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by The Happiest Medium on January 31, 2012
Five Questions. Five Answers. And one big decision: Rock, Paper, or Scissors?
Nicole Pandolfo
Love In The Time Of Chlamydia
Company: Hard Sparks
Love In The Time Of Chlamydia is one woman’s search for love in a world full of absent dads, dirtbag boyfriends, and premature ejaculators. Your first time wasn’t weirder – and your best time wasn’t wilder – than writer-performer Nicole Pandolfo’s.
Show Times:
- Thur. 2/23 @ 10:30 PM
- Sat. 2/25 @ 4:00 PM
- Sun. 2/26 @ 4:00 PM
- Wed. 2/29 @ 6:00 PM
- Sun 3/4 @ 5:30 PM
Answers by Nicole Pandolfo
(Writer, Performer)
Karen Tortora-Lee’s Question
That’s some title. How did you come up with it – and what does it mean?
Nicole: Well, it started out originally as monologues from the perspective of prostitutes who had seen really weird stuff go down on the job, and it was called Five Fucked Up Fetishes. Then I realized I was using a lot of back story from my own real life – God that sounds bad – and then I was like ‘ok, this is actually going to be a one person show based on my life.’ And then, because there is a vignette with venereal disease, I came up with Sex in the Time of Chlamydia. I came up with that very quickly and it was obviously inspired in its form by the title Love in the Time of Cholera. And then when I was really getting into writing the first draft I realized that even though there was a lot of sex in the piece it was really about love. And it took me a minute for that to sink in. But once it did I decided to stick with Love In The Time Of Chlamydia, and it made it even closer to Marquez’s title, but it just felt right so that’s how it came to be. I think it hints at the way sex is presented in this piece specifically, which is kind of funny, and kind of weird, and it’s sexy but not in a conventional way.
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by The Happiest Medium on January 30, 2012
Five Questions. Five Answers. And one big decision: Rock, Paper, or Scissors?
Suzen Murakoshi
BREATHE LOVE REPEAT:a near-life experience
Produced by: The Mustique Projects
A samurai super daughter struggles with her mother at the crossroads between east and west to affirm life between this world and the next.
Show Times:
- Wed. 2/22 @ 10:30pm
- Fri. 2/24 @ 7:30pm
- Mon. 2/27 @ 7:30pm
- Fri. 3/2 @ 10:30pm
- Sun. 3/4 @ 7:00pm
Answers by Suzen Murakoshi
(Playwright, Performer)
Karen Tortora-Lee’s Question
That’s some title. How did you come up with it – and what does it mean?
Suzen: THANKS! It’s the mantra I was wrestling with at one of the lowest points in my life. The ‘repeat’ part is the hardest, because it’s like, “you mean, I have to do it again? And, again?”
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on January 29, 2012
Flux Theatre Ensemble’s production of Menders (written by Erin Browne and directed by Heather Cohn) currently playing at The Gym at Judson will catch you by surprise – but not all at once. It will do so in subtle ways, often, and always differently than it did moments before.
First you will be drawn in by the simple aesthetics of the piece, which unfolds with a wisp of mystery but a promise of payoff in the end because, of course, that’s the way all good stories wrap up. Not necessarily with a good ending, or a bad ending, but a powerful ending which simply means one interlude has come to its natural conclusion. Director Heather Cohn understands how to build the perfect scaffolding around this story, which is a story of stories — each story within it also coming to not a good ending, or a bad ending … simply a powerful one.
Next you will be moved by the poem Mending Wall by Robert Frost which is recited in part by each character in kind as they move about the stage and gather items, disappearing and reappearing from behind several substantial walls that dominate the set (beautifully and cleanly designed by Cory Rodriguez). You’ll know what they’re reciting if you’ve read your program cover ahead of time — if not, it will come up soon enough and the elegance with which the symbolism is used is exquisite; each time lines from the verse are repeated they catch your ear differently, each iteration vibrating with a deeper meaning of what it means to keep people out, or in, or know precisely which it is that is being done. I’m sure those who have already seen the show were quick (as I was) to sit with the poem and see it through fresh eyes.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on January 27, 2012
These days, when taking a road trip of any kind — even if it’s just over the state line to New Jersey — it’s almost impossible to think about arriving safely at your destination without the use of a GPS. The technology is so ubiquitous it’s now even an easily downloadable app for your phone. Days of trying to stretch a huge AAA TripTik across your steering wheel as you drive and hoping it doesn’t fly out the window are over. Unless you like getting pulled over for driving erratically, GPS is the way to go.
