Category Archives: Destination Features

Destination Features, Hollywood, California

Audience Participation: Attending a TV Show Taping

October 8, 2019 Editor 6 Comments

Disney Entertainment Center © Kayte Deioma — Disney Entertainment Center

What could be more “Hollywood” in Hollywood than attending a TV show taping? Depending on your timing, you could take in a live taping of your favorite sitcom, be in the audience of a talk show or cheer on the contestants in a game show.

Some shows tape at studios up in Burbank or on the west side, but many tape right in Hollywood. The Jimmy Kimmel Live! Show tapes at the El Capitan Entertainment Center next to the El Capitan Theatre. Various sitcoms tape at large and small studios around Hollywood. The largest in Hollywood is Paramount Studios with its memorable entrance on Melrose Blvd. at Gower.

TV shows are taped on weekdays. There used to be a more distinct taping season, but with some shows still starting in the fall, some in January and others as summer replacements, there is almost always something taping somewhere in Hollywood. August through March is still probably the busiest taping season. It usually takes at least three hours of your time to attend the taping, whether it’s a half hour sitcom or an hour long talk show. It can also take longer.

Most sitcoms have a “call time” of 4 or 5 p.m., which is when you are expected to show up and get in line. Game shows tape in the late morning or early afternoon and sometimes have two tapings in one day and tape multiple shows per session. Talk shows tape at all different times from Dr. Phil early in the morning to Jimmy Kimmel later in the evening and everything in between.

Getting Tickets

As you’re watching television, you’ll notice a few shows tell you that you have to write in months ahead of time to get tickets. This still applies to a few shows. It will improve your chances of getting in to see exactly what you want to see. But if you’re flexible, there is almost always something being taped that you can get tickets for right up until the last minute.

TV show tickets are free. You can get TV show tickets online through various web sites. There is some overlap between websites, but no one web site handles all the studios, so it’s best to check several. The Audiences Unlimited site, www.tvtickets.com has a good selection, as does www.tvtix.com. Many shows require audience members to be at least 18 years old. Some have a minimum age limit of 16. If you want to take your kids to a taping, some game shows that film outside of Hollywood also have a minimum age of eight.

Most weekdays, you can find people handing out TV show tickets in front of Grauman’s (TCL) Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Blvd. Of the Hollywood studios, the majority of them use the online audience ticket web sites listed above. For shows taping on the Paramount lot, you can call the studio directly at (323) 956-1777 for tickets. As a last resort, you can show up at the taping and see if there are any seats left after all the ticketed people have been seated.

The Experience

Do not bring cameras, video or audio recorders, or cell phones with you to the studio. Leave them in the car or the hotel room. You won’t be allowed to take them inside. Also leave pocket knives behind as well as anything else that might be construed as a weapon. You will be going through a security check point. Food is not generally permitted, but I have seen plenty of people finishing up their fast food burgers or beverages while waiting in line and nobody questioned the Power Bar and bottle of water that lives in my purse.

When you print your ticket from the internet, it might say to wear formal attire. When have you ever seen TV audience members wearing formal attire? Ignore this and use your common sense. If you’re going to see a sitcom, the audience won’t be seen. Jeans or shorts are fine, but they tend to keep the studios quite cold, so long pants and a sweater are a good idea. On talk shows and occasionally on game shows, the audience is sometimes seen. If you want to be seated in an area where you might be on television, dress appropriately.

They distribute more tickets than they have seats because they know a lot of people who get tickets won’t show up. So having a ticket does not guarantee that you will get in. Be in line at the call time if you want to be sure of getting a seat. If it’s a really popular show, be early.

Standing in line is part of the process. If it’s raining, they try to move you indoors so you don’t have to wait in the rain. You may be in line anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. The location of the line may move several times before you enter the studio.

Finally you get ushered into the studio. There are not usually assigned seats. You are expected to fill up the rows in order as directed. After another while of waiting, a comedian comes out to warm up the audience and get you into a laughing mood. Depending on the comedian, this may involve a lot of audience participation, so if you have any great impressions of people, animals or random sound effects, practice up ahead of time, just in case.

As the comedian gets you laughing, production crew are wandering around the set making last minute adjustments. At last, the moment you’ve been waiting for: they’re ready to begin.

Watching a sitcom being taped is nothing like watching a sitcom on TV. It is a live theatre performance. You don’t have to enjoy watching a particular show to enjoy watching that show being taped. It’s a completely different experience. It’s all about the spontaneity of watching the actors deliver the lines one way and then try them again a different way, or simply watching them flub a line or have a laughing fit and have to redo the scene. Since it is live, the actors can hear you. You can’t scold the characters during taping the way you might yell at them on your TV. If you do, you’ll be thrown out.

