06.20.19

PW OPINION PW NEWS PW LIFE PW ARTS
•INTO THE NIGHT•
BY BLISS BOWEN
Lisa Verlo
•NITELIFE•
Gray Area
SIERRA MADRE RESIDENT LISA VERLO’S COMEDIC ‘MUSICAL MEMOIR’
‘HOLLYWOODN’T’ SOLO SHOW AT HOLLYWOOD FRINGE INCLUDES SONGS
WRITTEN WITH HUBBY FRANK SIMES, CANDID TALK ABOUT SEX, HOLLYWOOD
AND THE SPACE BETWEEN COERCION AND CONSENT
Thursday June 20 through Wednesday June 26
PLEASE NOTE: Deadline for Calendar submissions
is noon. Wednesday of the week before
the issue publishes.
PASADENA, SOUTH
PASADENA & ALTADENA
1881 Bar
1881 E. Washington Blvd., Pasadena
(626) 314-2077
facebook.com/1881bar
Fridays—Live jazz
Saturdays—Gypsie jazz
Wednesdays—Reggae
The Blue Guitar
Arroyo Seco Golf Course
1055 Lohman Lane, South Pasadena
(323) 769-3500
blueguitar.club
Thursday—Twanguero
The Boulevard Bar
3199 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena
(626) 356-9304
blvdbar.com
Fridays—Drag performances hosted by Tia
Wanna every Friday
Cabrera’s Mexican Cuisine
655 N. Lake Ave., Pasadena
(626) 795-0230
cabreras.com
Thursdays—Live jazz
Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays—Karaoke
Coffee Gallery Backstage
2029 N. Lake Ave., Altadena
(626) 798-6236
coffeegallery.com
Thursday—The Salty Suites
Friday—Victoria Vox
Saturday—Thenagain Everly Brothers tribute
Sunday—The Beatunes Beatles tribute
Tuesday—Dave Harvey Presents Bill Barry,
Austin Musick and Bliss Bowen, w/special
guest Dylan Brody
Wednesday—Nick Justice; Caris w/David Caris
and Terry Ragno
Der Wolfskopf
72 N. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena
(626) 219-6054
derwolfskopf.com
Fridays—“Night Court” features Deejay Kind
Cromang spinning vinyl soul, funk, disco and
boogie
Edwin Mills by Equator
22 Mills Place, Pasadena
(626) 564-8656
edwinmills.com
Friday—Kindal Tate
Saturday—Carina La Dulce
Tuesday—Legendary Bingo fundraising event
Wednesday—Anne O’Brien
El Portal Restaurant
695 E. Green St., Pasadena
(626) 795-8553
elportalrestaurant.com
Fridays—Mariachi México
Saturdays—Alanniz
Sundays—Mariachi Bella
Ice House
24 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena
(626) 577-1894
icehousecomedy.com
Thursday—Yaasss Comedy; Laugh Lounge w/
Mark Serritella;
Friday—Bryan Callen; Deathsquad; The Better
Seeing Is Believing
POPULAR OLD BLIND DOGS BRING A BIT OF
SCOTLAND BACK TO CALTECH
Lisa Verlo wanted to write a musical about sex
— a family musical, that is, with sex education
elements. The longtime Sierra Madre resident
writes musicals with her husband, Frank Simes (aka
musical director for the Who), and at the time she was
also separately writing about skeletons in the closets of
certain Norwegian ancestors. Somehow those distinct
thought trains merged and picked up speed on a new
set of tracks.
What arose from that was “Sex Rated G,” a onewoman
show with music she performed at the 2015
Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which mixed Verlo’s
personal history with “statistics, and commentary on
body shaming.” Two years later, as the #MeToo tidal
wave roared across the globe, she began retooling
“Sex” with details from her own past as an actress, a
change encouraged by director Jessica Lynn Johnson.
Verlo is performing her “musical memoir,” retitled
“Hollywoodn’t,” this Saturday and Wednesday as part of
the Hollywood Fringe festival.
She laughs now at how much her healthy, curious
teenage self “just wanted to look at naked pictures in
the library.” While working on her show, she explains, “I
ended up writing sexual memoirs. I had a very strange
introduction to sex. From 16 to 21, I was with the same
guy, my first boyfriend. We decided to wait until I
was 18 to go on the pill, and then we moved out to LA
together [from Michigan]. It ended up he was into S&M,
but young and innocent.”
18 PASADENA WEEKLY | 06.20.19
Landing in LA with said boyfriend and dreams of
being an actress, Verlo studied at the Lee Strasburg
Institute, and wrote letters to her “top 10 directors,”
including Warren Beatty, who answered and, after
lengthy conversation, invited her to a meeting at his
house. Beatty comes across as relatively generous, in
Verlo’s telling, but other characters she subsequently
encountered were far less so.
“I would be asked to compromise my values, basically,
for a part,” she recalls. “I never did any porn but I
did an AFI film where they asked me to take my top off
because I was to play a 15-year-old girl and I was 24.”
She agreed, thinking it was an art film. But when
the grad student director drove her to the first screening,
she says, “he totally molested me. I fought him off
enough to have it not go further, but he was the director
of the first movie I was in. I was really bummed because
I thought he had a girlfriend and I thought it was safe.”
Researching what happened to that director before
performing an earlier incarnation of “Hollywoodn’t” at
last year’s Fringe, Verlo learned he was a college professor
— and had been arrested: “He had molested women
in two or three colleges but nobody reported him. He
was finally brought up on [charges of] actually having a
sexual performance by a child. He did time, but only on
weekends, and he’s out already.”
That discovery galvanized her. Statistics were out
of the script; the creepy director, his mind games, and
some creatively deployed Barbie and Ken dolls were
HOUSE FAVORITES OLD BLIND DOGS, A TOP SCOTTISH GROUP, RETURNS TO
CALTECH SATURDAY FOR A PASADENA FOLK MUSIC SOCIETY SHOW.
The Dogs have been a popular draw here, having sold out shows in the
past. Saturday will mark the group’s sixth appearance at Caltech. As the
Society’s usual venue, Beckman Institute Auditorium is being renovated, so the
performance will be held in the larger Ramo Auditorium.
Hailing from Aberdeenshire, the group is known for its high-energy
performances, with soaring a fiddle playing, virtuoso pipe work and driving
percussion, making the band’s live shows must-see events for lovers of the
Scottish sound.
Their latest album is “Room with a View.”
Visit oldblinddogs.co.uk. — John Sollenberger
Music starts at 8 p.m. Saturday in Ramo Auditorium, on the Caltech campus, 1200
E. California Blvd., Pasadena. Tickets are $25 general admission, $5 for Caltech
students and Children. Call (626) 395-4652 or visit pasadenafolkmusicsociety.org
for tickets, information and a map to the venue.