Ever been in a dead end job and it seemed like you were going nowhere?  Everyday the same routine?  Well the title characters of the play Ye Elizabeths have been doing just that for the last several years – and they couldn’t be happier.  They work as reenactors for the Old Salem Township Living History Museum, and are very content  (at least in a superficial way) with the set routines and repetitive but amusing dialogue they have as historical figures.  They also find comfort in the predictable ways their friendship plays out.  But what happens when the perfect job (dead-end or not) goes away?  Who will they be then? 

As the lights dim and then the spot lights come up again, we are launched suddenly into the world of Ye Elizabeths with a fun musical number outlining the premise of the story.  The two heroines (both named Elizabeth) introduce themselves and their world with expert piano accompaniment by Evan Gregory.

We’re reenacting history
From the 17th century
Through our characters we live vicariously
Because we don’t have lives of our own …

They have adventures (like the time when blood from the chicken slaughterers got in their eye and didn’t go away for a month), and gossip about the newbies.  They endure the curse of Wilawamat, and drool over (or disparage) the popular “Pilgrim Plantation” (a reality show about reenactors of the Pilgrim era which we get to see snippets of via a multimedia component of the show expertly and entertainingly done by Jeremy Mather). They also have numerous competitive verbal jousting matches about who is more desperate in one way or another.  Oh and there’s running. “Running’s our favorite”.

Mockucomedramady should be a term made especially for this show.  It quite successfully walks the fine line between slapstick and broad humor, highlighting the special tension between the two Elizabeths played by  Erin Leigh Schmoyer and Alicia Barnatchez.   One such moment is captured perfectly in the song Break-up which they perform in the climactic scene of the show.  With belting power ballad performed by Alicia  interlaced with the beating drum of Erin eviscerating her with rapid staccato in between her notes, we all hold our breath waiting to see how long the spell of their banishment from each other will take to weave. This is a really fun piece showcasing the talent of all three performers – Schmoyer,  Barnatchez and Gregory.

There are at least 3 strong threads weaving through this play.  There is the musical, which in and of itself is very catchy.  Then there is the mockumentary aspect which follows the same vein as Christopher Guest films.  The final and most thoughtful thread is the actual theme: What does it mean to have “a life”?  If you are feeling trapped, maybe you are.  It’s good to be good at what you do and be comfortable, but sometimes you just need to try something else if you’re going to get anywhere.

Alicia Barnatchez and Erin Leigh Schmoyer (Photo by Mike Gregoreksm)

One of the duo is dubbed “Elizasmith” for her aptitude for historical re-enactment of copper smithing and other tinkering, and the other is called “Elizabox” since she is an oxen interpreter who stands upon  a wood box  for the tourists who come through the stations each day.  She relays what the oxen are trying to communicate (“They don’t speak English”).

Elizasmith (Schmoyer) was born into the job being a “duo” with her mom since she was a baby.  In a way, Elizasmith is the more bitter of the two, but also sharper in many ways usually winning the verbal jousting matches the Elizabeths have with each other.  However, she is definitely much less worldly.

Elizabox (Barnatchez) is passionate for her work, and just wants to be the best at it what she is doing.  She wants to stay happy and stable with her friend who seems even more lost than she is.

One humorous meta-comic joke that recurs is simply the style of acting.  Even though the characters are in love with the idea of living in the times of the Pilgrims, in many ways they would fit more in the times of Vaudeville, what with their slapstick antics. It is almost a neo-Vaudvillian style taking the best of slapstick and inserting other more modern improv techniques.  Director Leah Bonvissuto’s hand is well played as she seamlessly moves from one form of story telling or multimedia expression to another while never missing a beat.

In terms of multi-media, the film clips range in style from that of reality show to classic silent movie which illustrates the duo transitioning from the world of Old Salem Township to the more alien outside world of imaginary motel rooms.  The two co-musical directors, Sarah Gregory and Evan  Gregory incorporate a diverse score – one that includes everything from the classic show tune to a smoky jazz song sung by the piano player during a scene change to a power ballad or two.

Erin Leigh Schmoyer and Alicia Barnatchez (Photo by Mike Gregorek)

Though there were a few rough edges in the production Barnatchez and Schmoyer do a great job showcasing the fun of this show, and Evan and Sarah Gregory have written some charming and amusing songs.

The ending might have been a little too pat, but for Ye Elisabeths it actually worked.  It drove home the message that maybe we can’t expect a perfect happily-ever-after for ourselves like we see in Ye Elizabeths, but we can sure try.

