The Happiest Medium » Fringe Festival 2012

Songs Of Love: A Theatrical Mixtape (Fringe Festival 2012)

The Happiest Medium — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 01:02:29 +0000

The Happiest Medium welcomes guest reviewer, Mariah MacCarthy. Mariah is the Producing Director Of CAPS LOCK THEATRE.

It’s a shame that the word “charming” has the air of damning with faint praise, because I’m not sure how else to characterize Nat Cassidy’s Songs of Love: A Theatrical Mixtape. “Charming” sounds cutesy, it sounds mediocre-romantic-comedy, it sounds fluffy, and Mixtape is none of these. It’s simply charming as all get-out. It’s, like, Jon-Stewart-charming. It’s that-fun-co-worker-who-makes-you-actually-look-forward-to-going-to-work charming. You get the idea.

Mixtape is just that, a mixtape (or its theatrical equivalent), in which short plays about love are interspersed with songs about love, which Cassidy sings and plays on guitar. It’s like an episode of “Kids in the Hall” written by Ionesco and scored by Jonathan Richman. And this mixtape is so diverse that at times, you find yourself wondering, “Who is the real Nat Cassidy?” Some shorts are more sketch-y (a song about giving your girlfriend HPV, or a couple of ditzy-seeming club girls who intersperse “I know, right?”s with hilariously highbrow academic references). Some are more absurdist (an unexplained ticking noise that drives a couple apart, or a parking space scuffle that leads to decapitation). It can be hard to believe that the same writer wrote them all, and is a testament to Cassidy’s versatility that he did.

But there are two shorts in the evening where I found myself saying, “Ah-ha. THIS must be the real Nat Cassidy.” In these moments, Cassidy’s voice is truly unique, confident, and strong. These two shorts are so gorgeous they just about defy gravity.

One is a monologue performed by (dare I say the incomparable?) Kristen Vaughan, in which a third-person “she” looks at the moon and thinks about a long-deceased first love. I can’t think of a way to describe this monologue in a way that does it justice, except to say that I wrote nearly half the thing down verbatim in my notebook as I watched because I wanted to make sure I’d remember those lines.

Lines like, “Innocence is simply experience that hasn’t made up its mind yet.”

Or, “When a possibility dies, it does not leave a body … but it does leave a smell.”

Or, “Bodies are the worst, cruelest liars. And they make up their minds without having all the facts.” It’s hilariously self-referential, and poetic, and chilling.

The other is the penultimate track on this mixtape, a first date that is going really well. When the girl (Abby Royle) presses her date (Ben Williams) to tell her how he found her online, his answer is more than she bargained for: it involves suicide, and manslaughter, and porn, among other things. Williams’ performance in this moment is one of the most upsetting, honest, jaw-droppingly raw moments of theater I’ve ever seen. His date almost runs away (and perhaps we wouldn’t blame her if she did), but when she doesn’t, you feel a little better about humanity, and maybe your eyes mist up.

The ensemble is solid, and they do that unquantifiable thing where you get the impression they really like being onstage with each other and saying these words.

With just a couple of chairs and a table (and a big poster covered in pictures of genital warts), they make rapid jumps in location and tone without ever losing us.

They are energetic and adorable and it’s very easy to want to hug them.

As for the “actual” songs on this mixtape that intersperse the action, the ones that Cassidy performs live…well, they came with the press kit and I’m currently listening to them on repeat and imagine I will be doing so for the foreseeable future. So, there’s that.

