“Last Night at Playland” photo exhibit (Lucky JuJu, Alameda CA)

journal June 16th, 2009

What: “Where’s the Fun? Last Night at Playland” Vintage Photo Exhibit
Where: Lucky JuJu Pinball Gallery, 713 Santa Clara Ave, Alameda
When: June 5th through June 31st, 2009. Gallery Hours 9 am to 9pm
Admission: Art Gallery is Free. Pinball Museum requires $5/10 admission
Website: http://www.wix.com/playland/playland

Vintage photo exhibit celebrates San Francisco’s Playland at the Beach

The Lucky JuJu Pinball Museum and Art Gallery in Alameda will host a collection of late-1960’s photographs by Bob Lesoine featuring the attractions, amusements and characters of San Francisco’s beloved amusement park, Playland-at-the-Beach, in the years leading up to its demolition in the early 1970’s. Entitled “Where’s the Fun? Last Night at Playland”, the show will run throughout the month of June and is presented as part of the ongoing development of a full-scale multi-media production of an original musical, Last Night at Playland, with book and music by Bob Lesoine and choreography by local tap dance legend Rosie Radiator. The musical is scheduled to premiere in Spring/Summer 2010 at The Royce Gallery in San Francisco and will display the artist’s photographs in vivid projections as a backdrop to the action on stage.

In the late 1960s, Bob began to explore the images of Playland with his little Nikon F in hand. At the time he had the idea of creating a photo-essay about the old amusement park, but this never happened. He soon left San Francisco to spend the next couple of years in New York and Amsterdam and he put all his things, including the Playland slides, in storage. When he returned to the Bay Area, Playland had been torn down, and Bob’s response was to begin writing songs about the park—“Come to Playland”, “Laughing Lady”, “Funhouse”, “The House of Mirrors”. Upon meeting and collaborating with the late David Warren and Jack Buscan—aka “Zolè the Wizard”—Bob created the first incarnation of a Playland show, which was called: THE YEAR THEY TORE DOWN PLAYLAND AT THE BEACH. Billed as a music-magic-mime show, it was essentially a review, a series of “side-show” acts with no real story. For that show, Bob resurrected his Playland photos and created a dual screen, multi-media slide show with state-of-the-art Kodak Carousel projectors to provide a visual Playland montage. Bob has since revised his Playland show into a book musical, Last Night at Playland, which is currently in development by Theater Residencies, Incorporated and slated to become the next San Francisco perennial musical.

[ wix.com via lucky juju ]

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