Whedon took on the adaptation of the Shakespeare play like a do-it-yourself passion project, employing money-saving techniques that students have practiced for years.

Following an advance screening of Much Ado on June 4, the film’s co-producer and editor Daniel Kaminsky ’07 spoke to students about the drastic difference between micro- and big-budget filmmaking at an event moderated by Professor Michael Peyser.

Before The Avengers had even wrapped production, Kaminsky explained, Whedon was already moving forward on Much Ado through Bellwether Pictures, his independent studio.

“Joss had just come off one of the biggest movies ever, and it was important for him to be able to do content outside of the studio system just to be able to make his own stuff,” Kaminsky said. “So we had to make it incredibly low and be aware of how much we were spending.”

Like many budding student filmmakers, Whedon shot the film at his home, assembled a cast and crew from people he had previously worked with and fit the entire feature into only 12 shoot days.

“It really came together. He [Whedon] and his wife, Kai [who also produced the film], just had this drive that we were going to do this,” said Kaminksy, referring to the film’s lightning-paced production. “When you have that sort of maniac mentality, people will get behind you.”

Kaminsky, who graduated with a degree in critical studies, worked as an assistant at several companies before landing a position as Whedon’s assistant, his first project being The Avengers. Of the stark difference in the two films’ budgets, Kaminsky joked, “We figured we had The Avengers last year, so this was the next logical thing.”

Much Ado About Nothing, which opens nationwide on June 21 following a limited release, connects a cast, including Amy Acker (Cabin in the Woods), Alexis Denisof (Angel) and Nathan Fillion (Castle), with old English speech and black-and-white cinematography in a contemporary setting. The film’s microbudget meant the cast had to learn fast and work quickly.

“Because we were moving so fast,” Kaminksy said, “we really only had one or two takes before moving on, so it was really imperative that everyone nailed their lines, and they did a fantastic job.”

The media titans participated in a discussion before an audience of entertainment industry leaders to mark the official opening of the new SCA Interactive Media Building. The discussion was moderated by Julia Boorstin, CNBC media and entertainment reporter. CNBC will air excerpts of the event.

Ideas that emerged from the discussion centered on how movies would be shown and distributed in the future, and the ways in which video games could become as immersive as possible. Lucas, who built the Star Wars blockbuster films into a global, multibillion dollar enterprise, said moviegoing would become even more of a blockbuster-event experience, comparing it to a $50 or $100 night out, much like going to a Broadway show.

Spielberg, who added that a multitiered price structure might be in the near future, said, “You’re going to have to pay $25 to see Iron Man and $7 to see Lincoln.”

The panelists agreed that video game design was quickly moving toward experiences that were completely immersive, both in the physical and emotional experiences they create. That might mean a reinvention of what games look like, according to Spielberg.

“We are never going to be totally immersive as long as we are looking at a square — whether it’s a movie screen or a computer screen,” he said. “We’ve got to get rid of that. We’ve got to put the player inside the experience.”

Mattrick, whose company recently unveiled the Xbox One games and entertainment system, said the idea is to do whatever it takes to make game play a consuming experience.

Mattrick added that SCA’s educational approach of focusing on the future of the industry would be beneficial to the development of video games and other interactive media.

“The biggest barrier we are going to face is talent —having great people who can work as a team. We have to find the next group of people who can create these blockbuster hits.”

Following the discussion, attendees were allowed to tour the building, where they saw displays of the school’s research projects in areas that include video game design, transmedia, pervasive media and world building. Showcased projects included:

Hunger in Los Angeles: An immersive, virtual reality journalism piece that uses interactive storytelling to depict a tragedy at a Los Angeles food bank. The project was recently featured at the Sundance Film Festival.

Collegeology: Including the games Mission: Admission and Futurebound, the Collegeology Games umbrella takes the daunting task of getting into college and makes it into an interactive, fun experience for students.

