by Karen Tortora-Lee on December 7, 2009
Let’s just get the mystery out of the way – Meg’s New Friend is black.
But really, in The Production Company’s latest play, written by Blair Singer and directed by Mark Armstrong, everyone gets a label, so no one feels left out. For instance, Meg (Megan McQuillan) begins the play by labeling her boyfriend Sam (Michael Solomon) a sexist because he calls his secretary “Darling”. He fires back that calling his assistant a “secretary” is also sexist. And so it begins.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 24, 2009
Life isn’t all fun and games – every now and then you’ve gotta take a swing at someone … even if it’s only in your mind. And face it, once you’re off the playground, it usually is all in your mind. (Take THAT Mister Tourist with your 3 kids and your huge knapsack blocking the subway door! YES, you CAN transfer for the #2 train at 14th. Now quit asking everyone and get outta my way!) So what’s a gal to do? Sure, you can go lose yourself in a movie with a multi-million dollar budget, but when you know all that punching and kicking and brawling is probably being handled by stunt doubles who know how to play to the right camera angles, it’s hard to really feel that emotional satisfaction. You want to put yourself in a story where you can not only imagine yourself as the hero, sucker punching and bitch slapping your way through Act One, but where you can actually see guys falling to the ground and feel the vibration of it in your seat. You want to go to a festival that fills the pow-wham-socko void that I know I’ve been feeling.
Well, you’re not the only one. The Brick Theater, Inc. in association with Art Meets Commerce has heard your silent plea and starting December 1st they will be presenting Fight Fest – a rock ‘em sock ‘em good time that, in some opinions, gives this cheery holiday season exactly what it needs – a place where you can vicariously shake out that punch that’s been rolling up your fist all day.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 22, 2009
Acting Alone
Today, on the 46th anniversary of the death of JFK, there are still two kinds of people in this world – those who believe that John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald who was acting alone, and those who believe that Kennedy’s assassination was a highly orchestrated, multiple-person operative with ties to the CIA, the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, the Mafia and the KGB, among others. Acting Alone by
David
M.
Korn and
directed
by
Lee
Gundersheimer
brings forth a bit of a third option – that even when someone is acting alone, they are still the product of those around them, and ultimately those loved one share much of the burden, a back-splash of the guilt, and even a whisper of the responsibility.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 19, 2009
Holy
Premiering this Friday, November 6th at The Spoon Theater, is their production of Holy Days, a play set in the Great Depression written by Sally Nemeth and directed by Peter Zinn.
AM: You come from a theatrical family – your parents (Jack and Rebecca Cunningham) are a dynamic set design duo. What’s it like working with them? And do you always see eye to eye when those sketches are presented?
HC: I could not do what I do without my parents’ support, first and foremost. Sometimes they think I’m nuts (Dad might still be in denial that we are doing The Desk Set in May!), and sometimes when I say “let’s do this bare bones” I get this incredible set! I usually make my requests before the design is conceived, but on those rare occasions when I ask for something afterwards, they are great about incorporating my requests. But above all, I am a huge fan of their work. I think it is stunning.
AM: What can we expect from your upcoming production of Holy Days?
HC: Holy Days is a beautiful play, and on surface quite simple. These are stoic people and they don’t (or can’t) always express their feelings. It makes for a lot of palpable tension between the characters.
The play takes place during the Great Depression in the Dust Bowl. Our characters are farmers and their wives and they are struggling with the devastation around them. There is dirt and dust piled up, there is loss everywhere they look; out in the fields, in their homes, in each other.
—
You can catch Heather Cunningham in Holy Days from November 6-21 at The Spoon Theater. Be on the look out for our lovely managing director Karen Tortora-Lee’s review of this production.
Retro Productions’ latest show, Holy Days (Written by Sally Nemeth and directed by Peter Zinn) comes off as deceptively simply until you’ve sat with it a while. It’s been several days since I’ve seen it and I find that I’m haunted by the seemingly stark yet surprisingly deep performances by Heather E. Cunningham (Rosie), Joe Forbrich (Gant), Lowell Byers (Will) and Casandera M.J. Lollar (Molly).
