#LaMama ETC.

[jimrmoore]

'DON'T MISS THIS! Featured on LaMama ETC blog!

Thanks to LaMama for their wonderful blog post about 'Don't Miss This! A Decade of Eccentric Performing Arts"

A few days ago I was notified that LaMama ETC was posting a special blog about the upcoming book from Vaudevisuals Press DON’T MISS THIS! A DECADE OF ECCENTRIC PERFORMING ARTS“. Featured in the book are many performers who have graced the stages at the world-renowned theater located in New York City’s Lower East Side since 1961. Kevin Augustine, Yoshiko Chuma, Lisa Kron, Tom Murrin, Nicky…

[adugas]

original program for Charles Ludlam’s BLUEBEARD at LaMAMA Etc. 

[venusinorbit]

The show begins with a scene of displacement: A group clad in elaborate textiles but crouching in tents made out of ropes and tarpaulin, unpacking shopping bags and carts that had been hastily stuffed with clothes and canned food, all acted out over a lilting drumbeat and tinkling gongs that swing just slightly out of time. Crashing cymbals and frantic shouts interrupt the solemn scene. The people flee.

It’s a snapshot of present-day Marawi, a once booming metropolis on the island of Mindanao and one of the Philippines’ largest majority-Muslim cities. It was razed to the ground by government forces in 2017 in a military siege allegedly meant to purge the city of ISIS militants. One hundred thousand people—about half the city’s inhabitants—were displaced by the conflict, and they remain so to this day.

Pananadem is the latest production by Kinding Sindaw, a NYC-based theater company that aims to preserve and proliferate the ancestral art forms of the Indigenous people of Mindanao in Southern Philippines. “Kinding Sindaw” means “movement of light,” and “pananadem” means “remembering” in the language of the Indigenous Maranao people. The Maranaos are one of the descendants of Mindanao’s numerous pre-colonial Islamic sultanates. The now-gutted Marawi City is the ancestral domain of the Maranao people.

Pananadem, which premiered in March at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in NYC’s East Village,is what “remembering” history looks like from a Maranao perspective: An elaborate patchwork drawn from current events, ancient Maranao epics, unrecorded American massacres, and personal memories of persecution under dictatorship. Itis also a story of resistance, and a promise of redemption.

[newyorktheater]

Taylor Mac,

Patrick Wilson

Norbert Leo Butz

Fandango for Butterflies (and Coyotes)

Ben Liebert sings Allan Sherman

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, Where to Get Your Theater Fix, here’s today’s schedule, which includes Taylor Mac’s launching of #stillHere; the debut of LaMaMa’s Downtown Variety show via Howlround,;En Garde Arts bringing its celebrated “Fandango for Butterflies (and Coyotes)” online, and Patrick Wilson and Norbert Leo Butz as today’s guests on Seth Rudetsky’s twice-daily Stars in the House.

1:00pm

Taylor Mac. The first in a series every Friday at 1 p.m. from Here Arts Center, called #stillHERE — a short, informal visit with an artist streamed live on HERE’s  Facebook page

Broadway Dreams’ #DreamingTogether, today with Noah Ricketts, on its Facebook page.

New York City Ballet’s Tiler Peck teaches her ballet class live on Instagram

2:00pm

Stars in the House with Patrick Wilson on The Actor’s Fund YouTube channel.

3:00pm

Fandango for Butterflies (and Coyotes)

This play depicts a fandango, which is a lively, spontaneous, communal musical celebration as practiced by immigrants from Latin America who have brought the tradition to New York. It had already opened at La MaMa (my review) when it had to shut down. Now En Garde Arts is bringing it online starting today. Tickets: $15, or $10 for students

4:00pm

Sing along with the pianists of Marie’s Crisis on its Facebook page.

5:00pm

 National Yiddish Theatre Folksbienewill present on its Facebook page Ben Liebert, who was terrific as the anxious tailor in the Yiddish “Fiddler in the Roof.” He will be performing the songs of the hilarious satirical folk singer Allan Sherman.

6:00pm

Cast members Bobby Conte Thornton and Claybourne Elder from the Broadway revival of “Company”  live on Instagram

7:00pm-

Sing along with the pianists of Marie’s Crisis

7:30pm-

Met Opera Live in HD switches from La Traviata to Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment with Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez,

Fandango for Butterflies (and Coyotes)

8:00pm

Downtown Variety with La MaMa via Howlround

“Responding to calls for social isolation, Downtown Variety brings La MaMa’s 1960s café aesthetic to a virtual platform that links performers and audiences in real time” Featuring short acts of dance, music, theater, new media, comedy, A/V performance, and stuff that doesn’t (yet) have a label. This week: Perry Yung, John King, Kate Rigg, Tiri Kananuruk, Neel Murgai.

