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Articles by Brian Sonia-Wallace
“Water for Elephants” now playing at Pantages
Broadway runs away to the circus in this delightful musical adaptation of Sara Gruen’s bestselling novel, with gasp-inducing acrobatics and puppet magic to rival The Lion King. The songs, interestingly enough, are credited not to one composer but are created by the PigPen Theater Co. ensemble.
Lyrical, haunting, and timely, Ainadamar is a myth writ large in opera. Named for the “fountain of tears” in the town of Granada, the opera doesn’t so much tell the story of Federico García Lorca, the renowned Spanish civil-war era poet, as bathe us in its mythic waters. Lorca is executed as a political radical, and the pertinence of the opera’s depiction of Franco’s rise to power and dictatorship, which eventually led to the poet’s death, is lost on no-one in this Los Angeles audience.
The Los Angeles Immersive Invitational 2025
This annual flash festival, now in its fourth year, is the most pure unadulterated fun I’ve had at the theater in a long time, in part because “immersive” is explicitly an invitation to play — with space, with the audience, and with theatrical conventions and expectations.
Behind the Tour: A Report from the Western Arts Alliance Conference
The next Western Arts Alliance Conference will be in Los Angeles, September 2-5, 2025. Arts reporter Brian Sonia-Wallace went down to San Diego this year to scope out the conference before it comes to town and bring back this state-of-the-industry report.
At Home in the Wild: What I Learned as Poet-in-Residence on the Boston Harbor Islands - by Brian Sonia-Wallace
Just beyond the skyscrapers, there are wild islands in Boston Harbor. A series of “drowned drumlands,” they are peaks formed by glaciers during the last ice age and are now sunk in the Atlantic. Today they are a dazzling archipelago of blackberry thickets and quaint New England cottages, with the Boston skyline looming on the horizon during sunset. Shortly before the pandemic, I served for two weeks as the islands’ Poet-in-Residence.
What We Leave Behind - by Brian Sonia-Wallace
How do you move on from the things you needed desperately when you needed them? Burnt out from two years of pandemic Zooms and losing my housing, year after year, I started to paint again for the first time since I was a teenager. Acrylics. Bodies. Landscapes. Whatever was in front of me as my world shrunk and I struggled not to shrink with it. My space over these years had become a doomsday bunker, as I, the millennial hermit crab, danced between sublets.
“Rite of Spring” reviewed
Pina Bausch’s ballet Rite of Spring was staged at The Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with performances over four nights, February 8-11, 2024. More than thirty dancers from 13 African countries made history at The Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, interpreting the famous work as a battle of the sexes. Thrillingly, Bausch’s iconic piece was performed entirely—for the first time ever—by an African dance corps. Production photos credit-Maarten Vanden Abeele.
“Kate” at Pasadena Playhouse
The name KATE looms omnipresent over the whole theatre. The sign over the box office has been changed from “TICKETS” to “TIKATES,” “Concessions” become “Katecessions,” even in the bathroom, the mirror says “KATE,” with a life-sized cut-out of the comedian adorning one stall — invading even that most intimate space. There’s a meta-millennial sensibility to the whole thing; an attention to the construction, reproduction and omnipresence of identity which form the core themes of the show.
Clean Offering: Poetry by Brian Sonia-Wallace – The Bloom
The world is on fire and I have something to sell. I’d like to sell you the world. It’s on fire. It is. But you should buy it — not because it’s safe, but because the economy (that’s the end of that sentence. Because the economy.) _____________________ Have you been economical with your words? With your worries? Have your worries been eco-centric or ego-centric? I would like to sell you an ego. No — a biome. Take a look around. Lots to see. Let me know if you have any questions.
WeHo Pride Poets Return with Pop-Ups, Hotline and Podcast for Pride Month
WeHo Pride Poets are popping up all over the city with typewriter installations, a phone line, and a podcast during Pride Month 2022. This year features 25 LGBTQ+ poets who will hear your stories and give you a custom one-of-a-kind poem written on a manual typewriter. Pride poets will be in-person at WeHo Pride locations on June 3-5 and via their poetry hotline on June 11 (call 202-998-3510 between 11am-2pm and afterhours 11pm-2am).
POETRY: 'After Howl' by Brian Sonia-Wallace
In celebration of National Poetry Month, WEHOville is publishing poems by local writers. ‘After Howl’ is a collaborative poem created by West Hollywood City Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace using lines submitted by 56 residents and visitors about their favorite memories of West Hollywood in 2022.
Micky’s WeHo Launches New Weekly Open Mic Night
Last Wednesday, Micky’s WeHo, one of the largest nightclubs in West Hollywood’s Boystown/LGBT Rainbow District, launched something a little different from its usual drag and DJ nights: a new weekly open mic series called The Mic @ Micky’s. It returns this Wednesday (and every week hereafter), with doors and sign-ups starting at 7 p.m., and the show starting at 8 p.m.. Anyone can sign up for a 5-minute spot on the mic to share original poetry, stories, or music.
