Barbershop harmony's youth movement

Mention barbershop quartets and you’re bound to conjure images of men in striped vests and bowlers belting in unison about their high-school sweethearts who are invariably named Adelaide or Rose.

Old stereotypes die hard but even the most stubborn of them fade away eventually. In fact, if you look hard enough, you can make out a smattering of young, smooth-faced barbershoppers in designer threads taking their place among the crowd of silver-haired crooners.

Though it is one of the most tradition-bound of musical genres, barbershop is currently experiencing a rejuvenation that some are hoping will help change public perception for good. Quartets and choruses around the country are actively courting young singers and promoting them as the art form's bright new hope.

"It's not that we don’t like the traditional stuff, but we want to make barbershop appeal to new audiences," said Sean Devine, a member of OC Times, a Southern California quartet formed in Costa Mesa whose members are in their 20s and early 30s.

"We want to push the envelope. We're interested in performing songs from the '50s and '60s and all the way up to the present, which for barbershop is pretty revolutionary."

A 'West Side Story' for the Twitter set

When the much-anticipated revival of  “West Side Story” opened on Broadway earlier this year, one of the most-talked about aspects of the show was the translation of songs and scenes into Spanish. The change was designed to give more of a dramatic edge to the Latino characters 52 years after the Stephen Sondheim-Leonard Bernstein-Arthur Laurents musical first opened.

Well, sorry, guys, we know you’re big-time Tony Award-winning legends in musical theater, but this is the Internet Age. A bilingual “West Side Story” is sooooo March 2009. 

Those Facebook-addicted, Pandora-checking, evite-conflicted blog-savvy forces over at CollegeHumor.com have updated your update, putting a Net spin on the musical with their latest offering, “Web Site Story.” If you like the video, we suggest you Tweet this link to all your friends and followers out there. We know we did (follow us on Twitter @culturemonster).

-- Lisa Fung

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Theaters are taking social networking to a new level

Now that practically every new stage production has its own Facebook page and Twitter feed, what's the next step for theater companies in the realm of social networking?

First, an obvious but crucial point: In the theater world, just as in any realm of showbiz, social networking is really just a glorified marketing tool, a cheap way of building word-of-mouth buzz. But for a marketing campaign to be really useful, it has to bring in information (in that creepy Orwellian way) in addition to putting out the word.

To that end, theater companies are starting to up the technical sophistication of their social networking sites, tricking them out with complex metrics tools that are designed to collect fan data, which in turn can be used to sell, sell, sell.

And it's happening everywhere, from stage productions on the West Coast to Broadway, from nonprofit companies to blockbuster productions.

The La Jolla Playhouse recently launched a new campaign titled "Your Life, Our Stage," in which the company is inviting everyone to submit ideas for a play based on their own lives by uploading videos, photos, artwork and written descriptions via the social networking vendor Brickfish.

The winning entry will have a scene from his or her life story written by Doug Wright, the playwright who won the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for "I Am My Own Wife."

So what's in it for La Jolla Playhouse?

MOCA Mobilization 2.0

MOCA Mobilization, an artist-led community organization that was formed to support Los Angeles' financially troubled Museum of Contemporary Art, has been getting its message to the public online via its Facebook page. But for those who are not on Facebook, the group has started a new website.

Artist Cindy Bernard, a member of the organizing committee, also writes in an e-mail to The Times that the group is asking those who have written a letter to Mayor Villaraigosa as part of MOCA Mobilization's letter writing campaign to post a copy at the Moblization's Letter Campaign page.

-- Diane Haithman

Photo: Supporters wear homemade armbands at recent MOCA Mobilization rally at the Geffen Contemporary. Credit: Diane Haithman /Los Angeles Times

Monster Mash: Breaking news and headlines

-- Billed as the world's most expensive new book, with a value of more than $100,000, a 62-pound handmade tome from Italy depicting the life and work of Michelangelo goes on view at the New York Public Library.

-- Members of the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art meet at a trustee's residence to informally discuss solutions to the museum's financial crisis.

-- The Facebook support group MOCA Mobilization launches an online petition, with a goal of 10,000 signatures by Dec. 1.

-- Vancouver's City Council approves a one-time grant to help financially strapped Ballet BC, which this week laid off all of its dancers, its artistic director and other staff members.

-- Composer-lyricist Adam Gwon receives the fourth annual Fred Ebb Award. 

-- The Napa food and wine museum founded by the late vintner Robert Mondavi closes while it seeks more cash to continue operating.

-- Conductor Gustavo Dudamel discusses where he hopes to settle (not near the beach) and how he's learning English (Shakespeare).

-- About 60% of the lots in a London auction of Russian art fail to sell as collectors say prices and estimates were too high. In Canada, once-prized paintings by Canadian masters fail to sell at auction.

-- The Getty Center is among the organizations that will observe A Day Without Art on Dec. 1, when the international arts community pauses to remember and respond to the AIDS crisis and its impact on the arts.

-- Broadway attempts to go green with an eco-friendly initiative.

-- Lisa Fung

Photo: Michael Inman, New York Public Library curator of rare books, displays the marble cover page of "Michelangelo: La Dotta Mano."  Credit: Bebeto Matthews / Associated Press

Public discussion set on MOCA's financial crisis

As the art community rallies in support of L.A.'s financially challenged Museum of Contemporary Art, individuals are taking matters into their hands and looking for solutions, as well.

On Sunday, George Baker, an associate professor of art history at UCLA, is scheduled to lead a critical discussion of conceptualism in California, tied to MOCA's exhibition "Index: Conceptualism in California from the Permanent Collection." 

According to MOCA Mobilization, a new Facebook group, Baker has offered to broaden his discussion to include MOCA's current financial crisis in "the first public event since news about the museum's financial crisis" was made public by the Los Angeles Times.

MOCA Mobilization, formed by artist Cindy Bernard, currently boasts more than 200 members. Its mission is to "generate support for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles ... disseminate information on the current financial crisis, discuss options and advocate for an autonomous MOCA if necessary."

The event takes place at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Geffen Contemporary. The event is free with museum admission.

-- Lisa Fung

Photo: Liz Baylen / Los Angeles Times

Les Misbarack

Politics aside, fans of "Les Miserables" seem to be all over this video, which is fast making the rounds on Facebook and MySpace. Judging by the comments on YouTube, both McCain and Obama supporters are also checking it out and, of course, debating.

What do you think?

--Lisa Fung