Linda Evangelista is the source of the oft-quoted line “I won’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day.” I’ve often paraphrased and said that I won’t get out of bed before six a.m. unless a number like that is mentioned. Yeah, well … how about a number like over 5 million?

Let me explain …

Regular readers of The Happiest Medium know that UNDER St. Marks Theater is one of the theatres that I return to time and time again.  It’s where I first laid eyes on Killy Dwyer and Kill The Band, it’s where Alex Bond did her staged reading of Late Nights With The Boys, it’s where Penny Pollak holds Penny’s Open Mic and where Gigi LaFemme holds Revealed Burlesque. It’s where I saw Heidi Grumelot make a sock puppet into something much more in Donnie and the Monsters.  UNDER St. Marks is home to not only an army of downtown theatre artists but also to countless people who sit in the audience and shower them with love.  People like … me.

Well, this news had hardly hit the grapevine before all of downtown took it as a call to action — and very quickly Save UNDER St. Marks was formed.  Please join the group and throw your support behind this if you value all the precious gifts Horse Trade Theater Group has been able to funnel through this space.

So what does this have to do with getting up early?

Well, on Thursday, April 7 · 6:30am – 8:30am Save UNDER St. Marks is having a televised breakfast Event -

We want to invite you all to come out on Thursday morning at 6:45AM (yes AM) to join us in Showcasing the Horse Trade Talent at UNDER St Marks on NY1. Roger Clark will be there to interview us about UNDER St. Marks.

There will be two segments shot, one at 7am and the other around 8am, between the two segments we will run it open mic style with folks jumping up to do short 5 minute sets, the theme will be OWN IT.

We need a good turn out to show NYC that this is so important that even Artists are willing to get out of bed at 6AM and represent.

So if you can stay up all night and get there early — or if you can get out of bed, get yourself purty and look alive — please come join me at UNDER St. Marks on Thursday, April 7 · 6:30am – 8:30am.

Do it because there are moments when you need to join your voice with others in order to make a difference.  And this is one of those moments.

I’ll see you there.  Right?

~~~

More Info about UNDER St. Marks:

UNDER St. Marks is a downtown performance venue with a rich history. An experimental theatre space since the 1970’s, this 45-seat basement theater is now home to a wide variety of performance artists including The BTK Band, Penny’s Open Mic, Revealed Burlesque, Thank You Robot, Adam Wade, Tanya O’Debra, The Management, Little Lord, the Rising Sun Performance Company, No Tea Productions, Wide Eyed Productions, Animal Parts, Subjective Theatre Company, The Pumpkin Pie Show, and the FRIGID New York Festival.

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What I’m about to tell you will sound very controversial . . . you may not even believe me at first. Frankly, I probably shouldn’t even be writing about it at all, but I’m compelled to. You see, last Wednesday night at 8:00pm I was an eye-witness to an alien invasion.

Not just any alien invasion – no . . . this was a Kentucky goblin siege.  There were goblins. There was crazy banjo music. There were slo-mo shoot-outs. There were romantic entanglements. There were personal issues to be ironed out. There was a proposal of marriage. There were spooky noises of several different varieties.  There was a rebellious teen who wanted to be a beatnik.  There were people who weren’t what they said they were.  There was a surprisingly serene baby.  And when it was all over, there was a solid resolution for all involved. If I didn’t know better, I’d say what I’d witnessed was actually a theatrical play.  Hey . . . wait a minute . . .

Of course it was a play. The Kentucky Goblin Siege is the latest offering by No Tea Productions (a group I’ve grown quite fond of over the months) who boast a talented ensemble of comedic performers including Playwright Jeff Sproul who also acts in the piece  – and serves as the company’s Artistic Director.

Directed by Lindsey Moore, this zany tale weaves the storyline of almost a dozen characters (more, if you count the baby and the goblins) who are brought together this one night in 1955 to have a reunion of sorts that quickly turns into a madcap romp.  For little did they know that on this night – August 21, 1955 -  there was to be one of the largest reported alien encounters in U.S. history.

A lot of the humor of The Kentucky Goblin Siege relies on the element of surprise – a character acting out of character – or an unexpected twist. Sproul is a generous writer – every character gets their star turn – however some fare better with the script than others. There are definitely moments when a joke could have used a little more fine tuning, or a different emphasis for a bigger reward, or even just a little more playing to the back row. Still, as I happened to be catching the show on opening night, I’m sure those minor speed bumps will get smoothed out as this team finds the rhythm of those moments.

The Goblins themselves were the work of Puppeteer Anna Paniccia and the Puppet Heap Workshop – who all did a great job of creating dynamic puppets that moved with agility across the stage (each aided by 2 puppeteers discreetly garbed in black). Head Puppeteers Elizabeth Dapo and Ryan-Michele Healey and team puppeteers Alicia Barnatchez, Jesse Bernath, Lisa Nussbaum and Mike Quirk did an altogether effective job of bringing these creatures to life while actually making you forget that they themselves were behind the mischief.  The fact that almost all of them pull double duty as full-fledged characters makes me tip my hat to their versatility and agility alone.

Compliments also to Jeremy Mather who not only creates a lovable dichotomic teen in Lonnie Lankford – who simultaneously looks like he can’t tie his shoes, yet enjoys books on architecture, for he was responsible for the engaging sound design that blankets this Siege.

With fun twangy accents that each actor really gets behind there’s never a dull moment, and the final show down of Man vs. Alien which boasts two well-choreographed slow motion moments (by Fight Choreographer Kenneth Nicholas) caps the story off nicely. While there were a few instances that didn’t quite ring the bell for me, those were far outbalance by many more instances which did.

So, if you’re in the mood for a show jam-packed with puppets, pistols, panic and puns The Kentucky Goblin Siege will transport you from your boring, non-golin-sieged-life to a place where anything can happen, and probably will.

