The Happiest Medium » 2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL

Tina And Amy: Last Night In Paradise (2014 Frigid New York Festival)

Karen Tortora-Lee — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 21:08:26 +0000

Antonia Lassar and Maria Gilhooley (Photo by: Keke Brown)

These days, say “Tina and Amy” and immediately a comedic pair pop into your head – no last names or context necessary. No “Tina Fey from …” or “You know, they hosted the …” Yeah. None of that. Which, of course is exactly why all funny little girls with funny little best friends now have a gold standard to strive for the way boys throughout the ages had in, say, Laurel and Hardy or Abbot and Costello or Lewis and Martin … or the endless boys club duos who have followed.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler certainly aren’t the first funny women in history – not by a long shot. Their careers were made off the backs of comic geniuses such as early TV pioneers like Lucille Ball and Gracie Allen. But countless women on SNL who weren’t Gilda Radner or Jane Curtin could point to post-Saturday Night careers littered with bit parts, long dry spells between roles, and blank looks at the mention of their names. (Ellen Cleghorne anyone? Melanie Hutsell? Nothing?) So Tina and Amy are more than just two funny women. They’re astronauts.

Before they slipped the surly bonds of earth, however, Tina and Amy were just two funny gals with the same issues and “isms” and fears and dreams that any other girls have before their lives fully unfold. In SixTee Collective’s Tina and Amy: Last Night in Paradise Antonia Lassar and Maria Gilhooley play fast and loose with the truth in order to present their dream version of what it must have been like for these two comedic icons on their last night together before Tina Fey (Gilhooley) went to New York to write for Saturday Night Live leaving her bestie, Amy Poehler (Lassar) to fend for herself.

When we first come upon Tina and Amy they’re hosting the Golden Globes – hilariously – and in their living room. It’s both a seemingly typical exercise as well as a stall tactic to keep Tina from getting to the immediate task at hand: packing and getting the hell out of Chicago so that she can go begin her career at SNL. Amy has no such offers. The rest of the show is a push and pull as Tina works to get her clothes in the suitcase, her ducks in a row, and her butt out the door in time to make her flight that will take her to her new life. Amy, on the other hand is doing everything in her power to knock this plan off track. She insists on finishing a sketch the two began a long time ago and Lassar’s delivery is winning. Gilhooley is also perfect as an over-stressed, nervous, excited Fey – tempering everything with just the right mixture of anticipation as well as wistfulness for the moments she can already see becoming unimportant. This is a fine line to play – for both actresses – and the chemistry between them as well as their devotion to the piece brings out many shining moments that work extremely well.

What Tina and Amy showcases is the fear of a friendship falling apart when one half of a dynamic duo moves on and the other doesn’t. ”Moving on” can mean different things: a partner, a family, or a writing gig at SNL, but when one woman gets it and the other doesn’t it threatens the synergy which has worked so well for so long. So, call it Tina and Amy or call it Antonia and Maria, the subtext is “don’t stop remembering how much you care about me. Together we are better than we are apart. Together we’ll do great things”.

Under co-creator Nikki DiLoreto’s direction Gilhooley and Lassar haul out every dream vehicle they can drum up in order to experience the joy of channeling their role models while simultaneously parading out their own comedic chops. And since this entire play is fictional every thing is fair game.

This does not always service the plot, however.

Despite the obvious talent of these two finely funny actresses who can turn from hilarious to heartbreaking on a dime, the production suffers when their real friendship is explored in a ‘halt-the-show’device. While this explains their connections to the story line, gives us a peek into their back-story and allows us a moment to interact with them personally, this isn’t something that couldn’t have been dealt with in the program notes. As it stands currently it completely breaks the pacing taking the audience out and then dropping them back into Paradise a bit too abruptly. Is the story of Lassar and Gilhooley an important one? Perhaps. However fleshing it out a bit more and dropping it in at other junctures might make it less of a non sequitur, though that might mean foregoing some of the (albeit fictional) story of Tina and Amy. Nevertheless, It would deepen the story of these two women who easily could be their successors – so famous that one day they do not need last names.