At the end of the evening, my date turned to me and said, “This restored my faith in theater,” and it’s easy to see why. Mixtape is compassionate, hysterical, and has moments of gut-punching raw beauty. My one regret is that I saw it so late in its run and can’t actually drive people into its audience. Here’s hoping it comes back to charm us once again.

~~~

Songs of Love: A Theatrical Mixtape
Tin Drum Productions
Writer: Nat Cassidy
Director: Nat Cassidy
Genital warts. Mothmen. Decapitation. Pornography. Bagel fucking. And, of course … love. Join multi-award-winning author Nat Cassidy through terrifyingly twisted, outrageously heartfelt stories of love–each complemented by an original song performed onstage by a live (not dead) musician.
1h 45m   Local   Brooklyn, New York
Comedy   Drama
Staycation: Ride the Rollercoaster of Love   Fantasy Island Excursion
www.whatsyourmixtape.info
VENUE #10: The Players Theatre
Sat 11 @ 2:30  Tue 14 @ 7  Thu 23 @ 9:45  Fri 24 @ 9:45  Sat 25 @ 2:15

This show ran as part of Fringe Festival 2012.

Final Schedule Announced for Fringe Encore Series

Karen Tortora-Lee — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 20:23:13 +0000

There’s one more chance to see some of the most exciting Fringe Shows of the 2012 festival! Beginning September 7th, the FringeNYC Encore Series will present 19 “Best of The Festival” shows in rotating repertory at SoHo Playhouse and The Huron Club (both located at 15 Vandam Street between 6th Avenue & Varick) as well as at The Players Theater (115 MacDougal Street between Bleecker and Houston Streets). Tickets are $18, available at 212-691-1555 or www.SohoPlayhouse.com
Below is the complete list – see which ones we reviewed to help you decide which show you’ll see … or see them all!

ALL MY CHILDREN
Writer: Matt Smith / Director: Bret Fetzer.
Max Poth takes “what-might-have-been” to extremes. He tracks down the now-grown children of long-ago girlfriends, and tells them he’s their real father (knowing that he’s not). A strange lark takes on a life of its own.
Huron Club. 9/12 at 8PM; 9/14 at 7PM; 9/16 at 5PM; 9/17 at 8PM

What we said: ” …this is sophisticated, sharp, and wise comedy, delivered by an actor at the top of his game. Miss it and you lose.” [read the full review by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson]

BELOW
Writer: Tess Howsam / Director: Karyn Joy DeYoung.
“Something’s dead.” Driven into a world of uncertainty, disease, and darkness, a group of survivors dwelling beneath an abandoned toxic metropolis are suddenly threatened by the arrival of a child-like stranger. Will they survive this new assault?
SoHo Playhouse. 9/8 at 8PM; 9/15 at 3PM; 9/23 at 8PM; 9/29 at 8PM

CANON IN D MINOR*
Writer: Jessica Liadsky / Director: Rachel Slaven.
Beth is lost after her best friend takes her own life in their final year of school. She glides the bow of her violin through the music that connected them in this tender and poetic story of friendship and forgiveness.
SoHo Playhouse. 9/15 at 8PM; 9/19 at 8PM; 9/27 at 7PM; 9/29 at 5PM; 9/30 at 5PM.

DANNY VISCONTI IS HILL-BENT: MY NIGHT WITH HILLARY CLINTON
Writer: Danny Visconti with Adam Wachter / Director: Connor Gallagher.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is Danny Visconti’s idol. After a chance meeting with the Secretary of State, Danny is immediately sucked into a scandalous night of booze, strippers, and prank-calling Michele Bachmann…all set to music!!
Huron Club. 9/10 at 8PM; 9/15 at 5PM; 9/27 at 7PM; 9/29 at 3PM; 9/30 at 8PM.

5 LESBIANS EATING A QUICHE*
Writer: Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood / Director: Sarah Gitenstein.

It’s 1956 and the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein are having their annual quiche breakfast. Will they be able to keep their cool when Communists threaten their idyllic town? “Sharp, smart and hysterically funny.” – Time Out Chicago.
SoHo Playhouse. 9/12 at 9:30PM; 9/23 at 5PM; 9/25 @ 8PM; 9/27 at 9PM; 9/28 at 9PM; 9/30 @ 8PM.

GAY CAMP*

Writer: Philip Mutz and Susan-Kate Heaney / Director: Phillip Fazio.
It’s gay. It’s camp. It’s Gay Camp! ‘Confused’ campers Josh and Anton are sent to be ‘cured’ at Camp Acceptance. Prepare for a deliciously evil headmaster, gay Twister, Santorum surprises, and more innuendos than you can shake a dildo at!
The Players Theatre. 9/21 at 10PM; 9/22 at 10PM; 9/27 at 10PM; 9/28 at 10PM.

HAVE I GOT A GIRL FOR YOU*
Writer: Josh Mesnik / Director: Sara Sahin.
How does a newly sober gay musical theatre actor get his life on track? He gets a job running a female escort agency of course! The hilarious true story of the most unlikely new member in the oldest profession.
The Players Theatre. 9/13 at 10PM; 9/14 at 10PM; 9/15 at 7:30PM; 9/21 at 7:30PM; 9/22 at 7:30PM.

INDEPENDENTS*
Writer: Marina Keegan, Music by Stephen Feigenbaum, Lyrics by Mark Sonnenblick / Director: Charlie Polinger.
Strapped for cash, burnout crewmembers of an antique tallship become Revolutionary War reenactors. Armed with a less-than-potent combination of Wikipedia and marijuana, they face disaster in this folk musical about friendship, adulthood, and whatever those three-cornered-hats are called.
SoHo Playhouse. 9/7 at 7PM; 9/8 at 5PM; 9/11 at 8PM; 9/14 at 9PM; 9/18 at 8PM; 9/21 at 7PM.

LENNON IN DENMARK
Writer: Vibeke Hastrup & Frede Gulbrandsen / Director: Frede Gulbrandsen.
An encounter between a young woman and John Lennon in a remote part of Denmark forever changes her life. But for the better? A journey of love, forgiveness, being stuck and letting go. It’s never too late to begin again.
Huron Club. 9/15 at 3PM; 9/16 at 8PM; 9/18 at 8PM; 9/20 at 7PM

MAHMOUD*
Writer: Tara Grammy and Tom Arthur Davis / Director: Tom Arthur Davis.
One Iranian actress, three characters: an Iranian engineer-cum-taxi driver, a fabulously gay Spaniard, and a pre-teen Iranian-Canadian girl. Their stories intertwine in unexpected ways in this personal and hilarious story. Learn more about Iranians, and maybe even yourself.
Huron Club. 9/22 at 8PM; 9/23 at 3PM; 9/25 at 8PM; 9/29 at 5PM; 9/30 at 5PM.

What we said: ”The stories begin to draw together and broader themes of cultural displacement, immigration, racism, and homophobia come into focus under a wider banner of -’what price personal liberty?’ ” [read the full review by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson]

NIGHTFALL ON MIRANGA ISLAND

Writer: Justin Moran and Jonathan Roufaeal, Music by Adam and Matt Podd / Director: Justin Moran, Music Direction: Adam and Matt Podd.
Somewhere off the coast of Guatemala: our swashbuckling hero, Declan Bruntfodder, has finally tracked the legendary pirate captain Vicious Martin LaFoe to his hideout on the lawless Miranga Island in a quest to find his sister kidnapped ten years ago.
The Players Theatre. 9/8 at 7:30PM; 9/13 at 7:30PM; 9/15 at 10PM; 9/28 at 7:30PM; 9/29 at 7:30PM

PIECES*

Writer: Chris Phillips / Director: Brian Zimmer
When an openly gay Hollywood power player is brutally murdered, his body parts distributed around the city of Beverly Hills, Los Angeles Public Defender Rory Dennis is assigned the defense of Shane Holloway, the damaged young man accused of the crime. While unlocking Shane’s past, Rory is forced to confront his own scorching ambivalence about his place in a community to which he’s lost almost all connection.
SoHo Playhouse. 9/7 at 9:30PM; 9/9 at 8PM; 9/12 at 8PM; 9/13 at 7PM; 9/16 at 8PM; 9/17 at 8PM.

What we said: ” … Pieces works as entertainment and as drama with teeth. Go, for pity’s sake, while you can. You should consider yourself lucky to be so bitten.” [Read the full r eview by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson]

PULP SHAKESPEARE*
Writer: Ben Tallen, Aaron Greer, Brian Watson-Jones &Jordan Monsell / Director: Jordan Monsell
“This lively and imaginative re-invention” (LA Weekly) imagines what it might be like had the cult film “Pulp Fiction” been written by William Shakespeare. Set in Elizabethan England, Pulp Shakespeare weaves the story of a pair of murderers, their boss’s alluring wife, and a desperate knight, all brought to life by a cast of acclaimed Los Angeles Shakespearean actors.
SoHo Playhouse. 9/19 at 8PM, 9/20 at 9PM, 9/22 at 3PM, 9/24 at 8PM, and 9/26 at 8PM.

What we said: ” … between the smooth directing skills, the flawless cast, and a darn good script, Pulp Shakespeare was hilariously engaging, and made me want to revisit the movie. “ [read the full review by Linnea Covington]

RATED M FOR MATURE
Writer: Greg Ayers / Director: Paul Dobie
Inspired by real events. This hard-hitting dark comedy follows Eric, a troubled teen bullied to the breaking point. He’s able to find refuge in an online game but when his computer is taken away, who will pay the price?
SoHo Playhouse. 9/10 at 8PM; 9/14 at 7PM; 9/16 at 5PM; 9/20 at 7PM; 9/22 at 5PM.

SALAMANDER STARTS OVER*
Writer: Armando Merlo, Director: Leigh Ann Pedra
The words every teenage punk dreads: All-Boys Catholic School. But this isn’t your average preparatory education. Eccentric teachers. Militant coaches. Dance-fighting students. Add these with the love of a Cuban mother and see how Salamander starts over.
Huron Club. 9/7 at 7PM; 9/9 at 8PM; 9/13 at 7PM; 9/15 at 8PM; 9/19 at 8PM; 9/28 at 7PM.

STANDBY – THE MUSICAL

Writer: Book and Lyrics by Alfred Solis, Music by Keith Robinson and Amy Baer, additional book and lyrics by Mark-Eugene Garcia / Director: Marc Connor Eardley
Five travelers, haunted by troubled pasts, await the flight of their lives. Their unresolved baggage lands them on standby, where the end of the line is the beginning of a journey to redemption in the afterlife.
The Players Theatre. 9/7 at 7:30PM; 9/14 at 7:30PM; 9/20 at 7:30; 9/27 at 7:30PM; 9/29 at 10PM.

SUPER SIDEKICK: THE MUSICAL

Writer: Gregory Crafts, music and lyrics by Michael Gordon Shapiro / Director: Steve Knight, Music Director: Stephen Bent
Adventure! Romance! Ninja koalas! Sorcerer Slurm has captured the greatest hero in the kingdom! Can lowly sidekick Inky save the day? “…perfect for small children, with audience participation, a perfect hour run-time and catchy musical numbers” -L.A. Theatre Review
SoHo Playhouse. 9/8 at 1PM; 9/9 at 1PM; 9/15 at 1PM; 9/16 at 1PM; 9/22 at 1PM; 9/23 at 1PM; 9/29 at 1PM; 9/30 at 1PM.

What we said: ” … with the fast pace, audience participation, and fun characters, if you have children this play is right up their alley. But, even as a grown woman I found it humorous, saucy, and a lot of fun. [read the full review by Linnea Covington]

THIS TOO SHALL SUCK
Writer: Matt Graham

A merry romp through performance anxiety, professional Scrabble, stand-up comedy and the psych ward, Matt Graham’s one-man traumedy reveals his transformation from drunken bum into reclusive cat lady/professional gambler. How bad can it suck?
Huron Club. 9/11 at 8PM; 9/21 at 7PM; 9/23 at 8PM; 9/24 at 8PM

THE ZEBRA SHIRT OF LONELY CHILDREN*
Writer: Matthew Trumbull / Director: Matthew Freeman
In this comic monologue, Trumbull stumbles through a world of urn catalogs and last-minute eulogies. It explores the bond between Trumbull and his useful-minded father, Jonathan, a dying Minnesota engineer who donates his cadaver to science.
SoHo Playhouse. 9/8 at 8PM; 9/16 at 3PM; 9/23 at 5PM; 9/26 at 8PM; 9/29 at 8PM.

* Denotes FringeNYC Overall Excellence Award Winner.

Contrasts (Fringe Festival 2012)

The Happiest Medium — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 01:12:51 +0000

The Happiest Medium review by guest contributor Rebecca Bernard

A man and a woman wake up in bed beside each other, neither one recognizing the other and then going about their day. This is the premise or idea behind Contrasts, a highly physical story that “reveals the ever-present contrasts between men and women.”

Much happens in this hour long duo performance, conceived and performed by Dana Cavaleru and Richard Bovnoczki. The gifted performers transition from scene to scene with little dialogue, creating beautiful pictures and humorous scenes. Familiar and not so familiar scenes are explored through the specific style of theatre the two Romanian actors have developed; a fresh combination of pantomime, dance and theatre. A stand out scene includes the recreation of a black and white picture, complete with scratchy erratic movements that Bovnoczki depicted so well the night I attended that the audience burst into applause. Dialogue introduced in the performance doesn’t distract – it sparkles, proving that both the performers’ voices and the use of different languages are as engaging as their physicality.

Though beautiful moments are created and the premise is strong, the play does not entirely follow through. One is not quite sure who the characters are. Is the man and woman the same man and woman throughout, or are they musings on a theme? Each scene ends and goes into another, often with the absence of a transition to help make sense of this. And though the performers’ miming is often very good, this same lack of follow through shows up at times when an object is created and suddenly dropped, breaking the illusion it created for the audience. Half way through the actors start to include the audience, reacting to breaths, sighs and reactions from the audience.

Though this quality is nice, it becomes confusing since it wasn’t present from the beginning of the piece. Overall, though, the contrast of confusion to beauty, inventiveness and fun wins over the audience, making Contrasts a joy to watch.