Stars in the House with Norbert Leo Butz.

Teenage Dick debuts at Theater Wit. Sold out, but other date available

Theater Lovers’ Daily Fix: Schedule for March 20: Taylor Mac, Patrick Wilson, Norbert Leo Butz, Fandango for Butterflies, etc. As a follow-up to yesterday's post, Where to Get Your Theater Fix, here's today's schedule, which includes Taylor Mac's launching of #stillHere; the debut of LaMaMa's Downtown Variety show via Howlround,;En Garde Arts bringing its celebrated "Fandango for Butterflies (and Coyotes)" online, and Patrick Wilson and Norbert Leo Butz as today's guests on Seth Rudetsky's twice-daily Stars in the House.

[gussolomonsjrtest]

PAVEL ZUSTIAK’S PALISSIMO – CUSTODIANS OF BEAUTY

In his new “Custodians of Beauty,” part of PS122’s annual Coil Festival, performed at LaMama, Etc., January 5, Czech-born, New York-based maker Pavel Zuštiak explores with poetic abstraction the implications of a 2009 quote by Pope Benedict that charges artists to maintain our spirits from despair.

“This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. Beauty, like truth, brings joy to the human heart, and is that precious fruit which resists the erosion of time, which unites generations and enables them to be one in admiration. And all this through the work of your hands… Remember that you are the custodians of beauty in the world.”

In the new, low-ceilinged but horizontally spacious theater in the basement of the Annex, Zuštiak employs his keen theatricality and deep physicality to create images that suggest new ways of looking at the world around us with more generous eyes.

The cast of Custodians of Beauty by Pavel Zuštiak 

Although not all the episodes are equally compelling, Zuštiak’s keen imagination holds our attention for most of the 80-minute, intermission-less work with its originality, conviction, and riveting performances by his top-notch cast. All three performers manage to maintain a satisfying balance between executing the choreographer’s vision while being fully present as themselves – individuals with magnetic presence, intelligence, physical skill, and versatility.

Custodians of Beauty by Pavel Zuštiak 

When the audience is seated facing a translucent gray curtain, lights go out, and a startling blast of noise accompanies rear-screen projection of a rushing stream of fabric. The projection changes from gray to red to green. The sound by composer Christian Frederickson is a bass drone with shrill wind melody above. Then, in the dark, the curtain falls and the sensory assault gives way to a view of one, then two, then three figures, all in odd, black outfits with bits of white skin showing – knees, wrists, tops of thighs – (excellent costume designs by Ásta Bennie Hostetter). They make complex, slow-moving body sculptures against a gray, velour-covered rear wall.

Custodians of Beauty by Pavel Zuštiak (l-r) Justin Morrison, Emma Judkins, Nicholas Bruder

The 80-minute piece is structured into varied episodes, for which lighting master Joe Levasseur continually reshapes the space, creating vastness between audience and dancers or an intimidating intimacy, as when bare-chested Nicholas Bruder stands a mere two feet from us, doing his tactile gesture solo.

Nicholas Bruder in Custodians of Beauty by Pavel Zuštiak

The contrast between his dark “mountain man” beard and the delicate refinement of his movement is intriguing. Lanky Emma Judkins’s stamina belies the apparent fragility of her elegant physique. And Justin Morrison with his dancer noble proportions is as flexible as Gumby while being solidly grounded and facially impassive.  

Justin Morrison in Custodians of Beauty by Pavel Zuštiak 

After the three have introduced themselves as black figures in bas relief, we discover them again, nearly naked, huddled on the ground in a frieze that’s reminiscent of a Brancusi sculpture. Glacially, they move as an amorphous unit, their heads always hidden, so we are aware only of abstract forms, not human identities.

The cast of Custodians of Beauty by Pavel Zuštiak 

Later on, an invigorating trio passage brightens the mood – the three in tight formation, dressed in sports clothes and sneakers, repeat Judkins’s jogging-in-place motif but this time elaborating on it, changing facings front to back, moving side to side, forward and backward through space, like wind-up dolls or a SWAT team or kids playing in the street.

(l-r) Justin Morrison, Emma Judkins, Nicholas Bruder in Custodians of Beauty by Pavel Zuštiak 

It’s joyful and seemingly carefree for all its intricate rhythms – a palate cleanse before returning to the serious business of beauty.