If you’re feeling down, this show is just the thing to perk you up.  It’s definitely funny and energizing, and it’s a little like hiding spinach in brownies: you get something good for you in what you though was just something basic and sweet.

~~~

Ye Elizabeths
Benefiting: Girls, Inc.
Produced by Easter Punny Productions
Written & Performed by Alicia Barnatchez and Erin Leigh Schmoyer
Directed by Leah Bonvissuto

$18 General Admission
$9.00 for Film/Music Participants
FREE for Theatre Festivity Participants

Saturday 6/2/12 – 5:00pm = Performance #1
Thursday 6/7/12 – 7:00pm = Performance #2
Friday 6/15/12 – 8:30pm = Performance #3
Saturday 6/16/12 – 3:00pm = Performance #4
Tuesday 6/19/12 – 8pm = Performance #5

50 minutes

At Bleecker Street Theatre (Upstairs)
45 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012
Conveniently located near:
Bleecker St (4 & 6)
Broadway – Lafayette St (B, D, F, M)
Prince St (N, R)
click here to purchase tickets

Related Posts:

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• Pageant Princess – Music, Make-Up And Meltdowns (2012 Planet Connections Festivity)
• Cake: When All Else Fails, Eat It (Planet Connections 2010)
• What The F* Is Going On? F*It Club’s Spring Fling!
• The Extraordinary Fall of the Four-Legged Woman: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2016 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)

There’s something truly wonderful about smartly written children’s stories.  When you look at the enduring ones they’re not still around because they’re cute or funny or have clever titles . . . they’re still around because they teach an amazing lesson in a subtle and gentle way.  So, while Stinky Flowers and the Bad Banana has a title I could say over and over again and still laugh – I don’t think it’s gotten as far as it has on funny alone.  In fact, after hearing what creator Croft Vaugh had to say about his play, I think the reason this show has come this far is because its creator is as extraordinary as its topic.

Beginning as solo play performed by Croft Vaughn himself, Stinky Flowers and the Bad Banana was first presented as part of Six Figures Theatre Company’s Artists of Tomorrow Festival at the Westside Theatre in December 2006. From there it went to both the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2007) and the Indianapolis Fringe Festival (2008). The new 5-person version of the play was presented in 2008 as part of The Management’s Salon Reading Series.  Now, audiences will be able to see the first fully staged production of the ensemble version of Stinky Flowers and the Bad Banana at UNDER St. Marks.

Today Croft Vaugh tells me about the challenges of turning a solo-show into an ensemble piece, he explains how Fairy Tales are filled with parental imagery, and he gives some advice on how to transform yourself into a monkey . . .

Stinky Flowers and the Bad Banana has got to be the cutest title I’ve ever run across. Tell me about what it means.

Playwright Croft Vaughn

CV: Well thank you for the compliment! The show is a fairytale frame play, and the title references two of the tales. I was visiting the Brooklyn Botanical Garden with a friend, and I had some bad news for him. I was trying to think of a way to bring up the subject without saying, “Listen, I’ve got bad news”, so I told him that I had a stinky flower for him. I liked the oddness of the metaphor, so I turned it into a fairytale about telling the truth when you have bad news. Stinky Flowers is the story that launched this show back in 2006. The Bad Banana tale is top secret, but I should warn you; the audience will be full of monkeys.

Stinky Flowers and the Bad Banana started off  as a solo show, and has now evolved into a 5 person ensemble piece. What prompted that?

My friend Kelly Miller is a literary manager and dramaturg. She saw my performance at the East to Edinburgh Festival at 59E59 Theaters. After the show, she grabbed my arm, looked me in the eye and said, “Croft, this show is beautiful. You need to write it for 5 actors for regional theaters, and for 45 actors, for high-schools.” I ran with her advice, and drummed up versions for Broadway, Cruises, and ultimately, the Pixar feature animation film, followed by a successful cartoon spin-off and tons of merchandise. If anyone knows how I can make that happen, please call me. Immediately.

What’s been the most challenging aspect of translating a solo show into an ensemble piece?

I think formatting is really hard, does that count? The play is steeped in storytelling, so, the bones of the play didn’t need to change much. It’s fun to write new characters, and discover what kind of trouble they can get into. I think the most challenging part was just allowing the play to take over with the new characters. Letting them speak, and drive the show with their fears and curiosity. Letting the new play organically develop.

Your tag-line “They . . . discover the answer to, ‘Are we still loved after the person who loves us is gone?‘” is so poignant and moving that it could almost be a line of poetry. That’s no ordinary theme. Where does it come from?

Thank you! I wish certain MFA admissions departments had your keen intuition. But I’ll fess up – I didn’t realize that’s what the play was about till about 3 years after I began working on it. I wrote a lullaby in the play that the kids discover on a cassette tape. It’s their mother singing, “Everything You Want to Know.” I was working with some musicians, trying to express to them what I needed from the song, and I had a moment of sublime clarity. That’s the question these kids face in the show. It’s something you can’t answer, so you have to take it on faith. For me, it touches a very deep and personal fear; one that I take on faith is universal. While that may be the heart of the show, the meat of the play is smart and entertaining tales told by 3 military brats who are convinced the audience is going to eat them. I’m going to be in the audience every night, so that could very well happen.

What’s your favorite moment in the play?

This is where my brilliant (to the nth degree) director comes in. It’s a good thing David A. Miller is such a great person, because with smarts like his in the wrong hands, you’d have a Robert Moses of Theatre. He’s the rare breed of artist who knows how to foster an environment where magic can happen. I just sat in on a run-through of the play, and the amount of creativity on display speaks to the freedom these actors have. Dorothy Abrahams only had a scarf with which to turn herself into a monkey, so she ties it around her head like Axel Rose. Welcome to the jungle, indeed! There was also an inspired moment with an earmuff by Lauren Sowa. Robert James Grimm’s Evil King puts my Evil King to shame, and that’s no small feat.

What part of the show have you found resonates most with the audience?

Monkeys. I think everyone resonates really well with monkeys. The finale is quite marvelous too. Maybe it’s the story about the 2 birds told in silence because it activates the sniffles pretty quickly… There’s something special in the relationship Sinclair has with his Grandfather. Fairytales are flush with characters who are not your parents, and at the same time, are your parents. For me, that’s like a grandparent. Sinclair develops an imaginary friend who takes on the role of his Grandpa to help tell the stories. Eventually he drops the charade and faces the truth. Fairytales carry the courage of their convictions. This is how the kids find the courage to create their own story, the ending of which weaves a fantastic finale for all the other tales. I’d say the audience relates to the journey of the show more than any single part.

And finally – what’s your favorite Stinky Flower?

Stinky Flowers!

Playing favorites with flora will only get you into trouble. On that note!  There are 2 genuinely stinky flowers, and I prefer Rafflesia Arnoldii. Take that Amorphophalis Titanum! Don’t worry – A.T. won’t flower again for like, 70 years. Rafflesia has no stem, no roots, no leaves. It’s just a fat, ugly flower, with a big hollow head. It sits parasitically on a vine, looks like something from The Dark Crystal, and smells like rotting meat. It is the king of stinky flowers in my opinion. Although, there are some members of Congress that give Rafflesia a run for it’s money…

___________

Be sure to catch Stinky Flowers and the Bad Banana – and check back here to read my review of the show.  I can’t wait to see what Croft Vaughn and his talent ensemble has in store.

~~~

Related Posts:

• Stinky Flowers And The Bad Banana Has Heart . . . And Cookies!
• “Bigger Than I” is Bigger Than All Of Us
• LIARS – Don’t Believe A Word Of It
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photo by Enrico Luttmann

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal;
bad poets deface what they take, and good poets
make it into something better, or at least something different.

T.S. Eliot

The very idea of Three Sisters Come and Go was risky to begin with.  A collaborative effort between the actors — Liza Cassidy, Claire Helene and Jackie Lowe –, the director, Orietta Crispino, and dramaturg, Marco Casazza, the play would open with Samuel Beckett’s “dramaticule,” Come and Go, and then the following scenes would be drawn from the texts of Anton Chekhov’s four major plays: Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, The Sea Gull, and The Three Sisters (which, to add to the complexity of the intertextuality, is a play based loosely on the three Bronte sisters), and the entirety of the play was to be governed by Structuralist philosopher and critic Julia Kristeva’s ideas about … something or other.

At this point, I stopped reading.  It was Friday evening, and my mind lagged from the workweek.  I shut down my work computer, left work, took the subway back over Manhattan Bridge, met someone for a drink, and told him I was worried about the play I was going to go see.  The intertextuality of it was making me nervous the same way fusion restaurants do.  Mixing together so many different stories could very well end up leaving a bad taste in one’s mouth.

We finished our drinks, and I went home, changed, headed back toward the subway, went back over Manhattan Bridge, disembarked at 14th Street, and walked toward TheaterLab.

As an ardent devotee of Chekhov, especially his short stories, part of me also wanted to be against Three Sisters Come and Go, out of loyalty and artistic principal, from the get-go; one simply cannot just ransack Chekhov’s plays for jewels and place them all together in one setting.

photo by Enrico Luttmann

I reached 6th Avenue, stopped for a quick espresso, and drank it in one gulp as I approached the theater.  I went upstairs, picked up my ticket, met a friend and entered a tiny dark room with spare white walls and about twenty or so white chairs arranged to face a small stage where three actors sat, motionless, expressionless, and wearing hats that covered their eyes, as the audience settled.  “Sure,” I thought, turning off my cell phone, “given the initial premise, Three Sisters Come and Go would at least be some kind of statement on art.  But,” I worried, “would it succeed in being art?”

Once everyone was seated, the audience hushed and stared at the three figures on stage, who, if not for the floppy brims of their hats, would be staring back. The tiny room was suddenly transformed into a space where the three women directed questions about each other to each other in various configurations.  This was Beckett’s Come and Go in its hypnotizing, though brief and simple, entirety—a kind of (forgive me), “Poststructuralist Gossip Girl,” I whispered to my friend after the dramaticule ended and the curtain dropped.

When the curtain opened again, three women dressed in black, holding black lace parasols stood starkly offset by the bright white of the stage and all its trimmings, complete with white lace curtains as a backdrop.  This was just one instance of the performance piece quality of the scenes that would follow, with stark black, white and red colors running through the costume and set design so that the actors became almost ornamental.