~~~

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I haven’t seen a really good on-stage comedy in a while, so when I heard about No Tea Production’s latest show called Poppycock (written and directed by Jeremy Mather) playing at Under Saint Marks I can definitely say I was excited to see what the evening had in store.

With a title like “Poppycock” I was ready for something silly – how could I not be?  And in that respect, Poppycock delivers.  It does take a little while to get cooking though, so I suggest you sit back and let the show warm up first – a little like Jiffypop (or, you know, to coin a phrase . . . JiffyPoppycock).   The story is both simple enough to follow while still being wildly far fetched and ludicrous enough to evoke laughter.

We first come upon The Diamond Flush Bed and Breakfast during a moment of confusion for current owner Frederick Theodore Pool (James Patrick Cronin), he’s got too much on his mind and too little time to handle everything, including how to save his B&B from landing into the hands of his arch nemesis and old best friend, Barney Crump (Jeff Sproul).  While he’s busy trying to hatch a plan his mute Jill-of-all-Trades / Handy-gal Claudia (Alicia Barnatchez) is puttering around the B&B employing sign language devolved from the School of Harpo Marx in order to get her point across – which she does, effortlessly.

Poppy and Hailey (©2010 Darren Kaminsky)

Enter the Gaiser Sisters: Hailey (Sabrina Farhi) and Poppy (Michele McNally) with Hailey’s boyfriend Howard (James Richard) in tow.  They’ve blown a tire down the road (why, it’s almost as if someone planted nails in the road intentionally in order to draw business to their out of the way bed and breakfast  . . . ) and need a place to stay.  Though Fred does what he can to discourage them from staying, they hunker down for the night anyway.

Through a series of incidents, amusingly told flashbacks, and other well-executed devices the delightfully convoluted plot rolls on and we’re treated to a mash-up that plays like a bit of Three’s Company set in the sleepy setting of the old Newhart Show digs – minus the Darryls.  As the plot got more farcical and the actors settled more into the play, I found myself laughing out loud a lot more that I’d done in a long time.

By the time a mysterious visitor (Daiva Deupree) arrives on the scene, the audience is so ready to accept her broad comical style that what would seem like a caricature in another play comes off as a delightful send-up of all the bridge and tunnel gals who keep the economy going by shopping for clothes at Strawberry’s, accessorizing with Claire’s Accessories, and splurging on girl’s night out at Tequilaville.  If you didn’t go to school with someone just like this gal, then you’re working down the hall from her now.  I couldn’t get enough.

Howard (James Richard) and Hailey (Sabrina Farhi) size up the "visitor" (Daiva Deupree) (©2010 Darren Kaminsky)

Special mention to Jeff Sproul who used just the right verbal and visual hooks to make Barney Crump a memorable and lively character.  His scenes brought the play to another level and he delivered some of the best lines of the show with superb timing.  Also, Alicia Barnatchez brought Claudia to life in a way that perfectly illustrated her range; she drew some of the biggest laughs without saying a word and was able to compete with the rest of the ensemble who had great one liners to work with.  She not only held her own, but completely told us everything we needed to know about Claudia through body language alone.  The character of Claudia also showed that while writer/director Jeremy Mather  knows how to write a funny line for his characters, he’s also great at creating a complex and complete character who must rely purely on physical comedy to bring home the laughs.

