Fun with puppets at L.A. Live

My brother Elan who does puppetry, web comics and other visual art,  proposed an idea on Facebook to have a puppet show at a street piano. He lives in Downtown L.A. and the L.A. Live piano is closest to him, so my sister Lorely, who is currently involved in Playwrights Arena's Flash Theatre L.A. and our friend Paul converged on L.A. Live tonight to do some puppet videos.

Granted, L.A. Live on a Sunday night wasn't the crazy crowd scene I experienced the other Friday evening ago, but the bright lights and the big city atmosphere amounted to something. Elan brought out his puppet "Valentino" to do a duet with me singing Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder's "Ebony and Ivory":




Then we had our friend Paul act out (and sway awkwardly) a bit in the next video, while Lorely directed. We even had small crowds come and go. The result was this:



Afterwards there was a couple sitting nearby and we encouraged the young woman to play some piano or sing along to my playing. She was in her 20s and her boyfriend was closer in age to me, so we were struggling to find songs I can play that she knows. I gave her a chance to go at the piano. We were all having brief chats with passers-by, and her boyfriend referred to today's date as the 20th anniversary of the L.A. Riots. But he too realized we have come a long way. "There's still love on 4/29," he, an African American, told one of the passers-by, who was Latino, as they exchanged fistbumps and hand-slaps.