I found that, as the play continued in a variety of postmodern situations, the scenes were surprisingly emotionally resonant, despite their spliced quality, largely due to the almost seamless acting of Liza Cassidy, Claire Helene and Jackie Lowe, whose characters succeeded in being at once characters and caricatures of their characters.  One moment they’d have you sympathizing with their deepest sorrows, and the next moment they’d laugh off their own despair, and you’d laugh it off with them.

The play is composed of a number of scenes in which the characters converse with one another, as well as three solo pieces, giving each character a chance to embody a certain Chekhovian idea.  The play ends with all three characters on stage as Liza Cassidy finishes her solo that parodies melancholia while feeling its sorrow: “Just back and forth…it becomes a living thing,” Cassidy says, “So beautiful and so sad / So beautiful so sad / Isn’t that enough.”

And as it ended, a similar question occurred to me, as my friend and I put on our jackets and walked downstairs and back onto 14th Street:  Is that enough?

We paused on the sidewalk.  “I think it is enough,” my friend said.  I nodded.  We started, again, to walk.

But I had another question.  Would it be unfair to compare this Chekhov to Chekhov Chekhov?

“Yes,” she said.  “It wasn’t trying to be Chekhov Chekhov.”

That was true.  But was Three Sisters Come and Go defacing, to use T.S. Eliot’s term, the Chekhov it took, or did it succeed in making Chekhov something better than Chekhov?

“It wasn’t trying to be Chekhov,” my friend said again.

And still, I had another, larger question:  Given the spliced quality of this play’s text and scenes, could a play subsist without a story?

“There was a story,” my friend said.

“No,” I said, “There wasn’t a story.  There were themes.  Can themes constitute a story?”

We walked further.  Can a play rely only on themes and images to link its parts together the way a poem can?

I wasn’t sure.  My friend wasn’t either.  We walked further.

“We both enjoyed it, though, right?”

Crossing 3rd Avenue, we resoundingly agreed that we both really did enjoy Three Sisters Come and Go despite, or perhaps because of, its fragmented self-ironizing form.  We then located and entered a crowded bar where we were meeting a third friend and ordered three beers.

As the three of us stood at the bar, suddenly I felt that everything—the NYU students, the bartenders, the filling of glasses, the emptying of glasses—had a Poststructural theatrical quality to it.  Patrons would produce small wads of bills from their pockets, lean on the bar, shout a few words, and back over the bar would come tiny shot glasses on tiny silver trays, as if by themselves.  Bills were produced, a figure would lean, a figure would shout, and back over the bar came the silver trays.  And again: bills, lean, shout, bar, silver tray.  Bills, lean, shout, bar, silver tray.

In Act One of Chekhov’s The Sea Gull, Konstantine Gavrilovich Trepleff, an aspiring young playwright, and his uncle, Peter Nikolaevich Sorin, discuss the theatre:

TREPLEFF: …theatre today is nothing but routine, convention.  When the curtain goes up, and by artificial light in a room with three walls, these great geniuses, these priests of holy art, show how people eat, drink, make love, move about and wear their jackets; when they try to fish a moral out of these flat pictures and phrases, some sweet little bit anybody could understand and any fool take home; when in a thousand different dishes they serve me the same thing over and over, over and over, over and over—well, it’s then I run and run….

SORIN:  But we can’t do without the theatre.

TREPLEFF:  We must have new forms.  New forms we must have, and if we can’t get them we’d better have nothing at all.