Nicholas Bruder in Custodians of Beauty by Pavel Zuštiak

Bruder, pushing a rust-colored wall across the stage, talk-sings an Emily Dickenson poem and then, in overcoat and hat, he spins hypnotically in place, gradually unfurling a black flag that grows longer with each revolution – a cultural ritual, a political statement, a symbol of resolution or revolution: all of the above. And the final tableau finds Judkins, standing center stage, arms outstretched like a crucifix – or a gender-blind tribute to Michelangelo’s Standing Man.

Emma Ludkins in Custodians of Beauty by Pavel Zuštiak 

Photos by Minji Lee

Gus Solomons jr, © 2017

[jimrmoore]

Vaudevisuals interview with Coleen MacPherson and Elodie Monteau - "This Is Why We Live"

Vaudevisuals interview with Coleen MacPherson and Elodie Monteau – “This Is Why We Live”

Toronto’s Open Heart Surgery Theatre @LaMama Sept 19th-29th

Earlier today I had the pleasure of interviewing two members of Toronto’s “Open Heart Surgery Theatre” company. The director Coleen MacPherson and performer Elodie Monteau. They talked about the wonderful work they have been doing with the poems of Polish Nobel Prize-Winner Wislawa Szymborskaand making movement from the unique words she…

[jimrmoore]

Coffeehouse Chronicles #151: Ethyl Eichelberger @LaMama

Coffeehouse Chronicles #151: Ethyl Eichelberger @LaMama

Celebrating the life and work of Ethyl Eichelberger with panelists, live performances and archival materials! Moderated by Miss Joan Marie Moossy  Panelists: Brian Belovitch, Joe E Jeffreys, John Kelly, Lori E Seid, Black Eyed Susan and Mark Russell Performances by: Jennifer Miller with Heather Green | Jeremy Halpern with Auntie Belle.

Coffeehouse Chronicles’ Michal Gamily introduces the event.

[jimrmoore]

(Jim R. Moore) VAUDEVISUALS interview with performer/writer Nicky Paraiso and director John Jesurun. Presenting Nicky’s new piece ‘now my hand is ready for my heart: intimate histories’ at LaMama Etc.

For More information/tickets

Until April 7th, 2019

[newyorktheater]

The King and I on PBS Passport and BroadwayHD

Carousel available on Amazon Primse

John Leguizamo’s Latin History for Morons, available on Netflix

Verdi’s La Traviata, starring Diana Damrau and Juan Diego Flórez, at the Metropolitan Opera, offered for free online

cast members from the new Broadway revival of Company singing live #InComesCompany, the daily Instagram presentation

Lindsay Mendez singing and dancing as part of “Stars in the House” twice-daily show.

Rachel Dratch in “A Story of Survival” from Viral Monologues

Judy Kuhn at Stars in the House

The Siblings Play, which was in previews Off-Broadway, will now be offered pay-for-view online.

The threat of COVID-19 is shutting down theaters across the world, but it’s not killing theater – which is increasingly going online.

There are two types of online theater now – the ongoing online sites that offer video-capture recordings of shows that were on stage, many on Broadway, but also  Off-Broadway, and international performances.

The second type are newly created livestreaming events that are in response to the current situation, and from which may emerge exciting new forms of theater.

Regular Online Streaming Sites

Several of the ongoing services – Marquee, the Metropolitan Opera and On The Boards — are offering free access for the month, in response to the crisis.

Theater focused online streaming sites:

BroadwayHD

BroadwayHD offers hundreds of productions, from the recent acclaimed Broadway revival of Carousel to the original Sweeney Todd.   A subscription costs $8.99 per month after a seven-day free trial

Digital Theatre

Digital Theatre focuses on British productions, from Shakespeare to West End versions of Broadway shows. Subscriptions cost £9.99 a month, but you can rent a specific production for £7.99 and up

Marquee TV

Marquee offers dance, opera and theater from around the world, including productions of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Subscriptions normally cost $8.99 a month, but Marquee is offering 30 days for free.

The Metropolitan Opera

The Met is offering a different opera every day for free, each starting at 7:30 p.m. and staying up for 20 hours.  During this period of shutdown and social distancing, they are offering it for free.

OnTheBoards.TV

On The Boards is a decade-old website that began in their Seattle-based theater and now offers some 60 performances by such avant-garde artists as Young Jean Lee, from their own theater, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, the Fusebox Festival in Austin,  and Performance Space 122 in New York. On The Boards is offering its show for free through the end of April!