PUCK (Place-based, Ubiquitous, Connected and Kinetic): PUCK is an interface which turns a building into a living, breathing storytelling device by using user-generated data from smartphones.

Walden, a game: The first video game to be given a grant by the National Endowment for the Arts, Walden, a game takes the player into the woods to trace the steps of transcendental philosopher Henry David Thoreau’s time of living deliberately.

Pluff: An interactive stuffed animal for autistic children, which not only gives the youngsters feedback on their behavior, but also collects data for help in their treatment. Pluff was recently introduced in Qatar at the Shafallah Center for Children With Special Needs.The SCA Interactive Media Building will serve as home of the school’s Interactive Media & Games Division, which has been ranked the No. 1 graduate game design program for four straight years, as well as its Media Arts + Practice and Pervasive Media programs.

A unique educational facility that functions like a mash-up of a media lab, a Silicon Valley startup and a performance space, it is designed to facilitate the integration of learning and creative work, and is outfitted from top to bottom with the best technology, including 4K projection, Oblong g-speak, multitouch presentation screens and industry-standard game testing rooms.

SCA students and faculty will use its reconfigurable, high data-capacity spaces to create video games, interactive designs and for imagining what the next blockbuster products may be.

This new Classical KUSC feature involves music inspired by colorful cities, monuments and natural wonders throughout the world. Listeners can try to guess the stops by listening to musical clues given each workday hour and can visit kusc.org to view beautiful visual postcards along the route.

Composers throughout history have been inspired by their own trips around the world, from Felix Mendelssohn’s “Italian” symphony to Antonín Dvořák’s New World Symphony and from Camille Saint-Saën’s “Egyptian” piano concerto to John Barry’s soundtrack for Out of Africa.

“Classical fans love to travel,” said Bill Lueth, vice president of USC Radio, who oversees programming. “With summer vacation on everyone’s mind, this is a fun way to escape without leaving the office.”

Want to influence the itinerary? If you have an image of a favorite vacation spot, upload it at kusc.org/tour/submit.aspx.

Classical KUSC, located in downtown Los Angeles, broadcasts handpicked commercial-free classical performances, expert music commentary and coverage of the arts in Southern California. The listener-supported station has been broadcasting for more than 60 years as a broadcast service of USC at 91.5 FM in Los Angeles and Santa Clarita, KPSC 88.5 FM in Palm Springs, KDSC 91.1 FM in Thousand Oaks, KQSC 88.7 FM in Santa Barbara and KESC 99.7 FM in Morro Bay/San Luis Obispo. KUSC is live-streamed on the Web, attracting listeners around the globe.

This marks the first time any of the station’s announcers have been nominated for the honor.

Lueth is president of KDFC, but for years did double duty as morning announcer at the station when it was a commercial enterprise. He has been part of the Bay Area radio scene for 24 years. He is also vice president of USC Radio, the entity that now operates KDFC as a nonprofit, public station along with its sister station KUSC in Los Angeles.

Nicolini is an 18-year veteran of the station and hosts “KDFC While You Work With Dianne Nicolini” weekdays from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m, which includes a daily request hour, “KDFC a la carte at Noon.” She also broadcasts Saturdays from noon to 6 p.m. She hosts the San Francisco Opera broadcasts worldwide and has been a Bay Area radio mainstay for 30 years.

Smith has worked at KDFC since 1999 and hosts “Hoyt Smith and the KDFC Morning Show” weekdays from 6:30 to 11 a.m., which includes the features “The Off to School Request at 7:30,” “The Blind Date at 8:30” and “Mozart in the Morning at 9.” He is also on the air Saturdays from 7 a.m. to noon. He has worked in many formats in Bay Area radio over the last 30 years, including 10 years at a smooth jazz station.

The public can vote through June 30 by visiting bayarearadio.org/hof/2013/. Results will be announced on July 20 during Radio Day By The Bay at the California Historical Radio Society’s Bay Area Radio Museum in Berkeley. The winners will be inducted in the fall.

