We’re thrilled to pass along the Overall Excellence Award Winners for 2011 FringeNYC.  Some of our very favorite shows and performers are being celebrated and we’re so thankful that we were able to experience these talented performances this year.  Congratulations to all the winners!

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August 28, 2011 — Winners of the 2011 FringeNYC Overall Excellence Awards, as selected by an independent panel of nearly 50 theater professionals, are as follows:

Overall Production/Play

• PigPen Presents The Mountain Song
  • What we said: As always the only disappointment with PigPen is when the play is over; it’s hard to watch them leave the stage – the same way it is hard for a child to watch that
    

    favorite relative go home at the end of a giddy day of make-believe. The good news is PigPen is relocating to New York City so those who can’t get enough of them will now be able to see them a lot more. And as long as they’ll be putting on shows, I’ll be in the audience, watching: amazed and dazzled.

• The More Loving One

Overall Production/Musical

• Yeast Nation
• Pearl’s Gone Blue

Performance

• Jennifer Barnhart (The Legend of Julie Taymor,or The Musical That Killed Everybody!)
• Ryan Barry (In the Summer Pavilion)
• Miles Cooper (Elysian Fields)
• Patrick Byas (Sammy Gets Mugged)
• Casey McClellan (My Name Is Billy)
• Brian Charles Rooney (Winner Takes All)
• Lauren Hennessy (Ampersand: A Romeo & Juliet Story)
  • What we said: [Hennessy] is breathtakingly real … often funny, sometimes sarcastic and deeply sexy … her chemistry with Choura (not only during their intimate moments
    

    but during her moments of longing as well) can be felt all the way in the back row, and considering this show is playing at The Ellen Stewart Theatre that’s saying a lot. When she sings she seduces and bewitches everyone in the room.

Playwriting

• Nicholas Billon (Greenland)
• A.D. Penedo (The Three Times She Knocked)
  • What we said: Writer A.D. Penedo has successfully taken a different type of relationship and made it not only understandable but accessible. By giving Eric a mechanism where he constantly breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience we’re given a unique look into the mind of a man consumed not so much by a woman but by a way of operating. By Eric himself explaining his little quirks and foibles to us we are left free to sit back and watch as his confessions to us pave the way for his actions toward Tara. And sure, while he may seem a little out of his mind, at least he’s explaining his motives to us.
    

• Bella and the Pool Boy (Dennis Flanagan)

Music Composition

• Chris Rael (Araby)
• Dusty Brown (The Ballad of Rusty and Roy)

Ensemble

• Jersey Shoresical
  • What we said: Fans of (or those who admit to watching) Jersey Shore will love Jersey Shoresical for the extreme attention to detail paid by the creative team.  People who have
    

    never seen one moment of Jersey Shore will also love Jersey Shoresical – because the final product is just that good.  Either way, this was one hour of entertainment that left me clamoring for more.

• The Bardy Bunch: The War of the Families Partridge and Brady
  • What we said: What delights so thoroughly is how faithful each character remains to their Brady/Partridge origins while faithfully moving the Shakespearean plots along.  This story was just waiting to be done.  Thanks to the fantastic team of Garvey and Stern it has now been done perfectly.
• Stimulated!
• Crawling with Monsters

Costume Design

• Stephanie Alexander (Le Gourmand, or Gluttony!)
• Mark Richard Caswell (Parker and Dizzy’s Fabulous Journey to the End of the Rainbow)
• Tara DeVincenzo (Technodulia Dot Com)

Directing

• Greg Foro (Hamlet)
  • What we said: At mid-performance, just after Hamlet has rigged a play to prick the conscience of his murderous uncle, Claudius, the two characters circle the stage silently for a beat, eyeing each other variously as hunter and quarry, before Claudius calls -”Give me some light!”- at which the house is plunged into darkness and we are moved to intermission. This delicious moment is a sample of the thoughtful direction and stagecraft on display here.
• Joshua Kahan Brody (Fourteen Flights)
• Alaska Reece Vance (The Disorientation of Butterflies)

Solo Performance

• Donna/Madonna
• The Day the Sky Turned Black
• Be Careful! The Sharks Will Eat You!
  

• Paper Cut
  • What we said: Rasooly supplies all the voices while working the miniature mechanics and characters. It’s an inspired visual performance. To a movie-literate audience, it’s catnip.
• Heroes and Other Strangers

Dance

• Wallstories
• When the Sky Breaks 3D
  • What we said: The choreography of When the Sky Breaks 3D is nothing short of amazing. Several scenes stand out in my mind – one in particular is a scene where the dancers are fighting. At first two, then four, in a syncopated expression of movement; they struggle against each other, and ultimately themselves. The movements are strong and forceful, falling and rising, breaking apart and coming together – mirroring so many different struggles within our lives. The audience held its breath until the final resolution, as the dancers stood in unity together under the threatening sky.

Video Design

• Cinty Ionescu (Nils’ Fucked Up Day)

TheaterMania Audience Favorite Award

• COBU – Dance like Drumming, Drum like Dancing.

Congratulations again to all those recognized for overall excellence!!

