Something Old, Something New
Nine new groups are distributed throughout this season’s 13 dates in the Courtyard for Culver City’s largest ongoing promotion. Several new restaurants have opened since the end of last summer — most recently Santa Maria Barbecue, at the corner of Culver Boulevard and Irving Place — and music fans are patronizing them. When the first free summer concerts were organized in the ‘90s, one overarching motivation was to bring the music out of doors as an entertainment showcase for the Heart of Screenland, to promote night life in Downtown. With Downtown being relatively confined, architecturally speaking, patrons of the open-air concert series actually don’t even have to visit the Courtyard. The music, as any good audiologist will attest, volleys up and down Culver and Washington boulevards. Being flexible, the music also travels north and south, too, down Duquesne, Lafayette and Irving Place. The result is that scores of concert followers are taking in the entertainment from the comfort of their restaurant seats, indoors and out.
Has Anyone Seen the Coroner?
Mr. Mandell is excited about next week’s attraction, the character actor Robert David Hall, who will bring his ensemble to the Courtyard two days after the holiday, on Thursday, July 6. As fans of the television show C.S.I. know, Mr. Hall plays the coroner “Dr. Robbins” on the series. The performers Pat Colgan and Carl Verheyen share billing with Mr. Hall, but there is no doubt he is the magnet. Disabled since 1978 when his car was struck by a drunk driving an 18-wheeler, Mr. Hall lost both of his legs to amputation. He also was severely burned when the gas tank eploded. Because of prosthetics, he has been ambulatory for most of those 28 years. A disc jockey at KNX-FM at the time of the accident, Mr. Hall’s television and motion picture career has followed a steadily widening path. In the beginning, he was restricted to roles that called for more or less a disabled person. As is evident by the C.S.I. assignment, lately he has attracted acting roles that could have been filled by performers without disabilities.
He Is in Demand — Not Just Musically
Mr. Hall has addressed Congress, every known audience in the disability universe, and last year made a presentation at the U.N. General Assembly. He travels widely. Most recently he was the keynote speaker at the Vermont Governor’s Summit on the Employment of People with Disabilities. In his speech, Mr. Hall dwelt on being sensitive to the needs of young adults transitioning from the coziness of their growing-up years into the harsher environment of the workplace. Mr. Hall and his friends are coming to Culver City to play one of today’s hottest genres of music, folk and country. They do Johnny Cash, whose hits have been making a comeback since the recent motion picture of his life.
