by Karen Tortora-Lee on September 16, 2010
Donnie’s got it tough. He’s not good at gym . . . the resident cool kid picks on him . . . his babysitter sees snakes in the furniture . . . his only friend at school is a gal even nerdier than he is . . . and his only friend at home is a sarcastic sock puppet who only appears long enough to snatch whatever self esteem Donnie managed to drag back home before disappearing back into the wall. Oh, and the monster under the bed wants to eat him. Yup, things don’t look good for Donnie.
Donnie And The Monsters (written by Robert J. Gibbs and directed by Heidi G.Grumelot) may play like a kid’s story but it’s anything but. For while – in Donnie’s world – there are monsters at every turn, often times it’s the ones of flesh and blood who can be the scariest: not a talking sock, or a wandering pirate, or a woebegone toilet or a green eyed monster – but rather a mean kid, or a forceful teacher, or a distracted mom. Donnie’s biggest enemies don’t exist in his imagination, but right along side him. The story of how Donnie copes and conquers his monsters is presented in an allegory. Using humor to breach some of life’s harder lessons, there’s no doubt that at the heart of this story is a coming of age tale – not just for Donnie but for some of his monsters as well.
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by Anne Jordanova on September 16, 2010
“Picture Me- A Model’s Diary” is the new documentary following the rise of high fashion model Sara Ziff, over the course of several years, by her then filmmaker boyfriend Ole Schell.
It first premiered at the 2009 Gen Art Film Festival in New York, and it is shocking, honest, and disturbing.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on September 15, 2010
Viewer Discretion Advised is about a chance encounter between mild mannered Norm and a mysterious stranger that starts at uneasy, takes you on past creepy, veers off into inappropriate and drops you off at completely bizarre. For Norm, it’s a cautionary tale about letting strangers into your home and into your life. For the audience, it’s a peek inside the twisted mind of a man who likes to take things too far.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on September 4, 2010
If you weren’t one of the lucky ones who was able to get to Planet Connections to experience Made For Each Other- take heart! It’s coming around again as part of an evening of theatre entitle BALLS: the Testosterone Plays of Monica Bauer. In order to be able to get this production off the ground some very talented, inspirational writers are gathering on Saturday, September 11th for a one-night-only fundraiser entitled “WOMEN WITH BALLS” short plays by women about men.
This news makes me very happy becuase 1) Made for Each Other is a terrific show which I’m excited to have a chance to see again 2) this gives me an opportunity to interview playwright Monica Bauer - a talented, funny, smart woman. Monica took some time out of her really busy schedule to tell me a little bit about the great women who will be sharing the bill with her on 9/11, how she convincingly channeled the spirit of war veterans, and what it means to be a woman with balls . . .
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on September 1, 2010
Seeing Whatever Happened To Beverly Daniels last night made me a little nostalgic for my high school days, when a group of people – talented actors, great dancers, good performers – would get together and put on a show. Back then, there was an earnestness, a lot of heart, a lot of energy, a lot of capability, but somehow . . . you just weren’t going to get around the fact that it was a high school play.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on August 31, 2010
Nothing feels better than taking that final bow, and hearing the applause going on and on . . . begging you to come out one more time. For some very special shows of Fringe, that’s exactly what gets to happen and we at The Happiest Medium are very pleased that some of our very favorites from the Festival are being called back again.
The 2010 Fringe Encore Series
What We Saw:
The Secretaries
Venue: The Lucille Lortel Theater
9/13 @ 10:00
9/15 @ 9:30
9/22 @ 9:30
9/23 @ 10:00
What We Said
This play simultaneously celebrates and skewers the female rituals . . . Fun from start to finish The Secretaries will make you laugh at old stereotypes, new rituals, and the concept of how far one will go just to fit in.(Read Full Review Here)
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by Lina Zeldovich on August 29, 2010
Costume ensembles are just about the only thing that carries Dream of Marionettes as a show. Perhaps the idea of adding a burlesque spirit to a marionettes’ rebellion against an abusive puppeteer who exploited his dolls and threatened to throw them in the furnace seemed like a new twist on the old Pinocchio tale, but the script is simply too flat.
When the dolls get a hold of their Stromboli’s magic wand, they turn the old, bald and goateed owner into a marionette himself, force him to obey their orders and make fun of him in every way imaginable. Nothing wrong with some healthy femme fatale domination, especially when it comes to burlesque, but it’s just never gets funny. In fact, every joke is a cliché, every song sounds like something we’ve heard before and the story comes out lame. Even the promised burlesque part doesn’t seem to really “take” – barely anyone takes any clothes off during the show.
The Bottom Line? The Marionette’s cast, which actually does know how to sing and dance, and the truly great costume designer were the highlights of the show.
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Dream of the Marionettes / Le Reve des Marionettes
Les Marionettes Productions
Written by Johanna Divine and Christy Leichty; Music by Johanna Divine and Daniel Coolik
Directed by Steven Cooper and Christy Leichty
Choreography by John Vincent
Final performance: Sunday, August 29th at 2:30pm
www.DreamOfTheMarionettes.com
Ellen Stewart Theatre at La MaMa (66 E 4th St)
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by Stephen Tortora-Lee on August 27, 2010
One year after Hurricane Katrina struck, the mayor of New Orleans wanted to put on The Hurricane Katrina Comedy Hour. Public outrage stopped it from ever airing, but here is another attempt.
Rob Florence’s The Hurricane Katrina Comedy Festival directed by Dann Fink gives us a positive story of 5 people who experienced Katrina and made a difference. This difference is either to themselves, to their family, to their neighbors (in the normal sense of people who lived next door as well as the classic Biblical sense of whoever needs help), and to the city itself. Their “comedy” is not making light of what happened, but rather about not being beat by a situation which so many of the people in this play recalled as “post-apocalyptic”.
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by Stephen Tortora-Lee on August 27, 2010
6 Characters Based On 60 Interviews in 60 Minutes Equals Countless Emotions
Deanna Pacelli is a hero. Or several of them actually, and also a victim, and often enough some observers. In 23 Feet in 12 Minutes Deanna puts on many characters and pulls stories from many moving moments as she recounts the events starting with Hurricane Katrina from the eyes of 6 characters drawn from more than 60 accounts of what happened after the storm hit, the water rose, and chaos spread.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on August 27, 2010
Boy, do I remember what it was like to be the new gal around the office – to not have the routine down yet, to get sneered at for ordering from wrong place for lunch (“We don’t use them ever since the egg salad incident . . . but that was before your time”) or to be thought of as stuck up for taking lunch alone in the park . . . or (even worse) not taking a cigarette break with the other girls from the admin pool. One false step and you’re branded some sort of outcast who thinks she’s better than everyone else. Offices can be tough, and a Clique of Secretaries who treat the office like High School all over again can be murder. And in this new production of The Five Lesbian Brothers’ 1994 dark comedy The Secretaries (directed by Mark Finley) Murder is exactly what it is.
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