I handed my friend Graham a print out of the portrait I’d just taken of him and he burst into tears.
He was sitting in the tapestry chair with his elbows resting on the wooden, carved lions head armrests, gazing into the near distance, exactly as I’d asked him to pose.
The pandemic has brought us many new ways of enjoying entertainment that we may not have been familiar with before 2020—Zoom shows, StageIt online concerts, online conferences, Virtual Rogue Festival, Facebook Live book launches, and more. The creativity and resilience of performers, both local and around the world, has not only been amazing but inspiring. Fresno musician Tony Imperatrice not only has performed online concerts, but he has also started his own YouTube show called Other Stages. We chatted with him this week to learn more.
It started with one man's love of "*boujie" foods and grew to embrace a good friend who loved meat and potatoes. Mike Carriosa and his wife, Noel, have long enjoyed the fruits of their gourmand taste buds. Mike's buddy, Joey Abbs, has long loved meat and potatoes. Together, they embarked, over a year ago, on an adventure to discover and review foods that Joey could not spell.
Having worked in the music industry for the past five years, I can guarantee that every person employed in the field had the same reaction I did when the pandemic happened:...s***! Once the virus hit and the lockdown went into effect, the immediate activity banned was concerts. How can it not? All those people in an arena or bunched up in a club. So the venues shutdown, and the promoters, roadies, techs, staff, and musicians were left scratching their heads. How would the music industry be able to thrive when the outlet that makes the artists and record labels money—which is touring—was eradicated?
During the pandemic many new web series have been popping up as they can often be filmed while maintaining social distancing--and often from the actors own homes. Companies that have already made web series in the past are also coming up with new ideas. I was recently approached by Yuri Baranovsky of Happy Little Guillotine Studios about a new web series that they have produced during the pandemic called Binge: How to Lose Weight in the Apocalypse.
What can you do if you enjoy live theater, but your local performing group has had to shutter its doors because of Covid-19? Well, Kings Players has an answer for you: a new web series you can watch on the kingsplayers.org website, designed just for these times and featuring 15 local performers.
Scott Davis is the Creator/Writer of The Disappointing Life of Cassie Starr, a new web series that will be set in and filmed in Fresno! We sat down with Scott to learn all about it.
Earlier this year I was approached by Yeal Shavitt about her web series Split. I checked out the first episode, which was all that was available, and loved it! It is an interesting fantasy web series featuring an LGBTQ character. After watching the episode, I interviewed Yeal about the series which she created, wrote, and stars in.
Recently I had the chance to watch a very interesting and fun web series called I Gotta Be Me, which involves impersonators of the Rat Pack (if you don't know who that is, it includes Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr.), whom I love! This is an awesome web series I highly recommend watching when it is available to the public. It is also filled with a very diverse cast. Recently I interviewed director and producer of I Gotta Be Me, Steven Bloomer.
Mystery author Libby Fischer Hellman now has her own web series called Solved! It is is a monthly mystery author interview show hosted by Libby and produced by Author’s Voice, itself a division of the Abraham Lincoln Bookshop in Chicago. We took a moment to talk with her about this new adventure.
