by Antonio Miniño on March 1, 2010
New York Neo-Futurists Desiree Burch, Cara Francis & Erica Livingston serve up a cure for what ails you in this Neo-Medicine show, performing in and around a giant pot of self-made soup. Bottling this soup, as well as a series of elixirs, potions, tonics and products, they heal and reveal the female experience live, honest and in the flesh.
Incorporating ingredients from interviews, living newspaper, personal stories, circus acts and freak shows, the women of The Soup Show ultimately feed their audiences with a question “How far has the women’s movement moved us?” The fierce trio honor the 30th Anniversary of Women’s History Month, and show you why the readers of the Village Voice named The New York Neo-Futurists “The 2009 Best Performance Artists in New York.”
ADVISORY: adult language and nudity.
One lucky grand prize winner will receive:
- A pair of tickets to The Soup Show at HERE Arts Center, for Sunday, March 7th at 7:00 pm
To enter, correctly answer the following question:
Q. Who is the director for The Soup Show?
(Wanna cheat? The answer is at www.nyneofuturists.org/site/index.php?/site/soupshow )
Email us your answer with your first and last name to giveaways@thehappiestmedium.com, all entries must be received by Friday, March 5th at 10am.
Click here for contest guidelines.
Good luck!
Related Posts:
by Karen Tortora-Lee on March 1, 2010
Last Life is the fightsical from Timothy Haskell (creator of Road House: The Stage Play) and Eric Sanders (The Wendigo), and stars Taimak (of the legendary fight film The Last Dragon). The title is proving to be about as accurate a title as “Cher’s Final Farewell Tour” because this show has been revived more times than Britany Spear’s reputation – and I couldn’t be happier for the whole creative team.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Anne Jordanova on February 28, 2010
“I gave God a chance to kill me…”
The White Ribbon is the latest film by Austrian born director Michael Haneke. Those who are familiar with Haneke know that he is a fan of long, detailed shots (Cache), and violence (Funny Games) to express and communicate to his audience. But his latest film Das Weisse Band (The White Ribbon) which is nominated this year for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars steers us in a ultimately different direction: to that of a pre-World War 1 black and white Germany … stimulating a breeding ground for hate, fascism, and events to come later in this country.
But the true theme of The White Ribbon is simply evil. A brilliantly put together careful and cautious analysis of pure evil.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 27, 2010
Unionize! (photo credit David Fuller)
“Why don’t you write a piece about all kinds of prostitution – the press, the church, the courts, the arts, the whole system?” asked Bertolt Brecht of Marc Blitzstein in 1937 after hearing Blitzstein’s song “The Nickel Under the Foot” (Oh you can dream and scheme and happily put // And take, take and put // But first be sure // That nickel’s under your foot // Go stand on someone’s neck while you take him // Cut into somebody’s throat as you put // For every dream and scheme, depending on whether // All through the storm // You’ve kept it warm // That nickel under your foot ), and so began Blitzstein’s creative journey to create “The Cradle Will Rock” which is a musical portrayal of exactly that. The greedy Mr. Mister, his vapid, silly, hedonistic family, his easily-controlled preacher, his wife’s pet artists, and some of the good people who needlessly get crushed under his wheels as they try to unionize in “Steeltown, USA” under the direction of their leader, Larry Foreman.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Diánna Martin on February 26, 2010
Lauren Roth as Clair and Tyler Hollinger as Chris
What do you get when you pair a narcissistic, yet emotionally fragile sex addict with her wanna-be-normal husband, whose penchant for punishing women is taken out on his wife’s lover’s girlfriend? The result is something even more bizarre and difficult to follow than that opening sentence. Kaleidoscope Theatre’s “Sex and Violence” did its best to shock the audience into submission, but unfortunately it really just backfired because all of the sex and violence in the world won’t fill in the enormous gaps in the plot, script, acting and character development.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Sarah V. Schweig on February 25, 2010
Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into
the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
—Jean-Paul Sartre
I.
“Let’s build a stadium,” someone said.
“Let’s fill the bottom of the stadium with ice,” said another. “And let’s fill the stands with people.” Everyone nodded.
“We could affix metal blades to a pair of shoes,” someone said. “We could put these shoes on a person!” another added. “We could have them slide around on the ice wearing these bladed shoes!” added a third. “Let’s call them ‘skaters’ and the shoes ‘skates.’” Everyone concurred.
“Let’s name every twist and turn they make while sliding around.” Then another asked, “Like ‘triple axel’ and ‘double lutz?’” “Uh huh!” “We could import people from all over the world to assign numerical scores to what this person does on the ice in this stadium.” “We’ll add the scores together!” one proclaimed, while another piped in, “We’ll declare a winner!” Everyone pondered. “We’ll give them gold, bronze or silver!” Everyone nodded and agreed.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Anne Jordanova on February 24, 2010
Poster Officiel
So, it was announced as of April 2009, that Guillaume Canet’s incredible French thriller “Ne le dis à Personne” (or, Tell No One, en anglais) will receive the ultimate Hollywood retouch … an English language remake. Not much was heard after that announcement, but now according to Variety magazine Miramax and Focus Features will be taking this on.
Tell No One was an excellent film, and a HUGE success in its native France. Coming from the hands and mind of its director -French actor turned director Guillaume Canet- it was well received, reviewed, and loved by audiences across France … including myself.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
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.”
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 24, 2010
Okay, okay, so these last few days have been relatively mild, I admit. Even that giant pile of grey gunk that the plow flung upon my curb which – at it’s all time high – reached up to my shoulders has now evaporated enough to reveal the mounds of garbage that were piled there so eagerly just before the snowstorm hit a few weeks ago. So, in all fairness, it’s not really “brrrr” worthy out there. Still, don’t let that stop you from getting in the Frigid spirit!
This morning while you were nestled all snug in your bed, the Frigid Fairy came down the chimney and … hell … I don’t even know where I was going with this.
BUT, what I do know is that today is the start of the Frigid Festival, which is something we take very seriously here at The Happiest Medium! For more information please visit the official Frigid site and check out the blurbs for some of the shows that are on deck. And also check this spot often, because we’re going to be covering some really good 1 hour shows. Here’s what we’ll be reviewing in the next few days:
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 22, 2010
Playwright Lucy Gillespie
I recently got a chance to chat with the very charming young playwright, Lucy Gillespie, who has penned the upcoming play Hangman School for Girls which is being produced by Vagabond Theatre Ensemble. As the title of this post implies, this is a story involving the students at an all-girl’s school, although any resemblance to that Tootie-Blairefest of your youth (or, for the Millennials in the crowd, from hulu.com then) is purely coincidental. This ain’t your momma’s Eastland … schoolgirls don’t roll that way anymore. Rather, Hangman School for Girls was presented to me as “Alice in Wonderland meets Lolita with a little Mean Girls thrown in”. Ahhh, three very unlikely pairings, but three very guilty pleasures of mine.
Lucy Gillespie and I spent some time talking about all-girls schools, the challenges of acting in your own work … and what it takes to feel like you’ve “made it” in this big city.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