Related Posts:

• Hamlet (Fringe Festival 2011)
• Ampersand’s Rockstar – A Chat With Lauren Hennessy
• Paper Cut (Fringe Festival 2011)
• PigPen Presents: The Mountain Song (Fringe Festival 2011)
• The Three Times She Knocked (Fringe Festival 2011)

Jersey Shore is a show on MTV that, in and of itself, is already parody – boldly mocking an easily mockable subculture known as the Guido and Guidette.  All executive producer SallyAnn Salsano had to do was sit back, let the cameras roll, and watch as these buff, well tanned, dark haired over-accessorized not-too-bright kids perfected the art of GTL (Gym, Tan, Laundry), avoided making out with Grenades, beat up the beat on the dance floor, got drunk, then got into each other business (and beds) and just generally ran amok.  The formula was keyed into the system early on and everyone involved with this runaway hit just had to sit back and ride the wave of success ever since, following their cash cows from the eponymous Jersey Shore to Miami, to Italy and back again.  So, frankly, does a show this rife with built in self-mockery require a parody  … in the form of a Rock Opera no less?  If that show is Jersey Shoresical: A Frickin’ Rock Opera then the answer is (cue the fist pump) oh hell yeah.

The first time I’d heard of the MTV show was early on from a 17 year old girl.  This was the type of precocious young woman who read Graham Greene, was studying archaeology – didn’t touch alcohol but could explain the difference between a Cabernet and a Bordeaux … and certainly never watched trashy TV.  So when she stared explaining the “plot” of Jersey Shore and footnoted her rant with a maniacal “I can’t stop watching it!!!!” I couldn’t help but say “Wait, you’re being ironic, right?” She leaned in to me with a wild gleam in her eye, put there by the inability to contain the over spillage of guilty pleasure, and whispered, “I don’t know!”

There is a strange intoxication that comes from dipping your toe into the Jersey Shore franchise.  Once you give yourself over to a few episodes (whatever reason you have … “sick day”, “nothing else was on”, “wanted to see what all the fuss was about”, “my cousin was watching it” … Uh HUH) you’re as powerless to turn away from it as Sammi Sweetheart is to turn away from Ronnie  (even though she knows he’s out there double kissing grenades before stumbling home and climbing into her bed to smoosh).  But say you haven’t watched a day of the show in your life.  Does this Frickin’ Rock Opera still hold up?

You bet your Blowout it does.

Jersey Shoresical begins with a talented Greek chorus cum doo-wop trio who also double as the “Random Sluts” (Kimmy Gatewood, Aynsley Bubbico and Meghan Parks).  This trio catch us up with fun and flair – everything we need to know about how the show came into being and what we can expect from these crazy kids.  Soon the whole gang start arriving.

There’s diminutive, likable Snookie (Karen Diconcetto) followed by gorgeous, in-your-face J-Woww (played by Derrick Barry).  Mike “The Situation” (Max Crumm) is full of self-love and hard abs — a perfect bookend to sweet, smiling, affable Pauly D (Mark Shunock). Complex Sammi “The Sweetest Bitch You’ll Ever Meet” (Hanna LoPatin) is immediately drawn to over-buff knucklehead Ronnie (Daniel Franzese), all while mamma’s boy Vinnie (Mike Ciriaco) tries to keep the peace.  On the fringe is nobody’s favorite, Staten Island Dump Angelina (Rebekka Johnson).

Music Director (and keyboard player) Mike Meehan helps the cast musically review the highlights (and low-lights) of Jersey Shore Lore … everything that fans are looking for is there in song, verse, break out production number or even just small throwaway line. Rentheads will be particularly thrilled at several easter eggs placed in the Frickin’ Rock Opera; I won’t give them away but they are delightful and sophisticated.

Make no mistake – Jersey Shoresical‘s source material is vapid and stupid but  the Book, Music and Lyrics written by Daniel Franzese (who plays Ronnie) and Hanna LoPatin (who plays Sammie Sweetheart) elevates it to another level altogether.  By including some touching ballads such as “Bitch In A Bed” in which Sammi admits she’s a fool for her man this team proves they know how to take even the most meaningless of worlds and give it some depth.   After all, if you cut a Guido, does it not bleed?  And then does it not cut you back, bitch?

Director Drew Droege keeps the pacing quick and with no actual set enlists some clever props in order to create this Seaside Heights paradise.  Standout moments include J-Woww’s “Grow Some Balls” and Snookie’s plea to find a nice “Gorilla Juicehead”.  Costumes by MARCOMARCO and the House of Infinite Radness do much to help this talented cast emulate the Guido culture and special props on the T-shirts which are worthy of T Shirt Time.  (If you haven’t realized by now … I’ve seen more than my fair share of Shore episodes.)

There is one very funny moment when Angelina (played by Rebekka Johnson) gets kicked out of the house only to re-emerge a scene later as Deena.  No costume change, just a wig plopped on her head.  The reason this is so funny is because, honestly, most of the Guidettes of this world look exactly alike anyway, save for a few stylistic differences.  The irony was delightfully satisfying and worked on several levels.

Fans of (or those who admit to watching) Jersey Shore will love Jersey Shoresical for the extreme attention to detail paid by the creative team.  People who have never seen one moment of Jersey Shore will also love Jersey Shoresical – because the final product is just that good.  Either way, this was one hour of entertainment that left me clamoring for more.

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Jersey Shoresical: A Frickin’ Rock Opera

Writer: Book, Music & Lyrics by Daniel Franzese and Hanna LoPatin
Director: Drew Droege

1h 0m
www.jerseyshoresical.com
VENUE #14: Bleecker Theatre
Sun 28 @ 2 (FINAL SHOW CANCELLED DUE TO HURRICANE)

Related Posts:

• FringeNYC 2011 Announces Overall Excellence Award Winners