by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson on May 24, 2012
The first thing you can’t fail to notice upon entering the performance space for Empirical Rogue‘s production of Romeo and Juliet, is the spectacular environment chashama have provided for the company. Formerly a taxi service garage on Jackson Avenue, LIC, the space retains the character of its previous functionalism, but the translation of the environment for its theatrical purpose is all but awe inspiring. This is immersive theatre space at its most captivating. Three very simple arrangements of double rowed seats place the audience right at the edge of the action. Behind them floor to ceiling drapes of canvas enclose the space and focus attention on one corner of the performance area, where a raised office hutch serves as the play’s famous balcony setting. The raw cinder block walls are spectrally painted with fading murals and decorative effects that describe location and contribute atmosphere almost slyly – “Verona” the largest declares boldly, like some pageant-styled vermouth advertisement of the Forties. A raw building scaffold sits easily in the space, spotlights glow in constellation behind canvas walls, and a wide grill metal gate recalls you to the actuality of the location. Before the drama has begun you want to take your hat off to production designer, Dante Olivia Smith, muralist, Adam Fujita, and producer/director, Tim Eliot. This is one of the most intelligent and graceful set designs I have come across.
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by The Happiest Medium on February 28, 2012
The Happiest Medium Review by guest contributor Linnea Covington
The term “rock musical” can mean a variety of things, most of them not very good. But in Zack Powell and JD Cannady’s Drowning Ophelia, the musical aspect is all part of the story and the story rocks on its own. Cannady, who wrote the book, manages to create a convincing drama surrounding Ophelia, Shakespeare’s forlorn noblewoman who has the bad luck of loving Hamlet. She also drowns herself, which is exactly how she ended up in purgatory, singing away the time with her band the Clowns and waiting for the day Hamlet shows up.
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by The Happiest Medium on February 18, 2012
Five Questions. Five Answers. And One Big Decision: Rock, Paper, Or Scissors?
Drowning Ophelia: A New Rock Musical
Company: The RIFF Collective
In Drowning Ophelia, we see one girl with a microphone and the story of Hamlet told through an exciting theatrical concert of sex, drowning, and rock ‘n’ roll.
Show Times:
- Sat 2/25 @ 7pm
- Sun 2/26 @ 2:30pm
- Mon 2/27 @ 10:30pm
- Thu 3/1 @ 6pm
- Fri 3/2 @ 9pm
- Sun 3/4 @ 1pm
Answers by JD Cannady
(Director and Book Writer)
Karen Tortora-Lee’s Question
That’s some title. How did you come up with it – and what does it mean?
JD: Drowning Ophelia is an homage and riff off of the classic Hamlet story. After her self-proclaimed “tragic” drowning, Ophelia finds herself in purgatory with nothing to do. When the story comes back to her, four hundred years later, will she drown in the details over again or rise above?
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on January 24, 2012
I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at the new short film by Antonia Bogdanovich — MY LEFT HAND MAN — starring Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Nanny McPhee, Love Actually), Andrew Howard (Limitless, upcoming “Hatfields and McCoys”), Kevin Bigley (“The Chicago Code,” “CSI: Miami”) and Erich Wildpret, who is a Latin American star. The 18-minute dramatic short screens as part of the NJ Film Fest at Rutgers on January 28th. Although the film clocks in at under half an hour I was captivated by the beautiful mosaic of emotions Bogdanovich was able to create both as writer and director in this film. The story is told in a straightforward, simple manner however the situation is anything but conventional.
The Emersons are a theatrical family, of sorts – one son is a street performer who recites Shakespeare while his older brother picks pockets in the crowd. Their father, a has-been thespian, spends the take on booze and ponies. But Samuel wants to make like his comic book hero The Cardinal Comet and split; and a visit from a loan shark gives Samuel a chance at freedom.