There are no kings in America
Find and share the perfect poems. we are not that kind of country. We are sanctuary for the hungry, the homeless, the huddled, held together by an idea our immigrant fathers believed in. Rendered, it meant independence. Pursued, it kindled war, ordinance, a fighting chance. Forty thousand musket balls, by themselves, did not shape the boundaries on which we map our days. To draw our borders, we needed more than firecakes. More than a pound of meat with bone and gristle, or salt fish and a gill of peas.
Björk at Shrine Auditorium
Promising to be Björk’s most elaborate and theatrical stage concert to date, Goldenvoice presents Björk – Cornucopia over three nights in January at Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall. Photo credit: Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones.
36th Los Angeles Marathon Makes Its Way Through West Hollywood
Photo by Paulo Murillo for WEHO TIMES The 36th Los Angeles Marathon made its way through the city of West Hollywood today, Sunday, November 7, 2021. The annual event presented by Asics was part of a 26.2-mile Stadium to the Stars course from 4 a.m. to 2 p.m. Elite runners, intermediate jogging and power walkers hit the Sunset Strip, down San Vicente and Santa Monica Boulevard on their way to the finish line in Century City.
Top 10 Places to Write in West Hollywood By Brian Sonia-Wallace
Brian Sonia-Wallace writing at Laurel Park As Poet Laureate of the City of West Hollywood, I’m always looking out for writing nooks to inspire the muse. These are some of my favorites from the past year serving as the official poet of the city! === - Paid Advertisement - Laurel Park Nestled on Laurel Avenue between Fountain and Sunset, this pocket park features shady tables and benches on the grounds of a historic house from 1914 that are open to the public.
After the Music by Brian Sonia-Wallace - Poems | Academy of American Poets
Praise the Zoom call. You’re on mute, love! Can’t hear you — (secretly) Praise (the bad) connection. Praise our home offices, our home schools, our home gyms, our closed bars, our kitchen dances, our cooking fails, our odd jobs. Our rented U-Hauls. Our promises to stay. In a workshop (online, duh), my friend Dorsay, a resplendent seventy five, crowned in Diana Ross curls, shares her poem: butterflies, a lover’s caress and then — Why should I not want to just die?
The Pride Poet’s Corner “Some Super Contextual New Year’s Resolutions” By: Brian Sonia-Wallace
Some Super Contextual New Year’s Resolutions By: Brian Sonia-Wallace a Don’t wash the dishes. Don’t go for a walk. Wear an athletic shirt to not leave the house. When no one is looking, put price tags on everything and immediately start shoplifting. A child once taught me how to ask for what you want. I haven’t stopped holding my hands up to the rain since. jboiuuibi I wonder, what curiosities are you indulging? Which would you like to indulge this year? a I am a pilgrim missing his wander.
The Pride Poet's Corner
The “After the Music” video animates a poem written especially for the holiday season by West Hollywood City Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace. It combines Sonia-Wallace’s poem, read aloud by the poet himself, with holiday card artwork designed by West Hollywood artist Steven Rahbany and animated imagery from Zoo Crew Productions. The video was produced by the City of West Hollywood’s Arts Division in collaboration with Zoo Crew Productions.
Becoming a Zoom Typewriter Poet for Hire
On May 25, 2020, I got an email: Poet wanted for corporate zoom event! The sender, it turned out, was the event coordinator at a multinational tech company. She was looking for ways to keep her employees engaged while working remotely, and had seen my work writing custom poems for people on a typewriter. Something I hadn’t been able to do again since the beginning of quarantine. That month, the event coordinator told me, they’d worked with caricature artists to great success.
What I Learned Traveling America with a Typewriter: Brian Sonia-Wallace: Amazon.com.au: Books
"Earnest and soulful....Readers will be heartened and inspired by Sonia-Wallace's artistic and spiritual coming of age." --Publishers Weekly "I adore what Brian Sonia-Wallace is doing, and his voice in writing about poetry in human lives is endearing, smart, captivating, humane, compassionate--everything I wish our country were, every day." --Naomi Shihab Nye, New York Magazine Poetry Editor and the Young People's Poet Laureate of the Poetry Foundation, Chicago Exploring America by road and...
Supporting Individual Artists: LGBTQ Edition
Yozmit Artist The self-given name Yozmit means 'myth about one’s self' : Through her ritualistic performance art, Yozmit combines theater, dance, pop culture, fashion, gender identity, mythology, and shamanism onto a single canvas. She is currently working on DoYou project - an awareness-based performance art campaign.
After Woolsey Fire Malibu Residents Rebuild: Now What?
The sun reflects brilliantly off the waves of the Pacific, throwing shadows on the charred hills where tufts of green were just starting to emerge from blackened soil. “There’s no place like home” plays on the radio.
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