Occasionally there may be a scene that was prerecorded that they play for you on overhead TV monitors to help you follow the story. Your warm-up person may be around to continue the laughs between takes as they re-position cameras for the next scene. If you’re lucky, a celebrity or two may break character between takes to come up to the audience and say hello. In any case, you have the pleasure of seeing these TV stars just twenty feet away as they perform their scenes. What better way to feel like you’re in Hollywood?

Most tickets are now issued online up to the day before the show. If you’re visiting from out of town and didn’t print your tickets in advance, you can usually print them at at your hotel. To get TV tickets online visit www.tvtickets.com or www.tvtix.com.

Paramount Studios: (323) 956-1777

www.1iota.com has tickets for The Late Late Show with James Corden, Late Night with Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which you can also get by calling (866) JIMMY TIX, (Call weekdays 1-4pm PST). !iota.com also has tickets to the daytime talk show, The Talk.

Other LA TV show tapings outside of Hollywood that are not listed on the web sites above:

Ellen Tickets: www.ellentv.com or call 818-260-5600

You can also find TV show tickets and discount LA event and attraction tickets on Goldstar.com.

Cancun, Destination Features

Xcaret Eco Park: History, Culture, Ecology and Water Play

December 1, 2017 Editor

story and photos by Kayte Deioma

Although much of what Xcaret Ecological and Archaeological Park has to offer is outdoors, there are a variety of indoor activities that can keep you dry on a rainy day, and you won’t care if it’s raining if you are in the water.

Architect Miguel Quintana Pali came up with the idea of building a theme park around some of the Mayan Riviera’s natural wonders and archaeological ruins, which would give people access to these resources, while educating them about the dangers we humans pose to the natural world.

Xcaret, Mayan for small inlet, was once a significant port. Ruins from the ancient village have been restored by the National Institute for Anthropology and History (INAH) with funding from Xcaret and are incorporated into the park.

There is a natural inlet with turquoise blue water, which has become a tropical playground surrounded by beaches with rock formations to explore. You can swim through underground rivers, where on a crowded day, you may find yourself bumper to butt with others on the same dark journey between patches of open daylight.

For an additional fee you can try Snuba diving (attached to an air hose) or Sea Trekking with a weighted air helmet in cenotes, which are underwater sinkholes formed when the roofs of underwater caves were eroded away. There is also an independent vendor providing the opportunity to swim with the dolphins.

All of these activities continue under normal rain conditions, but they may be cancelled if there are strong winds.

The wildlife in the park, which includes deer, panthers and jaguars, howler monkeys, birds and butterflies, to name a few, will probably take cover, but you can always find plenty going on inside the Coral Reef Aquarium.

For a decadent and relaxing escape from a sudden shower, a massage under a palapa or in a river cave at the Xpa could do the trick. A little pink boat rows you across the river to the cave. Overhanging green tree branches separate you from a waterfall, whose constant symphony drowns out any other sounds from park visitors.

The outdoor shows, like the Mexican Charreria cow girls, the Mayan fire dancers and the Papantla Flyers may be cancelled if there is significant rain, but the evening Xcaret Spectacular Night Show will go on in the indoor Grand Tlachco theatre and ball court.
The Xcaret Night Spectacular is worth the trip to Xcaret, even if you don’t spend the day at the park. The show is included with the cost of admission, or for an additional fee you can have a three course dinner during the show, which was one of my favorite meals of the trip.

Although the narration is all in Spanish, you won’t have any trouble understanding the historic presentation. The show begins with Mayan children enacting the legend of the story of creation. Offerings to a leopard-skin-clad dignitary from a citizenry of painted men in elaborate headdresses and women in colorfully embroidered robes provide the prize for the winners of the ancient ball games.
Team scores a goal in the Mayan game of Pok ta'pok during the Xcaret night Spectacular. The first pre-Hispanic game, called Pok ta’ pok, is played by barefoot men wrapped in leather and fabric loincloths, each with unique body paint, bearing carved and feathered creatures on their heads. The goal of the 3000-year-old game is to get the rubber ball through a vertical stone hoop by hitting it with just the hip. Although it appears to be a team sport, just one man is honored as a winner at the end.

The pre-Hispanic burning ball game, Uarhukua at the Xcaret Night Spectacular. In the Burning Ball Game, or Uarhukua, from the Purépecha people of Michoacan, they light a wooden ball on fire, then use hockey-like sticks to propel it though the same stone hoops. The fireball represents the sun and honors the god of fire in this ritualistic sport. Despite also being barefoot, I was glad to see that these players wore a much thicker protective layer of leather around their midsections displaying team colors.

The ball games are followed by the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, which begins peacefully and escalates into battle. Spanish knights on horseback accompany monks in brown robes to convert the Mayans to Christianity. The indigenous people and Spaniards intermingle once more creating the Mexican culture.