So while this show may have been Tina and Amy’s Last Night In Paradise I don’t think by any means it’s the last we’ll see of Antonia and Maria.

~~~

Tina And Amy: Last Night In Paradise
Company: SixTee Collective
Directed by: Nikki DiLoreto

Remaining Performances:
Mar 07, 10:15PM
Mar 08, 6:50PM

Click HERE for tickets

Running time: 1 h 0 min
Price: $10.00 – $16.00
Seating: General Admission

UNDER St Marks
94 St Marks Place
New York , New York 10009
1st Ave and Ave A

Horse Trade Theater Group will present the 8th Annual FRIGID New York Festival at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4^th Street between 2^nd Avenue and Bowery) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1^st Avenue and Avenue A) February 19-March 9. Tickets are available for purchase in advance at www.FRIGIDnewyork.info or by calling 212-868-4444.

THE CANUCK CABARET (2014 Frigid New York Festival)

Karen Tortora-Lee — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 06:03:09 +0000

One of the best things about the Frigid Festival as a whole is how innovative, experimental, unfiltered and uninhibited it is. But that’s nothing compared to what happens each night, for while the last show of the evening is taking its bows, UNDER St. Marks gears up for its traditional midnight show. For five years now there’s been no greater testament to the wealth of talent that gathers for the festival than The CANUCK CABARET which is – yes – a Cabaret but also a bawdy playground where talented performers from Canada and parts south (that would be the good ole US of A to you and me) get an opportunity to congregate in that 45 seat theatre we love after all the FRIGID hub-bub of the day is over. There, performers and audience and anyone who wants to be there, can experience some amazing performances, and in general just have a blast. The good news? There are still a few more midnights to go … The Cabaret is still at full tilt and you’re invited! The bad news? After a great 5 year run this is the last year for these Canadians so miss this now and you’ll miss it FOREVAH.

To review the show I saw and then tell you that your experience will be the same is kinda pointless – as well as besides the point. One doesn’t go down those rickety stairs with a playbook – nor would you want to. It’s the unexpected, the serendipity of specific audience melding with specific performers that make the magic that you experience. Hell, there’s not even a set running time. Just arrive at midnight and surrender yourself to the river of performance that will flow.

Paul Hutcheson [photo credit: KL Thomas]

Two things are constant however: the bar IS always open and the show IS always hosted by the appealing comedic performer Paul Hutcheson who takes care of warming up the crowd, giving introductions and keeping the whole thing moving. I just wanted to convince him to move to NYC so that we could see more of each other – that’s how much fun Hutcheson is, not only as host but as performer — and if his stand up is to be believed then that’s how much fun he is as a person, period. I think the New York scene needs a few more Paul Hutchesons.

Sharon Nowlan [photo credit: KL Thomas]

Revving up the crowd and starting things off RIGHT was Sharon Nowlan who did a little burlesque – Canada style. Which – according to me means lights turned down low while she swirled glowing things in the air. With perfectly placed maple leafs (yes I said “maple leafs”) she charmed not once, but twice and her closing number (almost 2 hours later) was as delightful as her first performance.

Chris Wilson [photo credit: KL Thomas]

Chris Wilson who is from Toronto got the crowd going with a skit involving a coach taking over a health class for the day. Things get a little twitchy when anonymous questions like “what is love” and other sex-related queries are answered with sports metaphors.

Fay Slift – The Ladybearextraordinaire – was decked out in full tutu, wig and glorious beard. Fay’s first number took the crowd soaring through a pop landscape but later on the audience was on its feet (or at least bouncing in its chair) as Fay raced about in a whole new ensemble – all foam hair and Minnie Mouse hands and perfect “are you gonna stay the night” eyelash batting. Yes, Fay! Yes! We WILL

Matt Panesh – Monkey Poet - was there in all his tall loveliness with that amazing accent pouring out of him. He gave his background which had a little Liverpool smashed in with a little Manchester and so much more – all I can say is listening to him recite his poetry is something to behold. I’d seen him all day at the Kraine handing out flyers and was already smitten – seeing him perform did not disappoint.

CJ Sawchyn [photo credit: KL Thomas]

CJ Sawchyn (Steve Nuggett) of the notorious musical sketch company THE SPECIALS, was there doing something so brilliant it’s impossible to describe. Suffice to say this guy makes Keith Richards look like your grandmother’s canasta partner.

Antonia Lassar (who is one half of the FRIGID show TINA and AMY) was there with her super good friend (and kissing buddy – and ovary smasher) Artem Yatsunov (director of BASIC HELP). First of all, seeing them together made me understand why they were so sweet together in their 10 THINGS TO KNOW interviews. Ahh! So obvious. Secondly, seeing them together was just great fun – they sang songs while Antonia strummed the ukulele and told a story that involved a trip to the emergency room after an incident involving (yes, you guess it) Antonia’s ovary. Let me say right now – since seeing this show I have sung the phrase “Big dickery” more times than I can count. That’s the way to do it A&A. THAT’S THE WAY TO DO IT.

Jillian Thomas [photo credit: KL Thomas]

Jillian Thomas – originally from Canada but recently moved to NYC after marrying a man who heckled her – not only did some great stand up that illustrated her comedic chops, but she told even MORE stories about host Paul Hutcheson involving a live sex show that made me envy her a little more.

Una Osato, a performer I’ve enjoyed for her work in prior FRIGID shows (notably JapJAP) didn’t disappoint as she took to the stage in a giant Orca costume and swam to that Free Willy song slowly shedding her costume until she was in all

Una Osato [photo credit: KL Thomas]

her glory – save for pasties and a thong – celebrating her sweet parts, even those that jiggled – and as the audience cheered and urged her on she jumped high into the sky (or as high as the basement ceiling of USM will allow) and let those babies (or do I mean boobies?) fly free.

Rebecca Parry [photo credit: KL Thomas]

Rebecca Parry of the Frigid show Confessions of a Redheaded Coffeeshop Girl was there too – wooing the crowd with some songs from Suzy Snowflake Entertains The Troops and her red hair and red dress and red-hot number proved that this firecracker from Canada is more than just a pretty shade of claret – she went down as smooth as a fine burgundy.

By the time Paul Hutcheson and Sharon Nowlan were back to do one final closing number that involved fans and flutters and a Pink ballad I was all teary eyed for this Cabaret. In a city that never sleeps this show comes on at prime time. So take the next few available midnights and spend them at UNDER St. Marks where you’ll be treated like an old friend. Do it before they’re gone forever.