But what if your GPS could tell you more than which road to take, which exit is best, or which alternate route to use when you (despite its best advice) still managed to miss the turn? What if your GPS started telling you the answers to everything ? Especially during a time when you don’t seem to have the answers to anything? This is the premise of Eddie Antar’s The Navigator – a show which originally was presented by The WorkShop Theater in 2010 as a Play in Process. It was so successful that it was nominated for multiple IT awards, won 2 (for Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Lighting Design) and is now being remounted February 9-March 3 as a full production.
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by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson on January 26, 2012
- John Sowle in Horripilation!
/ Photo by Steven Patterson
The writer and performer of Horripilation!, John Sowle, is unquestionably a shining light in the fields of research and preservation of obscure global theatrical traditions, as well as being an imposing performative figure in the relating and embodiment of these same traditions. In 1973, with a Fulbright fellowship to research a doctoral thesis in dramatic art, he spent time at the Kerala Kalamandalam in southern India, where he was obliged to rise each morning at 3 a.m. in order to begin his day’s grueling training in traditional dance movement and actorly craft. Kept on his feet for hours at a time, in a highly repetitive form of dance stepping, his relief would come finally in the form of a massage administered by his teacher (asan), who would walk up and down his back while he lay in a formally controlled position. It should come as no surprise that classical traditions of drama and dance, wherever they originate, involved a regimen of severe physical hardship and mental discipline, but the sharing of these events in the performance by Mr. Sowle, as he reproduces the exercises nearly forty years later, is quite something to witness.
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by The Happiest Medium on January 19, 2012
Superman 2050
Theater Un-Speak-Able
Writer and designer: The Ensemble, Theater-Un-Speak-Able
Director: Marc Frost
Superman 2050 is featuring seven actors performing on a single 3’ by 7’ platform. It is an original Superman story, taking place in a fictional Metropolis in the year 2050. At no time do any actors exit the platform, instead existing as either speaking character or background object in each scene, utilizing transitional moments both within and between scenes to shift between the two. It is a fast-paced, high-energy show for all ages.
Show Times:
- Thu 1/19 @ 7:30pm
- Sat 1/21 @ 2:30pm
- Sun 1/22 @ 7:00pm
Answers by Zachary Baker-Salmon – Producer
Karen Tortora-Lee’s Question
This is an international festival. What part of the world are you coming from … and will your show tantalize the NYC audience with a taste of your nation’s culture?
Zachary Baker-Salmon: Our company, like the titular character in our play, hails from the Midwestern United States. We aim higher than corn fields and tornadoes, however, for our approach to storytelling is heavily influenced by European forces. Our “Platform Style” is taught at the London International School of the Performing Arts and our mentor is Italian. Did I mention she’s teaching a three day workshop coinciding with the festival? Sign up if you want to know where the real action is.
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by The Happiest Medium on January 19, 2012
Alita the Show
Writer and Director: Freia Canals and Denise Kornitz
A bilingual show (Spanish/ English) for the entire family.
Princess Alita lives in a world of luxury amidst the walls of her palace. She is oblivious to all that surrounds her and knows little outside of her own environment. One day she is sent on a mission that will change her forever.
Show Times:
- Wed 1/18 @ 4:30pm
- Sat 1/21 @ 12:30pm
- Sun 1/22 @ 11:00pm
Answers by Freia Canals and Denise Kornitz: Writers, Directors, Producers and Performers
Karen Tortora-Lee’s Question
This is an international festival. What part of the world are you coming from … and will your show tantalize the NYC audience with a taste of your nation’s culture?
Freia Canals and Denise Kornitz:
We are from Barcelona (Spain) and Buenos Aires (Argentina), but we have lived in different places including Madrid, London, Oxford, Israel and finally New York.
Yes, we brought to our show all our experiences and a big part of who we are.
