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by The Happiest Medium on February 1, 2012
Five Questions. Five Answers. And One Big Decision: Rock, Paper, Or Scissors?
Little Lady featuring Sandrine Lafond (Photo credit Paolo A. Santos)
Little Lady
The transformation of Cirque Du Soleil performer and Celine Dion dancer to performer generated theater artist is mirrored in this dark, comic and at times grotesque fable about our modern obsession with image. The exquisite movement skills of Lafond juxtapose with the world of distortion and manipulation accentuating LITTLE LADY’s tormented and blissful metamorphosis.
Show Times:
- Thu 2/23 @ 6:30pm
- Sat 2/25 @ 2pm
- Tue 2/28 @ 9:30pm
- Thu 3/1 @ 11pm
- Sat 3/3 @ 5pm
- Sun 3/4 @ 12:30pm
Answers by Sandrine Lafond
(Creator and performer)
Karen Tortora-Lee’s Question
That’s some title. How did you come up with it – and what does it mean?
Sandrine: It was last summer, I was on Manitoulin Island in North Ontario. I was working on two different characters and I needed a name to make sure I wouldn’t mix them up. It was the first thing that came to my mind. The only reason I kept it is because people liked it right away, so they decided! The name of the character and the piece are the same as ,I wanted simplicity.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on January 31, 2012
As part of the Board of Directors of MTWorks I’m really proud to be involved with the National Newborn Festival. Part of my job was to help choose the Excellence in Playwriting Award (see below for the winner!) and this year I’ll be introducing one of the plays — but I won’t tell you which one! You’ll just have to come join me at the festival.
So what is Newborn?
Now on its sixth year, The National NewBorn Festival is MTWorks playwriting competition and flagship program created to find talented emerging playwrights from across the US, introduce their work to the New York community, and open new doors to regional voices.
READINGS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
TO RESERVE YOUR SEATS CLICK HERE
(OR VISIT http://tinyurl.com/72h4jfw)
February 2-4, 2012
The City College of New York (map)
North Academic Center, 160 Convent Avenue New York, NY
First Floor Lecture Hall (1/202)
THE 2012 PLAYS & SCHEDULE
Thursday, February 2nd at 7pm
The Tragedy of Dandelion by Duncan Pflaster, directed by Leah Bonvissuto, produced by Jessica Thornhill.
The Tragedy of Dandelion follows a Princess named Dandelion, who attempts to escape, by dressing as a boy, a forced marriage to Ratliff, a man who raped and impregnated her. She collaborates with Prince Crispin, son of Queen Alice, telling him that the baby is his, to gain a place in that kingdom and while waiting in the Queen’s orchard, meets the Queen’s daughter, Princess Cèlie, and shares a kiss with her. She gains a place in Alice’s kingdom, till Ratliff and her father King Stephano, come to Alice’s palace and point out that Dandelion is a female, and drag her away. A new lesbian verse play by Duncan Pflaster.
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by The Happiest Medium on January 31, 2012
Five Questions. Five Answers. And One Big Decision: Rock, Paper, Or Scissors?
I MARRIED A NUN! Dyan Forest
I Married A Nun!
A one-woman show that dramatically depicts D’yan’s search for love and meaning in life, finding the answers—at age 77—in the smoldering cabarets and demimonde of Paris. With humor, art and her ukulele, she reveals the truth that’s valid for all of us.
Show Times:
- Wed. 2/22 @ 9:00 PM
- Thurs. 2/23 @ 6:00 PM
- Sun. 2/26 @ 1:00 PM
- Thurs. 3/1 @ 7:30 PM
- Sat. 3/3 @ 8:30 PM
Answers by D’yan Forest
(Playwright & Performer)
Karen Tortora-Lee’s Question
That’s some title. How did you come up with it – and what does it mean?
D’yan: It’s the truth, and the reason I wrote the show.
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by The Happiest Medium on January 31, 2012
Five Questions. Five Answers. And one big decision: Rock, Paper, or Scissors?
Nicole Pandolfo
Love In The Time Of Chlamydia
Company: Hard Sparks
Love In The Time Of Chlamydia is one woman’s search for love in a world full of absent dads, dirtbag boyfriends, and premature ejaculators. Your first time wasn’t weirder – and your best time wasn’t wilder – than writer-performer Nicole Pandolfo’s.
Show Times:
- Thur. 2/23 @ 10:30 PM
- Sat. 2/25 @ 4:00 PM
- Sun. 2/26 @ 4:00 PM
- Wed. 2/29 @ 6:00 PM
- Sun 3/4 @ 5:30 PM
Answers by Nicole Pandolfo
(Writer, Performer)
Karen Tortora-Lee’s Question
That’s some title. How did you come up with it – and what does it mean?
Nicole: Well, it started out originally as monologues from the perspective of prostitutes who had seen really weird stuff go down on the job, and it was called Five Fucked Up Fetishes. Then I realized I was using a lot of back story from my own real life – God that sounds bad – and then I was like ‘ok, this is actually going to be a one person show based on my life.’ And then, because there is a vignette with venereal disease, I came up with Sex in the Time of Chlamydia. I came up with that very quickly and it was obviously inspired in its form by the title Love in the Time of Cholera. And then when I was really getting into writing the first draft I realized that even though there was a lot of sex in the piece it was really about love. And it took me a minute for that to sink in. But once it did I decided to stick with Love In The Time Of Chlamydia, and it made it even closer to Marquez’s title, but it just felt right so that’s how it came to be. I think it hints at the way sex is presented in this piece specifically, which is kind of funny, and kind of weird, and it’s sexy but not in a conventional way.