The second half of the program on Mestizo Mexico is a showcase of regional Mexican folk music and dance from around the country. A colorful array of costumes, music and dancing take you from the Gualeguetza of Oaxaca, to the Vaqueria of the Yucatan. The Old Men Dance represents Michoacan, while Veracruz celebrates its Carnaval with feather-clad showgirls. Papantla fliers swing from the rafters. Sinaloans dance a polka; and drummers beat out a peasant tune from Tabasco. Mariachis, a flirtatious Jarabe Tapatio dance and rope tricks from Jalisco round out the cultural tour. The grand finale brings them all back together, with giant puppets leading the parade. It is a really impressive exhibition of Mexico’s cultural heritage.

Xcaret is located just south of Playa Del Carmen on the Mayan Riviera. At publication, prices start at $89.99 for adults and $44.99 for children 40″-50″ tall for basic park entry, 10% off for online purchase. Packages are available including meals and transportation. Xcaret may be included or have special rates from some all-inclusive Cancun or Mayan Riviera resorts. For more information and current prices visit www.Xcaret.com.

Xcaret Park is included in the Go Cancun Card.

Read reviews of Xcaret on TripAdvisor.com

Destination Features, Hollywood, California, Los Angeles

Hollyhock House – Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hilltop Temple

September 9, 2017 Kayte Deioma Leave a comment

Hollyhock House © Kayte Deioma — Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House in Barnsdall Art Park, Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA

Hollyhock House
4800 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
www.barnsdall.org

Story and photos by Kayte Deioma

Hollyhock House, located in Barnsdall Art Park on top of Olive Hill in the Los Feliz/East Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, is the first house that Frank Lloyd Wright designed in Los Angeles. The American Institute of Architects has recognized it as one of the most significant structures of the 20th century. It was the seventh building in Los Angeles to be declared a National Historic Landmark (2007).

The park is located on Hollywood Boulevard at Vermont, but you can’t see the Hollyhock House from the street, since it’s surrounded by trees. There is a parking lot next to Hollywood Blvd, with the entrance near the corner of Edgemont. You can also drive up through the parking lot and find spots along the loop road that circles the top of the hill.

The house is operated by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. After being closed for several years for major renovations, the house is open for self-guided tours. The entrance is through the Visitor Center on the loop road, which is connected to the main house via a long pergola. There is no photography allowed inside. See the website for hours and admission.

Background

The striking building was a commission from oil heiress, theatre aficionado and social activist Aline Barnsdall, who planned for the house to be part of an art and theatre colony. It was like pulling teeth for her to get the design out of Wright, who was otherwise occupied building the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo during the entire construction time from 1919 to 1921.

He was trying to make an international comeback after multiple personal scandals in the US. Final features of the Hollyhock House were actually designed by another famous name in LA architecture, Rudolph Schindler, who Wright brought from Chicago to work on the project. Wright’s son, Lloyd Wright, also worked on the original construction, even before he later qualified as an architect. Barnsdall eventually fired Wright, but brought Schindler and Lloyd Wright back to finish the job.

The hollyhock was Barnsdall’s favorite flower, and Wright’s design incorporates multiple variations of a geometric hollyhock motif on on textured concrete blocks called textile blocks and also in the stained-glass windows, carpets and furnishings. Exterior walls cantilevered slightly inward give a vague interpretation of a Mayan temple, leading some to call the architectural style Mayan Revival, but Wright called it California Romanza. Water flowed from a square pool in front of the house under the building into a moat around the fireplace and back out into a water feature in the courtyard. Like many of Wright’s concepts, that didn’t work out so well, having a tendency to flood the living room.

Nothing about the final design and construction of the 17-room house was very practical or comfortable, so Aline Barnsdall and her daughter never really lived in the house. With the cost overruns and the lack of a solid design for the theatre, she gave up on the arts colony idea and started work on donating the house to the City of LA before it was even finished. The City rejected the donation initially, but in 1927 the property was transferred with the condition that the California Art Club could lease the house for its headquarters for 15 years, and that Aline Barnsdall could stay in a smaller house on Olive Hill referred to as Residence B, which has since been demolished. She lived there until her death in 1946.

To create exhibit space in the house, the California Art Club knocked out two en suite guest rooms on the south side of the building to create a gallery, and that space currently has an exhibit of the original designs, drawings and history of the house.

In the 1940s, Lloyd Wright was contracted to do some renovations and made some significant changes, including completely redoing the kitchen and turning the sun room into an open patio. He was brought back again in the 70’s to make further alterations. The current restoration of the first floor is predominantly back to the original 1921 Frank Lloyd Wright design, with the exception of Lloyd Wright’s 1940’s kitchen.

Here is a preview of the beautifully restored Hollyhock House and see some of the details that were uncovered, and some of the second floor spaces not open to the public.