by Karen Tortora-Lee on October 6, 2009
If Marrying Meg was a book, it would lay solidly in your lap, with a cover made of fine tooled leather, each page edged in gold leaf. Fairy dust would shimmer up out of it as you turned each page and sank deeper and deeper into this amazing world that Mark Robertson (book, lyrics and music) created. But Marrying Meg is, thankfully, more than a book, and more than a play, even. It is a charming, magical, amazing musical that was crafted by a man who has a rare gift – the ability to write a new musical that has the chops of an old musical, but all the energy, nuance and vitality of a brand new musical. The songs are fresh, the lyrics are delightfully robust – clever enough to give your ear a treat without being so verbose that you can’t follow the meaning.
Related Posts:
by Kimberly Blozie on September 22, 2009
Last month, I had a conversation with my friend Jared Koch about his new book which he recently published called “Clean Plates”. Jared was born in Brooklyn, and currently resides in West NY, NJ. He used to own a high-end events/entertainment company, but he sold the business about 10 years ago and has been “entreprenuring” in and around the NY area ever since. He is currently building Clean Plates into a national brand with major online presence. He is also a serious spiritual practitioner and has sincere interests in forward thinking spirituality. I met Jared about 4 years ago, based on our mutual interest in EnlightenNext and we have been good friends ever since. What follows is a conversation I had with Jared in between book talks and signings.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by The Happiest Medium on August 20, 2009
Keith Chow
Paolo Javier chats with Keith Chow about the inaugural Asian American Comicon in post-convention glow.
Asian Americans have been vital contributors to the American comic book since, well, its birth, a fact rarely acknowledged by an industry that continues to uphold a homogeneously white and hetero imaginary on the covers and in the panels of its mainstream and independent titles. With this in mind, I cannot thank the BSG gods enough for the editors of Secret Identities, the first-ever anthology of Asian American comics published earlier this year, who followed-up their historic publication with an equally groundbreaking event on July 11th at the Museum of the Chinese in America: the inaugural Asian American Comics Convention. The AACC felt more like a day-long celebration; I got to participate in the morning as a reader on the panel ‘Every Comic is Asian American’, then geek out in the afternoon and evening as a reader and fan. (During my panel, I shared excerpts from obb, my on-going poetry comic collaboration with artist Ernest Concepcion that’s partially inspired by our lifelong interest in underground comic art and artists.) And I loved AACC for all the reasons that Keith Chow, co-organizer of the event and co-editor of Secret Identities, gives in our post-convention interview below.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Karen Tortora-Lee on August 19, 2009
You can tell it’s Fringe Season when theatres ’round the city are suddenly bustling with life at odd hours of the day and escorting people in and out quickly so they can strike a set and get ready for the next show which is happening in, oh, about a minute. Yes, it’s all about endings and beginnings at Fringe which is why it’s rather fitting that I started my rounds this year with two very different plays that both dealt with the same fine line between living and dying, and what you do with that quick snap of a moment in between the two blackouts. Eli and Cheryl Jump takes you off on the wind of fanciful, magical, dreaminess while Look After You shows the realistic portrait of a life interrupted by a flash of illness that comes quickly and takes certainty with it. Both plays speak to the frailty of what we take for granted every day, both highlight what it means to be a survivor.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Karen Tortora-Lee on August 12, 2009
Society doesn’t look kindly upon mothers who kill their children, intentionally or otherwise; right now the court of public opinion is busily vilifying Diane Schuler who was reportedly drunk and stoned when she piled a group of children (her own daughter included) into her car and then drove the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway killing everyone as well as (some would say rightfully) herself. Before that, there was the infamous Andrea Yates, who, in a stupor of post-partum depression and psychosis, systematically drowned one child after another until all 5 of her young boys were dead. But really, the “how” is never the question. In fact, the “how” is pretty much shushed away quickly, no one wants to hear how a mother kills her own children. What we are left asking is … why? Why would a mother kill these little ones?