~~~
THE CANUCK CABARET
Hosted by: comedic performer Paul Hutcheson

Remaining Performances:
Mar 06, 12:00AM
Mar 07, 12:00AM
Mar 08, 12:00AM

Running time: 1 h 0 min
Price: $5.00

Seating: General Admission

UNDER St Marks
94 St Marks Place
New York , New York 10009
1st Ave and Ave A
2nd and 3rd Ave

Almost A Genius (2014 Frigid New York Festival)

Geoffrey Paddy Johnson — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 02:17:25 +0000

Mental disorder is a prickly theme for a comedian, at once courting a humane sympathetic response all but extinguishing of levity, while summoning a degraded, inhumane call for ridicule – an entirely viler form of laughter. As a chosen topic it is demanding, requiring skillful handling, but there are some who seem qualified to do so, much the way there are some who can juggle chainsaws. Maria Wojciechowski is one of those artful jugglers. In her self authored comedic monologue, Almost A Genius, playing at this year’s Frigid Festival, she offers an account of her fairly recent diagnosis as a bi-polar personality. A devastating label to be handed at any stage of one’s life, with presently no known “cure”, the knowledge carries a heavy burden of responsibility. It provides, however, a framework with which to look back on past experiences and reappraise them. It seems Wojciechowski is presently at this point in her young life, but it doesn’t stop her from finding comedy in reflection. And perhaps it opens up understanding in larger, freer ways.