Theater CloseUp

L-R: Abena Mensah-Bonsu, Mirirai Sithole, Paige Gilbert, Joanna A. Jones, MaameYaa Boafo and Latoya Edwards in the MCC Theater production of “School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play”

Darren Pettie and Richard Thomas in Incident at Vichy at Signature Theatre

Bill Irwin and David Shiner

Free in the NY area. “a unique collaboration” between Channel 13 WNET and the large community of non-profit Off-Broadway theaters. The plays are up only for a limited time. Currently: Uncle Vanya with Jay O. Sanders; School Girls, or the African Mean Girls Play; Buried Child; Incident at Vichy; Old Hats; and all three plays in The Gabriels series.

  Theater Available from Online Streaming Services

  Amazon Prime

Musicals and other Broadway shows, some of them taped directly from the stage, that you can rent (for as little as $2.95) or buy (usually for $9.99) if you have a membership on Amazon Prime. (Some, such as “Carousel,” are free with Amazon Prime membership.)

  Live from Lincoln Center: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel

Into The Woods (the movie version)

Memphis

The SpongeBob Musical: Live on Stage!

Wishful Drinking

  Netflix

Netflix, available only by subscription, has lately made a habit of video-capturing Broadway shows on stage shortly before the end of their runs. Among the current offerings:  American Son, John Leguizamo’s Latin History for Morons, Oh Hello, Shrek, Springsteen on Broadway. There are also a revolving selection of movie adaptations of the original stage musicals. Currently, Hairspray, Jersey Boys, Sweeney Todd.

  PBS Passport

PBS Passport offers access to shows past and present from the Public Broadcasting System; it requires that you become a member. ($60 annual or $5 monthly) In addition to the full library of episodes from Great Perfromances, there is also a special collection of Broadway plays on Broadway on PBS including The Sound of Music, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I, Red, Much Ado About Nothing and Kinky Boots.

  New Livestreaming

There are new offerings sprouting every day, as theaters and theater artists adjust and innovate in the new reality.

  New Series

  Folksbiene Live.

On their Facebook page, the National Yiddish Theatre presented “Yiddish theater, past, present and future,” which is still available. The theater promises to do more.

  #InComesCompany

The Broadway revival of the Stephen Sondheim/George Furth musical Company is using their Instagram account to present different cast members each night.

  Living Room Concerts on Broadway World

A series of one-song performances  by Broadway stars from their own homes. Since it began March 13th, there have been performances (which you can still see) by Jagged Little Pill’s Kathryn Gallagher, Dear Evan Hansen’s Andrew Barth Feldman singing from Godspell (pictured), Andy Karl and Orfeh, Carolee Carmello singing from Hello, Dolly, Hadestown’s John Krause.

  Stars in the House via The Actors Fund

This twice daily combination performance and talk show, with hosts Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley, was launched on Monday March 16 with Kelli O’Hara, and has a roster of top-notch Broadway talent every day since.  It’s turned out to be a combination of concert, talk show, and public service announcement – and it may well be the start of a new genre.

  Theatre Without Theater

An instagram account that’s been offering a nightly “theatrical broadcast,” and soliciting artists to contribute more. Among the broadcasts so far (and still available) are Emily Walton singing from “Darling Grenadine” and Margot Seibert from “Unknown Soldier,” (which I reviewed.)  both musicals that were playing Off-Broadway until all theaters were shut down.

  Individual Shows

  The 24 Hour Plays Viral Monologues

Twenty theater writers — including David Lindsay-Abaire and Stephen Adly Guirgis — were paired with 20 actors — including Hugh Dancy, Rachel Dratch, Marin Ireland, Richard Kind, Bobby Moreno — for 20 original monologues, which were posted from 6 p.m. to midnight on Tuesday, March 17 and are now available

Here, for example, is “A Story of Survival” by David Lindsay-Abaire in which Rachel Dratch plays a character who discovers ‘a bottle of Purell on the bottom shelf, sad and lonely, just like I am right now,’ but notices that an older woman has her eye on it too.

View this post on Instagram

#24viralmonologues @lindsayabaire @raedratch

A post shared by The 24 Hour Plays (@24hourplays) on Mar 17, 2020 at 3:03pm PDT

“Ghost Quartet” by Dave Malloy

A newly released recording of this 90-minute musical by the creator of “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.”

The Siblings Play at Rattlestick Playwright Theater in New York

Ren Dara Santiago’s play set in Harlem in 2014 “delves deep into the psyche of a teenage girl and her two brothers left to raise each other.” It was playing on stage when the theaters were shut down, but will now be  available for pay-for-view online March 23-April 5: $15 tix.

