by Karen Tortora-Lee on August 31, 2011
Earlier this week FringeNYC announced the 2011 Overall Excellence Award Winners and we at THM couldn’t have been happier to celebrate with the winners and congratulate them on their success. One standout for me was The Bardy Bunch: The War of the Families Partridge and Brady which was definitely one of my favorites this year. I was lucky enough to get a moment with Stephen Garvey – writer of this fantastic show which takes one part Brady, one part Partidge, one part Shakespeare, and all parts groovy and mixes it together in a crazy plot worthy of Sherwood Schwartz on his best day. Read on to find out if Garvey is Team Brady or Team Partridge … see how creativity can spring in the most unlikeliest of places, and learn what the secret to a great mash-up really is …
Stephen Garvey!!! First of all, congratulations on winning the Ensemble Award! You’re in great company. It was clear from the first five minutes that your show was destined to win recognition, but did you see this award coming?
SG: Didn’t see it coming but so happy it came. We really lucked out with this cast. Director Jay Stern and I had to hold our auditions very late in the game, and we were nervous. Not only did we need to fill 18 roles, we needed actors who could sing, dance, be funny and manage to capture the spirit of the iconic characters they were playing. How we went 18 for 18 is nothing short of miraculous!
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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 Lina Zeldovich on August 17, 2010
Pictured: Kristen Rozanski, Michelle Glavan, Zack Gold, JR Davidson, Jacob Crumbine, Janice Lynde (Photographer: Carly Kennelly)
Dressed in leather, excited and nearly flying around her house, Elizabeth (Janice Lynde) is setting up her living room with candles and flowers in preparations for her fifty-fifth birthday date, when her college-age daughter Olivia (Michelle Glavan) unexpectedly shows up. She has flown in to celebrate Mom’s special day, only Mom’s not excited one single bit! On the contrary, she’s shocked, constantly checking the time, and suggests her daughter spends the evening at her friend’s place.
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by Lina Zeldovich on August 17, 2010
Jayne Amelia Larson (Photographer: Eric Swarz)
“The worst job I ever had,” is how writer and actress Jayne Amelia Larsen describes her staggering experience of being a driver for a Saudi family on their Beverly Hills vacation. The family (along with their entourage) took up several floors in a luxury hotel, keeping one room as a tea room, and embarked on their escapade of shopping and plastic surgeries.
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by Lina Zeldovich on August 15, 2010
Shine Mionne (Cass King) runs her operation on a corset string, but she stands by her ideals: a true edgy burlesque show with no glitzy Broadway feel. The roof leaks, lights break, the performers don’t get paid sometimes, but everyone is family and a star, including the real big girl Lucy Von Doozy (Andra Boo Green), a little wildcat Feral (Roxie Moxie), who hisses and bites along with the janitor (John Woods) who never says a word.
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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.
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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.
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