#Julia Sirna-Frest

[thejoyofviolentmovement]

New Video: Permanent Moves Teams Up with Jessie Shelton on Gorgeous "Don't Forget Us"

New Video: Permanent Moves Teams Up with Jessie Shelton on Gorgeous "Don't Forget Us" @heygroover @romainpalmieri @DorianPerron

Formed back in 2016, Brooklyn-based indie electro folk/rock outfit Permanent Moves features two highly acclaimed artists: Julia Sirna-Frest: Fest is a Brooklyn-based musician, performer and director, who has a number of credits to her name, including [Porto] (WP Theater, The Bushwick Starr); Lunch Bunch (PlayCo, Clubbed Thumb); Seder (Hartford Stage); A Tunnel Year (The Chocolate Factory); The…

[newyorktheater]

Trilobites were actual crab-like creatures of the sea who lived on earth 150 million years before the first dinosaurs – and, like dinosaurs, are long extinct. But they remain as sturdy fossils for scientists to study….and theater artists to imagine.

“The Riddle of the Trilobites,” running at New Victory Theater through February 23, is being billed as a musical for kids about climate change. That may be the most marketable way of describing a show that is also about puppets and paleontology.and puberty.

Under the direction of Lee Sunday Evans, the show features a cast of six who use oversized hand puppets, wear colorful costumes, and sing a serviceable score of 13 songs, to tell the story of its heroine, Aphra (Safiso Mabena), an adolescent “trilo.” On “Molting Day,” Aphra’s shell reveals special markings that fulfill a prophecy drawn on the wall of her tribe’s grotto. Just such markings will be on the trilo who will solve the species’ ancient unsolved riddle:  “​When the ocean changes, the Trilobites cannot live but will not die.​”

Aphra goes on an epic journey to find the answer to the riddle,  with her pals Judomiah (Richard Saudek) and the five-eyed Calliope, an Opabinia (Sophia Aranda on the night I saw the show.) Along the way, they meet other sea creatures and have adventures and learn lessons about politics and science and life. And so does the audience, age six and older.

While there is no orange trilobite dismissing climate change as a hoax, there are more subtle references to twenty-first century politics. Aphra is told that volcanoes have destroyed other settlements, forcing trilobites to live in “refugee camps.” The elders of their community are not inviting in the refugees, even though the elders “have a code to embrace others,” because they’re scared.

Among the glancing science lessons are a few lines about geology and  an esoteric dive into paleontology,  Actual extinct sea species, made visually cute, populate the show – not just trilobites and opabinia, but Haikouichthys and Anomalocaris and Hallucigenia

(The fact that all these species are extinct but still exist as fossils is of course the key to the riddle that Alphra must solve.)

A lesson about growing up occurs early in the show, when Aphra is frightened about her first molting day. Her grandmother Galla (Julia Sirna-Frest) reassures her

Galla: Molting is nothing to be scared of. Your first molt will be a day of excitement and wonder. Aphra: How will I know what to do? Galla: You’ll know automatically. Aphra: But all the other first-time molters will have their parents there to help them. Galla: What am I – chopped plankton? I will be by your side the entire time

This is funny, and it’s also clever; it’s not a total stretch to see this as an indirect and inoffensive lesson about menstruation.

But there is a larger lesson about growing up in “Riddle of the Trilobites” — facing life as it is. After the adolescent trilobites visit an Opabinia scientist named Aunt Tonka and her Hallucigenia lab assistant Vanya, Vanya starts crying. “Those young little things going off into the wild sea, facing such enormous obstacles without even knowing how dangerous it is. And for what? Life is only work, and change, and predators and prey.”

“Well, what can we do?” Tonka replies. “We must live our lives. We must work – and laugh from time to time.”

Although “Riddle of the Trilobites” is a modest entertainment, without elaborate staging and effects, “Riddle of the Trilobites” largely works; from time to time, we do  laugh.

The Riddle of the Trilobites Book by Geo Decas O’Donnell and Jordan Seavey Lyrics by Geo Decas O’Donnell, Jordan Seavey and Nicholas Williams Music, Orchestration and Arrangements by Nicholas Williams Puppetry Concept by Amanda Villalobos Puppet Direction by Pam Arciero Directed by Lee Sunday Evans Set Design & Elder Robes Design by Deb O Costume Design by Katherine Nelson Lighting Design by Eric Southern Sound Design by Emma Wilk Puppet Design & Fabrication by Amanda Villalobos Cast: Sophia Aranda understudy, Tiffany Iris as Calliope and others, Sifiso Mabena as Aphra, Joel Oaramas as Elvin and others, Richard Saudek as Judomiah, Julia Sirna-Frest as Gall and others, Phillip Taratula as Hai and others. Running time: About 90 minutes with no intermission Tickets:$17 – $42 Riddle of the Trilobites is on stage through February 23, 2020.

Tickets and details

  Riddle of the Trilobites Review: A Prehistoric Puppet Musical about Climate Change and Puberty Trilobites were actual crab-like creatures of the sea who lived on earth 150 million years before the first dinosaurs – and, like dinosaurs, are long extinct.

