by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 2, 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 Christel Bartelse, performer, creator and co-writer of ONEymoon ( A Honeymoon for One)
A solo tour-de-force comedy about a woman who decides to marry herself. Humor, heart and tap-dancing too!
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 2, 2011
Can I tell you a secret? Okay, well – what if I can’t? It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just, well, what if I have a secret that’s so damaging I could lose your friendship? Or your respect? Or risk having you take matters into your own hands and tell my secret to the very person I’m keeping it from? You could change my life. You could change theirs. You could change everything. Now you know why I’m keeping it a secret. Even from you. Some things are just better left unsaid.
Better Left Unsaid (written and directed by Joey Brenneman) juggles not one, not two, but over half a dozen secrets ranging from “deep dark” to simply “uncomfortable”. The rule here is: if a character has a line of dialogue, they have a secret. Some are enormous, life changing and devastating, some are simple, quiet, and more of the yearning variety, but all of them are harmful in their own way and once they’re put into words it changes the course of each character’s life irrevocably. As the old saying goes: you can’t unring a bell.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 1, 2011
Welcome to our first 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!
Our first Q&A is with Terra Vetter, the producer of The Shorebound Swim With A One Click Kick: A Tragedy Of Reason
A genius removes himself from society and attempts to unlock the science behind the secrets of the human experience; a boy gets his first taste of love, lust and betrayal; and a desperate caretaker struggles to control her destiny in this gripping drama that connects the cerebral with matters of the heart.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on January 31, 2011
If this is the first time you’re hearing of FRIGID then you’re either new to THM, new to New York, new to off-off-Broadway theatre in general, or just not paying attention.
The Annual FRIGID New York Festival, presented by Horse Trade Theater Group, is now in its 5th year but I promise you this will be the most exciting one yet. Why? Because this year The Happiest Medium is proud to be partnering with the Festival bringing you in-depth (and very entertaining) Q&As with each of the participating shows, reviewing as many as our hardworking contributors can cover, and moderating a kick-ass Virtual Rock Paper Scissors Tournament. If you’ve never seen one of those in action, you’ll want to stay tuned. These guys are SERIOUS about what they throw.
So what exactly is FRIGID?
“FRIGID New York is an open and uncensored theatre festival that gives artists an opportunity to let their ingenuity thrive in a venue that values freedom of expression and artistic determination. In true support of theatre on the fringe of the mainstream, 100% of box office proceeds will go directly to the artists. Riding the fringe of winter FRIGID will kick off the annual North American Fringe Circuit with a bang!
FRIGID 2011 will run February 23-March 6 at The Kraine Theater & The Red Room (85 East 4th Street between 2nd Ave and Bowery) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1st Ave and Ave A). Tickets ($10-$16) may be purchased online at www.FRIGIDnewyork.info or by calling Smarttix at 212-868-4444. All shows will run 60 minutes long or less.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. And, since someone else said it already – I didn’t have to. So, keep watching this space – and let the FRIGID Festival excitement begin!
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on January 29, 2011
If you missed my interview with Cindy Murphy last week take a second to catch up – she is one talented lady with a great eye and an even greater sense of humor. Which is why it’s only fitting that for the first official instiallment of what will be a biweekly event we focus on the Funny Ladies in her series.
Of course it also doesn’t hurt that one of those diptychs is me (ahem). Like Cindy said in her interview, “What I look for is not a perfect match but rather some element that is strong enough to create the effect of “twinning”. Sometimes it’s hair, sometimes it’s a smile. Usually a combo though of two elements.” So for my match Cindy found Fran Drescher because of “same smile, same wicked twinkle in the eyes”. Not to mention the fact that both Fran and I spent a night dancing on the hallowed floor of 2001 Odyssey. I, on the other hand, managed to tame my Brooklynese accent long ago, unless I’m driving and then we’re pretty much idendical on all fronts.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on January 27, 2011
There’s hardly a person out there who hasn’t been touched by a self-actualization movement of one type or another – be it a seminar, a book, a class or a friend whose life has changed and wants to share the experience (or worse yet, has a quota to fill). We’ve all seen it from The Forum to The Secret to est and everything in between. Of course, the thing that makes it so seductive to millions of people is that there’s a glimmer of Truth to it all, shaken (not stirred) with a full jigger of Hope.