  “Teenage Dick” at Theater Wit  in Chicago

The play by Mike Lew imagines Richard III as a disabled h.s. student, will be livestreamed starting 3/20. It’s a production of a Chicago company, but thanks to the miracle of Livestreaming, it’s available to New York theatergoers. I’m not sure how they’re going to be doing this, but the theater is promising talk-backs after each performance.

In New York, LaMama ETC, which has long experimented with livestreaming events all over the world, is planning to livestream their own productions.

Anywhere was live-streamed by HERE Arts March 18th

Here Arts Center, another downtown NYC theater,  which just presented the puppet Anywhere online, plans a weekly series Here@Home

And that’s just a sample of what’s to come.

And watch out: Livestreaming (and its aesthetic) is going mainstream too. Here’s Lin-Manuel Miranda on a homier, less snazzy version of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, playing and singing (starting at around 5:30) “Dear Theodosia.” from ‘Hamilton.”

  Where To Get Your Theater Fix Online, Old Favorites and New Experiments (Plus Lin-Manuel Miranda) #DontScreamLiveStream The threat of COVID-19 is shutting down theaters across the world, but it’s not killing theater – which is increasingly going online.

[jimrmoore]

Vaudevisuals interview with Theodora Skipitares +

Vaudevisuals interview with Theodora Skipitares, LaFrae Sci and Edisa Weeks.

I met up with puppeteer/director/creator Theodora Skipitares whose new show “The Transfiguration of Benjamin Banneker” opened at LaMama ETC on Jan. 23rd, 2020. I also interview the composer LaFrae Sci and the Choreographer Edisa Weeks.

From the ‘press release:a multi-disciplinary spectacle with a marching band, dancers, 12-foot puppets, shadow puppetry and moving projection screens. The band…

[jimrmoore]

Vaudevisuals interview with LaFrae Sci from Jim Moore on Vimeo.

Vaudevisuals interviews composer/musician Lafrae Sci. Talking about her work on Theodora Skipitaries new show "The Transfiguation of Benjamin Banneker" at LaMama Etc. Originally posted at: vaudevisuals.com

[newyorktheater]

The Fre at The Flea, by Taylor Mac

Two Broadway veterans — Taylor Mac, Tony-nominated playwright of “Gary” and Greg Kotis, the Tony-winning co-author of “Urinetown” – are back Off-Off Broadway this season, and why would that surprise anybody? That’s where they began, it’s where they honed their craft, and it continues to reflect their sensibility,

Theirs are among the 11 shows I highlight in my first-ever Off-Off Broadway season preview guide.

Now, I’ve been doing separate semi-annual preview guides for Broadway and Off-Broadway for a decade – and I also put together a monthly calendar of openings that includes Off-Off Broadway.

But Off-Off Broadway always struck me as too vast*, too ill-defined* and too complicated** to fit neatly into a preview guide. Typically Off-Off Broadway theaters give little advance notice of what’s coming up, the runs are very short and the official descriptions are often too vague, coy or hallucinogenic to be of much help . Yet an Off-Off Broadway show can be groundbreaking, and sublime. This is relatively rare, yes, but the surprise of seeing something sublime Off-Off Broadway – and for as little as $10 – is so much more satisfying than paying through the nose for the pre-certified sublimity of a Broadway hit. Also it’s year-round, not limited to the similar fare in the theater festivals that get so much concentrated attention in January and during the summer. So in the spirit of experimenting that characterizes Off-Off Broadway itself, below are 11 shows that I’m looking forward to checking out this season, organized by the theaters in which they are appearing, many of which are my favorites. And below that, a list of other Off-Off Broadway venues of repute, linked to their websites.  See for yourself what else is playing this season.

  La MaMa ETC

La MaMa Experimental Theater Club is one of the quartet of theaters that gave birth to the Off-Off Broadway movement in the 1960s, and the only one that still survives. Since Ellen Stewart launched the theater in an East Village basement in 1961, it has presented more than 150,000 artists from over 70 nations. It launched the careers of an astonishing array of notable American performers and playwrights. It found a worthy successor in Mia Yoo,  and won the 2018 Regional Tony Award. It is, in other words, the place to start. There are 20 shows at LaMaMa from now until the end of April. I could make LaMaMa my entire preview guide, but I’ve selected three.

The Transfiguration Of Benjamin Banneker January 23 – February 2 This show by Theodora Skipitares, renowned puppet artist, celebrates the life of Benjamin Banneker, a free black man living in Maryland from 1731 to 1806, who taught himself mathematics and astronomy, and made groundbreaking scientific discoveries. It features dance, live music, the Soul Tigers Marching Band, and a multi-generational cast of Brooklynites, including students from Benjamin Banneker High School , a pioneering puppet artist whose Radiant City ,about Robert Moses using giant puppets of his head, was eye-opening and memorable.