In the end, my friend and I agreed that any artist, living or dead, would be hard pressed to make Chekhov into something better than Chekhov, as Eliot suggests mature poets must do when stealing material, but Crispino and her talented cast of Three Sisters Come and Go certainly did succeed in making Chekhov something different.

~~~

Related Posts:

• Ye Elizabeths: Living Vicariously Because … (2012 Planet Connections Festivity)
• Stinky Flowers, Sweet Thoughts
• Two Turns Adaptation Of Henry James’ Novella Successfully Merges Theatre & Philanthropy
• No I’m First! The Diary Of Anne Frankenstein Extended
• Eli and Cheryl Jump … Look After You (Fringe Festival 2009)

Christina LaFortune and Vince Gatton

Henry James’ novella The Turn of the Screw is one of my favorite works committed to paper, being a wonderful macabre pastime that my Grandmother and I used to share together, acting out the roles as we read along. I feel it is truly one of the most important staples of Gothic Literature. With every read or artistic version (such as the film The Innocents) a new strata of possibility can be found in the characters, who are as fascinating now as ever. Two Turns Theatre Company’s amazing adaptation of this piece has put their finger on the pulse of these characters, and found an innovative way to share a classic tale.

The story centers around a young Governess (a riveting Christina LaFortune) who is hired to care for two young children by their wealthy uncle (a brilliant Vince Gatton, in one of his several roles of the evening) who lives in London. While captivating the young woman with his charms (“There. I’ve seduced you!” he exclaims when she agrees), he makes it clear that he does not want to be disturbed or informed about anything to do with the children, and the young governess is sent off to Essex where the niece, Flora, is being cared for by the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. Flora’s brother Miles, arrives home soon thereafter, apparently from being kicked out of school. Soon, the governess begins to see a mysterious man and woman on the grounds of the estate and in the windows, staring at the children – and begins to believe that the ghosts of the former governess and her lover have come back to steal the children away from her.

Vince Gatton

When I was informed that the play was only two actors (one of whom would be playing at least four roles) and only 70 minutes, I was curious how they were going to pull it off, mostly in relation to the time frame. This whole novella, as a play, in so little time? I didn’t have worries about the multiple roles. Vince Gatton, one of my favorite actors, is very familiar with playing multiple roles in a show (having played 35 separate characters on stage in two different plays before). His ability to use physicality is remarkable.  In this production he plays male and female roles, including Mrs. Grose and Miles.

Let me just go on the record and state that this production WORKS, and all in just over an hour. Two Turns and director Ken Cerniglia totally sell this – and playwright Jeffrey Hatcher’s one-act adaptation is thrilling to watch and experience. LaFortune ‘s  slow descent that blurs the line between her sanity (or lack thereof) and the supernatural is a joy to watch. Critics of the original novella were always divided on whether the governess was mad or the ghosts were real; I very much enjoyed Hatcher’s version, which gave the character a new dimension and asked even stronger questions about the bizarre relationship between the children and their previous caretakers. Gatton’s portrayal of the 10-year-old Miles was profoundly eerie, and the show overall was very suspenseful, even after having been very familiar with the original story.

Instead of a theatre, the play is performed in the Merchant House Museum on East 4th Street, a 178-year-old home that is a preserved landmark that maintains its 19th century integrity inside and out. Proceeds from the production go to help generate income for the non-profit Victorian home. From the moment you enter the building, you are greeted by the quiet hush that comes from incredibly old homes. The fact that the historic dwelling is rumored to be haunted only adds to the luscious ambiance. Upon being seated in an upstairs parlor surrounded by the ornate furniture, drapes, gorgeous mirrors and gaslights, one realizes that the home is also an actor in the piece – it’s more than just a set. When you think about it, if this story was being told back in the 19th century, people would have acted out the roles by candle light or oil lamps, in much the same manner. The way the show is deftly staged in the space by Cerniglia, allowing the actors use of both ends of a narrow playing area so that all the audience can see them and effectively tell the story, was a learning experience for me.

Ah, They've Seduced Us.

The fact that the company has made it its mission to give back to the community by donating the majority of the proceeds from their productions to non-profits such as the Merchant House (while showing off the home in such a delightful fashion) is wonderful. The idea is becoming more prevalent nowadays, thankfully: create theatre in ways that can help the community while maintaining artistic integrity. I only hope that Turn of the Screw, which only ran for six performances, returns soon for a longer run.

Related Posts:

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• Delving Into DARK WATER With Diánna Martin
• Coyote On A Fence – FREE Staged Reading – 5 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2012 Planet Connections Festivity)
• Ye Elizabeths: Living Vicariously Because … (2012 Planet Connections Festivity)
• Women’s History Month: Celebrating Women In The Arts – Spotlight On Diánna Martin

Lets start with a tangent shall we. I always hate when reviews only focus on their headlining actor.

Exhibit A. Roundabout Theatre’s current revival of After Miss Julie: all the reviews have focused on Sienna Miller and her amazing-to-some (or stale-to-others) performance, only a handful remembered to mention the likes of Johnny Miller and Marin Ireland without really going into detail on their stage craft. As you get to know me, you will learn I am Marin Ireland’s number one fan! I cursed the day I missed Beebo Brinker Chronicles, but kissed the ground of the day our love affair began during reasons to be pretty and our second date at After Miss Julie … now to The Diary of Anne Frankenstein.

Mimi Imfurst is Anne Frankenstein

I plead guilty to committing one of my biggest pet peeves, only mentioning the star! I plead guilty to bursting in delight over none other than Mimi Imfurst … drag superstar of the NYC Nightlife, the decadent Underworld, the dive queer karaokes, and she’s a 3 time Glammy and HX Drag Queen of the Year nominee to boot. Yes, I voted for her in the search of the next contestant for Season 2 of  RuPaul’s Drag Race (no idea what came out of it) but here’s hoping she ends up being a finalist.

Mimi is playing none other than Anne Frankenstein in the “adaptation”, or as the press notes state, in the absurdist re-imagining of the Mary Shelley classic  (The Diary of Anne Frank) by Ilya Sapiroe.

This world premiere production opened October 1st at 13th Street Rep and was scheduled to run until November 8th.  This was on my list of shows to go to, but due to an overwhelming Season I was about to miss it. Well the glittery gods have answered our prayers, as the show has now been extended through November 29th.

The Diary of Anne Frankenstein follows Anne, a lowly hermaphroditic Franken-girl (and her companion diary), as she comes of age in the attic of an abandoned genetics laboratory in Bavaria in 1945. After years of peaceful anonymity, Anne’s privacy comes to an end when her cruel and twisted creator, Dr. Gustav Frankenstein, returns to the defunct compound with an eye toward his most fiendish experiment yet – the resurrection of Adolf Hitler!

By the time I bring you a review you will have probably read of the show elsewhere … good thing each opinion is like a snowflake, or should I say in this case — a glitterflake? And I solemnly swear to mention the “Johnny Millers”and “Marin Irelands” of this production.

Tickets to the show are $22.50 at Theatermania, and you can visit the show site for more information.

The show’s schedule is: Oct 1-Nov 8, Thursdays and  Saturdays at 9pm, Sundays at 7pm; Sundays Nov. 15, 17 & 29 at 7pm; and Saturday Nov. 28 at 9pm.

13th Street Rep is located at 50 West 13th Street between 5th & 6th Aves (accessible from the F, L, 1 & 9 train)

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• Scene/Unseen – 5 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2012 Planet Connections Festivity)
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You can tell it’s Fringe Season when theatres ’round the city are suddenly bustling with life at odd hours of the day and escorting people in and out quickly so they can strike a set and get ready for the next show which is happening in, oh, about a minute.  Yes, it’s all about endings and beginnings at Fringe which is why it’s rather fitting that I started my rounds this year with two very different plays that both dealt with the same fine line between living and dying, and what you do with that quick snap of a moment in between the two blackouts.  Eli and Cheryl Jump takes you off on the wind of fanciful, magical, dreaminess while Look After You shows the realistic portrait of a life interrupted by a flash of illness that comes quickly and takes certainty with it.  Both plays speak to the frailty of what we take for granted every day, both highlight what it means to be a survivor.