Most categories allow only one vote, but listeners can vote for two nominees in the Program Host category.

First the tide surprises
As it slowly rises
Then the waters
Of a boy’s fears
Disappear
 
What is left seems
Pearled & lit
The gleaming stones
& the boy alone
Sea urchins
& sea ferns
& the boy alone
 
The boy I was

The boy is USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences Professor David St. John, who recounts his childhood romps at Moonstone Beach in Cambria, Calif. At the beach, he watched blankets of pale, opaque white pebbles made smooth over time roll with the waves along the black sand. Sometimes, he’d slip a few in his pockets.

Below the rising dunes
Like the moon’s spies
Like the fallen eyes of the moon
 
& even in my pockets
Walking slowly home
I knew that they could see
 
A future only seen
For me
 
Seen only for me

This is the beginning of a song cycle for “The Shore, Symphony No. 3,” a chorus and orchestra piece that premiered on June 1 at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, Calif. Poet St. John, professor of English, wrote the text for the piece while Frank Ticheli, professor of composition at the USC Thornton School of Music, composed the music. Together the pair teaches “Writer & Composer,” a course allowing collaboration between graduate-level poets and composers.

“The Shore” was the centerpiece of Pacific Chorale’s final concert of the 2012-13 season called The Moon, the Sea and the Stars. “The Shore” received a deeply emotional outpouring from the audience with three curtain calls.

“To experience the marriage of words and music that these two gentlemen have created in this piece can be a life-changing experience,” said John Alexander, artistic director of the 140-voice chorale and the Pacific Symphony. “If you are having trouble in your life right now, and if you watch the circle of this young man’s life, you can see the redemption at the end. It makes you look at life in such a positive way.”

A person looking out at the water often contemplates life. The approaching waves described in the poetry serve as a metaphor for the passage of time — what lies ahead and what becomes a distant memory. As “The Shore” progresses, the voice begins to understand the encroachment of mortality.

“But in the opening, I wanted a kind of innocence,” St. John said. “I wanted a kind of openness. I wanted that sense of a child at the tide pools. It seemed to me if I could do that, I could give Frank [Ticheli] some room to move with the text. And really bring to bear his genius, bring this language to life.”

Ticheli said the boy at the tide pool gave him license to be playful. The poem offered rich imagery that he could translate into music.

In the poem, the shoreline stones were fallen eyes of the moon. Ticheli imagined the entire beach pockmarked with stones.

“The music reflects the idea of these stones falling from the sky and falling from the moon,” Ticheli said. “So there’s this falling quality in the music. Also it could be seen as following the ebb and the flow of the waves. I added the sand crabs running with the waves almost in a canonic way one after the other as the wave dictates.

“They run in and out so all of that imagery inspired this opening of rapidly falling scales, waves of scales, falling in canon with one another,” he added.

In the second poem, the boy has grown.

Tonight the sands melt
With oily coils of kelp
 
Tossed across the sands
& the dreams of dunes
 
A young man walks
The crescent of the bay
By boats aligned like sentinels

“We make a big shift in time, so the music also makes a huge shift,” Ticheli said. “Right here, at this point, it changes and goes out of that place into a more lush, voluptuous kind of music.”

What spoke to Ticheli most powerfully was the nocturnal setting in the second poem.

“There’s a sense of blurring after this morning, this day of the first moon, but now things are blurred because it’s nocturnal,” he said. “In the opening line, the sands melt with the oily coils of kelp. It’s all blurring, obsuring and melting. This very much inspired my harmonic language for the second movement.

“That’s text painting the sense of melting, and I’m doing the exact same thing through song and music.”

In the third poem, the now young man finds himself in Italy — a place dear to St. John — where he explores who he might become and for the first time contemplates death.