Witness, for instance, her opening act here as slowly, painfully almost, she inches from behind a curtain wearing a head-to-toe banana suit, her face a riven mask of angst. She closes on the microphone and haltingly commences in a cringing voice a sequence of bad to very bad banana puns and humorisms. It’s agonizing. And darkly, deeply funny. Everything is up for the cut: the performer, the audience, humor itself, and the banana – most maligned of fruits. This is clever stuff. Mercifully the lights go down, the banana suit comes off, and she stands before us as herself, launching into the story of her recent real life diagnosis. She has a soft, gentle voice and a slight and graceful physical presence. There is something mild and vulnerable about her, altogether at odds with the evident sharpness of her intelligence and the gritty humor she conjures in this clear-eyed, slightly self-mocking account of her harsh situation.

Punctuating her affecting confessional monologue are a series of sketches and performances that crank up the laugh factor and deepen the investigation. Away from herself, in character, she is a bold and brassy performer, committed to her creations with a vitality that is almost scary – that banana is really quite alarming. We get some singing, some dancing, and a bunch of impersonations shedding various degrees of light on her personal story – some hilariously on point (an earnest nun singing How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?) – and some more vaguely so (a chatty Whitechapel prostitute who quips her way through a near fatal encounter with Jack the Ripper). Breezily she moves from act to act, effortlessly shifting gears, but the break in continuity and character sometimes damages the rhythm of the whole, and the proximity between scathing take-downs and heartfelt confession is an awkward one. What are we to make, for example, of her plaintive pronouncement concerning a cherished family pet -”sometimes I wonder if I loved that dog more than some of my family”? Does she mean it, or is she being funny again, sending up the trite sadness of the situation? Both, most likely. And really that’s the fine steel hook she can catch you with in this piece. She can use the comforting language familiar to support groups in a way that plays at once as sincere and as ridiculous. Many will be lulled by her soft ingenuous-seeming voice, the tender reality of her plight, but this is only half the story. Even though there are some broadly comical moments few could resist, by and large she’s a sly one.