On Friday I saw Eli and Cheryl Jump written by Daniel McCoy, directed by Nicole A. Watson and featuring Charles Linshaw  (Eli) and Cassandra Vincent  (Cheryl et al).  I’d had the pleasure of chatting with Dan and interviewing him for this column so I was a little more prepared than my fellow audience members about what to expect at the top of the show.  Still, as promised, Martha Goode’s amazing sound design does much to start this play off with a wail … the pump of adrenaline that went coursing through my system within the first few moments did an amazing job of making me (and I suspect everyone else in the audience) part of the play, not just passive spectators.  It was a very good(e) way of getting 100% audience buy-in right from the get-go.

Eli and Cheryl Jump tells the sometimes magical, sometimes unbelievable story of Eli and his amazing gift of survival.  From a young age Eli could avoid harm, but always had a tricky way of inadvertently sacrificing someone (or something) else in his place, a type of karmic debt handed off to another soul.  Of course, by the time Eli realizes that this is happening it’s already too late … there’s been one too many lives lost and one too many parts of his heart that he can’t seem to function without.  His once joyful dream now  becomes an escape plan;  he runs off  to New York in the hopes of doing less harm in this huge anonymous pool of humanity.  Unfortunately, it’s here that he does perhaps the greatest harm of all.

Cassandra Vincent and Charles Linshaw

There are only two actors in this play, but several characters.  As Eli moves through his life he encounters several pivitol women, each of whom is played by Cassandra Vincent.  While Charles Linshaw has the arc of the story on his shoulders, it is Cassandra Vincent who holds the nuance of the story; with out her and her talent of transforming into the various women in Eli’s life with the simple use of a shawl, or a drawl this would just be the story of a lone, sad man who exiles himself in order to not hurt anyone.  It is also Cassandra’s New York landlady which provides some of the lighter notes to this play, a nice moment of comic relief before the play gets back to business.

The last scene of the play, which brings us back around to the first scene, is so well done that it’s almost too painful to watch.  I was so emotionally transfixed by not only the actual scene being played out, but by the rush of memories (you’ll just have to see it to know what I’m referencing), that I’m not sure I was even remembering to breath until the show was over.  I’d read the script before seeing the show and I’d said to myself  then (after wiping away tears)  … if this is half as good in person as it is on the page I will be a wreck afterwards.

I was.

That’s a good thing … theatre should move people to tears.  Or chills.  Or shaking.  Or all three.

Eli and Cheryl Jump
Ignited States in Association with Crosstown Playwrights
Writer, Daniel McCoy
Director,  Nicole A. Watson
www.ignitedstates.com
VENUE #9: The Players Loft
Remaining Shows:  Thursday August 20 @ 7:15;  Monday August 24 @ 3:15;  Friday August 28 @ 11;  Saturday August 29 @ 12:45

Look After You

Look After You – by Louise Flory, directed by David Stallings

Hannah (Louise Flory) is a photographer which makes sense; this play is not just a snapshot of a life but (to stretch a metaphor) this play shows us Hannah’s world clearly framed through her lens after an aneurysm has taken away a lot of the way she used to look at life.  Her life before is fuzzy and half forgotten, everything which came after is captured in flashes of stark realization.  While a picture may be worth a thousand words, what do you do when some of your pictures are gone?

We come upon Hannah on the cusp of a brain aneurysm; her boyfriend  Jake (Jason Altman)  is devoted to her, which is obvious, but is also slowly growing angry/fearful/uncomfortable [insert not so smiley emotion here] with her condition.  And how couldn’t he be?  Apparently without the engagement ring on her finger (taken off before surgery)  Hannah has forgotten that Jake has asked her to marry him; and in her present condition he’s not so sure he should ask her again.   Flory (wearing her play writing hat) does an excellent job of showing how this is not as black and white as it would appear; this is not simply about a man afraid of committing to a woman who now is living in a limbo state, sometimes remembering things they did, sometimes not, and always living in the shadow of the possibility that she could “re-bleed” any time and die.  (“The statistics are not pretty” we’re reminded over and over again in one form or another of  casual conversation between each pairing of characters). Nor has he stopped loving her now that she is “damaged”.  Rather, he’s contemplative … and sometimes being too thoughtful is a dangerous thing.

Jason is a writer, currently penning a book about Sherpas who scale Everest over and over again without harm despite the threat of avalanches, falling rocks, severe exhaustion, sickness, infections and of course accidental death. By giving Jake an obsession with Sherpas who climb  and always come back,  Flory simultaneously makes Jake heartbreaking yet hopeful.  Here is a man who is consumed with trying to understand how to beat the odds, he needs an answer on what makes a survivor survive.  What is the key, the magic wand, the secret incantation that keeps these Sherpas alive year after year, trip up the mountain after trip up the mountain?  By studying them, will he find it?  And even if he does, will knowing their secret be enough to then save Hannah?

Adi Kurtchik (Lucy) and Louise Flory (Hannah)

In a supporting role is Lucy (Adi Kurtchik), Hannah’s Get-Right-Down-To-Business Sister who arrives like a whirlwind and over turns every stone in the hopes that her sister’s condition is really just the fault of everyone else’s ineptitude (she doesn’t want to hear that anyone else has done research, that any of the mental exercises are strenuous enough, or that Hannah is being realist [read fatalistic] enough).  Kurtchik is an absolute gem, and surprisingly layered; while she plays the one note invasive sister very well, when it’s necessary for her to blow up, or show her softer side she is alternately volcanic and vulnerable and even when she’s annoying Hannah you tend to, if not be on her side, then at least see where she’s coming from.

Similarly, what could have been merely expositional scenery … the role of Jake’s friend Paul … is brought charmingly to life by Lowell Byers.  He’s a bartender by trade and carries the easy grace of someone who’s used to being taken into someone’s confidence. When Jake reveals that Hannah no longer remembers that she and Jake are engaged, Paul argues convincingly and from the heart as to why Jake needs to tell Hannah the truth.  He’s a good best friend to Jake, but over all he’s just a really good friend to Hannah when he needs to be, even though she has no memory of knowing him at all.

Some of the best plays conclude not so much with an ending, but with a beginning, as if what you’ve just watched was the prelude to a life you can now settle back and continue to imagine.  Look After You is definitely one of those plays.  At the end we’re left with just as many unanswered questions about these characters, their lives, their motives, what will happen next, and how it will all bear out, but at least we now know them all a little better, and we had the opportunity to walk in their shoes for a little while.

Look After You
Maieutic Theatre Works-MTWorks
Writer, Louise Flory
Director, David Stallings
www.LookAfterYouThePlay.com
VENUE #16: The SoHo Playhouse
Remaining Shows:  Friday August  28 @ 9:30  Saurdtay August  29 @ 1:30

I plan on seeing as many of the Fringe shows as I can; look for more of my reviews here and on The Fab Marquee.
For more information about Fringe click here  …

Related Posts:

• Jumping Into The Fringe with Daniel McCoy (Fringe Festival 2009)
• The 2012 National Newborn Festival Is Almost Here!
• A Day In The Life … “The Family Shakespeare” By The Numbers
• MTWorks National NewBorn Festival Kicks Off Tonight
• Small Town, Big Show – “Barrier Island”

New York Fringe Festival 2009

Unless you’ve been living outside of New York City for the last decade or so, chances are you’ve either attended a Fringe show yourself, or you’ve at least heard about the festival.  ”Fringe”, of course, means The New York International Fringe Festival and it is the largest multi-arts festival in North America, with more than 200 companies from all over the world performing for 16 days in more than 20 venues.  It kicks off in just two weeks on August 14th, so right now everyone involved is  getting their act together, so to speak, and preparing for Opening Night.

One very special show which will be featured this year at the Fringe Festival is Eli and Cheryl Jump, a poetic, haunting play written by Daniel McCoy.  I got a chance to chat with Daniel and find out what it’s like to be part of the Fringe, what sparked him to write this play, and what he hopes it will mean to the audience.