Holy Days begins with a metaphor, one which shifts the more you think about it. At the opening of the play, Rosie addresses the audience with an empty gaze and a lilt-less voice to explain how she had once seen her garden full of daffodils which were in danger of being covered in frost; she gathered as many as she could into her arms, thinking she’d taken more than enough to fill all the vessels she had in the house. But when she was able to arrange them, they barely filled one pitcher. She went out to take more, but the remaining flowers were dried up … gone.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 18, 2009
Deep Inside The Gummi Bär
Ever wonder exactly what the skeletal system of a gummy bear is really like? How do they manage to pick things up with those tiny little hands that just seem to appear on the end of their stubby little arms?
Ever wonder what you’re really eating when you pop an unsuspecting little bear into your mouth?
I always wondered too. Which is why, when I stumbled across the Gelaskins site in the hopes of finding a colorful bit of quasi “armor” for my mac laptop last year, I didn’t think twice before purchasing “Anatomie Gummi Bär” by Jason Freeny. It didn’t stop there though.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 13, 2009
Cast - The Lesser Seductions of History (Photo Credit: Tyler Griffin Hicks-Wright)
Watching the Flux Theatre Ensemble bring August Schulenburg’s “The Lesser Seductions of History” to life is like watching seasoned acrobats performing an intricate, balletic routine; one which -in order to succeed- relies on trust, timing, and blind leaps of faith … knowing that your fellow performers are exactly where they should be and will deftly handle the assist, even as they fully commit to the leap they are taking themselves. One miscalculation and the whole thing comes tumbling down, and then forget about the net. But no one here falls; in fact, they soar. The thrill of watching this seasoned group of actors move between each other and react off one another with precisioned timing is what makes Lesser Seductions so … well … seductive.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 12, 2009
Scott Raker (Tim Riordan) and Peter Sabri (Luke DeLuca), photo credit: Antonio Minino
It’s hard to isolate one simple element of James L. Larocca’s Penang (directed by Donya K. Washington) and point to it as the central theme. Penang unfolds a bit like an autopsy – it is an even, measured, calculated dissection of the life of Tim Riordan (Scott Raker) and an inspection of the elements which led him to do the unthinkable just moments before he was to leave Vietnam and go home.
While Penang starts off as a war story, it evolves into something more. It’s also a buddy story and at times it has the emotional bonding of a male Thelma and Louise … but of course, again, it’s more. It is a tale of survivor’s guilt, it’s a grown up Stand By Me, it’s a psychological investigation, it’s a bit of a mystery, but above all, it is a deeply moving story about one man’s personal journey as he explores his relationship with his faith, his country, his friends, and (most importantly) with himself. Nothing about Penang is easy to distill or explain – except the fact that this is a brilliant, moving production which brought me to tears, gave me chills, and exposed a layer of male bonding that I don’t often get to witness.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 11, 2009
I know what you’re thinking … “oh … another all-girl acapella group”. And while I’m not going to try and tell you you’re wrong, I’m also going to tell you that Treble is also MY FAVORITE all-girl acapella group … and that makes all the difference.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 9, 2009
If you know nothing at all about The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh you might mistakenly allow the deceptively downy title to lead you to believe this is a play about security and comfort. However, if The Pillowman brings up recollections of what you know about the Tony Award nominated 2005 Broadway run — and you still can’t resist the dark siren song of The Pillowman — then the new production being put on by the Astoria Performing Arts Center (APAC) is just what you’ve been looking for.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 8, 2009
If you’re looking for the sanitized, Disneyfied version of J.M.Barrie’s familiar tale of Peter Pan, then by all means, please click on over to Netflix right now and put it in your queue. If, however, you’re looking to experience the story of Peter Pan and Wendy Darling in a way that explores themes of darkness, longing, fear, confusion, loss, revenge and bittersweet sadness then I suggest you head over to Peter ~ Wendy (an illuminating re-imagining of the timeless tale of Peter Pan) and watch as a cast of strangely sweet and sweetly strange characters re-tell the tale as you’ve never encountered before.
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