~~~

CONTRASTS
Richard Bovnoczki and Dana Cavaleru
Director: Richard Bovnoczki, Dana Cavaleru
Theatre. Pantomime. Dance. Original stage vocabulary. Stories that make you laugh or cry. Two Romanian actors revealing contrasts. An ever changing imaginary set. Several European Awards. “If Tom and Jerry saw this show they would have reasons to be envious.”
1h 0m   International   Bucharest, Romania
Comedy   Dance
Staycation: In Someone Else’s Shoes   Ride the Rollercoaster of Love
www.contrastsshow.blogspot.com
VENUE #19: HERE Dorothy B. Williams Theater
Wed 15 @ 8  Thu 16 @ 4:15  Sat 18 @ 6  Sun 19 @ 8:15  Tue 21 @ 7  Thu 23 @ 7

Dancing Into India – Being Becoming (Fringe Festival 2012)

Lina Zeldovich — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 19:45:12 +0000

If you feel like taking a trip to New Delhi or Mumbai this summer, skip the flight and hop on the 6 train to Astor Place. There, at the White Box Theater at 440 Studios, Malini Srinivasan accompanied by Kadhambari Sridhar and Umesh Venkatesan will transport you not only to the Indian subcontinent, but also back in time to the second century, B.C. with their mesmerizing Bharathanatyam performance, Being Becoming.