Playwright Daniel McCoy

KTL - Eli and Cheryl Jump will be playing at the Fringe Festival. Tell me what it means for you, as a writer, to have one of your works be a part of the Fringe.
DMcC – This is the first time that I applied, so I’m very excited to have had my play accepted into the festival. When I first moved to New York back in 2006 I volunteered at Fringe Will-Call to get free tickets; it was my little “Welcome to New York” experience so Fringe has been a constant for me. Having a play in the Festival is like coming full circle.

KTL – Well congratulation. Do you feel like you’ve “arrived”?
DMcC – It’s definitely a nice check mark. It feels like a bit of a right of passage, having a show at the Fringe. Maybe by the 3rd or 4th one I’ll be jaded. (Laughs). The Fringe Festival is such a brand and such an identifiable thing. When you tell people “Hey, I’ve got a show in the Fringe” everyone knows what that means, everyone knows when it is. It’s definitely a milestone for me.

KTL - What’s the most unusual thing that’s happened as a byproduct of being part of Fringe?
DMcC – I feel like everything’s gone by the book so far. Martha Goode from Ignited States has done a bunch of Festivals, and so has the other company she is involved with, MTWorks. They know the ropes. Martha’s job is to keep everything floating so that we can focus on pulling the play together. Oh, and Martha is the sound designer as well, so she’s pulling double duty! We’re just cranking though, getting ready to open. Of course, we haven’t been in for a tech yet or a space walk-though, so that will be an experience. We only get 2 hours for that.

KTL - Only two hours? Really?
DMcC - Yeah, that’s the allotment, twice the running time of your show, and we’ve got a one-hour show, so that’s what we get! We’re lucky, though, Eli and Cheryl Jump is pretty light on the tech so it’s not as difficult as some.

KTL - About the Title “Eli and Cheryl Jump” … it’s very evocative.  And it could be taken as very cryptic or very literal. Or, it could almost be a last name. I must say, the first time I saw it I thought “Oh, Eli and Cheryl Jump” as in “Eli and Cheryl Smith”.
DMcC -(Laughs) Wow, really? No … it’s definitely a verb.

Eli and Cheryl Jump

KTL - Well, I know that now, since I’ve read it. But what were you trying to put into people’s mind’s with the title?
DMcC – In the play there’s obviously a big reveal. But that’s not all the play is about. The events are not what it’s about, it’s the journey Eli goes through … this mythology that’s been created by his mom, created by feelings of his absent father, turning it from something that’s a curse into something he can use to empower and to aid in this moment of crisis he and Cheryl find themselves in. There are several reasons for the title, I also wanted to give away the game, so to speak, and not try to force a surprise. It’s still inherent, but placing flash forwards to the crisis that the 2 main characters are in, I wanted to go there right away, that’s why the play starts where it does. So the title was along those lines. It both keeps a secret and yet completely reveals. This is not a play about a twist or a surprise, but about a monumental action in both their lives. It has layers, physically and spiritually that hopefully work in tandem. Plus, at the end of the day, it was the title. It just was the title that felt right.

KTL - Of course I don’t want you to tell too much or give anything away, but what can you tell me about the seeds that started Eli and Cheryl Jump?
DMcC – I did a first draft in December of 2007, and then we did a workshop in Spring of ’08 with Crosstown Playwrights who are the writer affiliates of Ignited States; it’s a number of us who meet on a weekly basis. I needed a play for our Spring Forward Festival so I had submitted a few that weren’t working for me and all of a sudden I said I’ll write a play in a week, use whatever came out no matter what, and this is what resulted. You can’t always remember the first spark … it could be an image … there’s one pretty significant image that I could reference right now but I won’t … but I started writing the story that Eli’s mother is telling in the beginning of the play. It was almost written as a short story, about Eli’s life and journey. And it grew from that as it does in the play.

KTL – This play is very poetic – there’s a lot of mysticism about it. Why did you choose that voice to tell this story?
DMcC – I was frustrated and I wasn’t coming up with something so I basically posed 2 challenges to myself: to write in a style I’m not drawn to – a monologue piece with direct address. And two: I chose to tackle a subject which I felt I had no business approaching just because of my relative lack of connection to it in my own life experience.

KTL – So this style was a first for you …
DMcC – At the time, yes, it was. But I have noticed that, since writing Eli and Cheryl Jump I play more with that poetic style and form. A lot of my work previously was more straight, naturalistic dialog. Now I’ve been working in a more presentational, poetic style since writing this play and saw that it worked at least in this context. The subject dictates the form, and what I like, what I think is successful (I hope) is how it undulates back and forth, in and out. In the flashbacks, in the car with Carla Jean, to the scenes with Eli’s landlady, when he first meets Cheryl … those are all fairly naturalistic and take place firmly in our world. But then reality cracks open and we see the Id of Eli, in some cases, or the mythic figure he aspires to be (or run from) and that’s when we run into “story land”, the world that his mother created for him. That’s when that world becomes his reality, and ours as well.

Cheryl and Eli

KTL – Your play has several different characters but only 2 actors, there’s limited stage direction and you say there can be limited-to-no set design, so it’s all a very minimalist approach. Tell me about how you came to make those choices.
DMcC – Well, as far as having just one actress play all these women in Eli’s life, I felt it was very important to keep Cheryl present on stage. Chronologically Cheryl’s character doesn’t enter till the final 3rd of the play, but with the use of the first flash forward we meet her character right away. So you’re introduced to her at the start, but then she’s absent until the “third act”.   And of course she’s important — the play is named after her, after all! (Laughs). So it was an interesting, fun, challenging way for her to be on stage; having one actress assume all these important figures in Eli’s life. And there’s no pulling-the-wool over the audience’s eyes, the actress simply assumes different body language and uses another voice. It’s fun for a really good actor to take on a part like that. It’s satisfying dramatically and keeps us invested in each of the characters. And this way a single actress becomes an equal player on the stage, as opposed to four smaller supporting roles.
As far as my reasons behind having a minimalistic set – honestly, it’s easily producible. I mean, we could take this play out on to the streets if we wanted to and perform it right there. Plus, I tend to enjoy minimalist production. It engages you. You, as an audience, get to meet the performers halfway and fill in the blanks. And certainly when you have a play like Eli and Cheryl Jump – one that changes location and time and goes in and out of reality – well really then it’s all or nothing. Unless you could bring in a turn table and fly things in and out, and have scenery on tracts, the only other thing to do would be to have absolutely nothing and and let imagination be the set. We also have great sound design to fill in a bit of that voice, it’s a pretty important element here, almost like a sound collage. Ultimately, I just really enjoy the rawness and honesty that worked for us with 2 actors and some chairs … doing what we were doing, creating this piece of theatre 5 feet form the audience. It’s very immediate … there’s no place to hide. It’s a very honest experience.

KTL – What do you hope people will take away from Eli and Cheryl Jump?
DMcC - I want the audience to have made that leap with Eli and Cheryl and be glad that they did. I think what’s going to do that is not the script but the absolute beauty and honesty with which the actors do the show. Charles Linshaw and Cassandra Vincent had the first reading yesterday and I was shivering at what they were bringing to the piece already. Nicole Watson, our director, knows how to navigate the play, how to make it pop and make it soar, it’s going to be on them to turn it from (again, I hope) a good read on the page to making it an experience. I want the audience to be shaken a bit but glad they went on the journey. I hope it’s a unique journey and not just another play.

KTL – Well, here’s my favorite part of the interview – Bonus question time. You can talk about any topic, no censorship, promote a cause, tell a joke, whatever you want. The floor is yours. No pressure.
DMcC - I also happen to be part of an ensemble called The New York Neo-Futurists who perform a show called Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind.

KTL - Hey, I”m going to review that next week for The Fab Marquee!
