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by Diánna Martin on March 4, 2011
My Pal Izzy - The Early Life and Music of Irving Berlin featuring Melanie Gall
Imaginative and educational, Melanie Gall’s My Pal Izzy – The Early Life And Music Of Irving Berlin combines a healthy dose of fact and fiction as we are given a panoramic view of the life of brilliant composer Irving Berlin during his early formative years through his ill-fated albeit loving marriage to Dorothy Goetz. Our narrator, Rebecca, shares small stories behind several of his songs (many of which, in this fictionalized narrative, are based on their friendship) while the character also weaves in a considerable amount of history about the famed Berlin, who was born Israel Baline, and his childhood dreams that he hustled and worked so hard for to make a reality. As she describes the songs, she also shares them – with her opera-trained voice and pianist (John Murphy). Continue Reading…
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by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson on March 3, 2011
Joe Mazza in The Hyperbolist (Photo by Susan Ask)
As you enter The Red Room, the small black box theater space upstairs from KGB Bar, to attend The Hyperbolist, don’t be surprised to find performer/auteur Joe Mazza already there waiting to personally greet you. His is an undeniable presence, crackling with the energy of the irrepressible performer, eager to shake hands, quip with you, and generally impress upon you the aura of his creative, irrefutable me-ness. You could feel him across a room even if he wasn’t so striking, and there’d be no need for the trappings of theatrical finesse – the black clothes, dark-framed glasses, and black eye make-up – if he wasn’t, in a moment, about to launch a complex, engrossing, and delightful attack upon your jaded audience senses.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on March 3, 2011
You know how to get me to fall in love with your production within the first minute? Start off with a smooth cocktail made up of one part Lady Gaga and one part Sweeney Todd, mix it up with some hot choreography, garnish the hell out of it with a lavender back light, then have it served up hot and sweet by a trio of beauteous A Capella boys. Then, just keep going. Walk into Fate, Fury and Musical Theatre: A Kind of Cabaret expecting to be drunk on talent and damn – you’ll get your elixir and more. Much more. Written and performed by front-woman Liz Wasser, Fate, Fury is Fabulous, Fun and Fantastic.
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by Diánna Martin on March 3, 2011
Year of the Slut featuring Jen Lieberman (Photo by Lindsay Goldman)
Jennifer Lieberman’s one-woman show, Year of the Slut, is an odyssey through the life of a young Canadian getting her feet wet in the bright lights and big city of New York. The main things on her mind besides getting her acting career in high gear is to successfully 1) lose her virginity 2) survive the land mines of available yet dysfunctional bachelors who she finds herself involved with and 3) meet Mr. Right while opening up her horizons to channeling her sexuality through her creativity.
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by Antonio Miniño on March 3, 2011
Candy Simmons in Scarlet Woman
Simple: if you love a good murder mystery and film noir you will enjoy Scarlet Woman. Matthew Well’s play has more twists and turns than a twizzler, and actresses Candy Simmons and Megan Hill love chewing on that licorice!
Carmine (one of the characters played by Candy Simmons), is a woman who can’t get a recent fire out of her mind, except she can’t really remember the details! Off she goes to find out who killed her father. Her clue? One of his former lovers who sends her off on a wild noir chase to another lover… and that lover to another… and another… you get it. Megan Hill does a great job at physically transforming into the different smokey ladies and even a couple of dandies.
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by Stephen Tortora-Lee on March 2, 2011
The Shorebound Swim with a One Click Kick
Have you ever had one of those dreams? Where you’re having one crazy twist after another, and you can’t wait to see what will happen next… and then you wake up confused not sure what it meant and it even might fade away soon after waking, but it leaves these potentialities of ideas buzzing in your head the rest of the day? The Shorebound Swim With a One Click Kick: A Tragedy of Reason (Written by Markus Paminger & Directed by Alison Carroll) is an awful lot like that. Very enticing, but left intentionally vague, I think, so that you can believe whichever ending you’d hope for.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on March 2, 2011
Goodnight Lovin' Trail Featuring Nic Mevoli & Olivia Rorick (Photo by David Anthony)
Have you ever stupidly misplaced something that was really important to you? Just walked away from it, not realizing it was out of your hands until it was too late? Remember that panic that gripped you to the very core? How your blood turned to ice in your veins and your heart pounded so loud you could hear it in your ears? In John Patrick Bray’s One-Act, Goodnight Lovin’ Trail, this is the moment we meet a traveler who’s just realized he’s left behind the most important thing he owns – Della: his guitar. Without Della this stranger feels like ”a wave of the ocean hung out to dry.”
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on March 2, 2011
The Mysterious Mystery of Mystery Street
Go into The Mysterious Mystery of Mystery Street at the Kraine Theatre expecting a hard boiled detective story full of tersely delivered dialogue, dames and dicks and that’s what you’ll get, in a manner of speaking. It’s your typical setup: two hard talking detectives (Sergio Lodolce and Adam Brome) are behind a desk in some seedy joint down town when a hapless dame (Maggie McGuire) walks in. She’s leggy, lovely and looking for her brother; a few tears, a little exposition, some wisecracks and the dicks are soon hoofing it all over town on a random chase that leads them down the path of innuendo, wisecracks, double entendres and mistaken meaning, all culminating with a big shootout in a warehouse. Sounds like all the elements are there for the perfect noir send-up, yes? Well, yes. And . . . no.
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by Antonio Miniño on March 2, 2011
Saving Tania's Privates (photo by Joe Jankovsky)
Theatre magic doesn’t happen every day or in every show. Those instances when time stops and you are transported from every day life into the world of a writer or a performer are happening right now at the FRIGID New York festival in a basement theater called Under St. Marks. The mastermind behind all this power brought to the stage is Tania Katan with Saving Tania’s Privates. A personal, witty, no-nonsense recount of a Jewish lesbian’s challenge with cancer since the age of 21. Continue Reading…
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by Stephen Tortora-Lee on March 1, 2011
Inside Straight - Johnny AceImage by Ivan Farkas
In poker terms an inside straight means you have everything you need to get all the cards in your hand in order except you’re missing the one in the middle. In actor/writer George Ridgeway’s Inside Straight the play/docudrama/solo show illustrates that as we progress through the second decade of the 21st century, we as individuals, may be reaching out into realms of information security just so we might stay a step ahead of being played ourselves. As the internet moves from 2.0 to 3.0 and New York and other megacities such as London are moving toward becoming Panopticon-ready, and RFID’s are being used for tracking our pets or even ourselves, Johnny Ace (George Ridgeway) enters the scene.
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