Across the night into
A mandala of moonlight
 
The black gondola
My own black gondola
 
The ghost of my own breath
A ship of death

“I wanted in the black gondola to have a strong, really memorable image of how that fear of death may manifest in a dream in one’s unconscious mind,” St. John said. “It seemed to me appropriate that this particular black gondola signify for the man as something that would take him somewhere he wasn’t going to return from.”

Alexander said that for him, the sense of death’s inevitability in that section and how one deals with the knowledge was a rich experience.

“The poetry and Frank’s setting of death in the music is just extraordinary,” Alexander said. “Every time the black gondola comes in with this huge chorus and all of this wild, rhythmic activity going on, the lines of the orchestra are just moving wildly. It gives you a sense of fear about where everything is going.”

St. John said he wanted the young man in the poem to travel because that allows “rooms within us to open” that we may not have known existed.

“Travel also makes us really aware of time and times passage,” St. John said. “Not just in a historical sense, but in a deeply personal sense. Time has only one message, and it is that it continues and we do not. It is that urgency of the recognition of mortality at work in this piece.”

Called “Redemption,” the last poem returns to Moonstone Beach. Night has fallen. St. John said it was important to set the final movement against a landscape. Land is a place where we as humans spend our lives and will one day transcend.

“But at the point of the fourth movement, the speaker is also looking upward and beyond into the stars and how the stars are reflected in that water,” St. John said. “So at every shore we are at a juncture. We’re at a place where something ends and something else begins. I would say in no small way when we come to these different shores and junctures, we each make choices as to how we are going to encounter whatever is next.”

Ticheli wanted the last movement to conjure the feeling of timelessness.

“There’s a sense that the music is suddenly not on the earth with feet planted on the ground, but it’s starting to leave the earth,” he said. “It’s moving into timelessness.

“You also get a sense of the cycle of life. I even bring back just a hint of that playful music — all the way back to that little boy. The sense that this is not really the end, but it’s a circle.”

Beyond this night:
 
Until the stars run to milk
 
Until the earth divides
Until these waves no longer
Rake the headland sands
 
Until the sea is dead
Here is the place I’ll stand
With the moon & the waves
In each open hand

With the moon & the waves
In my hands . . .

So what do listeners think about the changes?

They like them. They really, really like them, a recent listener survey showed. More than 2,000 listeners took the time to give their opinions, and the station’s new features were overwhelmingly seen as improvements.

Adding longer pieces has been especially appreciated. Seventy-five percent of those responding said this change has “much improved” the station.

Expanding the variety of the playlist was given high marks by more than half of the respondents. An additional 24 percent said the more varied playlist was “moving in the right direction but still needs work.”

Classical KDFC’s effort to educate and inform listeners through more music commentary by announcers found 66 percent of respondents saying its new approach was “just right.” Only 5 percent of respondents thought there was too much talk.

Now that the station is listener-supported, it has significantly ramped up coverage of local arts with its blog, events calendar and a feature, “The State of the Arts With Jeffrey Freymann-Weyr,” that runs three times a day. Sixty-three percent of respondents described the new coverage as “spot on,” “just right” or “good, but you should be doing more.” Another 25 percent answered that “it’s not exactly my cup of tea, but I’m glad you’re doing it.” Twelve percent said “just the music, please.”

Announcer Ray White, in releasing the results in the station’s eNotes bulletin, wrote: “We seem to be on the right track. However, we also welcome and have taken to heart your thoughtful suggestions on how we could improve.”

KDFC President Bill Lueth said, “This station is now in the caring hands of the people who love it, Bay Area classical fans. We love getting their feedback.”

Buoyed by the positive reactions to its programming tweaks, KDFC embarked on its fiscal year-end membership drive on June 6.

Classical KDFC is the only classical music service in the Bay Area, broadcasting on 90.3 FM in San Francisco/Berkeley/Oakland/Los Gatos/Saratoga, 89.9 FM in Napa/Sonoma, 92.5 FM in Ukiah/Lakeport and on 104.9 FM in the South Bay and Peninsula. KDFC also has close partnerships with arts organizations in the Bay Area, including the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Opera.

