, says Greenwald, “and we filled three huge barrels. The fire truck came to take them back to the station for a toy drive.” The event’s younger guests were thrilled by the big engine’a major benefit, it was deemed, of being a Loop kid. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ One of the Ya-Yas’ biggest weapons in recruiting new members is an e-mail distribution list by which they keep Loopers posted with neighborhood goings-on and upcoming events. Greenwald, her friends say, is the group’s biggest promoter, and the unofficial welcome wagon for new residents. Says Shelley herself, “we get people on the distribution list while they’re in escrow,” and another newbie receives Loop e-mails even though her just-purchased Las Casas home is still under construction. “We also use it to share resources,” Greenwald says of her creation. “One mom had twins, and she sent out an e-mail asking for supplies. People will even write with suggestions for good house painters.” In September, when Fleishman held a Labor Day barbecue, she mailed an invitation to those on the list. Proving its power, says Ufkes dryly, “Rebekah ended up needing valet parking.” ‘ ‘ ‘ The four founding Ya-Yas have two main themes for the group’friendship, and children’s safety. As regards the latter, they hosted a Neighborhood Watch meeting at Ufkes’s house, and a goal for the new year is to wrangle guest speakers like LAPD Senior Lead Officer Chris Ragsdale and others who can help keep Loop kids free from harm. “Safety is key,” says Fair, “especially watching each others’ children. Our kids know whose house to run to if there’s trouble.” The distribution list is a big help, Greenwald explains, in that “we can send out an e-mail and reach 70 percent of the street.” Implementing a concrete Neighborhood Watch program, Fair adds, is the Ya-Yas’ chief goal for 2006. When they’re not organizing Loop events, the four founders are hard at work. Greenwald is a management consultant for Accenture, Fair is an account executive for Apple computer, Ufkes caters and tests recipes for cooking magazines, and Fleishman is a mortgage broker. All are parents to children under age 5 (Fleishman also has a 16-year-old, Rachael, a baby-sitter whom the other three fight over on Ladies’ Nights), and the young kids socialize when their mothers are at the office. Says Ufkes, “Our nannies all knew each other before we did, because my rule is that my kids don’t hang out at another house unless I know the parents. So there’s a nanny network here, too.” The charter members have also created a Mommy-and-Me class, and a group for newborn babies and their mothers and nannies is next on the agenda. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Greenwald and the founders have discovered that when it comes to these support networks’moms, baby-sitters, children, even fathers'”people are really grateful, because most of us on the street had just moved here and weren’t originally from the Palisades.” Shelley herself hails from South Africa, Cyndy from Nebraska, Patti from Manhattan Beach, and Rebekah from Orange County. When asked the biggest benefit of being a Ya-Ya, the answer is unanimous'”friendship!” Adds Greenwald, “My husband tells me it takes two hours to walk around the neighborhood because I stop and talk to everyone.” This friendly nature has earned her a reputation as the unofficial mayor of the Las Casas Loop, a claim she denies but the other women swear is true. She will, however, say that “I never thought I’d live in a community in Los Angeles where neighbors would come over to borrow detergent.” Of Shelley, Rebekah, and Cyndy, Fair says, “Our husbands have become very good friends, too. We’re a close-knit social group.” It’s not just talk’on the day of this interview, Fleishman is on vacation, and the other three refuse to take part in a photo shoot without their missing link. Next month, Ladies’ Night will fall near Valentine’s Day, and for the occasion, the founders have organized a “progressive” meal, in which each course will be served at a different Loop house. “They did this type of dinner for nine years on Las Casas, but it’s been stopped for the past three,” Greenwald explains. Progressive food isn’t the only tradition the Loop Ya-Yas are reviving. “I think what we’re describing here,” Fair says, “is community.”