At first, she’ll hide from you behind the translucent magenta curtain, where she will skillfully put on her make-up so her already beautiful eyes will dazzle even brighter. Then she will wrap the jiggling bracelets around her ankles. Next, she will weave flowers in her hair – and the curtain will rise – lifted by the other two dancers as if to invite the audience into a world none of us really know. For the next hour or so, the lithe and nimble trio clad in gold, blue and red iridescent costumes will tell us stories about a spiritual seeker, a woman in love and even about the Hindu gods Shiva and Parvati – all without a single word. The artists don’t need any sounds but the music and the changing staccato of its beat. The mastery of Bharathanatyam is being able to tell the story without speaking.

One of the oldest Indian classical dance forms, Bharathanatyam has a name as complex as the techniques it employs. In Tamil, a language spoken in South India, Bha- stands for Bhavam (expression), Ra- for Ragam (music) and Ta- for Talam (beat or rhythm) while Natyam means dance. So if Bharathanatyam looks unpronounceable, try Bharatha Natyam.

Having evolved from ancient Indian dancing, Bharatha Natyam is characterized by nrtta – the movement technique of complex rhythmic patterns and sharp and clear geometric shapes made by the dancers’ bodies. Another unique characteristic of this classic art form is abhinaya, the mastery of expression, and the dancers’ use of hand gestures and symbols to relate the story and their emotions to the audience.

There is a reason why the performance in called Being Becoming. It’s not just a beguiling title, made to catch your eye in the nearly 200 Fringe shows this year. The name takes its origin in the essential ideas of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, presenting the concept that a person can become one with the object of his or her desire or devotion. This idea, also popular in Indian poetry and painting, weaves through the performance pieces of the show: the spiritual seeker wishes to unite with Lord Shiva and the lovesick maiden wants to be one with Lord Vishnu.

Granted or not, their desires and explorations are a way to disappear in your dreams, and a form of meditation, perhaps. And so the dance goes on with its sharp and precise hand movements, the seductive head rolls and the gentle flutter of eyelashes followed by fervent looks up above for an ultimate solution for all the mortal and immortal ills – leading us through the wonders of Indian mythology and thousands of years of history.

~~~

Being Becoming
Malini Srinivasan and Dancers
Choreographer: Malini Srinivasan
She puts on her make-up and becomes a classical Bharatanatyam dancer. With each dazzling gesture she transforms into a playful child, forlorn lover, or Ardhanariswara: half-man, half-woman. Join us on a journey where gestures create and each of us transforms.
1h 15m   Local   Queens, New York
Dance   Drama
Staycation: Overseas Adventure   Ride the Rollercoaster of Love
www.malinisrinivasan.com
VENUE #06: The White Box at 440 Studios
Sat 11 @ 2:30  Fri 17 @ 6:15  Sun 19 @ 9:15  Tue 21 @ 2  Thu 23 @ 9:15  Fri 24 @ 7

Pink Milk (Fringe Festival 2012)

Geoffrey Paddy Johnson — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 18:47:46 +0000

2012 marks the centennial anniversary of the birth of British mathematician, Alan Turing, widely acknowledged today as the father of the computer. Internationally it has been dubbed Alan Turing Year, and Olympic torch bearers stopped before a commemorative statue of him on route to the London stadium in tribute to an, as yet, little recognized giant in the history of technological advancement. Winston Churchill opined that Turing’s decryption device helped to end WWII years earlier than might otherwise have been achieved. Turing’s life story, however, is a singularly harsh tragedy. A homosexual, in 1952 he was convicted of gross indecency with another man, and compelled to take female hormones as a therapeutic treatment for his “criminal” deviance, a procedure widely referred to as chemical castration. Just two years later he was found dead in his bed due to cyanide poisoning.

Alex Paul Young‘s theatrical piece, Pink Milk, is a highly personal, impressionistic work – a mash up of contemporary gay themes and biographical details from Turing’s life. Fueled by a righteous outrage and abandoned to a fantastical world of make believe, it dispenses with any sense of historical, cultural, or scientific accuracy, to present a free-form poetic narrative fused with dance and music. It’s an odd departure point from which to explore the life of a celebrated logician and mathematician, but that’s not all that’s odd about it. Young’s Turing, as a boy, develops a robotic playmate that runs on apples. In real life, the adult Turing was enraptured by Disney’s animated film, Snow White. Apples – plastic white ones and natural red ones – denote the stage boundaries, and actors regularly bite into one together as an indication of shared understanding. As a boy Alan is shown to be distracted by daisies growing on playing fields, and these engage him in life and death discussions. A glass of milk is another personified character, and the Pink Milk of the title is a somewhat strained symbol of tainted motherhood – both bloodied breast milk and TB-infected cow’s milk. Despite what grown-ups think or say, logic does not apply in young Alan’s world. Young’s unruly script, rendered in a somewhat textureless blank verse, gallops along on a dizzy note of abandoned self-indulgence. Its utter whimsicality can be hard to swallow.

What it does have going for it though is a relentless strangeness, a bold insistence on its own terms. The cheap sense of fatalism and overwrought lyricism are suddenly disrupted by a break out of music and synchronized ensemble dancing. The actors huddle in a group as a clubby electronica pop permeates, and a staccato, mechanical choreography takes hold. Apropos nothing, rigid arm thrusting and stiff-necked twisting are enjoyed, and it’s clubland 1982 again. At once bizarrely appropriate, and yet inappropriate, these instances have a distinctive flair and contribute a signature with its own peculiar gravitas. The troupe of seven young performers are utterly down when it comes to these movement passages and the sequences are as compelling as they are perplexing.

It really is too bad for the play’s Chicago-based company, White Elephant, that they found themselves booked in to perform here at the Gene Frankel Theatre. Originally devised for a surrounded stage forum, the presentation suffers in Frankel’s compressed space and traditional stage-facing-audience format. Gamefully Elephant string a line of audience seats along the back and side walls of the performance area, but this doesn’t fully suffice as an answer. Worse still, the Frankel’s regulations regarding noise levels means the music is played at an absurdly low pitch during dance segments, as if an elderly relative were trying to sleep next door. Energy levels are impacted accordingly.

A hard working cast let none of this really stand in their way. Everyone gives it 100 percent, with stand-out contributions by Casey Hartley as “The Authority Figures”, and Joe McManus who, as Turing, struggles to put some humanity into an abstracted, romanticized central character. Young is very lucky in his cast, and perhaps even more so in the directorial hand of Brandon Powers, who propels all along at a headlong tilt with unpredictable turns. Powers is additionally credited as joint choreographer and, as such, it can safely be said that he’s helped save Pink Milk‘s bacon. The original, catchy, and entirely on point music is by Visager. Anyone looking for a mature reflection on the life and contribution of Alan Turing is advised to look elsewhere. But if intriguing performance, gay themes, and fantastical whimsy are your bag, you’ve come to the right place. Drink your milk.