As prolific as Beelman was over four decades, and as notable and enduring as his Los Angeles buildings are, his architectural sketches and drawings were nowhere to be found. Exhibition curators Wim de Wit and Christopher Alexander had tried to find them for years and finally gave up when exhibition deadlines loomed.

The tale of how they were unearthed involves a bit of serendipity and a USC architecture student who did his master’s thesis on Beelman.

Here’s the story: George Credle MA ’12 worked at the Getty Villa as a security officer while completing his master’s in the USC School of Architecture’s historic conservation program. Several years ago, Credle was on duty, chatting with guests, when he met Rosemary Silvey, who had worked on the design of the villa’s interiors. Credle mentioned that he was working on a thesis on Beelman, who used to be in partnership with the founders of the architectural firm that designed the Getty Villa. Silvey later introduced Credle to Judith “Pebble” Wilkins, who had worked for that architectural firm, Langdon Wilson International, which was founded by two School of Architecture grads, Robert Langdon Jr. ’44 and Ernest Wilson ’48.

Credle asked Wilkins if she knew what happened to Beelman’s architectural drawings. Wilkins told him that after Beelman’s death in 1963, his widow had planned to discard his drawings, but they were purchased and saved by Brandow & Johnston, the structural engineering firm that collaborated on many Beelman projects. Wilkins put Credle in touch with Gregg Brandow ’67, son of the company’s founder and a part-time professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Brandow confirmed that the firm did indeed have Beelman’s drawings.

Credle then contacted the Getty curators, who were thrilled to discover that the drawings existed. Credle and Overdrive co-curator Alexander went to Brandow & Johnston’s downtown offices, “and we had a wonderful time in a hot and musty storage area looking at drawings that hadn’t been disturbed for years,” Credle said.

Brandow said his father, having worked with Beelman, felt a responsibility to preserve the drawings. He estimated that the firm has drawings for 30 to 40 buildings. For each building, there are dozens of sketches, studies and supporting drawings, he said.

“It is a wonderful experience to open a roll and find wonderful sketches as well as the building plans, many never opened since Beelman put them in storage,” Brandow said.

Beelman’s drawings included historic Los Angeles buildings from 1922 through 1962. In the city’s building boom of the 1920s, Beelman and his then partner William Curlett designed no fewer than 22 structures, including four on West 7th Street: the Foreman & Clark building at 404 W. 7th St., the Barker Bros. building at 818 W. 7th St., the Union Oil Building at 617 S. 7th St. and the Roosevelt building at 727 W. 7th St.

Another significant building constructed at the end of this era, following the dissolution of Beelman’s partnership with Curlett, was the 1930 Cedars of Lebanon Hospital — now a Scientology building — at 4833 Fountain Ave. During the rest of that decade, Beelman designed the Eastern Columbia building, an addition to the late, lamented Ambassador Hotel, the MGM executive offices in Culver City, the Hollywood Post Office (with another architecture firm), as well as smaller projects and major renovations of existing structures.

From the 1940s to the 1960s, Beelman’s style gradually evolved from Art Deco and Art Moderne to a reductive style devoid of ornamentation. Notable examples from the ’50s and ’60s include the 1955 Superior Oil building at 550 S. Flower St. (now The Standard Hotel), which is recorded on the National Register of Historic Places, the 1958 California Bank at 600 S. Spring St. (now converted into condos) and the 1962 Kirkeby/Occidental Building at 10889 Wilshire Blvd. in Westwood, which was acquired by business manager Armand Hammer as headquarters for Occidental Petroleum.

Credle, who hopes to turn his thesis into a book on Beelman, said that the architect’s later style, which he dubbed “Corporate Moderne,” gave business leaders of Southern California “buildings which were contemporary, yet not radical, efficient and often used rich materials to project their corporations’ importance and their personal success.”