One of the powerful effects of a film score is that it can influence the way an audience perceives and even judges certain characters. The composer is responsible for adding complexity and depth to expressions of anger and resentment, compassion and joy. Finding a composer whose musical sensibility and strengths embrace the story being told is crucial to creating a fluid and compelling film. For “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio,” that person was composer John Frizzell. Based on a true story, “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio,” is set in the 1950s and stars Julianne Moore as Evelyn Ryan, a mother of 10 supporting the family by entering and winning commercial jingle contests. Woody Harrelson plays her challenging, alcoholic husband, Kelly. When Frizzell, a Pacific Palisades resident, met with director-writer Jane Anderson (“Normal”) last year, he felt an inspiring kinship with her. “I kind of knew from our conversation that I’d be starting the next day,” he said. “I know a lot about the history of guitar-playing and the subtleties involved. I also had a lot of admiration for the characters [in the film].” Evelyn’s “challenges, courage and focus” reminded him of his own mother. Anderson also expressed a confidence that Frizzell was the composer for the job: “When I met composer John Frizzell, it was clear that he should be the one to score the film,” she writes in her liner notes for the soundtrack. “He gets the 50’s guitar sound like no one out there, and together we pored over all the old greats like Chet Atkins, Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant.” Originally from New York City, Frizzell studied guitar at USC and the Manhattan School of Music in the early 1970s. But it was his lessons with jazz guitar luminary Joe Pass in 1987 that inspired his composing career. “I really found my voice with him,” said Frizzell, who begged Pass for a lesson after he had already been rejected about four times and didn’t have the $100 to pay for it. Frizzell himself played some guitar and ukulele for the “Prize Winner” score, and conducted an orchestra of about 40 players. He incorporated an array of instruments to create the playful, nostalgic and gentle sounds that tell the story of the Ryan family. He describes Evelyn as a metropolitan woman living in a suburban, almost rural environment. “The music had to cross a line between country and the sophistication of jazz,” he said. “This is the sort of world she’s trapped in.” Frizzell brought on two musicians’Sara and Sean Watkins of the band Nickel Creek’to play fiddle and guitar. He met them several years ago when they were performing with mandolin player Chris Thile at Borders in Santa Monica; Frizzell recognized the mandolin-playing from an instructional video he had used while studying the instrument, and introduced himself to them. “I’m more often using soloists now,” Frizzell said about incorporating musicians who haven’t played on a lot of film scores. “It’s almost like having a character in the score. If properly cast, it’s perfect.” The soulful soundtrack also features 1950’s tunes by Les Paul and Mary Ford (“Bye Bye Blues”) and the Ames Brothers (“Rag Mop”), as well as a version of “I’m Sitting on Top of the World” by k.d. lang. In preparation for scoring “Prize Winner,” Frizzell watched the film three or four times before writing themes, or musical pieces that reminded him of the characters. He started composing at the piano and used this exercise to create ideas for the actual songs. “A lot of times, young composers will just start writing [songs],” said Frizzell, who credits composer James Newton Howard for mentoring his film-composing career. Under Howard’s guidance, he practiced writing themes. They worked together in the mid-1990s on “The Rich Man’s Wife” starring Halle Berry, and “Dante’s Peak” directed by Roger Donaldson, and Frizzell said that while Howard wrote the themes for those projects, “I’m credited with the score.” For “Prize Winner,” Frizzell started with a theme about Evelyn’s daughter, Terry “Tuff” Ryan, who wrote the memoir on which the film is based and seems to have inherited her mother’s strong, winning spirit. The theme related to Terry in that “it felt optimistic and forward-thinking,” he said. Interestingly, the “Main Title,” which Frizzell likes the most, was actually “the last theme that came into the film, and ended up being the most important one.” Quirky and melodic, the “Main Title” incorporates acoustic and electric guitar, violin and drums, among other instruments. “When I was writing it, I thought, ‘I could teach my daughter how to play this,” said Frizzell, whose daughter, Katie, is 8, and son, Ben, is 2. “It’s a movie about kids.” Compared to some of the other films Frizzell has scored (“Ghost Ship,” “Office Space,” “Gods and Generals,” “Thirteen Ghosts”), this one is a little more upbeat, with optimistic jingle-type melodies. Coincidentally, Frizzell worked on commercials’and wrote some commercial jingles’in New York from 1989 to 1992. “I developed the reputation in New York as the guy to hire if you wanted a commercial to sound like a film.” One of Frizzell’s catchy tunes on the “Prize Winner” soundtrack is “Ryan Family Album,” a perfect doo-wop that evokes the image of musicians playing on a street corner, clapping to the beat. The inspiration for another song, “Affadaisies,” was a Django Reinhardt album that he said “Evelyn Ryan would have listened to.” Frizzell, who’s