~~~

Pink Milk
White Elephant
Writer: Alex Young
Director: Brandon Powers
Choreographer: Brandon Powers & ensemble
Movement, nosebleeds, electronica, and a talking daisy. Lonely gay genius Alan Turing builds robots to replace his lost love. PINK MILK, inspired by the father of Computer Science, explodes themes of creation, destruction and eternal love.
1h 40m   National   Chicago, Illinois
Drama   Dance
Staycation: In Someone Else’s Shoes   Ride the Rollercoaster of Love
www.pinkmilk2012.com
VENUE #09: The Gene Frankel Theatre
Fri 10 @ 9  Sun 12 @ 4:15  Wed 15 @ 2  Sat 18 @ 9  Sun 19 @ 2

20 Somethings–The Game Of (Quarter) Life (Fringe Festival 2012)

Katelyn Manfre — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:30:03 +0000

There is a special brand of fear and loathing that comes hand-in-hand with post-collegiate life, and it sits plainly at the center of this dramedy by Evan Sanderson. 20 Somethings is a look at love, loss, and the games we play through the eyes of Millennials.

We meet central couple Reese (Marie Pollizano) and James (Benjamin Drew Thompson) in a split-screen portrait of their lonely evenings at home. From a chance meeting at bar trivia to a rock-em-sock-em double date, we watch their relationship bloom, falter, and get covered in rainbow vomit. It’s a sweet story and the chemistry between Thompson and Pollizano is enjoyable, but as their burgeoning love becomes complicated by requisite familial baggage, the story is pulled towards the line of cliche.
What saves it, however, is Sanderson’s stellar cast of supporting characters. Loony and heartwarming, the neighbors and friends that surround Resse and James make their story seem more authentic, less forced. Sanderson has given us a cross-section of personalities without succumbing to stereotypes, and he should be commended. Maggie Cummings and Maddie Provo are hysterical as a wackadoo set of red-headed twins, bookish academics trapped in hot girl bodies. As a hard-partying couple looking to settle down, Viet Vo and Kathleen Choe give a glimpse into the complications of choosing commitment; their I Dos and tequila shots going hand-in-hand. Vishal Vaidya is adorable as the geeky biochemist Suresh who pines for lab partner Emily (Giselle Gastell) while wrestling with the arranged marriage awaiting him in India. Vaidya is restrained and charming in his awkwardness until he makes the easiest move of the play: talking about his feelings with the right person.

It prompts the audience to expect the same candidness of the two leads. And why not? When you have been treated to the innermost workings of a character’s relationship hangups, it’s hard to not want to play puppet-master, get everyone together in a room, and work it out before someone else throws a fit in a wine bar.

Sanderson does a wonderful job of exhibiting a variety of twenty-something relationships, and his quippy humor makes for an enjoyable piece. But he almost makes it too easy on his lead characters by giving them something specific to hang their commitment-phobic hats on. Oddly, there is no talk of the future by our lovers, no discussion of jobs or money or many of the things that make ones twenties so uniquely terrifying. Reese and James are more products of their personal traumas than their generation.