DMcC - Well, you are in for a wild ride! It’s a fantastic concept – 30 plays in 60 minutes. They’re all original works, written, directed performed by the ensemble. It’s a roller coaster of an hour. There’s always lots of yelling, lots of jumping around. I wanted to give a little shout out to that group because they’re terrific. I just joined in April.

KTL – How often do they mix it up?
DMcC – It changes every single week. Someone in the audience gets picked to roll a six-sided die onto the stage and whatever number comes up 2 through 12, that’s how many play come off the roster and how many new ones go up, so it’s consistently changing. You could go every few months and never see the same show twice, it’s a always completely a different show. This year we’re celebrating our 5th year, so it’s a great time. I’ll be back in it in September after Fringe, so I’m excited to get back to that.

KTL - Well there’s a lot to celebrate! Congratulations, Daniel, for you success with getting your play, Eli and Cheryl Jump into Fringe. I look forward to seeing it.

And the rest of you can check back here to see my review in a few weeks.  Meanwhile, to purchase tickets for Eli and Cheryl Jump, or to find out more about the festival, visit www.fringenyc.org.

Eli and Cheryl Jump
The Players Loft
Price: $15.00
8:30pm  Fri 8.14.09,  9:30pm Fri 8.14.09 with 5 other showtimes 8.14.09 through 8.29.09

Related Posts:

• Eli and Cheryl Jump … Look After You (Fringe Festival 2009)
• Be [un]afraid … Very [un]afraid: The Neos Show Us The Many Faces Of Fear
• “The Oath” Will Have You Testifying
• Delving Into DARK WATER With Diánna Martin
• Dancing Into India – Being Becoming (Fringe Festival 2012)

Bird House (Photo by Marcus Woollen)

Lewis Carroll did it with Alice in Wonderland … L. Frank Baum did it with The Wizard of Oz: gave us stories of fantastical worlds where innocent girls stumble backwards into their watershed moment and grow up from the inside out.  Now, playwright Kate Marks brings us another place of fantasy where not one but two girls on opposite sides of the same world struggle with the same journey.  This is Bird House. (Directed by Heidi Handelsman and currently playing at Theater 3.)

Just as Wonderland begins with young Alice bored on a lovely day sitting near her sister, her life nothing so confounding as the frustration of trying to read a book without pictures, so begins Bird House … innocently.  Young (or rather, of indeterminate age… but “childlike”) Louisy (Cotton Wright) is excitedly sitting in wait with the more grown-up (and therefore completely underwhelmed) Syl (Christina Shipp) for the clock to strike 8, for that is when Kook (Anthony Wills Jr.) and Ooo (Ora Fruchter), the two puppet birds who live in the cuckoo clock, will come out and announce the hour.  Louisy is beside herself with excitement.  She’s baked biscuits.  Syl is bemused by Louisy but calmly reading the paper … (a book without pictures). It’s all so idyllic.  So charming.  So  … safe.  You can just see a rabbit hole and a tornado on the horizon.

Syl and Louisy (Photo by Marcus Woollen)

Despite the fact that the two women have built their house in the trees it soon becomes invaded by ants … ants who bring Syl news of a war happening on the “Lop Side” — apparently the territory which lies on the other side of their “Bright Side”.  Syl, with sharp shooter skills extraordinaire but no use to put them to, feels compelled to join the ranks and fight in this war.  ”What is war?” asks Louisy.  ”It’s a story,” Syl answers.

Soon enough there’s a cloud which darkens this little tree-house, birds keep crashing into the window and Louisy is beside herself trying to understand why Syl is leaving her (“I’m not leaving you … I’m just leaving …”) and how she’ll survive on her own.  While it’s difficult to pinpoint their ages or the exact nature of their relationship one thing is clear – these two people love each other like sisters, lovers, family, soul-mates; they are each other’s everything. But even that bond is not enough to keep Syl from going off to do what she needs to do … help people who need her help.  This devastates Louisy.  The minute Syl leaves, everything is turned inside out on the Bright Side.

Syl breaks through to the Lop Side and encounters a plucky little girl named Myra (Kylie Goldstein) who pretends to be a grownup .  Myra appears to be going it alone in this desolate land of Lop Side where the constant wind (so much like Dorothy’s tornado) steal everything of worth from you — including those you love — leaving you almost mad and left to dig down to your deepest part in order to cope.  Myra is crafty, though, she’s got survival instincts, and she wears the mantel of a seasoned leader … one tough enough to make Syl follow her every command.  Together they live on the windy, barren plains of the Lop Side, scrounging for food, hiding from the “enemy” and forming a strange bond which involves a lot of military maneuvers, some drinking, and sad stories.

Myra is almost like a post-apocalyptic Annie, staved for love.  ”Do you love me?” she demands of Syl just minutes into meeting her.  It becomes a refrain.  ”Do you love me now?  How about now?”  At some point the lie she told (that she was really an adult “this his how we grow here on the Lop-Side”) comes crashing down and Syl realized that Myra is still just a child, though hardly child-like.

Meanwhile, on the other side, the Bright Side, a “prophet”, Rita (Wendy Scharfman) has been looking for Myra for years.   So many years that she wouldn’t recognize her even if she saw her.  So many years that when she stumbles upon Louisy, lonely afraid and confused, she’s willing to believe she’s found Myra.  And Louisy’s willing to be found.  They form the Bright Side version of Syl and Myra, another dynamic duo of desperation, with Rita helping Louisy to mature a bit, to understand things, to see that she has been shielded in her sweet little Bird House and maybe it’s time to grow up.

The four main female leads in this play are nothings short of extraordinary.  Ms. Marks has created a tiny world with its own rules, flavors, tragedies, triumphs, heartbreak and tenderness but Cotton Wright, Christina Shipp, Kylie Goldstein and Wendy Scharfman bring this world into your heart and make it believable.  Under Heidi Handelsman’s direction each woman’s performance is so nuanced, so rich, so layered and textured that this unbelievable world becomes believable.  They invest so fully in this reality that you find there is absolutely nothing strange about it at all.

In order to bring this fantastical world to the stage scenic designer Sara C. Walsh created one of the most innovative sets I’ve seen in a long time, the Lop Side takes place entirely on a plain of dirt which is more than just visual … Syl and Myra interact with this dirt, they roll around and fall in it, it coats them and covers them.  On the Bright Side Rita and Louisy make use of it to bury something that dies.  It is evocative and true, almost like another character of the play. Also, the video and projections by Alex Koch were more than just background; this was the first time I’ve seen such a medium used where it actually rivaled the recent revival of Sunday in the Park with George.  Again, not just used as  backdrop but as an extension … it was amazing to see characters walk off the rear projection and onto the stage.

I unfortunately wasn’t able to get to this show in the beginning of the run, and it’s going to be closing tomorrow.  All I can say is, if you have flexible plans this weekend then cancel them, rearrange them, postpone them, get a rain check, a tornado check or a rabbit-hole check.  Because now you’ve got something better to do this weekend.  You’ve got to go see Bird House.

Remaining performances are Saturday at 8pm and Sunday matinee  at 3pm.   Read more at www.birdhousetheplay.com or www.theatermania.com.

Tickets are $18 and can be purchased online at www.theatermania.com, or by calling 212-352-3101 or 866-811-4111. Tickets are also available in person at the box office one half hour before showtime.

Theater 3 is located at 311 West 43rd Street, 3rd Floor, between 8th and 9th Avenues in Manhattan.

Related Posts:

• Ye Elizabeths: Living Vicariously Because … (2012 Planet Connections Festivity)
• Stinky Flowers, Sweet Thoughts
• New Forms Of Something Different: A Review Of “Three Sisters Come And Go”
• Two Turns Adaptation Of Henry James’ Novella Successfully Merges Theatre & Philanthropy
• DOWN RANGE – War … What Is It Good For?

When I came on to the staff of neighborbee in October of 2008 as the theatre columnist I had no idea that  just nine months later I’d be this immersed in the Off-Off Broadway community.  But here I am, 29 weeks, 32 shows and 25 reviews later … writing not just for this site but for The Fab Marquee as well (go check it out!) …  and thrilled to be part of a mechanism every week which (I hope) gets people off the couch, out of their homes and into these charming, cozy, sometimes unpredictably configured independent theatres.  I love knowing I play a part in helping to get audiences out there in order to watch amazingly talented performers break new ground with never-before-seen plays, or bring the classics alive again for a whole new generation of theatre-goers.  I’ve been lucky enough to see a bit of both in these last nine months and have enjoyed virtually every single performance I’ve reviewed.  And you know, even the clunkers have a charm all their own, and can sometimes stay with me far longer than expected, just like that other indispensable New York linchpin that can be an equal hit-or-miss: the pushcart hot dog.  But I digress.