A current image of the Getty Union Building at 3800 Wilshire Blvd. (Photo/George Credle)

The Getty decided on two Beelman drawings of the Getty Union Building at 3800 Wilshire Blvd. to feature in Overdrive, which marks the first major museum exhibition to survey Los Angeles’ built environment.

In addition to Credle’s discovery, several USC professors provided key contributions to the exhibition. School of Architecture Assistant Professor Ken Breisch was on the exhibition committee and wrote a chapter, “Training the Next Generation of Architects in Los Angeles,” for the 301-page hardcover catalog. Mia Lehrer, adjunct professor and landscape architect, collaborated with USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences Professor Phil Ethington and others to create an animation for Overdrive that showed the patterns of development in Los Angeles from its earliest settlements. Ethington also wrote a chapter for the catalog, “The Deep Historical Morphology of the Los Angeles Metropolis.”

Another USC Dornsife historian, William Deverell, director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, contributed the chapter “Dreams Deferred: Parks and Open Space.” And Vanessa Schwartz, professor of history, art history and film at USC Dornsife, wrote “Designing for the Jet Age,” a chapter on Los Angeles International Airport.

USC Libraries also supplied two architectural drawings for the exhibition: Edward Fickett’s 1954 drawing of a South Pasadena apartment building and Sidney Eisenshtat’s 1959 drawing of the Sinai Temple in Westwood.

Overdrive: LA Constructs the Future 1940-1990 will be on display until July 21.

The event invites scholars, researchers and artists to present, address and critique the expanding art form across disparate media and to contribute their papers, ideas and observations in the ever-evolving field of animation and digital arts.

“We are proud to host ‘Redefining Animation’ here at the School of Cinematic Arts,” said Kathy Smith, chair of the Hench-DADA. “Los Angeles provides a dynamic location and meeting place for scholars and practitioners at varying intersections of the industry, academia and the arts, and we welcome all to participate in this year’s conference.”

“Redefining Animation” will begin with an opening address by DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and Chief Creative Officer Bill Damaschke. The conference will feature a series of screenings, panels and microtalks featuring topics such as “Animation on the Move: Animated Journalism and Global Reporting,” “New Frontiers in Visual Music,” “Animating the Future: Collaboration and Storytelling” “Poetry in Motion” and “DIY Viral Animation.”

Keynote speakers include character animator and USC Professor Tom Sito, artist Davide Quayola, visual effects supervisor and USC Professor Michael Fink, robotics designer David Hanson, actress Geena Davis, founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and Tracy Fullerton, holder of the Electronic Arts Endowed Chair at SCA. The conference will conclude with DreamWorks Animation inviting a limited number of guests for a tour of the DreamWorks Animation Studio.

“The SAS is pleased to be holding its annual conference at USC this year,” said Paul Ward, professor of animation studies at the Arts University Bournemouth (United Kingdom) and president of the Society for Animation Studies. “We are a truly international society, devoted to the study of animation in all its forms, with members all over the world.

“Previous conferences have been hosted at esteemed institutions in the UK, Europe, North America and Australia,” he added. “The current importance of animation to a wide range of creative industries is reflected in the diversity of research, practice and scholarship going on within the SAS. It is a dynamic and exciting growth area, and we welcome new members all the time.”

It may have been a result of his audacity, but in 2004 the camp officials decided to at least get him to America — specifically to a sponsor in Illinois. There, the young man’s determination so touched his sponsor that instead of making the refugee do what the sponsoring organization had mapped out for him — living in a group home with Somalian refugees and working at McDonald’s — the sponsor bought him a one-way plane ticket to Los Angeles.

Odissu, who knew no one here, made his way to Little Ethiopia on Fairfax Avenue, struck up some friendships and started a two-year odyssey that led to USC. He took classes at Santa Monica College and worked as many as three jobs on the side. For eight months, he saved on rent by working nights in a cashier’s booth at a gas station in a rough South Central neighborhood and showered and napped at school between classes and other jobs.