Ms. Bogdanovich graciously allowed me to pepper her with questions, both about this amazing film and the process of making it, as well as how her impressive lineage played a part in making her who she is today. Read on as she tells me about the challenges of creating a short film, how her own rebellious youth helped her created the character of Samuel, and exactly what a “left hand man” means to her …
Antonia Bogdanovich
Antonia! I just saw your short film, MY LEFT HAND MAN, and found it incredibly compelling. In 18 minutes you manage to tell a story which provides so much back-story yet takes place in a very short span of time.
You not only directed MY LEFT HAND MAN, but wrote it as well. Where did this idea of the story come from?
Antonia Bogdanovich: The idea came from a few places. I love Shakespeare – as an actor, I studied it a bit at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London (summer program). And I have seen quite a few very good productions on stage, as well as some of or most of the films. I really relate to his work, it has such depth yet it is so accessible. The crime elements are from my own experiences….ahem… I was a bit of a juvenile delinquent – rebelling pretty hard against my upbringing. So I basically hung out with kids that stole cause they had to (their parents didn’t have enough to finance their extracurricular activities) or because they just liked the thrill of getting away with it or both.
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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 Lina Zeldovich on August 21, 2011
So What Really Is Salamander Stew?
Shakespeare meets The Nightmare Before Christmas in Salamander Stew, a Romeo and Juliet musical powered by love and a mighty joint, currently playing at The 4th Street Theater as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. There aren’t too many international productions in Fringe this year, but a lost-in-time enchanted forest does the trick to make this one feel far removed from New York. The only verse-play in the festival, Salamander Stew takes you into a phantasmagorical world of slithering creatures, hungry spirits, and deceptive rather than deciduous trees. Everything we always read about the deep dark woods but were afraid to experience unfolds before our eyes in its native wickedness. If you are a Harry Potter fan, a Tolkien geek or if Beetlejuice was one of your favorite movies, Salamander Stew is a must.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on August 18, 2011
Here’s the story … of The Bardy Bunch: The War Of The Families Partridge And Brady.
It’s 1974 and two families, one Brady, one Partridge are at war. Their battlefield exists in cancelled sit-com land and their weapons consist of killer dance moves, cut throat ballads and production numbers meant to slay you in the aisles. Their story is a mash up of well-known Partridge and Brady references retrofitted into such Shakespearean plays as Hamlet, MacBeth, Romeo and Juliet, among others.
The result is everything Fringe has come to be celebrated for: an innovative, enjoyable, hilarious night of theatre written by Stephen Garvey and directed by Jay Stern that isn’t afraid to push the envelope.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on August 14, 2011
Ampersand: A Romeo & Juliet Story (written by Mariah MacCarthy, directed by Amanda Thompson) is just that … “A” Romeo & Juliet story – not a 100% faithful retelling of THE Romeo and Juliet story. First of all, Romeo and Juliet are both women. So, right away, by making this a gender-issue play and bringing in questions of Juliet’s orientation – questions she must ask herself as much as we the audience must ask of the play – an entirely different layer is added to this tale which is deeper and more complex. And since this layer is deeper and complex, so is the love story. There’s an urgency that doesn’t -can’t- exist in a heterosexual telling of this story, and that adds to the thoughtfulness and despair. And the hope.
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by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson on August 14, 2011
Perhaps director Greg Foro and the BAMA Theatre Company could not have asked for a better setting than the Connelly Center’s Connelly Theatre on East 4th Street to stage their production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. A miniature old world theatre stage, complete with grinning classical masks on a battered, gray painted proscenium, it quietly, without the use of scenery flats, and a minimum of props, establishes a subtly pointed atmosphere for this admirably pared down presentation of one of the English language’s greatest stage tragedies.
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by The Happiest Medium on October 17, 2010
The Happiest Medium Review by guest contributors Anjali Koppal and Saurabh Paranjape
Cymbeline is one of those everything-and-the-kitchen-sink Shakespeare dramedies that is very hard to ruin. Between tangled, overcrowded story-lines full of royal intrigue, mistaken identities, mysterious potions, Romans, Italians, Gods and angels, the plot has enough going on at any given point to keep the viewer hooked, even if the performance itself doesn’t always do the material justice.
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