One Green Bottle February 29 – March 8 Bo, Boo and Pickle all have plans, but someone must stay home to care for their pregnant dog, Princess. Trivial disputes and slapstick mischief quickly morph into family feuds and also, possibly, to the end of the world. Playwright Hideki Noda is one of the most celebrated theater artists of japan.

The Beautiful Lady April 30 – May 17 With music by the late Elizabeth Swados, and direction by Anne Bogart,

The Flea

Begun in 1996 by a group including down avant-garde legend Mac Wellman, Jim Simpson and Sigourney Weaver, this theater won me over way back after 9/11, with Ann Nelson’s “The Guys,” and I’ve written about its ambitious plans , its new building and new artistic director,, Niegel Smith who took over in 2015.

Leaving the Blues January 16 – February 8

African-American blues and jazz singer and songwriter Alberta Hunter  follows her long-dead friend, black comedian Bert Williams. Written by Jewelle Gomez and produced by TOSOS (The Other Side of Silence), which bills itself as New York City’s oldest professional LGBTQ+ theater I had the pleasure of interviewing Hunter when, after working as a nurse for twenty years, she resumed her singing career at the age of 82.

.The Fre February 28 – April 12 The Fre is written by Taylor Mac, and directed by The Flea’s artistic director Niegel Smith, his collaborator on “Hir” and “24 Decade History of Popular Music” and that makes this show a must-see no matter how weird or uncomfortable it winds up being. “In this queer love story, audiences will literally and figuratively jump into the mud with the Fre to hash out the current cultural divide.”

HERE Arts

Doctors Jane and Alexander January 24 – February 15 A new play by Edward Einhorn about his grandfather, Alexander S. Wiener, who discovered the Rh Factor in Blood. Told through the lens of interviews with his mother, Jane Einhorn, a PhD psychologist and visual artist who had recently experienced a stroke at the time of the interviews Nearly everything I’ve seen by Einhorn and his Untitled Theater Company #61 – from Money Lab  to The Iron Heel ��to The Neurology of the Soul  has been, as promised, “a theater of ideas” — inventive and intelligent

  The Tank

I Am Nobody March 5 – 29 An unhinged computer chip engineer threatens to destroy the world. What’s most noteworthy about this production is that it’s written by Greg Kotis, the author of arguably the most successful Off-Off Broadway show ever, “Urinetown.”

  Dixon Place 

One of the venues that simply doesn’t offer much advance notice of its shows, almost all of which have short runs. But I’ve lucked out often enough here to feel it more than a coincidence, and I share their interest in puppetry.

Packrat

January 31 – February 14 nspired by the adventure novel “Watership Down,” this multimedia puppet play follows one peculiar rodent on his journey to discover the interconnectedness of life

NYTW Next Door

New York Theater Workshop offers support and the use of the 60-seat Fourth Street Theatre to a wide range of companies.

La Paloma Prisoner

Based on the true story of a group of incarcerated women selected as beauty queen contestants at the Buen Pastor prison in Bogotá, Colombia, the play centers on a woman who avenged the raped women of Bogotá.

The Bushwick Starr

Bushwick has become something of its own cultural center now, but those not in the know should at least know that it’s just a block and a half from the subway.

The Conversationalists January 8 – 25

I was impressed enough with a  previous show by James & Jerome to be drawn to theirnew one despite the confusion engendered by its description: “James & Jerome create an original movie that plays only inside the audience’s minds. This live “movie” is an international melodrama about the triangular friendship (and sometimes enemyship) between a Colombian-born Mexican-raised pop-ranchera star, her teenage son, and a Palestinian-born Jordanian-raised owner of a chess shop in Greenwich Village. The Conversationalists is experienced at once as a theater piece, a concert, a radio play, a night of storytelling, and a movie dreamed together.”

Jack

Best Life In Melissa Tien’s play, a woman of color can rewind time, but only within the last five minutes. The result: her exchange with a white woman in a cafe becomes increasingly alarming

  Among the other Off-Off Broadway theaters worth exploring:

  Ars Nova Although still offering programs at its Off-Off Broadway building in midtown, it has has taken over Greenwich House Theater, which with 199 seats is an Off-Broadway house.

The Brick has a new artistic director with a stated aim of “multi-week theatrical runs and a dynamic line-up of singular one-off events”

The Clemente , a former school building on the Lower East Side that includes three Off-Off Broadway theaters.

