by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson on January 31, 2012


Stabat Mater Fabulosa
The Morningside Opera company offered up a quite singular interpretation of Pergolesi‘s Stabat Mater in their Fabulosa rendition on January 26th at Dixon Place, which proved, at once, a scholarly as well as a quite literal undressing of the original. Composed in 1736 – the year of Pergolesi’s death at the august age of 26 – the piece has been an iconic work in the canon of western sacred music ever since and has enjoyed an unbroken record of performance for nearly three hundred years. This surely says something about a work, to have endured so vigorously the vagaries of artistic, musical, and religious change, never mind or dare one say, taste. Which in many ways explains its attraction for Morningside Opera, who see their role as boundary-pushers wishing to invigorate dialogue between traditional and new modes of the form. Their stripped down presentation was both scholastically dense as well as visually provocative.
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by Michelle Augello-Page on November 10, 2011

A benefit concert is being held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Ghar Sita Mutu - “House with a Heart” – a charity that offers a children’s home, a children’s learning center, a women’s training center, and a family outreach program to those living in extreme poverty in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Ghar Sita Mutu Benefit Concert
The Ghar Sita Mutu Benefit Concert is on Monday, November 14 at the Theatre for the New City. 155 First Ave, NYC. 8 pm – 11:30 pm. Suggested donation at the door is $15. There will be performances by musicians, actors, and comedians, including Anacoustic Mind, Khaled Dajani, Michael Birch, John Grimaldi, Mike Milazzo, Mark Normand, Sharon Jane Smith, Lord Lorax, Cathryn Lynne, and Sagar Bhatt.
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by Lina Zeldovich on August 21, 2011


Dystopia Gardens: Soylent Green meets Sleeper.
Ladies, gentlemen and other fellow Fringe enthusiasts, Will Nunziata and Jerry Sean Miller do it again: with their hilarious multi-media one-act, they instantly drop us into One World, a place allegedly so polluted that people live inside humongous domes and savor food pills. “Allegedly,” by the way, is the keyword.
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by Michelle Augello-Page on August 21, 2011


Lipshtick is an ambitious play, taking the audience on a funny, poignant, and complex journey through what it meant to be a woman in 20th century America amidst a media blitzkrieg mirroring society’s perceptions, ideals, and images, while seeking to expose how women internalize and externalize these expectations as they struggle towards a sense of self and continue to define the realities and experiences of being female in American society in the present.
Written by Romy Nordlinger and Adam Burns, “Lipshtick” is centered around the Make-Me-Over Show, a reality T.V. show which eavesdrops on women’s lives by hacking into their media devices in order to find the next contestant to win an appearance on the show. The lucky winner will receive the ultimate make-over, becoming the very image of society’s ideal woman.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on August 14, 2011


Oh, you’ll love walking into the theatre at Dixon Place to watch I Light Up My Life: The Mark Sam Celebrity Autobiography – Mark Sam Rosenthal’s (Celebrity!) solo show. The music is cranking with such anthems as The Pussycat Dolls “When I Grow Up”, Katy Perry’s “Firework” and Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” and the walls are glowing with projections of Mark in his candid, semi (one assumes) nude “oops, you caught me being cute!” poses. You’ll just love walking in, almost as much as Mark Sam Rosenthal himself does.
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by Stephen Tortora-Lee on August 27, 2010


Are you who you think you are or just who others say you are? Are you a combination somewhere in the middle – or none of the above? How do you get caught in a rectilinear paradox? Can’t you just do what the sign says no matter where it’s saying it?
Insurmountable Simplicities (written by Roberto Casati and Achille Varzi, adapted and directed by Natalie Glick) is a very fast paced play with witty dialogue and superb acting which helps us pull apart various layers of philosophical conundrums.
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by Antonio Miniño on August 22, 2010


One of the best things about the Fringe Festival is how it embraces diversity – it becomes one of the best summer reminders as to how culturally rich and fascinating this city can be. In Swaha: Rituals of Union Trinayan Dance Theater mixes tradition, with dance, storytelling and ritualistic precise movements that will evoke your senses and successfully accomplish the elephantine task of getting you out of your head, no verbal dialogue required.
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by Stephen Tortora-Lee on August 20, 2010

What’s Beat? The Beat is Beat? Do you dig? (snap,snap).
The story we have is the story we were, twirling and twisting about in a blur whose end and beginning is a boy and a girl. That story – two ends – are tender and sweet . . . But what we got in the middle is what we call the Beat. (roll of tom-toms).

Jerry'Chip' Scuderi, Maureen Duke
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