a huge fan of the gypsy jazz guitarist, actually owns a replica of Django’s guitar. “The only thing I don’t have is a burnt left hand.” Apparently, the original idea for the “Prize Winner” score did not include as much music as what Frizzell ultimately brought to it. In particular, there was no music to Kelly’s rages or “the tumultuous moments that really affect the family,” said Frizzell, who added harp and fiddle to these scenes. With the music, “the audience was more forgiving and accepting of Kelly (Harrelson’s character).” For a song called “Forgive Him,” Frizzell closely mixed the harp and piano, using the low end of the harp and the high notes of the piano so that it sounds like one player. The result is a sound that is “slightly haunting and ominous,” mainly because people are not as familiar with the bass range of the harp. Composing, Frizzell said, is “almost like a set design. You have to find the palette that colors the film.” The music “conveys much more than what’s going on. If you’re able to move freely within it, you’re able to express ideas that go way beyond words, that aren’t defined.” Frizzell actually began his music career at age 10, singing with the National Cathedral Choir in Washington, D.C. while his family was living in Maryland. He sang with the chorus of the Paris Opera Company under the baton of Sir George Solti, and the Metropolitan Opera Company. However, when he hit puberty and had “a Peter Brady audition,” his singing career ended. After college, he got his foot in the door of the music industry working with producer, arranger and vibraphonist Michael Mainieri (Carly Simon, Dire Straits, Buddy Rich and Billie Holiday). At Mainieri’s Centerfield Productions Frizzell mastered the Synclavier (the first digital music workstation), and worked on a variety of projects for Mainieri, including rap, jazz and pop records, films and commercials. In his early twenties, Frizzell worked as an orchestrator and synthesist for Academy Award-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (“Last Emperor”) on Oliver Stone’s miniseries “Wild Palms.” “I was completely hooked with long form and writing scores,” said Frizzell, who moved to Los Angeles’and the Palisades’in 1993. His first feature film was “Beavis and Butt-Head Do America” in 1996, which he said was a “wonderfully fun project” with a massive orchestral score because “if you’re going to have these idiots 20 ft. tall on the screen, you have to make it look and feel and sound like a movie.” Around the same time, he had the opportunity to work with esteemed French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet (“Amelie”) on “Alien: Resurrection,” starring Sigourney Weaver. “I had seen ‘The City of Lost Children’ and was so taken by [Jeunet’s] sense of imagination, and I thought my music would complement that,” Frizzell said. He sent the director a disc of his music and when they met about the ‘Alien’ project, “Jean-Pierre thought, from hearing my music, that I had read the script.” That score, which Frizzell worked on for five months, consisted of 800 pages of music. Usually, he spends about two months on a score, and works on three to four films a year. Another behemoth score was the one he created with composer Randy Edelman for Ted Turner and Warner Bros.’ “Gods and Generals,” which follows the rise and fall of legendary Civil War hero Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. One battle scene is set to 45 minutes of music. Frizzell said that score was “a logistical and technical challenge” as well as “a chance to express a lot of my feelings about war.” He explained that “I tried to stay with the individual in the moment, to personalize the most horrific, impersonal situation.” His work from this film features violin virtuoso Mark O’Conner and Paddy Maloney of the Chieftans. About working with Maloney, he said it “was one of those great moments in my career that I’ll always cherish. I love when I get to work with some of these heroes of mine.” Frizzell’s upcoming films include “Stay Alive,” “Black Irish,” and “First Born,” the latter a dark psychological film starring Elisabeth Shue. Because “First Born” was mostly shot in a house, it “soaks up so much music” and “requires a very delicate approach to music’very simple and exposed,” he said. He recently completed a “massive, terrifying score” for “The Woods,” the anticipated second film from indie filmmaker Lucky McGee (“May”). “I see doing big, loud music as an intellectual pursuit,” said Frizzell, explaining that he often writes a melody backwards and plays it forwards to create a surreal mood. He enjoys composing for scary films, a feat he compares to running a marathon. “It takes an enormous amount of stamina. It’s a daily intellectual challenge to create the tension across a whole film.” Comparatively, working on “Prize Winner” did not feel as difficult. In fact, Frizzell said that in the process of composing for this film, he was able to find his voice more clearly than on any other project. Anderson “triggered a lot of emotion,” he said, comparing the way she worked with him to the way a director works with actors. “The worst part was the day I knew we were done,” said Frizzell, who dedicated the score to his wife, Stacey. When the film screened in New York before hitting theaters last September, Betsy Ryan, one of the real kids, sat next to Frizzell in the theater. He said when she found out he had composed the music, she told him, “You really captured my mom.”