The Invisible Dog

Labyrinth Theater

New Ohio Check out their Producers Club series “we invite familiar and new-to-our-orbit companies into the New Ohio for a couple of days to…test their next great idea.” And DirectorFest

New York Live Arts

Target Margin Theater

Triskelion Arts

Theater for the New City

  *Technically, Off-Off Broadway simply means theaters with fewer than 100 seats, but it’s used as a description of companies as well, not just physical buildings. Many of these companies have no permanent home. A recent report issued by the Mayor’s Office Of Media and Entertainment found “748 small venue theater organizations” spread out across the city. **Few Off-Off Broadway companies give much advance notice: For example, one of my favorite Off-Off Broadway theaters, Labyrinth, lists “World Premiere Play TBA Spring/Summer 2020” on its website.  In addition, some venues offer a mix of Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway-sized theaters. Most of the venues aren’t producing their own shows, but presenting the work of other companies. So does it even make sense to organize a look at Off-Off Broadway via venues?

Off-Off Broadway Season Preview Guide Two Broadway veterans -- Taylor Mac, Tony-nominated playwright of "Gary" and Greg Kotis, the Tony-winning co-author of "Urinetown" - are back Off-Off Broadway this season, and why would that surprise anybody?

[newyorktheater]

There was a touch of theater in the Women’s March over the weekend, with protesters’ signs adapting “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from Mary Poppins to fit current events, and the return of those pink pussy hats. Women dominated actual New York theater as well, with Bernadette Peters beginning her performances in Hello, Dolly; a new documentary about Raisin in the Sun playwright Lorraine Hansberry (watch in full below), and the announcement of a forthcoming book (in April) of photographs chronicling early Barbra Streisand, 1963 to 1966, her Broadway era.

“Art cannot change events. But it can change people…Because people are changed – enriched, ennobled, encouraged – they then act in a way that may affect the course of events,,,” –Leonard Bernstein#ArtActionDayhttps://t.co/fonqrNe1mK pic.twitter.com/ckF57QUANb

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 20, 2018

The Week in New York Theater Reviews

Dan Domingues in The Undertaking

The Undertaking

Death is well-suited to the stage, according to a philosopher quoted in “The Undertaking,” a play about death and dying written and directed by Steve Cosson, the artistic director of The Civilians. Actors playing Lear or Hamlet allow us to “practice” death, the philosopher explains; they are “ventriloquising” death for us. Death is such a common theme and occurrence in live dramas that theater might as well be called one of the fatal arts.

Given this prominence of death in theatrical life, and The Civilians’ own track record,  “The Undertaking” winds up an underwhelming undertaking.

The Fire This Time Festival

A white police officer shoots a black driver five times after pulling him over for a minor traffic violation. But things are not what they seem in “Black, White & Blue”by William Watkins, one of the six 10-minutes plays in the ninth annual Fire This Time Festival. Watkins’ play is the most overtly political, and one of the most effective, in the evening of short plays that is the centerpiece of this year’s Fire This Time Festival, which showcases the work of early-career playwrights of African and African American descent, running through January 28, 2018.

Watch Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart

For those outside the coverage area, here’s the trailer:

  The Week in New York Theater News

The 63rd annual Obie Awards, presented on May 21, 2018, will have a new host — John Leguizamo — and a new venue — Terminal 5, which is on W 56th St. , far from the Village, but close to a new center of theater in Manhattan.

Sam Shepard at La Mama in 1971

Weekend With Sam, Feb 3-4 at La MaMa ETC: Readings of the work of Sam Shepard including two unpublished works from LaMaMa Archive Cast: Matthew Broderick, John Slattery, J Smith Cameron, Peggy Shaw, Erin Markey, Gia Crovatin, Frederick Weller FREE but reservations required.

Protest, an evening of Protest songs at Merkin Concert Hall, February 27:

Stevie Wonder’s Big Brother • Fats Waller’s Black and Blue Guastavino’s Pampamapa • María Elena Walsh’s Como la cigarra Randy Newman’s Political Science • Woody Guthrie’s Old Man Trump

Deaf activist, actor, reality competition winner (@ANTMVH1 AND @DancingABC) and really hot model Nyle DiMarco is now one of the producers of @LesserGodBway, opens Ap 11

I want to better 70 million Deaf lives worldwide.