[nellietinder]

JULY 28 NELLIE TINDER BAZAAR JULY 28 NELLIE TINDER BAZAAR  DETAILS AND RSVP

I'm excited to announce some more nitty-gritty details for the Nellie Tinder Auxiliary Bazaar, July 28th. Details as in: The WHERES: The Bushwick Starr, 207 Starr Street, Brooklyn, NY The WHENS: 4pm-9pm (Specific Reading Times TBA, come when you want, stay till you want to go) The HOW MUCHES: $15 SUGGESTED donation at the door gets you tickets to barter for our array of goods! The WHATS: Book Sales, Bake Sales, Crafts, Vintage Sales, Songs, Cheap Drinks, Readings of segments of four of NT's ALL LONG TRUE AMERICAN STORIES plays, Conviviality, Commingling The WHOS: Dramatic interpreters include Noel Allain, Eliza Bent, Lani Fu, Kim Gainer, David Gould, Beth Griffith, Hannah Heller, Lucy Kaminsky, Mia Katigbak, Kate Schroeder, Julia Sirna-Frest, Sarah Willis, and more! RSVP Here to reserve your spot 4 FREE (capacity is limited)! If you can't make it? Please make a tax-deductible donation HERE by searching for Julia May Jonas or Nellie Tinder. Our goal is to raise $9,000 before September 1st to support development of this ambitious project. The Deal: The Nellie Tinder Auxiliary Bazaar is hosted in support of ALL LONG TRUE AMERICAN STORIES, a play-cycle in which I respond to canonical American male-experience plays: All My Sons (Arthur Miller), Long Day's Journey into Night (Eugene O'Neill), True West (Sam Shepard), American Buffalo (David Mamet) and Zoo Story(Edward Albee), with new plays for other people (mostly women). We've been developing these plays since 2015, and we're gearing up for the full production in 2020 of a repertory run of all five plays in the series. In order to feed, transport, record, and compensate the performers, directors, composers and designers who are giving their time and energy to this massive endeavor we need your support.

[the-stars-bow-down]

Julia Sirna-Frest - Winter 2014/15

[newyorktheater]

In the first play of Clubbed Thumb’s 24thannual  Summerworks festival at the Wild Project – the first summer theater festival of the season — the cast faces us a la A Chorus Line, except instead of singing “I hope I get it,”they recite “Veggie enchiladas with Clementine” and “Rice, steamed kale, spiced tofu.”

It’s only after several such culinary recitations that we’re told these people are members of a lunch group, each member having agreed to make lunch for everybody else once a week.  It takes a little longer to figure out that they are lawyers in a public defender’s office, that it’s a taxing job – “Greg’s resilient,” says Tuttle (Keilly McQuail), “He never cries in the coat closet” – and that obsessing on food is what helps keep them going. Or as Jacob (Ugo Chukwu) puts it to Greg:

“I have low expectations, little faith, when it comes to the law, government, organized religion, things that fall under the umbrella of humanity and its systems. And so, I seek my jollies, my joy, my bliss, what have you – some semblance of control – in this one area, this one arena, of my existence.”

“Joy is a vulnerable emotion,” replies Greg (Jon Norman Schneider), who is the office philosopher.

The evolving scenes between Greg and Jacob are among the few anchors in this fragmentary one-hour play by Sarah Einspanier. “Lunch Bunch” is largely composed of group recitation, staccato dialogue, very brief and obscure references to clients and court cases, and only a limited sense of forward motion: The group adjusts to exits and replacements , to members’ allergies, new obsessive diets, and other small changes. There are many fleeting moments of humor. In one brief scene, Tuttle tells her colleagues she’s given up eating just about everything, and will slowly incorporate the dairy and beans and sugar etc. one by one back into her diet to learn “whatever’s been giving me occasional gas and near constant feelings of worthlessness.” In a later brief scene, she reports back to her colleagues:

Tuttle (Keilly McQuail): Turns out I’m not allergic to anything Mitra (Nana Mensah): Sorry Hannah: (Irene Sofia Lucio): Congrats

These skit-like interactions are interrupted by one long surreal and hilarious monologue by David (Mike Shapiro), dressed in a suit and under a spotlight. He explains how he was thrown out of lunch bunch and thrust into a late Stone Age savannah, where he struggles to survive. Despite his having been a vegetarian “ever since I learned one Big Mac requires roughly 600 gallons of water” he begins to long for BBQ.

“Lunch Bunch” is fully in keeping with Clubbed Thumb’s tradition of adventuresome fare, and is served well by the game eight-member cast of downtown theater regulars,  and by Tara Ahmadinejad’s direction. She stages the characters sitting on their ergonomic chairs facing a back wall that has a single shelf,  suggesting a row of sterile cubicles. Or she has them stand up facing us on the lip of the small stage, interacting with one another in small groups. Or they slide around in their chairs, or stare vacantly into the ether, or scream up at the unknown, or recite meals in unison. It all feels almost musical.

Click on any photograph by Elke Young to see it enlarged.

  Lunch Bunch Written by Sarah Einspanier; Directed by Tara Ahmadinejad Sets By Jean Kim, costumes By Alice Tavener, lights By Oona Curley, sound By Ben Vigus, props By Raphael Mishler, production stage manager Alex Williamson Cast: Eliza Bent, Ugo Chukwu, Irene Sofia Lucio, Keilly McQuail, Nana Mensah, Jon Norman Schneider and Julia Sirna-Frest Running time: One hour, no intermission. Tickets: $25 Lunch Bunch is on stage through May 28, 2019 This is almost all sold out, so hurry.

Clubbed Thumb Review: Lunch Bunch, a chorus of lawyers obsessing on food In the first play of Clubbed Thumb’s 24thannual  Summerworks festival at the Wild Project – the…

[the-stars-bow-down]

Julia Sirna-Frest - Winter 2014/15

[the-stars-bow-down]

Julia, Fall 2012

[the-stars-bow-down]

Doll Parts