On Monday night I attended the New York Innovative Theatre Awards 2009 Nominee Announcement celebration and was able to share in the joy of everyone who gives their life to The Theatre.  I mingled with actors, directors, designers of sound, stage and light, writers, publicists, musicians, other reviews, and all the plus ones (including my own) who help keep the first group afloat by supporting them emotionally, spiritually, and whatever-else-is-necessary-to-get-by-ly.

The New York Innovative Theatre Foundation was created to bring recognition to the great work being done in New York City’s Off-Off-Broadway, to honor its artistic heritage, and to provide a meeting ground for this extensive community. The organization advocates for Off-Off-Broadway and recognizes the unique and essential role it plays in contributing to American and global culture. The New York Innovative Theatre Foundation believes that publicly recognizing excellence in Off-Off-Broadway will expand audience awareness and appreciation of the full New York theatre experience.

To be able to stand shoulder to shoulder (or, in my case, shoulder to elbow … actors are TALL!) with these talented people was a real thrill for me, and I look forward to rejoining everyone at  the Fashion Institute on September 21st for the 5th Annual IT Awards Ceremony to be able to applaud the recipients in person.

This year’s nominees were selected from a pool of approximately 2,850 artists; nominees include 142 individual artists, 49 different productions and 38 theatre companies.  They are:

Outstanding Actor in  a Featured Role

Outstanding Actress in a Featured Role

Outstanding Actor in a Lead Role

Outstanding Actress in a Lead Role

Outstanding Ensemble

Outstanding Solo Performance

Outstanding Choreography/Movement

Outstanding Costume Design

Outstanding Lighting Design

Outstanding Sound Design

Outstanding Set Design

Outstanding Director

Outstanding Original Music

Outstanding Full-Length Script

Outstanding Original Short Script

Outstanding Performance Art Production

Cirque du Quoi?!? Human Flight Productions, Inc. & Gramily Entertainment
Creating Illusion soloNOVA Arts Festival
Miss America LaMaMa ETC in association with Split Britches
Dracula Radiotheatre
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind New York Neo-Futurists
Traces soloNOVA Arts Festival

Outstanding Production of a Musical

Coming, Aphrodite! LaMaMa ETC in association with Watson Arts
Like You Like It The Gallery Players
Ragtime Astoria Performing Arts Center
The 103rd Annual Performance of Ruddigore, or The Witch’s Curse, Presented by Murgatroyd’s Hospital for Mental Rehabilitation, Ruddy Gore Maine Theater 1010
The Apple Sisters The Apple Sisters
The Who’s Tommy The Gallery Players

Related Posts:

• Cabaretion! The Innovative Theatre Foundation’s Gala Benefit Honors Christopher Durang
• Ye Elizabeths: Living Vicariously Because … (2012 Planet Connections Festivity)
• Kathleen Warnock Goes To The Lilly Awards
• Stinky Flowers, Sweet Thoughts
• IT Awards 2010: Off-Off Broadway Celebrates Its Achievements At Their Nominee Announcement Party

Twisted is the latest great ensemble piece to come from the Horse Trade group and once again they deliver a show that lives up to its name.  From outlandishly twisted to deviously twisted to simply subtly twisted, each of these five one-acts is served up with a twist.

take that, rubber ducky!

Twisted bursts out of the gate with Teddy Knows Too Much (written by Matt Hanf  and directed by Joseph McLaughlin/Assistant Director Cara Liander) with Peter Aguero as an out-sized toddler who is 50% Stewie Griffin, 50% Hamlet and 100% side splitting as he at first teams up with, then turns on, his faithful Teddy Bear.  Written cleverly by Hanf and played with deadpan bravado by the wonderful Aguero, this short, snappy piece almost goes by too quickly. Chris Enright and Alexia Tate hold their own as the harried parents who find themselves too busy to do more than throw money at a problem but Aguero’s sublime channeling of a devious 3 year old steals the scene, as he should.  Cute little clever child with an over active imagination or homicidal maniac in the making?  You decide …

Following is The Kiss (written by Mark Harvey Levine and directed by Melissa Farinelli).  There was a moment while I was watching the scene unfold where someone in the first row (rudely) tapped her friend on the shoulder and said, in recognition (and a loud stage whisper), “This is just like on Friends!!!!” Now, as much as I hate people in the audience (especially when the audience seats 50 people max) who feel they have to simultaneously translate for the rest of us, I actually had to agree with this rude girl.  This Kiss plays like a re-tread of a thousand sitcoms … any time a guy and a girl have been ‘friends forever’ and ‘just want to see what it would be like’ or said ‘let me practice with you so I can be good for my date’ you’ve seen what The Kiss is selling.  Driving home that fact is that Allison (played by Flor Bromley) can’t seem to keep from bursting into fits of giggles the first few times Denis (Jonathan Reed Wexler) approaches her.  This is pure Sitcom 101.  Still, the scene was really well acted even as the plot was a bit stale, and the last few seconds of the scene (singularly played out on Flor Bromley’s face) were really well done.

it was an honest mistake ...

Following is perhaps the funniest and most inventive short of the night, Head Games (written by Justin Warner and directed by Jason Tyne-Zimmerman).  Set in ancient Judea, it opens on the living room of Salome (Lindsay Beecher) right as she receives the head of John the Baptist from her uncle Herod (Chris Enright) who is flabbergasted (to say the least) at the banal way in which she accepts the gift.  After all, he went to great lengths to get this for her.  A line of questioning yields nothing, and confusion leads to horror as Salome begins to talk about doing things to the head (which seem unspeakable) in the most blase manner.  When Herodias (Nicole Howard) arrives and innocently asks about the head, she drops clues which leave Herod horrified to realize his misunderstanding of the request.  I don’t think I’ve seen a more inventive, funnier bit of theatre this year than Head Games … the payoff was so unexpected and so beautifully played that I think the audience was literally tickled; happy to have been hoodwinked as well, but horrified by the confusion.

The next short, Nurturing Bond (written By Tom Kiesche, Directed By Matthew Kreiner) was similarly inventive, and psychologically just as shocking but for obvious reasons (the very large prop which connects the two characters together), this piece tends to distract too much.  Melissa Ciesla is marvelous as a mother who loves too much, who goes one step farther than every one of those overbearing mothers who spit on a napkin to wash their children’s faces, much to the embarrassment of the child.  What this mother does goes beyond a little saliva.  Ever meet one of those guys who mentions his mother so often that you’re prompted to murmur “ … cut the cord already!”  Well, just image if he really had to, and that would give you Nurturing Bond.  The deep issues of two people who can’t escape each other would have been better served if the audience hadn’t been distracted by the “ick” factor.  Again, Melissa Ciesla and Michael McManus as her son really show the strains a bond like that can put on two grown people … but it might have been better to do it without the use of a prop.

Party Girl (written by Kitt Lavoie and directed by Ian Quinlan, Assistant Director Derrick DeMaria) rounds off this quintet of shows nicely.  As a young man (Billy Fenderson) arrives at his cousin’s bachelor party he finds his girlfriend of 5 months (Becky Sterling) giving his dad a lap dance … she’s one of two featured strippers hired as the evening’s entertainment.  It’s the typical story of the student (in this case, the Ph.D. candidate) working her way through school the easiest way she can, big money, short hours, and just a few quick pep talks before each “show” to remind herself that she’s a good person.  Unlike her coke fueled co-stripper (Lindsay Beecher) who does anything for tips, she makes sure to hold to her own personal standards.  Somehow her boyfriend finds this hard to believe.  He then doesn’t understand how he can introduce her to his whole family at the wedding when half the male guests met her the night before in her underwear.  Perhaps the funniest part of the scene however comes when his sense of “Hey!  I’m at a bachelor party and this  better be good!” actually wins out and he starts to throw a fit that he paid for his cousin to sleep with two strippers and now, because of his girlfriend’s rule to not sleep with the hosts, he’ll only get to sleep with one of them.  Hell, yeah.  Now that’s  … Twisted.

TWISTED is playing  from July 9-25 2009 at

UNDER St. Marks
(94 St. Marks Place between 1st & A)
Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm
Sundays at 2pm

All Tickets are   $15 except Student / Senior which are $12, purchase them through SmartTix.

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