Ten High (2020)

Video direction and design by Derich Whitliff / Dearheart, Inc.

Love featuring Ian Merrigan (2019)

Love featuring Ian Merrigan (2019)

Love: Behind the Scenes

Love: Behind the Scenes

Beth Thornley is a Birmingham, Alabama-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter who writes contemplative Beatle-esque pop with an engaging warmth and winsome sense of melody that recalls such master craftspeople as Squeeze’s Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook, Elvis Costello, and Carole King. With her airy, plaintive voice as the through-line, Thornley manages to shape-shift over the course of her five independently released projects. Thornley has three full-length albums (Beth Thornley, 2003; My Glass Eye, 2006; and Wash U Clean, 2010), two EPs (Septagon, 2014; and All That Longing, 2016), and some recent singles. Septagon  includes the song Last To Fall which was co-written with Glen Phillips (Toad the Wet Sprocket) and also appears as a bonus track on Toad’s 2013 album, New Constellation, as well as their 2015 EP Architect of the Ruin. Beth’s most recent release, All That Longing, is a 4 song EP of modern and traditional folk rock and Americana. Her music has been heard in the films Magic Mike (directed by Steven Soderbergh), Girl In Progress (starring Eva Mendez), Laggies (staring Keira Knightley and Sam Rockwell) and in several TV shows including The Client List, Mistresses, Royal Pains, Suburgatory, and Friday Night Lights. She has been featured in national publications such as Keyboard Magazine, Paste, and American Songwriter. In 2012, Beth and Rob Cairns co-wrote the music and lyrics for the original rock musical, Bad Apples (premiering in Los Angeles with Circle X Theatre), which earned the pair nominations for “Best Original Score” by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, LA Weekly, and L.A. Stage Alliance, winning awards from the latter two. In fall of 2016, the musical was performed in Seattle at ACT Theatre.  Beth and Rob are working on another musical, “The River”, about love and loss set at the turn of the 20th century.  “The River” will be an acoustic folk and americana musical. They will workshop the musical in 2020.  Beth continues to write and record. Her most recent releases are the singles “Love” (2019) and “Ten High” (2020). You can see the videos for them here or on YouTube.

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Circle X Theatre Co. presents the World Premiere of

Bad Apples

By Jim Leonard
Music by Beth Thornley and Rob Cairns
Directed by John Langs

Welcome to Club Abu, the biggest party in Baghdad and the premier location for Iraqi nightlife. You only need to answer the following question to gain entry: “Do you love me enough to torture for me?” Dress code is whatever you got dragged in wearing (or nothing at all). Freedom lovers only, please.

 

Bad Apples is a new rock musical that follows three characters inspired by the three National Guard soldiers behind the atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003/2004. Jim Leonard has created a compelling, jarring, beautiful and heartbreaking story that asks how this tragedy came to be. Who were the victims? Who were the villains? Is sadism part of being human? Was Abu really an aberration brought on by a few “bad apples?”

Produced by Tim Wright and Jennifer A. Skinner
Choreography: Cassandra Daurden
Musical Direction: Beth Thornley and Rob Cairns
Scenic Design: Francois-Pierre Couture
Projection Design: Jason H. Thompson
Lighting Design: Jeremy Pivnick
Sound Design: Cricket S. Myers
Costume Design: Jessica Olson
Props Design: Heather Ho
Associate Producers: Katherine Haan and Jennifer Ludden
Casting Director: Raul Staggs
Stage Manager: Katherine E. Haan
Assistant Directors: Kate Jopson and Johanna McKay

ATWATER VILLAGE THEATRE
3269 Casitas Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90039