The Greeks have always been amazing storytellers; their myths and tragedies are rife with the themes that pulse through every level of society. Show me an Icarus and I’ll show you a victim of Bernie Madoff. But the story of Medea has always been a little harder to figure out; a woman who is so angered by her husband’s betrayal that she kills her sons in order to exact revenge on him. Again, this “why” never quite resonated enough with me to be clearly understood. A woman can more easily identify with killing herself over a tragic affair than she can with killing her own child. So updating Medea has to be done very carefully. Luckily, playwright Will Le Vasseur has found a way to give his Medea the perfect out, thus preserving the original story while making his main character actually sympathetic. Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Karen Tortora-Lee on August 1, 2009
New York Fringe Festival 2009
Unless you’ve been living outside of New York City for the last decade or so, chances are you’ve either attended a Fringe show yourself, or you’ve at least heard about the festival. ”Fringe”, of course, means The New York International Fringe Festival and it is the largest multi-arts festival in North America, with more than 200 companies from all over the world performing for 16 days in more than 20 venues. It kicks off in just two weeks on August 14th, so right now everyone involved is getting their act together, so to speak, and preparing for Opening Night.
One very special show which will be featured this year at the Fringe Festival is Eli and Cheryl Jump, a poetic, haunting play written by Daniel McCoy. I got a chance to chat with Daniel and find out what it’s like to be part of the Fringe, what sparked him to write this play, and what he hopes it will mean to the audience.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Stephen Tortora-Lee on July 29, 2009
An interesting social interactivity experiment is happening in the Bronx right now.
Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone? Well, thanks to the folks behind this Tree Museum, we don’t have to pave paradise, we can discover it in the Bronx where it’s free (they don’t even charge people a dollar and a half just to see ‘em).
Events of the last 100 years have been distilled in stories by people in the community and connected through interweaving matrices of local ecology, the internet, social commentary and interactive mobile technology. It winds through the first divided lane highway system in the US and highlights green technology past and present.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Karen Tortora-Lee on July 25, 2009
Bird House (Photo by Marcus Woollen)
Lewis Carroll did it with Alice in Wonderland … L. Frank Baum did it with The Wizard of Oz: gave us stories of fantastical worlds where innocent girls stumble backwards into their watershed moment and grow up from the inside out. Now, playwright Kate Marks brings us another place of fantasy where not one but two girls on opposite sides of the same world struggle with the same journey. This is Bird House. (Directed by Heidi Handelsman and currently playing at Theater 3.)
Just as Wonderland begins with young Alice bored on a lovely day sitting near her sister, her life nothing so confounding as the frustration of trying to read a book without pictures, so begins Bird House … innocently. Young (or rather, of indeterminate age… but “childlike”) Louisy (Cotton Wright) is excitedly sitting in wait with the more grown-up (and therefore completely underwhelmed) Syl (Christina Shipp) for the clock to strike 8, for that is when Kook (Anthony Wills Jr.) and Ooo (Ora Fruchter), the two puppet birds who live in the cuckoo clock, will come out and announce the hour. Louisy is beside herself with excitement. She’s baked biscuits. Syl is bemused by Louisy but calmly reading the paper … (a book without pictures). It’s all so idyllic. So charming. So … safe. You can just see a rabbit hole and a tornado on the horizon.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Karen Tortora-Lee on July 22, 2009
When I came on to the staff of neighborbee in October of 2008 as the theatre columnist I had no idea that just nine months later I’d be this immersed in the Off-Off Broadway community. But here I am, 29 weeks, 32 shows and 25 reviews later … writing not just for this site but for The Fab Marquee as well (go check it out!) … and thrilled to be part of a mechanism every week which (I hope) gets people off the couch, out of their homes and into these charming, cozy, sometimes unpredictably configured independent theatres. I love knowing I play a part in helping to get audiences out there in order to watch amazingly talented performers break new ground with never-before-seen plays, or bring the classics alive again for a whole new generation of theatre-goers. I’ve been lucky enough to see a bit of both in these last nine months and have enjoyed virtually every single performance I’ve reviewed. And you know, even the clunkers have a charm all their own, and can sometimes stay with me far longer than expected, just like that other indispensable New York linchpin that can be an equal hit-or-miss: the pushcart hot dog. But I digress.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Serena Liu on July 21, 2009
Rachel Rheingold & Michael Berick
Maptote’s tote bags are the perfect neighborhood bling. How else can you proudly and properly pimp out your ‘hood? My own Queens tote has been to all five boroughs and back as well as various ‘hoods on many continents. I’ve used it to tote groceries, picnic wares and beach going gear. Plus, they’re local (Brooklyn-based) and indie!
Pay attention to Rachel Rheingold and Michael Berick favorite Park Slope spots since they know a thing or two about quality goods and esoteric neighborhood facts.
Name: Rachel Rheingold & Michael Berick
Occupation: Designers and owners of Maptote
Borough/Neighborhood: Park Slope, Brooklyn
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