By giving us such a broad spectrum of quarter-life craziness, however, Sanderson paints a solid portrayal of the cloudy nature of relationships, and how they tend to be more chaotic than a round of Halo.

~~~

20 Somethings
Namayesh Productions
Writer: Evan Sanderson
Director: Ameneh Bordi
These friends zip through city life. James is too quirky for his own good. Suresh has fallen for his lab partner. And Reese just wants more. Their lives collide as they discover that love isn’t a game…or is it ??
1h 35m   Local   New York, New York
Comedy   FringeHIGH
Staycation: My NYC Story   Ride the Rollercoaster of Love
www.20somethingstheplay.com
VENUE #14: New Ohio Theatre
Sat 18 @ 2:45*  Tue 21 @ 4:15  Thu 23 @ 10:45  Sat 25 @ 12  Sat 25 @ 9:45

Magic Trick – Baring It All (Fringe Festival 2012)

Karen Tortora-Lee — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:58:43 +0000

Sure, Mariah MacCarthy’s new play, Magic Trick, is full of sexy goodness, what with its burlesque routines, girls kissin’ boys, girls kissin’ girls, full on nekkid scenes and all the steamy, flirty, hungry passion that can erupt between two (or three) people caught in a windstorm of lust and love and like and leaving. But scratch the surface of all the seduction and right below you’ll find a strong play filled with true emotion, hard choices, honest conversation, not-always-likable characters, and unanswered questions.

Magic Trick clocks in at over 2 hours but don’t let the run time fool you – the pacing of this show has it feeling much faster thanks to the solid direction of Christina Roussos who uses every opportunity to bring as much information to the audience at once so that each moment is filled to the brim with the identities of these individuals.

The story revolves around Bana (Diana Oh) the beautiful, sexual, confident, wheelchair-bound girlfriend of Eric (Nic Grelli) who, on the night we meet them, are in a club hooting and hollering their admiration for Clara (Kim Gainer) who is performing a sizzling burlesque number. Talk turns to the couple taking the performer home, and while it doesn’t happen this first scene nicely sets up the parameters of Bana and Eric’s relationship, their views on their sexuality as a couple, and exactly where Bana’s paralysis falls on the spectrum of difficulty- for the couple, for Bana, and for the tone of the play. It also lets the audience in on the secret that Bana and Clara have already been involved for a while. Additionally MacCarthy neatly informs the audience, with this first scene, that while Bana is paralysed this detail does not define her … it’s simply another one of her characteristics as much as her sense of humor; something to be taken into consideration, but nothing to be singled out. Like setting up the chess pieces on a board, everything is now in place for the game to be played with a vengeance.

Hereafter MacCarthy plays hard and fast with the timeline mixing present day with flashback so vigorously that – even with the help of cue cards – it can be a bit of a task to sort out where you are in the story line. If Magic Trick were a more linear story where “A” leading to “B” was the only thing you could rely upon in order for Sherlock Holmes to reveal the criminal in the end, all this jumping around would work against the plot. For Magic Trick, however, it’s not necessary to follow the time-line as much as follow the need. While cause and effect generally occurs in a linear way, our minds put the pieces together in an altogether different way, one which lines up events according to importance and flavor and color and texture and sight and sound … not time. That’s something that McCarthy intuitively understands as she delivers her characters in snapshot moments of happiness, confusion, lust, honesty, despair and anger.

So while the relationship of Bana and Eric is a complicated one, so is the one between Bana and Clara – and the one between Eric and Clara. Each coupling produces a different side to the individual and Gainer, Grelli and Oh are all fantastic at portraying not only the many different sides that one other individual brings out in them, but then the whole palate and range of different sides that another individual coaxes out. We watch as Bana goes from loving Eric to experiencing feelings of emotional and physical betrayal. She moves out and on to a relationship with Clara – one which she does not label or define, even as Clara longs to define it. In a powerful scene that highlights Gainer’s raw strength Clara – with Bana’s blessing – couples with Eric only to turn on him in a way that is unnerving to watch.

Whether it’s with a brooding strip routine that coincides with a scene of despair, dancing as metaphor, stripping in anger or baring one’s body because it’s easier than baring one’s soul, all forms of display are evident in Magic Trick - there to illuminate the person as a whole, not simply to titillate. And while Diana Oh, Kim Gainer and Nic Grelli all strip seductively, with expert wickedness and nuanced allure there’s no mistaking that this play is not about baring skin but about baring emotions. Which, once revealed to another, can’t be hidden again behind a feather boa.

~~~

Magic Trick
Caps Lock Theatre
Writer: Mariah MacCarthy
Director: Christina Roussos
Bana: Beautiful, paraplegic, missing. Eric: her (ex?) boyfriend, looking for her. Clara: That burlesque dancer they almost took home. Bana’s donning pasties, Eric’s losing his sh*t, and Clara gets naked and won’t leave. A love story with burlesque.
2h 40m   Local   Manhattan, New York
Drama   Vaudeville/Sideshow/Magic/Burlesque
Staycation: Ride the Rollercoaster of Love   My NYC Story
www.capslocktheatre.com/
VENUE #18: HERE Mainstage Theater
Sat 18 @ 12  Sun 19 @ 3  Tue 21 @ 4  Thu 23 @ 8  Sat 25 @ 7

GRIMM: A New Musical – Two Sisters, One Necklace (Fringe Festival 2012)

Karen Tortora-Lee — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 19:58:18 +0000

Step into the world of GRIMM: A New Musical created by BIG Theatre Company and be ready to settle into old favorites, new wonders and satisfyingly imaginative scenes played out before your eyes. While GRIMM falls on the “Fringe Jr” spectrum of this festival’s offerings there’s nothing unsophisticated or underdeveloped about this beautifully rich and textured show; in fact it is a complex, deeply stirring and at times even provocative story that serves up a happy ending but not before plumbing the depths of the darkest of human emotions, as all good Grimms’ Fairy Tales have always done.

The story is set in the distant past when good queens reigned but were still able to be thwarted by cruel spells and evil menacing adversaries who meant harm to those with kind hearts. Two sisters, the good Catherine (Theresa Burns) and her … well … grim sister – the conversely named Angelica (Gina Cucci) – are at odds the minute Catherine is given her sister’s birthright: a necklace that holds the promise to be queen. Angelica is banished but spends her time away honing her skills at the dark arts; when she returns she successfully switches bodies with Catherine (a la Freaky Friday or Prelude to a Kiss) and kicks the queen off her thrown. The rest of the tale involves the journey home. Along the way Catherine births Hansel (Grant Bowen) and Gretel (Sierra Marcks – who drew great laughs from the audience) and has her dealings with the loathsome Rumpelstiltskin (Jake Bridges) who is in cahoots with the now-reigning Angelica.

It’s no difficult feat to take these tried and true fairy tales and interweave them, a forest from this one, an evil queen from that one, and generally a Grimm wicked witch is garden variety so she can jump from story to story. Sondheim built the template for this type of thing with Into The Woods. So no – it’s not difficult to attempt, the stories braid together as easily as Rapunzel’s long tresses. Therefore the trick lies not in weaving the tale, but in doing so in a way that will have the audience invested.

Cue music director, composer, and writer Ken Kruper who composed a score so lush, evocative and beautiful that from the first notes of the opening ensemble number “Things Are Looking Awfully Grimm” I was catching my breath. Each song not only moved the plot along but gave each character a deeper connection to the audience as well as an opportunity to tug a little more at your heartstrings. The score covered a variety of emotions, from the touching “Let Your Heart Lead” (sung beautifully by Gina Cucci) as a mother’s advice to her children who are about to leave home for the first time without her, to the almost vaudevillian “They’ll Never Know” sung gleefully by the evil queen (at this moment embodied by Burns) and her lackey Rumpelstiltskin. Yet, while there are a variety of styles, it’s not as if Kruper is haphazardly throwing in an assortment of songs simply to exhibit his musical dexterity – there’s still a common thread throughout the base of the musical that clearly identifies these pieces as part of a whole.