With direction by Natalie Sullivan Shipman, as a piece it could use a little tightening up to improve pace, a little polish, perhaps even a little squaring up as to where the humor is contained and the real self prevails. But that might be tampering with a rare and delicate concoction from a distinctive performer. In its current form Wojciechowski has given us something already suffused with a vivid comedic sensibility and a brave creative reach. It’s almost a work of genius.

~~~
Almost A Genius
Directed by: Natalie Sullivan

Remaining Performance:
Mar 07, 5:30PM

Click HERE for tickets

Running time: 0 h 45 min
Price: $10.00 – $15.00
Seating: General Admission

UNDER St Marks
94 St Marks Place
New York , New York 10009
1st Ave and Ave A

Boogie Of The Apes (2014 Frigid New York Festival)

Karen Tortora-Lee — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 20:07:03 +0000

When I was around ten years old I wrote a play based on the epic, Gone With The Wind. There were just 2 actors in my play, myself and my 8 year old friend. We bypassed a lot of the Civil War story line – and even dismissed the romantic plot. Instead we focused on the food. The lack of food. The search for food. How hungry we were. Which of course is a tipping point in GWTW but certainly doesn’t have the monumental payout as other plot points like, you know, the actual war. I played Scarlet, my friend played Mammy, and we read our lines in Brooklyn-tinged southern accents as we waved paper fans we’d gotten in Chinatown to simulate staving off the vapors.

My point? For decades (and at will) we could quote that awful play, still drawl “What’ll we dooooo?” as we waved our hands in front of our faces. Unquestionably the memory brought as much joy as the actual play-acting did all those years ago. I invite you to reach back into your own memory – I’m sure you have a similar reenactment at the ready, be it a diluted amalgam of the Star Wars franchise or that one scene from Indiana Jones that no backyard theatre play was complete without. Feel the smile growing on your face? That warm glow spreading through you? Well, that means you’re starting to understand the genius that is Broom Street Theater’s Boogie of the Apes currently running as part of the 2014 Frigid New York Festival.

Director Rob Matsushita has a knack for understanding how to create a compelling piece of theatre which incorporates pre-existing material provided by Power Records, while still effectively saturating it with layers of inventiveness that are at once homage and satire of the source material.

And what source material there is! For while Power Records in and of itself is malignable for the way in which it distills the Planet of the Apes franchise, Matsushita (who not only adapted the material but also wrote the wry commentary which bridges one story to another) also pokes fun at a franchise which made itself finite by the end of its first film, as well as its second, yet still managed to pump out more films. Or, as narrator Jessica Jane Witham tells it “Planet of the Apes was a movie with a pretty clear end point, yet it spawned a crap load of sequels.”

Witham – who turns cool and smooth after sharing a spirited and enthusiastic opening number (choreographed by Katie Ramos) with her fellow cast members - swaggers through scenes to deliver some exposition before leaning off to the side smirking through a haze of cigarette smoke. She is so energetic, so inviting, so enjoyable to watch that boatloads of praise need to be heaped upon her – for while this entire show is one great exciting fun present she is the instruction manual that helps you put it together so that you can enjoy the damn thing. And we all know that no matter how much you wanted that toy – if you can’t put it together to play with it, it’s kinda not as good.

One by one, the Apes movies are acted out using little more than the types of props kids have been using in endless rec rooms across America since … forever. This homespun aspect is what makes Boogie so enjoyable, and the way in which each actor (notably Kathy Lynn Sliter, Anthony Cary and Dan Myers) relates with their ape nose, their toy gun or their fake mustache is where the enchantment has room to bubble up.

Witham consistently points out – in between narration and reduction – that these records just race from plot point to plot point with no thought to characterization. But this straight-man narration affords the actors a means to live within their play while simultaneously existing outside of it.

The set up is both deceptively simple and brilliant. Rivaling Milli Vanilli, this cast is so good at lip syncing that it’s often easy to forget that the so-bad it’s good (or actually – sometimes it’s just bad) dialogue was pressed onto vinyl upwards of 40 years ago. Instead, you’ll just lose yourself in the kitchy goodness of these corny retellings. Don’t fret, however – if you like your dialogue delivered live and not via the magic that is the 45rpm rest assured these actors (unlike Milli Vanilli) prove how well they can act, cavort and emote on their own without the help of Power Records. The last movie in their account (Conquest of the Planet of the Apes) is 100% Broom Street Theater ensemble and gives each actor an opportunity to drench all that camp with their own flavor.

Overall, Rob Matsushita’s direction is not only clever but kind. Yes, kind. Of course the Power Records are maligned and parodied. But they’re also lovingly elevated to a richer, more playful, and far more complex piece of theatre in exactly the way it was meant to be done.

You see, the theatre of childhood which mimics pre-existing canon doesn’t HAVE to be good. It doesn’t even have to be logical, or focus on the narrative which the original focused on. It merely has to be something you can lose yourself in as you grab props from around the house and dive headfirst into your richly textured world where (in the case of my Gone With The Wind world) a cheaply made paper Chinese fan becomes more antebellum and less Asian and your search for food is more important than the Civil War.

So grab hold of those memories of your childhood, leave your love for anything Planet of the Apes at the door – because that’s not what this play is about. This play is about fun. This play is about play. And this play will have you rifling through your old boxes for bits of memorabilia when you get home to keep that childhood feeling going – if only for a little while longer.

