by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 19, 2011
Welcome back to another installment of FRIGID New York Festival 2011 Q&A! We’ll be running these throughout February until the Festival starts, so be sure to check back to read all about the great shows that will be taking part in the festival. Also – don’t miss the winner-take-all game of Rock Paper Scissors! Today’s Q&A is with Ryan Emmons (Director/Book) and Julie Congress (Actor/Book) of The Oregon Trail: Quest for the West!
Inspired by the iconic game, The Oregon Trail: Quest for the West! is an interactive comedy with music. Join our five brave pioneers on a grueling journey as they fight snakebites, dysentery and meager rations. Will YOU ford the river?
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 18, 2011
Welcome back to another installment of FRIGID New York Festival 2011 Q&A! We’ll be running these throughout February until the Festival starts, so be sure to check back to read all about the great shows that will be taking part in the festival. Also – don’t miss the winner-take-all game of Rock Paper Scissors! Today’s Q&A is with Bricken Sparacino, who is the actor and writer of I’m Not Sure I Like the Way You Licked Me!
Through humor, honesty and a little bit of rock and roll, come share with Bricken the battles she has fought, the mountains she has climbed and the licks she has endured.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 17, 2011
Welcome back to another installment of FRIGID New York Festival 2011 Q&A! We’ll be running these throughout February until the Festival starts, so be sure to check back to read all about the great shows that will be taking part in the festival. Also – don’t miss the winner-take-all game of Rock Paper Scissors! Today’s Q&A is with David Mogolov who is the Writer/Performer of There Is No Good News.
Bringing together bullwhip-armed children, bomb scares, and runaway fryalators, There Is No Good News is Mogolov’s hilarious search for something—anything—he can teach his daughter. Somewhere between Spalding Gray doing slapstick and Mike Birbiglia analyzing McLuhan, Mogolov’s style is relaxed, congenial, and witty, sneaking insights in between near-constant laughs.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 17, 2011
HARVEY FIERSTEIN as Albin/Zaza (© John Lehrer)
Have you heard the news? This week Harvey Fierstein joined the cast of the musical he created in 1984 – La Cage Aux Folles . . . a musical I was so obsessed with in high school that I banked my birthday and Christmas presents so that I could see it not once but twice. I wanted to play the role of Albin so badly that I spent waaaaay too much time in front of my mirror pretending to be an over-the-hill 50 something man transforming himself into a glamorous showgirl via “A Little More Mascara” (when life is a real bitch again, and my old sense of humor has up and gone, it’s time for the big switch again – I put a little more mascara on). It felt perfectly natural back then, but I think I would laugh if I walked in on my 14 year old self pretending to be a world-weary french female impersonator.
Because unlike, say Mame, which is a role you can eventually grow up into, I always knew that no matter what happened I would NEVER, NEVER grow up into a man who could then play a woman. Sadly, I’m left with just being stuck as a woman. Most days, I’m okay with this.
But hey! Who says women can’t drag it up a little every now and then? So, this week, in honor of Harvey, La Cage, men who attempt drag, and women who do too – we bring you . . . non-gender-biased Drag Queen Doppleganger Diptychs:
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 16, 2011
Welcome back to another installment of FRIGID New York Festival 2011 Q&A! We’ll be running these throughout February until the Festival starts, so be sure to check back to read all about the great shows that will be taking part in the festival. Also – don’t miss the winner-take-all game of Rock Paper Scissors! Today’s Q&A is with Lauren Rayner who is the Writer/Director/Producer of Mendacity.
Through the integration of dynamic multi-media installations, Mendacity, a solo word-collage, takes you deep inside the mind of a splintering personality wrought with self-loathing and denial over sexual assault. Join us in a rebellious journey of fragmented transcendence and the offering of hope.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 15, 2011
Welcome back to another installment of FRIGID New York Festival 2011 Q&A! We’ll be running these throughout February until the Festival starts, so be sure to check back to read all about the great shows that will be taking part in the festival. Also – don’t miss the winner-take-all game of Rock Paper Scissors! Today’s Q&A is with Sergio Solorzano who is the Writer/Director of The Mysterious Mystery of Mystery Street.
A beautiful lady in a red dress hires two clueless private eyes to investigate a matter of intrigue, foul play, and homoerotic undertones. Dangerous mystery, mysterious danger, and one big Lonely Sausage.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 14, 2011
Liz Douglas, Lori E. Parquet, Becky Byers, & Chris Wight
A few weeks ago when I interviewed playwright Liz Duffy Adams about her new play, Dog Act, now playing at the Flamboyan Theatre, she told me “I love stories about how people recreate social/political systems and civilization in the midst of catastrophe, and protect human culture through the darkest of times. So having the central characters be performers who are the sole source of art in a very dark future seemed exciting to me, and potentially theatrical.” In a nutshell, this is what Ms. Adams set out to do, and it is exactly what she did. Under Kelly O’Donnell’s masterful direction Dog Act manages to artfully combine the darkness and desolation of a lost world with the lightness and hope that is the very spirit of the theatre – be it vaudeville or otherwise.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 13, 2011
Welcome back to another installment of FRIGID New York Festival 2011 Q&A! We’ll be running these throughout February until the Festival starts, so be sure to check back to read all about the great shows that will be taking part in the festival. Also – don’t miss the winner-take-all game of Rock Paper Scissors! Today’s Q&A is with Scout Durwood who is the Writer and Performer of Hi, How Can I Help You?
The silly side of the sex industry: a one woman musical. Six women at a NYC house of domination navigate the volatile economy of the sex industry during a recession, the night of Barrack Obama’s 2008 presidential election. They laugh, they cry, they roller-skate and hula-hoop.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 13, 2011
Satomi Blair as Lexi and Nicky Schmidlein as Jessica (Photo by Dan Applegate)
There’s so much beauty in the United States: Yosemite National Park, The Florida Everglades, Niagara Falls. And of course, The Grand Canyon.
And then there’s our nation’s college kids. Wanna see a dichotomy? Put one in front of the other and let them loose – see who winds up NOT falling apart. Here’s a clue: the Grand Canyon’s been around forever. These kids . . . not so much.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 11, 2011
Welcome back to another installment of FRIGID New York Festival 2011 Q&A! We’ll be running these throughout February until the Festival starts, so be sure to check back to read all about the great shows that will be taking part in the festival. Also – don’t miss the winner-take-all game of Rock Paper Scissors! Today’s Q&A is with Cyndi Freeman who is the Writer / Performer of Wonder Woman: A How To Guide For Little Jewish Girls.
Two-time FringeNYC award-winning writer/performer Cyndi Freeman’s latest solo show traces her journey from little suburban Jewish girl obsessed with Wonder Woman to becoming the fabulous burlesque Queen, Cherry Pitz, in NYC. Join her on a crusade to right wrongs while wearing fabulous costumes.
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