Director Olivia Hartle has imbued the production with lovely flourishes that hearken back to the magic of childhood; scarves waved wildly become a blazing fire, later a long white gauze is pulled through a bicycle wheel only to become a golden gossamer cloth signifying straw turning to gold. Equally, she teams well with Burns and Cucci who both do a remarkable job embracing both the good as well as the evil with one hundred percent commitment - casting off the vestiges of their previous roles as thoroughly as they do their costumes. They are both devoted and believable as the dark as well as the light sides of humanity, so when the switch happens it is as if you can see their souls jump from one to the other. For this to happen in a small theatre is a remarkable feat.

Costumes designed by Taylor Pedane were both reminiscent of a bygone era as well as of a rag-tag bunch of street performers who bring tales to life using what is around them. All was obviously planned down to the smallest detail, yet appeared to be pulled off effortlessly which - especially in a festival setting where there is such little time to prepare for sets and costume (let alone for a cast of 12!) – is a fairy tale in and of itself.

I could go on and on about this show, but as its running time is only 50 minutes – and as there is only one more performance – I’ll end as all good tales do. Let down your hair and let yourself feel like a child again by experiencing Grimm: A New Musical. It’s an absolute must-see – and I promise if you go you’ll live happily ever after.

~~~

GRIMM: A New Musical

BIG Theatre Company
Writer: Ken Kruper, Co-creator: Jon Randhawa
Director: Olivia Hartle, Music Director: Ken Kruper
Familiar stories from the Brothers Grimm are entwined with a new cast of characters and set to a stirring original score. Twin sisters and rivals, Angelica and Catherine, vie for the crown in this haunting tale of good vs. evil.
0h 50m   Local   Queens, New York
FringeJR   Musical
Staycation: Literary Lane   Fantasy Island Excursion
www.bigtheatre.org
VENUE #18: HERE Mainstage Theater
Sat 11 @ 12  Sun 12 @ 2:15  Thu 16 @ 5:15  Fri 17 @ 4  Wed 22 @ 2

Art For Sale (Fringe Festival 2012)

Geoffrey Paddy Johnson — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 03:13:19 +0000

Drawing upon the centuries old Italian tradition of Commedia dell’arte, the U.S. group of players, Tut’Zanni Theatre Company, bring the vagabond aesthetic to this year’s New York Fringe Festival with their production, Art For Sale. The five young members of the troupe met at the Accademia dell’Arte Theatre School in Arezzo, Italy in 2006, and six years on are still working to relate the theatrical format to contemporary audiences. An admirable goal to be sure, but what precisely do they get up to?

On the basis of the performance I attended, sad to say, not much. Unless you consider irritation a proper end in itself. Flush with a sense of mission, schooled by … experts, beyond their youthful appeal and obvious delight in performance there is precious little to recommend them. It may be historically interesting to replay and re-energize these well established theatrical types, but to keep it interesting for a contemporary audience perhaps you could convey them in the context of a meaningful, or at least compelling story. Tut’Zanni present a series of shallow, belabored skits, ostensibly as the beginnings of some grander tale, but take it nowhere. Charitably I’ll interpret this as intentional, and as some sort of satirical riff on audience expectation and the difficulties associated with sustaining a small theatrical outfit. It looks simply like amateurish clowning in archaic, decorative masks – which some might argue is Comedia dell’arte in a nutshell. Isn’t it possible to conceive of these broad theatrical personae – Pantalone, Colombina – participating in a story with intrigue, pace, and – gasp! – nuance? Beyond a grasp of the various Comedia types – their gestures and motivations, it is not clear what Tut’Zanni learned in their time at the Academy. It certainly wasn’t anything to do with vocalization. Most of the lines are exclaimed here as if being archly projected at an audience of five year olds (there weren’t any five year olds in the audience when I attended). More damaging still, that most basic, most desirable of performative principals was notably absent: how to hold an audience’s attention. Improvisation may be part of the Comedia’s bag of tricks, but you want to embark upon it with a semblance of theatrical presence. Masks (and there was a nice contemporary frog mask!) and costumes (some of these were nice too) can hold attention for only so long. Somebody has to inhabit them, invest them with life. It’s not so much the insistence upon repetition which deadens, but the basic lack of command of attention. Coupled with a fraudulent stab at narrative, the combination is wormwood.

It is possible that an audience of five year olds might have found some diversion in what was happening on stage. To this reviewer it seemed that – costume changes, shadow puppetry, singing notwithstanding – more fun was being had by the performers behind the scenes than by the audience in front of the stage. To wit, when the spectacle at length dragged to a conclusion, and the audience still kept their seats, a voice from behind a screen declared, “That’s it. Show’s over.” For attendees, some of them clearly still well meaning, it wasn’t obvious that anything had ever begun. Art For Sale? Clearly there’s something wrong with this sentence. Buyer, beware.