He was turned down three times by USC, but, undeterred, he kept applying and eventually was accepted to the USC School of Dramatic Arts. Odissu worked 40 to 60 hours a week at various jobs as a student, graduated in 2008 and was promptly accepted for graduate school at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He received his master’s in film production in spring 2012 and spent the next year as an intern at the production company of Robert Zemeckis ’73.

Which brings Odissu to his latest quest. He is trying to raise funds through Kickstarter to finance What to Bring to America, a full-length narrative film about female genital mutilation currently taking place in immigrant communities in the United States. The project is an expansion of a 12-minute film he developed at USC for a production class featuring a competitive process that gives the green light to three film projects for funding. Odissu’s film was one of the three to receive funding, was shown at the school’s First Look showcase, won awards at various film festivals around the world and was broadcast last year on NBC Italia.

As human rights campaigns have focused on the issue of female genital mutilation in Asia, Africa, Indonesia and the Middle East, there has been a growing awareness that the practice is also taking place in immigrant populations in the West. In America, the mutilations have been a federal crime since 1997, so the practice is deeply hidden.

Odissu initially wanted to make a documentary on the topic, but found the Ethiopian community reluctant to talk about female genital mutilation on camera. For his short film, which was a narrative dramatization, he wasn’t able to persuade any Ethiopian actors to appear so opted to use South African and Haitian actors. Odissu, who has met young Ethiopian women who’ve been victims of the practice in the United States, said his script is based on their reality. He also has come to believe that presenting the issue as part of a family drama is more effective than taking a documentary approach.

“People can more easily relate to a story than the facts and figures of yet another of our million problems,” he said. “If you do it right as a storyteller, people can understand the health and cultural issues this raises.”

Odissu said he is fully committed to do his part to end the mutilations.

“I believe it is time the younger generation steps up to help end this backward tradition,” he said.

The filmmaker’s Kickstarter goal is to raise $50,000 by June 11. As the deadline approaches, he plans to tap students who worked on his short film for a bit of help. Odissu, whose USC crew included students from China, South Africa, France, Canada, Ghana, England, Ukraine, Haiti and Vietnam, said he thinks the international students were attracted to the project because his film is about adjusting to life in Los Angeles — something they all had in common.

It was Scales who brought Sexy Widows, a musical created by writer June August, the widow of Jay Zorn, former professor at the USC Thornton School of Music, and her writing partner, Sonny Fox, to the Emeriti Center.

“The Emeriti Center is always looking for ways to provide value, resources and engagement to USC retirees and the Trojan Family,” said Janette Brown, the center’s executive director. “Based upon the talents and interests of our retirees, we offer numerous, unique opportunities. This creative project was a chance to explore issues of loss within an artistic venue.”

The show’s origin took shape nearly seven years ago when August and Fox talked about the difficult and challenging phases of being a widow. Fox suggested to August that they write a book of uplifting poems about the subject.

“I write books and plays and songs,” August replied at the time. “Why don’t we write a musical?”

Their talks led to the first performance of Sexy Widows in 2008 for family, friends and colleagues. The show received positive feedback, but it was still evolving.

“Getting it down on paper was therapeutic,” August said. “The dialogue and lyrics expressed: This hurts and I hate it, but it won’t stop me and I won’t let it get me down.”

The story follows two widows and two widowers — searching for what’s next: new love, companionship, a dream long forgotten — something that brings joy and significance to their lives. The characters approach their journey through songs and music with a mix of humor, pathos and amusing revelations.

Sexy Widows was performed at the 24th Street Theatre in Los Angeles on June 1. John Gaspari, executive director of the USC Center for Work and Family Life and this year’s recipient of the USC President’s Award for Staff Achievement, hosted a discussion about widowhood featuring the show’s creators after the performance.

The next show will be on June 7 at 7:30 p.m. For more information, visit twowidowsproductions.com/ or call (818) 203-1984.