~~~

Boogie of the Apes
Company: Broom Street Theater
Directed by:Rob Matsushita

Remaining Performance:
Mar 03, 7:05PM

Click HERE for tickets

Running time: 1 h 0 min
Price: $16.00
Seating: General Admission

The Kraine Theater
85 E. 4th Street
New York , New York 10003
2nd and 3rd Ave

East In Red (2014 Frigid New York Festival)

Karen Tortora-Lee — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 21:29:04 +0000

There’s nothing new about a story where a prostitute gets paid just to talk. It’s a long-standing plot device – putting a well meaning hooker with a heart of gold in a position where she’s expected to be equal parts sex kitten, psychiatrist and mother confessor. However, playwright Ryan Sprague offers up this device to a different end in his play East In Red. As the night wears on in this game of cat-and-mouse we’ll soon find that it was all a slow build to the moment when a murderer dives in for the kill.

Emily Tuckman, as date-for-hire Marie, plays the typical gal who moved to the big city with dreams of becoming an actress. As client Aaron coaxes out her story, she tells of acting jobs which were few and far between leading to the lure of all the typical routes which sound legit up front but are just a gateway to a lurid sex-for-cash end. Marie admits that her present situation often sets her off on crying jags so harsh that she’s sickened by them. Intersperses with this unfolding tale of woe Marie makes attempts to draw Aaron (Patrick Andrew Jones) out of his own shell. She teases, flirts, even falls to her knees at one point to get things going, yet he persists in keeping the interaction a cordial (albeit uncomfortably strained) one. Over a bottle of whiskey with money safe in hand Marie listens as Aaron tells his own sad tale. Together they explore how each person they know is “lonely in their own way” and they discuss the nuances between blending in and being ignored. Aaron even tells of a high school practical joke which seems to be able to rile him up to this day.

It all plays out a bit unsettlingly – director Mike Backes serves up this relatively bland chit-chat on a tense surface so that every nervous tick, sudden move and shrill giggle pulls just enough to keep the audience uneasy and edgy. Obviously somethings about to happen, it’s just not quite clear what.

The play takes a few unexpected twists and turns incorporating some fine fight choreography and all the bells and whistles of any good thriller including knife play, gun wielding, ropes, screaming and eerie red lighting in which to bath the whole gorey tableau. There’s some guerilla film making as well which is part prime-time exposé, part (as one character remarks) snuff film. And just when you’re sure you know what will happen there’s a swift and gruesome flip of the script.

