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by Karen Tortora-Lee on March 8, 2010
Press Release from New York Center for Independent Publishing:
New York served as the model for Gotham City, inspired Will Eisner as he created the noirish adventures of The Spirit, and became a recurring character during the 1960s resurgence of Marvel in comics such as Spider-Man and Iron Man. Comics expert Peter Gutiérrez will moderate a high-energy round-table on the relationship between superheroes and their favorite hometown, followed by a wine and cheese reception provided by GraphicNovelReporter.com!
Join us and learn how comics culture has promoted potent and memorable images of New York to readers worldwide.
When: Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 6:30-8:30 pm
Where: 20 W. 44th Street, New York, NY 10036
Tickets $15 for general admission, $10 for CIP Members, and $5 for students – and they’re tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Please email contact@nycip.org or call 212-764-7021 to reserve!
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on March 6, 2010
No Traveler - Contemplating What Lies Beyond (Penny Pollak / photo by Rebecca Chiappone)
The opening scene of Penny Pollak’s No Traveler (directed and co-created by Samantha Jones) immediately reminded me of The Triplets of Belleville (not the movie, but the weirdly enjoyable music video by M). Ms. Pollak, or rather her character Abigail, is having a great time dancing around her room to an equally bouncy French tune; she spends much of the song drinking wine, primping, getting frisky with a door, and setting the stage for some grand finale. Of course, when she pulls out the straight edged razor and steps into the bucket it becomes obvious that this was all nothing but a frivolous preamble to the real task at hand … ending her life.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on March 5, 2010
Killy Dwyer, Joe Yoga, Mike Milazzo and Bamboo Silva
I thought it was a very good sign that my latest obsession, Lady Gaga’s pulsating, driving song Teeth, was blaring as I entered Under St. Marks to get ready to see Killer Killy Dwyer’s latest offering “Kill The Band” which is not just the name of her band, but which is also the name of the show that’s part of Frigid Festival 2010. I saw it as a good omen not just because I haven’t been able to get the song out of my head these last few weeks, but more because the song is the type of song that gets down into you and makes you bop in your seat and I figured a gal who was serving up Gaga as the appetizer must have the all-you-can-eat-buffet to back it up. Musically speaking, of course.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on March 5, 2010
Admission is free!
March 6th & 7th from 10:00 – 5:00
General Society Library
20 West 44th Street
(btw. 5th & 6th Aves.)
10:00 am – 5:00 pm both days
Saturday, March 6th:
11:30 – 12:00 PM
Maria Filice of Food & Fate Publishing will presents Breaking Bread in L’Aquila
Reviewed in Library Journal as a “wonderful book…will appeal to foodies and cooks looking for effortless Italian cooking.”
by Karen Tortora-Lee on March 4, 2010
Mark Shyzer as Esther (Photo credit: Tanja-Tiziana, Double Crossed Photography)
Fishbowl starts off deceptively; writer / performer Mark Shyzer introduces his cast of characters with such blasts of humor, and his transformations are so successful, that you might be fooled into thinking Fishbowl was written to be little more than a vanity piece in order to showcase Mr. Shyzer’s talent of reeling off bitingly funny one-liners while embodying 5 seemingly unrelated but unforgettable characters.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on March 3, 2010
The Power of Birds (written by Robin Rice Lichtig and directed by Elizabeth Bunnell) begins with migration; but that of a family, not a flock. For a moment if you just sit still enough, you can see the allegory of it take shape in front of you: Father Philip Fogarty (Jay Potter) has left the family (apparently for good) and without even an emotional downshift Mom Loretta (Annie McGovern) moves into lead position – steering the flock toward new territory and new horizons that she feels will benefit all of them. Loretta Fogarty takes a job in a new state and brings her two children and her mother-in-law along. It’s as if nature has taken the place of nurture and the migration must happen according to some unspoken but unmistakable design. And despite grumblings from 12 year old daughter Zoe (Emma Galvin) who had a strong connection to her father, the family moves because they are compelled to by some inner compass. Loretta, a gym teacher with very little regard for the world of ornithology which was so important to her husband , uses sports metaphors and cheers to rally her family and take them into the next phase of the game (“Go Team Fogarty!”). Like a parrot, son Charlie (Noah Galvin) repeats everything his mother says, and even if he’s saying it for the first time you get a sense that it was filtered through his mother’s voice at some point first (In response to where their father might be, Charlie and his mother have this exchange: CHARLIE: Not working in an office like a man, right Mom? LORETTA: Not taking care of his 12-year-old children. CHARLIE: Not taking us on family trips, right Mom?) He is like the other half of his mother, like a twin.
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by Diánna Martin on March 3, 2010
Brian McManamon as Andrew
Frigid Festival has really stepped up their game this year, is what I was thinking as I descended down the stairs from the Red Room, still reeling from the one-man show It or Her by Alena Smith. The medium of madness is one that has so many artistic possibilities, and when performed well it can be a goldmine for the audience. Nuances and colors of the human condition can be given a larger leash with which to run. Nothing is as delightful, for me, as a luscious character study set into a well-told tale. This production is all that and more.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on March 1, 2010
Last Life is the fightsical from Timothy Haskell (creator of Road House: The Stage Play) and Eric Sanders (The Wendigo), and stars Taimak (of the legendary fight film The Last Dragon). The title is proving to be about as accurate a title as “Cher’s Final Farewell Tour” because this show has been revived more times than Britany Spear’s reputation – and I couldn’t be happier for the whole creative team.
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by Diánna Martin on February 26, 2010
Lauren Roth as Clair and Tyler Hollinger as Chris
What do you get when you pair a narcissistic, yet emotionally fragile sex addict with her wanna-be-normal husband, whose penchant for punishing women is taken out on his wife’s lover’s girlfriend? The result is something even more bizarre and difficult to follow than that opening sentence. Kaleidoscope Theatre’s “Sex and Violence” did its best to shock the audience into submission, but unfortunately it really just backfired because all of the sex and violence in the world won’t fill in the enormous gaps in the plot, script, acting and character development.
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by Antonio Miniño on February 24, 2010
The Ohio Theatre, a pillar of New York’s downtown theatre scene for 29 years, will close on August 31, 2010. The new landlord has issued official notice and no further negotiations are scheduled.
Located at 66 Wooster Street, The Ohio Theatre was one of Soho’s pioneering performance spaces and is now one of the last remaining. The not-for-profit theatre company Soho Think Tank runs the space under the direction of Artistic Director Robert Lyons. Lyons says, “It’s where Tony Kushner produced his first play out of college, where Philip Seymour Hoffman made his professional acting debut, where Eve Ensler performed Dicks in the Desert, a decade before writing The Vagina Monologues. The Ohio Theatre has been an incubator and platform for New York’s most exciting and innovative theatre artists for almost 30 years. Its closing emphatically punctuates the end of an era in Soho, and stands as a high profile casualty in the relentless decimation of the lower Manhattan theatre landscape.”
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