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by Karen Tortora-Lee on May 13, 2010
COMPANY XIV (photo by Cristina Ramirez Hirst)
Can you die from too much beauty? Probably not. But if you could, I came close to doing so as I watched Company XIV “A mixed media Neo-Baroque dance-theatre company” spin Le Cirque Féerique (The Fairy Circus) into being in front of my dazzled eyes last weekend. The show consists of a series of fairy tales choreographed and directed by Austin McCormick, written and adapted by Austin McCormick and Jeff Takacs, and conceived by Austin McCormick and Zane Pihlstrom and runs till June 6th.
In an unassuming building on Bond Street in Brooklyn where Company XIV makes their home you will find the most unusual matrix of Music, Mystery, and Magic. That’s right, I said Brooklyn. And hold on to your hats, folks, because in the next few paragraphs I’m also going to say things akin to “Frog Prince”, “Madonna”, “Cinderella”, “Carmen”, and “Balloons”. Yes – it’s THAT kind of show.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on April 22, 2010
Harlem
Langston In Harlem - photo by Melinda Hall
by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Right now, for just a few weeks more, you can treat yourself to the vibrant poetry of Langston Hughes, the lush music of Walter Marks, and the talented voices of the ensemble cast of Langston in Harlem because this musical is going on at Urban Stages until May 2nd. (Play by Langston Hughes, Walter Marks and Kent Gash, music by Walter Marks, lyrics by Langston Hughes music production by Barry Levitt, choreography by Byron Easley and directed by Kent Gash).
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on April 2, 2010
Mark Twain
There’s a lot of promise in a show entitled “The Mark Twain You Don’t Know” – the expectation of an evening of eye opening hidden gems, new facets to an old chestnut like Twain, and deeper burrowing into the stories that have been given such broad brushstrokes over the years that we think we know them because we read the cliff notes. There’s also a lot of realization in the title – it make you stop and think for a moment . . . sure, I can picture Twain in my head. (Or is that Einstein? Or Colonel Sanders?) But aside from Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, what else do I really know about him? I had the feeling that what I didn’t know about Twain could fill a book. Or, as luck would have it, a 2 hour one-man-show written, edited and performed by American-born Melbourne actor Chris Wallace now going on at the Richmond Shepard Theatre.
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by Antonio Miniño on February 24, 2010
The Ohio Theatre, a pillar of New York’s downtown theatre scene for 29 years, will close on August 31, 2010. The new landlord has issued official notice and no further negotiations are scheduled.
Located at 66 Wooster Street, The Ohio Theatre was one of Soho’s pioneering performance spaces and is now one of the last remaining. The not-for-profit theatre company Soho Think Tank runs the space under the direction of Artistic Director Robert Lyons. Lyons says, “It’s where Tony Kushner produced his first play out of college, where Philip Seymour Hoffman made his professional acting debut, where Eve Ensler performed Dicks in the Desert, a decade before writing The Vagina Monologues. The Ohio Theatre has been an incubator and platform for New York’s most exciting and innovative theatre artists for almost 30 years. Its closing emphatically punctuates the end of an era in Soho, and stands as a high profile casualty in the relentless decimation of the lower Manhattan theatre landscape.”
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by Antonio Miniño on February 21, 2010
© Jill Usdan
Master collagist Charles Mee celebrates love, sex and the joie de vivre in Fetes de la Nuit, this time presented by WeildWorks at The Ohio Theater. Mee is no stranger to plays about relationships and how culture molds the different ways we approach love, loving, and being loved. For example, in his play Big Love, fifty brides flee their grooms and seek refuge in an Italian villa, mixing pop culture with tradition and texts from different classics. In Fetes de la Nuit he reinvents and updates a style that used to serve as entertainment for Louis VIX at Versailles, into a modern day somewhat stereotypical look into Paris, romance and a lot of sex.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on January 29, 2010
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| I cannot believe it’s been a year since the last time I brought news of Off-Broadway’s great 20@20 discount. But hey, that’s how it is with seasonal things.
Anywhoo … here we are again, at TWENTY @ TWENTY season which is possibly the best time of year to go see a great Off-Broadway show. As far as truth in advertising goes, there’s no deal that’s better, for this one is exactly what it says it is. For the next week or so head on down to any one of these great theatres (click on the links for theatre information) and twenty minutes before the show starts say “twenty at twenty” at the box office and get a ticket for twenty bucks. Happy Now? You Betcha! My Dear Edwina, it’s not only The Perfect Crime, it’s Fantastick(s). You’ll feel like Cinderella sipping a MazelTov Cocktail at her Awesome 80s Prom. And just wait till the Naked Boys (start) Singing! Don’t wait till it’s Zero Hour … get yourself to one of these great shows (or one of the ones I wasn’t able to slyly work into the conversation – I’m talking to YOU Circumcise Me) NOW. Keep reading for more information:
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on December 21, 2009
Image by Kelly Syring
I’m not as concerned with the persistent presence of fear and ridicule as I am with the conspicuous absence of understanding and respect, particularly in communities of color.
– Chisa Hutchinson
Most of us wake up in the morning wondering if we’re going to do anything that day … or any day … that will leave an impression on others. For most of us it’s enough to just touch a few lives in a positive way, to give something or share something or even to just illuminate something for those we’re close to in order to raise consciousness a little bit, or a little bit more. However, at the age of 16 in the rough streets of Newark Sakia Gunn was probably thinking very little about making an impression and just was focusing on how to get through her day. Being young, black and gay in a rough urban community doesn’t leave much room for being different. And in Sakia’s case, there was no room at all.
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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 Antonio Miniño on October 30, 2009
Victor L. Cahn’s new play Embraceable Me at Theatre Row’s Kirk Theatre is attempting to be a tennis match of the sexes where Allison (Keira Naughton) is your egocentric, focused, determined woman, whilst Edward (Scott Barrow) is shy, mousy, and amazing at what he does, which Allison uses to further herself during college and ever after. You wouldn’t think these two would develop a romance together, but they do. And what could have been a flavorful “who would have thought” love story, never catches our fancy due to the underdevelopment of these characters. There is no indication as to why these two belong together.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on July 8, 2009
Going to see The Temperamentals at the end of Pride Month was as deeply stirring as watching a reenactment of the signing of the declaration of independence on July 4th, if not more so. Because, while the history of how America fought and won its independence is a story that is well worn, the story of how, long before the Stonewall Riots, a group of men fought for their own personal freedom is one I’d never even heard about before seeing this amazing play.
The Civil Rights movement didn’t happen in one fell swoop; it progressed bit by bit and built on itself event by event. Brown v. The Board of Education beget Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott which paved the way for Martin Luther King, Jr. Similarly, the Gay Rights Movement didn’t burst forth, fully formed, in one great disco-as-wreaking ball through the walls of the Stonewall Inn. By definition, it simply couldn’t. Rather, it started off years earlier with Harry Hay, Rudi Gernreich, and a manifesto which became The Mattachine Society. The Temperamentals is the play which tells their story.
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