Although at times brutal, certainly violent and definitely ominous East In Red is mostly just a good way to spend an hour if you’re looking for a little splatter, a little thrill, and a little blood.

~~~

East In Red
Company: Estraña Theatre Company/Emily Tuckman
Directed by: Mike Backes

Remaining Performance:
Mar 01, 8:25PM
Mar 04, 5:30PM
Mar 05, 8:40PM

Click HERE for tickets

Running time: 1 h 0 min
Price: $16.00
Seating: General Admission

The Kraine Theater
85 E. 4th Street
New York , New York 10003
2nd and 3rd Ave

Petunia And Chicken (2014 Frigid New York Festival)

Geoffrey Paddy Johnson — Sun, 23 Feb 2014 01:47:54 +0000

There’s something immediately audacious and comical about compressing a voluminous turn of the century literary oeuvre into a one hour performance piece. When said performance is delivered by just two actors, deploying only a hat and a scarf as props, the ante rises significantly. As does the challenge. Such is the project Carrie Brown and Karim Muasher, jointly the Animal Engine production company, set themselves in their show Petunia and Chicken, presently showing as part of the 2014 Frigid Festival at the Kraine Theater. Skillful performers both, trained clowns, they arrive at this year’s event with the accolade of having won last year’s Participants Pick Award for their joint authored show, The Vindlevoss Family Circus Spectacular!

Petunia and Chicken takes as inspiration Willa Cather‘s well regarded literary Prairie Trilogy – My Antonia, O Pioneers!, and Song of the Lark – wide reaching stories illuminating the experience of the agricultural peoples that settled the plain states at the latter end of the nineteenth century. The genius of Cather’s apparently simple narrative style is that it has roots in some of humanities darkest places. While ever respectful, Animal Engine address only surface Cather, mining the humor to be found in characters, tropes, and plot devices which – today – nearly all hold a whiff of nineteenth century corn about them. This is, after all, clowning, but clowning that wishes to breathe some of the finer air found in great literature. Funny, no?

Petunia and her family – father, mother, brother Ambrosz – are immigrants from Europe, looking to settle on cheap land holdings in Nebraska. Their’s is the make-it-rich dream of coming to America. “Chicken” Burden is an orphan – his parents victims perhaps of a similar dream – and grandson of the neighboring property owners. Whilst children, they meet and become fast friends and, as the years pass and parents succumb, shy lovers. Chicken wants adventure and experience, Petunia is dutiful and rooted. The familiarity of this story arc serves Brown and Muasher well, as their formal telling of it is original, imaginative, and at times startling. The writing is clever and there is evident ingenuity of editing and dramatization. We get some memorable invocations of landscape – an essential component of Cather’s world; waving fields of wheat, rhythmic sighing windmill sails, the ceaseless rise and fall of water pumps all mimed by the performers on a blank stage. Brown gives us a touching and hilarious impression of Chicken’s faithful canine companion, smushed face and hunched shoulders, as he tries to keep up with his restless young master. These moments are precious and vivid theater. But the necessary break-neck pace at which the whole thing has to unfold works sometimes to blur the sharpness of personation and gesture.

Additionally, if you overwhelm your central characters with cartoon surroundings and personalities, you shouldn’t be surprised if they partake of some of that cartoonism, and dramatic impact is depleted. So even as your story is building towards an inevitable climax, it is losing air, and the eventual pop is muffled – regardless of how heavy the inverted commas around that pop might be

in the first place. Melinda Jean Ferraraccio’s directing must take some blame here. It wants crispness. Clever and sharp is how to keep things aloft. There shouldn’t be room for the serviceable gesture or allusion, despite the speed of proceedings. First night opening issues aside, this reviewer felt the performance in need of some polish.

One feels Brown and Muasher, imaginative and energetic as they are, can find it. They are shrewd enough to turn the rudimentary lighting set-up they deploy into a moment of fun, when there’s some direct address to the lighting booth controller during the performance. Other than the lighting, they conjure everything else. And however jaded your outlook you’ll be rooting for them throughout. On evidence, Thursday night’s audience certainly were, and seemed utterly taken by them to wherever they traveled, narrative whiplash notwithstanding. Clowns, of course, can be gratuitous crowd-pleasers, but their durable notoriety resides not merely in this fun raising provocation, but ultimately in the canny ability to unsettle. This sweeping, romantic tale of settlers ultimately wants a little unsettling.

~~~

Petunia And Chicken
Inspired by the works of Willa Cather
Created and performed by Carrie Brown and Karim Muasher
Direction from Melinda Jean Ferraraccio

Remaining Performances:
Feb 24, 8:40PM
Mar 03, 10:15PM
Mar 06, 8:40PM
Mar 08, 3:40PM