Please RT to spread awareness, thank you. pic.twitter.com/xQC0vpGaGY

— Nyle DiMarco (@NyleDiMarco) August 23, 2017

At @MCP_US‘s Broadway Classics in Concert, @raminkarimloo, @LauraOsnes, @MsLeaSalonga @normlewis777 @Ryan_Silverman & more will sing Gershwin, @MrJasonRBrown @AIMenken, Lucy Simon + more Feb 20 @carnegiehall https://t.co/avdtQhN1vB pic.twitter.com/txNoWuEkRg

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 18, 2018

The original @BAM_Brooklyn ~ 1895, at 176 Montague Street, which opened in 1861 – & burned down in 1903. Photo of the week from @brooklynhistory pic.twitter.com/u2VAzoWdNb

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 18, 2018

RIP Bradford Dillman, 87, TV & film star, and the original Edmund Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey Into Night on Broadway (There he is to the left of Jason Robards Jr, Fredric March, and Florence Eldridge) pic.twitter.com/oOSTHKAVrR

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 19, 2018

Women on the March. Bernadette Begins. Lorraine Hansberry Rediscovered. Week in New York Theater There was a touch of theater in the Women’s March over the weekend, with protesters’ signs adapting “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from Mary Poppins to fit current events, and the return of those pink pussy hats.

[newyorktheater]

In “Burning Doors,” Belarus Free Theatre’s latest arresting, arousing, athletic and anarchic play about state-sponsored injustice, one of the eight cast members strips naked as he tells the story of a man who had been sentenced to death by firing-squad for a political crime, but was given a last-minute reprieve. The man was distraught at the thought of having to live on, having made his peace with dying.

The ironic story, as we’re told in a caption when it’s finished, is an excerpt from Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot. It presents in microcosm both the hypnotic appeal and the challenge of the work by this extraordinary 12-year-old avant-garde ensemble. “Burning Doors,” the company’s sixth show in New York since its debut at LaMama in 2010, is a sometimes assaultive, sometimes amusing, always intriguing collage of the political and the theatrical, with juxtapositions that can be jarring. They can require theatergoers, for example, to watch a naked man moving seductively about the stage and simultaneously to pay attention to the complex, multi-layered tale he’s telling, in Russian or Belarusian, with English surtitles. Belarus Free Theatre is committed to using their art to champion free expression and advocate for human rights — so much so that they are officially banned from performing in their home country (but continue to do so anyway, underground.) The company continues its political work in “Burning Doors” by focusing on the true stories of three artists who have suffered at the hands of an authoritarian regime. One of them is Maria Alyokhina, who performs as herself. She was one of the masked members of Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist punk-rock group that held guerilla performances in Moscow, who served 21 months in prison, charged with hooliganism. Alyokhina re-creates on stage some of her experiences while incarcerated, much of which were intended simply to humiliate and degrade her. She also conducts a “press conference” in English, answering audience questions for about 15 minutes.

The second is Russian performance artist Petr Pavlensky, who engaged in bizarre acts of resistance to protest the imprisonment of Pussy Riot, including sewing his mouth shut in a public square. The third is Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who, according to Amnesty International and other human rights groups, is serving a 20-year sentence on a trumped-up charge of terrorism after opposing Russia’s annexation of Crimea. (Pavlensky demanded that he too be labeled a terrorist, the but the authorities refused.)

Each of their stories is told partially through comic scenes with three separate pairs of corrupt and bumbling bureaucrats discussing their cases — one pair at a cafe discussing the purchase of a yacht, one at a soccer stadium, one on adjoining toilets.

https://vimeo.com/226963636

A full half hour of Burning Doors is given over to a visceral physical theater of heightened violence. Two of the actors literally throw each other around the room, ripping off their clothes. Two of the actresses slap each other silly.  One hangs from the neck by a rope. Four run away from a prison door, with a bungee cord to which they are attached, only to have the cords viciously snap them back. These are all surely metaphors. But they also help make a literally spectacular theatrical experience.

Burning Doors is on stage at LaMaMa ETC through October 22

Click on any photograph by Alex Brenner or Nicolai Khalezin to see it enlarged.

Burning Doors

Maria Alyokhina

Maryia-Sazonava-and-Maria-Alyokhina

Maryia-Sazonava-and-Maria-Alyokhina

Pavel-Haradnitski-and-Andrei-Urazau

  Burning Doors Review: Belarus Free Theatre and Pussy Riot Unite to Fight For Human Rights In “Burning Doors,” Belarus Free Theatre’s latest arresting, arousing, athletic and anarchic play about state-sponsored injustice, one of the eight cast members strips naked as he tells the story of a man who had been sentenced to death by firing-squad for a political crime, but was given a last-minute reprieve.