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by The Happiest Medium on January 30, 2012
Five Questions. Five Answers. And one big decision: Rock, Paper, or Scissors?
Suzen Murakoshi
BREATHE LOVE REPEAT:a near-life experience
Produced by: The Mustique Projects
A samurai super daughter struggles with her mother at the crossroads between east and west to affirm life between this world and the next.
Show Times:
- Wed. 2/22 @ 10:30pm
- Fri. 2/24 @ 7:30pm
- Mon. 2/27 @ 7:30pm
- Fri. 3/2 @ 10:30pm
- Sun. 3/4 @ 7:00pm
Answers by Suzen Murakoshi
(Playwright, Performer)
Karen Tortora-Lee’s Question
That’s some title. How did you come up with it – and what does it mean?
Suzen: THANKS! It’s the mantra I was wrestling with at one of the lowest points in my life. The ‘repeat’ part is the hardest, because it’s like, “you mean, I have to do it again? And, again?”
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by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson on January 26, 2012
- John Sowle in Horripilation!
/ Photo by Steven Patterson
The writer and performer of Horripilation!, John Sowle, is unquestionably a shining light in the fields of research and preservation of obscure global theatrical traditions, as well as being an imposing performative figure in the relating and embodiment of these same traditions. In 1973, with a Fulbright fellowship to research a doctoral thesis in dramatic art, he spent time at the Kerala Kalamandalam in southern India, where he was obliged to rise each morning at 3 a.m. in order to begin his day’s grueling training in traditional dance movement and actorly craft. Kept on his feet for hours at a time, in a highly repetitive form of dance stepping, his relief would come finally in the form of a massage administered by his teacher (asan), who would walk up and down his back while he lay in a formally controlled position. It should come as no surprise that classical traditions of drama and dance, wherever they originate, involved a regimen of severe physical hardship and mental discipline, but the sharing of these events in the performance by Mr. Sowle, as he reproduces the exercises nearly forty years later, is quite something to witness.
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by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson on January 23, 2012
Deploying a short and narrow raised, wooden platform, with a total area surface of 21 square feet, seven actors in blue spandex outfits (that’s 3 square feet each they have to work with; you do the math!), no scenery or lighting effects, and just 35 minutes, Theater Un-Speak-Able set out to tell that well-worn saga of our age, Superman, transposing it to the year 2050. No actor gets to leave the platform during the telling. All of the fantastical visual effects necessary in the elaboration of this story – illustrated comic book panels, complexly designed camera shots – must be generated solely by the actors as they shuffle, dip, duck, dodge and dive while dramatizing such a highly visual narrative. This is both extreme physical performative stagecraft and compacted theatrical story telling.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on January 23, 2012
It isn’t easy to tell an entire story without one word of spoken dialogue, let alone give proper attention to two concurrent plots that run simultaneously but never intertwine, except emotionally. Yet SEASONS does just that, and with such deep resonance that sold-out houses were sobbing as they watched the four central characters of Elaine Pechacek and Katie Hammond’s original musical live through one very specific year that, for them, was filled with love, joy, regret, confusion, despair, birth, and death. Continue Reading…
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on January 21, 2012
“There is failure and there is success. What better way to measure this than the piano?”
If you were the child who spent your afternoons inside practicing the piano (or another musical instrument) while you could hear other children running around in the sunshine you no doubt have an ache in your heart when now, as an adult, you hear other people discussing their memories of playing in the streets, or even watching endless hours of after-school cartoons. Sure, you may have agile fingers which allow you to type an error-free 75 WPM but aside from that, are you really any better off? Was it worth it?
Let’s take it one step further. Imagine you are Mei (Lynn Craig), grown daughter of Lily (Satomi Hofmann), who monitors her daughter Kim’s practicing from the other room. Distractedly tapping away on her blackberry she suddenly hears the words of her mother boom from her own lips as Kim prepares for recital day: “You will practice that piece until you can play it 20 times perfectly!” Stunned, Mei realized she has stepped up and taken on the Legacy of the Tiger Mother.
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by The Happiest Medium on January 20, 2012
1,934 Days
a play about longing and hope.
Isramerica Production
Conceived and Created: Sivan Hadari
Directed and Co-created: Charlotte Cohn
While sharing their own personal experiences and real life stories, ten actors haling from diverse cultural backgrounds (American, Asian, African, Israeli, Palestinian, Latin) explore the deep rooted connection they all have with “longing”.
Show Times:
- Wed 1/18 @ 10:00pm
- Sat 1/21 @ 10:00pm
- Sun 1/22 @ 6:00pm
Answers by Sivan Hadari – Creator/ Producer
Karen Tortora-Lee’s Question
This is an international festival. What part of the world are you coming from … and will your show tantalize the NYC audience with a taste of your nation’s culture?
Sivan Hadari: I am an Isramerican. Born in Brooklyn, raised in Israel and now back in New York. The actors in our cast are from Japan, Israel, France, The Philippines, USA, Kyrgyzstan, China and Singapore.
While sharing their own personal experiences and real life stories, twelve actors hailing from diverse cultural backgrounds explore the deep rooted connection they all have with “longing”. We will hear their tales of unrequited love, separation, heart-break, mourning, homosexuality, religion and faith while they draw inspiration from the story of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who was held captive in Gaza by Hamas for 1,934 days.
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