Click HERE for tickets

Running time: 1 h 0 min
Price: $10.00 – $15.00
Seating: General Admission

The Kraine Theater
85 E. 4th Street
New York , New York 10003
2nd and 3rd Ave
~~~

Double Happiness: A Tale Of Love, Loss, And One Forever Family: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)

Karen Tortora-Lee — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 19:15:53 +0000

Ten Questions. Ten Answers. And One Big Decision: Rock, Paper, Or Scissors?

Double Happiness: A Tale of Love, Loss, and One Forever Family

Company: Kelly Haramis

“Double Happiness: A Tale of Love, Loss and One Forever Family,” (directed by David Knoell) a one-woman show by former Chicago Tribune journalist Kelly Haramis, juggles fertility issues, an adoption wait and unexpected deaths. Kelly takes audience members on her quest to have a baby. And introduces them to the world’s most-fertile man. And Penn State parties. And takes them on her journey to China to adopt her daughter. Find out how her hands went from holding a dream to holding two miracles.

Show Times:

Thurs 2/20 @ 8:40 p.m.
Sun 2/23 @ 12:30 p.m.
Wed 2/26 @ 5:30 p.m.
Sat 3/1 @ 8:25 p.m.
Tues 3/4 @ 5:30 p.m.
Thurs 3/6 @ 5:30 p.m.

Answers by Kelly Haramis

(Playwright/Actor)

1. Your tag line is out there on postcards and press releases so we know the PR version of what this play is about. But when you talk to your family and friends, how do you explain the show to them?

KH: “Double Happiness” is about how I became a mother twice in 6 months. And it’s not your first guess.

2. Here’s a scenario: After the show some audience members go have a drink. What’s the part of the show you hope they’re discussing?

KH: My trip to China in freezing cold January 2007, where I encounter the Communist Party, climb the Great Wall under conditions of serious physical disadvantage, and exorcise the ghost of Richard Nixon.

3. What drives your show – character, theme or plot?

KH: Theme. If by “theme” you mean an astounding spread of intense emotions that remind us what it means to be human.

4. In rehearsals, read-thrus, or prior incarnations, what’s the one thing someone said about the show so far that made you (or the team) the most proud?

KH: “You have a beautiful story. I laughed; I cried.”

5. Let’s fantasize for a moment. Let’s take the “off-off” off. Imagine this show is on Broadway. Would that change the production itself?

KH: The emotional core would stay the same, but I’d love to add professionally produced show tunes and special effects. Is the “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” rigging available? It wasn’t Bono and The Edge’s finest songs, but, hey, I’ll hire them anyway.

6. Taking that one step further – after paying everyone what they’re worth of course, what is the most lavish, luxurious, pointless thing you would spend money on if there was no constraints?

KH: I’d import a section of the Great Wall of China. Yes, there may be some diplomatic hurdles to overcome, so we’ll need to send some serious American monuments over there in payment.

7. Is there a scene, a moment, a gesture … anything at all in the show that you anticipate may get a completely different reaction depending on the audience that night?

KH: The intensity may change, but reactions have been consistent.

8. What’s your favorite line from the show?

KH: “I will deliver my super-seed to you wherever you are.”

9. Is the world of this play sustainable outside a theatre? In other words … do you think people live the way the characters do? Would you want a world where they do?

KH: Definitely! Many families struggle with infertility, and then deal with the Yo Gabba Gabba highs and Teletubby lows of modern parenting.

10. You scan the audience and you see a face that stops you dead in your tracks – who is it? And why are you shocked?

KH: Rita Wilson because she makes Greek actresses’ dreams come true. Or Nia Vardalos. Time to Pay it Forward? [ed note: Rita Wilson is often credited with being the driving force behind Nia Vardalos's movie deal for My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which became the highest-grossing independent film of all time, and for which she served as a producer].

Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH

In the THM virtual Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH which FRIGID Show do you take on? And what do you throw?

CHALLENGES: Almost a Genius.

THROWS: Scissors, made in the Windy City, Maria Wojciechowski!

Thanks Double Happiness: A Tale of Love, Loss, and One Forever Family for participating in The Happiest Medium’s FRIGID New York Festival 2014 Q&A. And for playing our game! You’re officially SCISSORS in any and all challenges. You may win, you may lose – who knows! This is how it works in the crazy world of the Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH!

For the rest of you don’t forget to check out Double Happiness: A Tale of Love, Loss, and One Forever Family !

~~~

Feb 20, 8:40PM
Feb 23, 12:30PM
Feb 26, 5:30PM
Mar 01, 8:25PM
Mar 04, 5:30PM
Mar 06, 5:30PM

UNDER St.Marks | $11.00 / $15.00

~~~

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Answers by Kelly Haramis

(Playwright/Actor)

Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH

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