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by The Happiest Medium on January 19, 2012
The Knocking Within
ANIKAI Dance Theater
Texts from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, MacBeth, Titus Andronicus and Othello
Selected and compiled by Wendy Jehlen
Direction, concept: Wendy Jehlen
Choreographer: Wendy Jehlen with Pradhuman Nayak
ANIKAI Dance Theater premieres “The Knocking Within,” a new text-based work looking at insanity and a dysfunctional relationship through texts from three of Shakespeare’s tragedies – Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and Titus Andronicus.
The scenes will not play out in a linear manner, but rather will be woven into each other, so that the effect is of the disorientation of unmitigated mental illness and a relationship out of control, or is it the nightmares of two lovers?
Show Times:
- Tues 1/17 @ 6:00pm
- Fri 1/20 @ 8:30pm
- Sun 1/22 @ 3:00pm
Answers by Wendy Jehlen
Artistic Director
ANIKAI Dance
Karen Tortora-Lee’s Question
This is an international festival. What part of the world are you coming from … and will your show tantalize the NYC audience with a taste of your nation’s culture?
Wendy Jehlen:
We are from India and the US, by birth. However, this work, and all ANIKAI works, draws on influences and deep study of traditions from throughout the world. The subjects are also universal – dreaming, the space between waking and sleeping, relationship, love, fear. I believe that our work speaks to that culture of people who do not identify themselves with any one place, but rather with a global community.
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by The Happiest Medium on January 19, 2012
WOYZECK MUSICAL DEATHMETAL
Gorilla repertory Theater
Writer: Christopher Carter Sanderson
Director: Christopher Carter Sanderson
Choreographer: Erin Porvaznika
Enervated by hunger and oppressed by his poverty, Woyzeck struggles to earn money for his common-law wife and their very young son. Scraping together money from his job as a private in the Army, which he supplements by doing odd jobs and shaving his captain for tips daily, Woyzeck slips into madness. As we have journeyed through this terrible landscape, we have seen everything through Woyzeck’s eyes using theatrical tools like cross-casting, rock, folk, and death-metal music and fabulous anachronistic costuming. Only in the very last scene, where the sheriff speaks clearly, does not sing in any way, and is dressed in contemporary costume do we wonder if Woyzeck was ripped out of today’s tabloid murder headlines… or set in Woyzeck’s hallucinatory world of late-1800’s Germany… or is it Norway?
Show Times:
- Wed 1/18 @ 10:00pm
- Sat 1/21 @ 3:30pm
- Sun 1/22 @ 1:00pm
Answers by Christopher Carter Sanderson, Writer of the book, lyrics, and music / Dirctor / Drummer
Karen Tortora-Lee’s Question
This is an international festival. What part of the world are you coming from … and will your show tantalize the NYC audience with a taste of your nation’s culture?
Christopher Carter Sanderson:WOYZECK MUSICAL DEATHMETAL was born in Oslo, Norway where I lived and worked while it was commissioned and originally developed, in part with the help of a Fulbright grant. Many aspects of Norwegian culture influenced the tone and atmosphere of the piece, including Norway’s folk music and Death Metal music. There are one or two specific references that the perceptive will pick up, too.
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by The Happiest Medium on January 18, 2012
HORRIPILATION!
Kaliyuga Arts
Written and performed by John Sowle
Director: Steven Patterson
This stunning work combines the Natya Shastra, a remarkably refined and elaborately detailed pre-Christian theatre text from India, with Teyyam, a primitive South India ritual, to create a work that “plunges audiences into a dazzling realm of color and movement, virtually unknown in the West but filled with amazing insights and invaluable lessons for all those who treasure theatre.”
Show Times:
- Mon 1/16 @ 6:30pm
- Thu 1/19 @ 10:00pm
- Sat 1/21 @ 8:00pm
Answers by Steven Patterson, director
Karen Tortora-Lee’s Question
This is an international festival. What part of the world are you coming from … and will your show tantalize the NYC audience with a taste of your nation’s culture?
Steven Patterson: Our production company, Kaliyuga Arts, is currently based in Catskill, NY, approximately 2 hours north of Manhattan, although our production itself concerns a westerner’s encounter with the practices of an ancient (but still living) Indian theater tradition. It therefore offers NY audiences an opportunity to view the basics of an art-form and a culture with which they may be totally unfamiliar in an accessible, entertaining, and audience-friendly format.
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