Eventually when the whole story wraps up, it does so nicely, and with no deep meaning or earth-changing message  - and who would want it to?  I came for the laughs and I got what I came for.

~~~

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They're Lying

So off I go to UNDER St. Marks to see No Tea Production’s new show, LIARS directed by Lindsey Moore, when on my way there I’m handed a lottery ticket by a man who’s slumped over a mail box.  ”It’s … the winning … ticket ….,” he gasps to me, his arm outstretched, “… take it.  I’m … I’m …” and with that he falls to the ground.  ”What?  He’s what?”  I kick him a bit.  ”What are you?  Dying?  Are you dying?  Is that what you’re saying?”  I turn to my husband, annoyed, with a WTF? look on my face, but he just shrugs.  So I take the lottery ticket, cash it in, and find it’s worth a million bucks.  Then I hire some scrub to write this review for me while I pack for my cruise around the world.  Bon Voyage!

Of course, I’m lying.  But you already knew that …  just like the audience of LIARS … the laughs are built in when you know that everything that comes out of anyone’s mouth is NOT the truth.

LIARS is comprised of eight short plays written by eight different people, two of whom (Jeremy Mather and Jeff Sproul) go on to act in most of the other plays as well as their own.  It’s basically like attending a performance of SNL – same faces, different outfits.

The night starts off a little slow with Sausage Party written by Jeremy Mather.  Maybe it’s been a long time since I’ve been to a party, or maybe my tolerance for the bitchy woman/whipped man pairing has gotten a little low, but this one just didn’t set it up for me.  Still, the great thing about a night of short plays (or really … skits) is that if you’re not particularly grooving along with it, at least you’ve only got to spend another six or seven minutes with it.

Weight by Lindsey Moore (you’ve seen her name before – she’s the director) is better.  Alicia Barnatchez who was just glimpsed briefly one scene before does a great here-I-am-in-the-bathroom-mirror / just-got-up-and-how-the-hell-did-I-change-THIS-MUCH-overnight? routine.  She’s fun to watch, even if Weight does fall a little flat at the very end.

And right there lies the key, really … when you’ve only got this short burst of time to engage an audience, you’ve really got to work it.  Moreover, you’ve got to know how to end it.  A few plays were going great, only to end on this odd note that left the audience with more of a “huh?” than a “ha!” … but the next play definitely ended with a rotflmao, imho.

LOL by Caroline O’Hare lived up to its title – I was lol’ing consistently throughout as six people deftly switched out two personas who found each other in a chat room and adapted themselves right before our eyes.  Anyone who’s ever had an on-line encounter of any kind (from those who just dip their toe into the waves, right on up to those who date almost exclusively in the virtual world before coming up with some excuse as to why they can’t meet in person) will find this six minutes the standout of the evening.

Well, that would be until The Meeting by Jesse Jones … where Olivia Horton as Brett channels a fast talking agent with so much vigor that I didn’t want this one to end.  Jesse Bernath does an admirable job as her client, but this short piece crackles as Olivia whips her way around the stage and babbles cliches at lightening speed.

Which brings out another odd things about watching 8 plays in succession … seeing an actor shine in her 3rd role of the evening after just being marginally impressive in her prior two roles.  No way to tell if it was the writing, the directing or the role, but it’s just odd to see someone come forth and shimmer and then retreat back to being a support player.

Peek by Daniel McCoy had a lot of nice moments in it, and I liked Jeremy Mather (Richard) best here as he waffles his way through a first date with Sarah (Alicia Barnatchez again,  and even more charming).  Once again though, this short takes you a long way and then trips on the last line … and I’m not sure I actually figured out what D. Robert Wolcheck (Man) was actually doing the whole time.

Jeff Sproul and Alicia Barnatchez

Wisconsin by Joe Musso is Absurdist theatre through and through, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed at Wisconsin brick cheese in my life.  Once again, Alicia Barnatchez wins you over immediately, and Jeff Sproul proves that he’s the master of disguise since I thought I was seeing him for the first time when actually he’d played two other characters by this point.

Lore by Matt Sears follows suit in the absurdist vein as little Janey (Sabrina Farhi) stumbles upon Santa (Jeremy Mather) eating cookies in her kitchen in mid July … he’s despondent, covered in green peppermint-smelling elf’s blood and sporting an eye patch.  It’s like Jason Bourne meets Miracle on 34th Street … anything more would give it away.

The evening ends with Evacuation Plan by chameleon Jeff Sproul whom I didn’t recognize YET AGAIN as he starred in his own play.  I could tell you what the title means, but it actually would be better if it came as a surprise.  What I CAN tell you is it made me want to brush up on my Elvish … and it also made me happy that my early days of dating were behind me.  There’s a pun there … but you’d have to see the show to understand it.

All in all, LIARS was an entertaining hour & change … right down to the great use of all those wonderful 80′s songs that employed the word “Lies” such as Lies, Lies, Lies by the Thompson Twins, Little Lies by Fleetwood Mac and Would I Lie to You by the Eurythmics … making set changes fun again.

The production, presented by Horse Trade Theater Group and No Tea Productions, will play at UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1st and A) May 7-23, Thursday through Saturday at 8pm.
Tickets ($15) are available by calling Smarttix at 212-868-4444 or online at www.horseTRADE.info

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