~~~

ART FOR SALE
Tut’Zanni Theatre Ensemble
Writer: Original Canovaccio by ALi Landvatter, Text by ALi Landvatter, Dory Ford Sibley, Allegra Libonati, Liam Mulshine, Molly Tomhave and Patrick Berger
Director: ALi Landvatter, Dory Ford Sibley, Allegra Libonati, Liam Mulshine, Molly Tomhave and Patrick Berger,
Commedia dell’Arte from the source! A night of comedy, live music, acrobatics, mask and shadow puppetry. Featured in the CrisisArt Festival in Arezzo, Italy, ART FOR SALE is a hilarious true expression that illustrates the struggle and satisfaction of being an artist.
1h 15m   National   Los Angeles, California
Clown/Mask   Comedy
Staycation: Overseas Adventure   Ripped from the Headlines
www.tutzanni.com
VENUE #12: Cherry Lane Theatre
Sat 11 @ 9:30  Wed 15 @ 2:15  Sat 18 @ 6  Sun 19 @ 2:45  Sat 25 @ 9:45

The Apocalypse Of John – A Little Bit Of Apocalypse For Everyone! (Fringe Festival 2012)

Stephen Tortora-Lee — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 19:22:06 +0000

There are a plethora of End of the World movies, television shows and now even off-off Broadway productions. This can be evidenced in a special insert in the program of The Apocalypse of John to “collect items from all five of the end of the world shows in Fringe” (Snow White: Zombie Apocalypse, Below, The End of Days, May 21st – Judgement Day, The Apocalypse of John, and they even forgot …And Then She Die At the End! where our hero Nicholas Sparks is constantly striving to fight against the world’s destruction by making people cry). But none of these shows (nor any I can think of off the top of my head) has dealt with the various possibilities of Apocalypse so thoroughly or entertainingly as the Apocalypse of John (though possibly the Evil Dead movies come close in terms of hilarity).

But with so many ways for the world to end, people have gotten a bit blasé about it all. The Apocalypse of John begins with a group of friends who have gotten together on the night that “all the experts” are saying will likely be the end of the world. One of them is even an aspiring television reporter, Maggie (Erin Salm), getting ready to tape people’s reactions as a human interest story, hopefully successfully because this is her first big break. And if anything is going to be possibly, perhaps maybe sorta happening in 15 minutes, she’ll be on the scene!

Her boyfriend John (Michael Mraz) backed by The Upstairs House Band (Ari Kessler on piano, Will Kitchin on drums, and Andrew Hollis on guitar) welcomes the audience and cast to sing along to a rousing tavern song of “Kiss My Ass Good Bye”. The whole gang is there to commemorate the likely non-event of another badly called end of the world: Gary the bartender (Jacob Callie Moore) with his gritty barroom wisdom, John with his goofy charm, Maggie with her camera, Maude the waitress (Kacie Laforest) with her angelic sweetness, and Chris D’Amato playing Stinky Dan … well he’s just rude and stinky, but a long-time part of the band of regulars anyway.

According to bartender Gary in his televised interview (which seems to represent the consensus of the bar as a whole) if the End is going to happen it will probably be a mixtures of the following classic scenarios:

Aliens
Natural Disaster
Zombies
Nuclear War (“We call it the old fashioned”)
The Devil and other supernatural causes
Annihilation of all life by a deadly virus

With the seconds clicking down, John (our hero who is both a germophobe as well as an advertising guy), a little wasted out of his mind and fearing the end, asks his long time girlfriend Maggie to marry him at the worst possible time — when she’s on the air for the first time! She immediately says no to him, crying on national television as she is signing off the air, then fleeing the bar in even bigger sobs.

Soon John falls into a fitful sleep, set upon by prophetic dreams of Apocalyptic Spectors riding little horsies warning that the end is nigh. Terrified out of his mind he awakes in the bar to find himself late for his yearly review to be conducted by the charismatic, yet megalomaniacal trickster Damien Blackstock, head of one of the mos successful ad agencies on the planet.

Damien sets John down, in a friendly yet somewhat creepy way and explains he really needs John to “wow him” by taking an account that is failing terribly (Gordon’s Flashlights) and bringing some really “outside the box thinking” to make it wildly successful, in one week’s time. From there John is quickly swept along to meet his new team. There’s the desperate-to-succeed junior project manager assistant Charlene (played by Kymm Walker) and slacker Creative “Director” Robert (Zach Sciranka) who seems to always have glassy look in his eye (from being fixated on his smartphone). They meet the “clients from hell” – who just happen to look a lot like they’re … Aliens! But the weird thing is it seems like he’s the only one feeling uncomfortable about working for clients who would like to enslave/eat the human race.

To sum up the various, hilarious charades and indirect explanations (and some direct explanations from Stinky Dan who turns out to be Satan himself), this is what the deal is:

The Apocalyptic things are only really happening to John for now.

Other people will see more and be more effected if they believe John or they are in some sort of altered state of consciousness.
Each day will feature a different apocalypse (ie zombies, natural disasters, aliens, etc.) until the big finale at the End.
If John doesn’t manage to convince everybody in the entire world that Armageddon is at hand by the end of the week, it becomes real for everyone and goodbye cruel world.
It’s all Gary’s fault because he’s secretly been in love with Maggie and sold his soul to Stinky Dan in order to get rid of John, never reading the small print that said he could use Armageddon to do it.

We then see John and the gang fighting against the end of the world in every way including using product samples from John’s old client Steel Shotguns (“They practically sell themselves.”), and using the full global mass marketing of an apocalypse (“This Time It’s Real”) for the sake of selling Gordon’s flashlights. Of course there’s also the good old fashioned hand to hand in the final confrontation with Satan … I mean Stinky Dan.

This show is great for several different reasons. The pacing moves an awful lot of plot quickly in an hour and half. The great script created collaboratively by the Serious Theatre Collective really hangs together. Both the expert lighting (Benjamin Danielowski) and sound (Nathaniel Chambers) can almost be counted as characters in and of themselves. Norman and Ursala Stuby provide not quite menacing, yet convincing costumes and masks for the apocalypse, and the entire cast gels with great chemistry throughout the entirety of this production as a whole which is no doubt a credit to expert direction by Lizz Leiser.

Definitely recommend you try to get your tickets now, before the end of the festival … or the end of the world!

~~~

The Apocalypse of John
Serious Theatre Collective
Writer: Serious Theatre Collective
Director: Lizz Leiser
John Darrian is charged with saving the world from aliens, super-viruses, earthquakes, and Satan himself in a comedy about the tragic end of all life on Earth. An absurd look at coming to terms with your worst fears. And zombies.
1h 35m   Local   Brooklyn, New York
Comedy   Puppetry
Staycation: Sci-Fi Tech SuperHero Camp   Fantasy Island Excursion
www.theserioustheatrecollective.com
VENUE #10: The Players Theatre
Sat 11 @ 5  Tue 14 @ 9:30  Fri 17 @ 9:30  Sun 19 @ 12  Tue 21 @ 4:30

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