Which is why, if you wandered into The
Laurie
Beechman
Theater not knowing what to expect you might assume you’ve stepped into any one of the hundreds of motivational seminars going on around the city – so earnestly is Geoffrey Decas touting the benefits of following the path of The Momentum. So convincing is he, in fact, that through your laughter you’ll have moments of “hey, that’s actually true” and “well, he’s got a point there” and “wow, I’ve felt that way”. Thing is, we’ve all felt isolated, lonely, depressed, no good, shoved aside, glossed over, ruled out, unnecessary, worthless, voiceless (um, stop me at any time here). And we’re all searching for that one thing that will give us purpose, put a spring in our step, a gleam in our eye, light the way, seal the breach, patch the hull, start the motor, pay for the check, and tuck us into bed. So, if something – anything – makes that promise . . . what harm can it do to give it a whirl? So it’s four easy payments of more than we can afford . . . so what? If it works, the benefits are priceless.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on January 25, 2011
A commercial, if it’s a good one, will do a few things: 1) Grab your interest 2) Make the product look good – or surround the product with other things that look good 3) Include an addictive catch phase 4) Tell a complete story that wouldn’t exist without the product 5) Finish up in under sixty seconds.
Avenue of the Americas, a play all about how advertising can affect society – specifically one very impressionable young woman – is a lot like a commercial. It’s interesting, looks good, is full of recognizable catch phrases, and finishes up in under sixty minutes. And, like a commercial, the initial message simply acts as window dressing for the real message hidden beneath.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on January 21, 2011
Age Out featuring Seated L-R, Nicholas John Mazza, Peter Welch, Bob Homeyer, Oliver Thrun Standing L-R, Michael Wetherbee, Patrick Pizzolorusso (Photo by Peter Welch)
There are a million stories in this city. But really, when you come right down to it – there are just about five stories that we have to tell each other at the end of a long day. There are the stories about fighting with our significant other, the stories about getting stabbed in the back by our best friend, the stories about how we must suffer through one form of bureaucracy or another, and every now and then the stories about something amazingly good that happened to us. But most of all we tell stories about our job. How we’re unemployed and looking for one, how we’re scared we’re about to lose one, how we hate the one we have or how we can’t wait to get a new one. Come to Age Out, written by Tom Diriwachter and directed by Jonathan Weber, and be prepared to hear a job tirade that will probably keep you from talking about your own job issues for a while.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on January 20, 2011
Liz Duffy Adams (photo by Joanna Eldredge Morrissey)
It’s no secret that as far as Theatre Ensembles go, Flux is one of my very favorites. Consistently turning out quality work that never fails to leave audiences utterly captivated and amazed, they set the off-off Broadway bar very high – only to sail over it with each successive production. I’m always expectant when I know a new Flux show is coming around because for me it means - as a reviewer as well as an audience member – a guaranteed great night of theatre.
Well, I won’t have to wait much longer to get my Flux Fix – because Liz Duffy Adams’ post-apocalyptic dark comedy, Dog Act, will be coming to the Flamboyan Theater (at the Clemente Solo Velez Cultural & Educational Center) on February 4th. Dog Act “follows Zetta Stone, a traveling performer, and her companion Dog (a young man undergoing a voluntary species demotion) as they walk through the wilderness of the former U.S.A. with their vaudeville troupe. They are heading toward a gig in China, if they can find it…and if they can survive to get there.” Sounds like nothing I’ve ever seen before – and exactly what I’ve come to expect from Flux!
In an interview with Liz Duffy Adams I was able to find out how this extraordinary play found this extraordinary ensemble; how she was able to make vaudeville and post apocalyptic themes mesh, and what undergoing a “voluntary species demotion” actually means . . .
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on January 14, 2011
Cindy Murphy is her name - Doppelganger Diptychs are her game
Back in the ’90s when Ricki Lake had her talk show and was pretty much at the height of her career (if she only knew it then!) it was kinda unavoidable for me to be compared to her – especially since she was still riding the coattails of her Hairspray fame (You should see me do the Madison). Yup, during the mid-90s, working in mid-town Manhattan, hardly a day went by without someone randomly calling out “Hey, Ricki!” to me as I went about my day. Sure, the pleasingly plump curves had a little something to do with it, but there was more to it – I was friendly, bubbly – and just like Ricki I also looked good holding a microphone and nodding in a concerned fashion when asking questions such as “Now, what exactly is ‘the down-low’?”. Of course, it’s not like anyone actually thought I was Ricki Lake – they were just acknowledging the similarity. If there’s one thing people enjoy doing, it’s pointing out similarities.
Here’s where Cindy Murphy comes in. Cindy not only enjoys finding similarities between two people, but she’s got a great eye for it, and lately has been doing more and more of what she’s coined Doppelganger Diptychs. What started as something Cindy did to relax or switch gears during a stressful day became a bit of a phenomenon among her friends as more and more of them started asking her to find their very own doppelganger.
With such talent it’s only fair that Cindy get an even wider audience to enjoy her work, so The Happiest Medium will now be featuring Doppelganger Diptychs on a regular basis. Today, we sit down with Cindy to find out how it all started, where the name came from, and what she looks for to make that perfect match.
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