August 2010

Nothing feels better than taking that final bow, and hearing the applause going on and on . . . begging you to come out one more time.  For some very special shows of Fringe, that’s exactly what gets to happen and we at The Happiest Medium are very pleased that some of our very favorites [...]

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Costume ensembles are just about the only thing that carries Dream of Marionettes as a show. Perhaps the idea of adding a burlesque spirit to a marionettes’ rebellion against an abusive puppeteer who exploited his dolls and threatened to throw them in the furnace seemed like a new twist on the old Pinocchio tale, but [...]

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One year after Hurricane Katrina struck, the mayor of New Orleans wanted to put on The Hurricane Katrina Comedy Hour.  Public outrage stopped it from ever airing, but here is another attempt. Rob Florence’s The Hurricane Katrina Comedy Festival directed by Dann Fink gives us a positive story of 5 people who experienced Katrina and [...]

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23 Feet In 12 Minutes: The Death And Rebirth Of New Orleans (Fringe Festival 2010)

by Stephen Tortora-Lee August 27, 2010 Festivals

6 Characters Based On 60 Interviews in 60 Minutes Equals Countless Emotions Deanna Pacelli is a hero.  Or several of them actually, and also a victim, and often enough some observers.  In 23 Feet in 12 Minutes Deanna puts on many characters and pulls stories from many moving moments as she recounts the events starting [...]

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The Secretaries – Do As I Say, Do As I Do (Fringe Festival 2010)

by Karen Tortora-Lee August 27, 2010 Festivals

Boy, do I remember what it was like to be the new gal around the office – to not have the routine down yet, to get sneered at for ordering from wrong place for lunch (“We don’t use them ever since the egg salad incident . . . but that was before your time”) or [...]

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Insurmountable Simplicities: Philosophers Say The Darndest Things (Fringe Festival 2010)

by Stephen Tortora-Lee August 27, 2010 Festivals

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 [...]

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American Gypsy – The Trick To Success (Fringe Festival 2010)

by Karen Tortora-Lee August 27, 2010 Festivals

What is a magician really?  Is he an illusionist?  A storyteller?  A dream-weaver?  A showman? A creator? Is he meant to astonish you?  Amuse you?  Entertain you?  Scare you a little?  Touch your soul a little? A lot of magicians are giving away the “how” these days  - but in Ben Whiting’s solo show, American Gypsy, [...]

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The Mad 7: You Are Now Exactly As I Am (Fringe Festival 2010)

by Stephen Tortora-Lee August 27, 2010 Festivals

After beginning a normal day at work, in the middle of his most fulfilling time (morning coffee) Elliott (Yehuda Hyman) is approached by a blind man wearing headphones and knocking his stick in rhythm to an unknown beat.  He hands Elliott his headphones and out of curiosity, Elliott accepts and is prepared to listen to …  Nothing, there [...]

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The Conveniences Of Modern Living – Were You Just Kissing The Dryer? (Fringe Festival 2010)

by Karen Tortora-Lee August 26, 2010 Festivals

You know your marriage is on the rocks when your husband would rather spend time with The Dryer than with you. I’m not talking about any ordinary dryer, mind you, in Daniel John Kelley and Emily Plumb’s The Conveniences of Modern Living Jessica Love plays about a cute a dryer as you’d ever want to [...]

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Friends Of Dorothy – An Oz Cabaret (Fringe Festival 2010)

by Karen Tortora-Lee August 24, 2010 Festivals

When I was a child there were a few things you could count on, and one of them was that (in the days before VCRs – and yes, honey, I AM that old) if you waited long enough The Wizard of Oz was going to be on TV at some point that year.  Back in [...]

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“It’s A Wonderful Day To Be A Woman!” In Jurassic Parq (Fringe Festival 2010)

by Lina Zeldovich August 24, 2010 Festivals

“A Jurassic Parq with a ‘q’,” is how the narrator who calls himself Morgan Freeman (Lee Seymour) — although he looks nothing like the actor — presents the show to the audience. “‘Q’ is for the question.” The dinosaurs will tell us the true story. A baby-Velociraptor (Brandon Gill) is being released from a lab [...]

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Cookie: Warm, Crisp, And Delightfully Sweet (Fringe Festival 2010)

by The Happiest Medium August 23, 2010 Festivals

The Happiest Medium Review by guest contributors Anjali Koppal and Saurabh Paranjape In Chad Beckim’s frothy romantic comedy Cookie, it is hard not to cheer for mopey, instantly likable man-child Alan as he awkwardly navigates the unexpected pitfalls and redemptions of a hastily put-together ‘Green Card marriage’ scam. Told through a series of short and [...]

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Swaha: Rituals Of Union (Fringe Festival 2010)

by Antonio Miniño August 22, 2010 Festivals

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 [...]

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Eternity In An Hour (And 10 Minutes): Blake 2.0 – (Fringe Festival 2010)

by Stephen Tortora-Lee August 21, 2010 Festivals

To see a World in a grain of sand, And Heaven in a wild flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. William Blake William Blake belongs on Off-Off-Broadway.  Or at least he would have appreciated it, because of his belief that Art should be about Imagination rather than [...]

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Be Careful What You Wish For, You May Get It – An Interview With Dénes Orosz

by Lina Zeldovich August 21, 2010 Film

In Poligamy – a Hungarian indie feature film to be screened at the Astoria/LIC International Film Festival Oct 22-24, 2010 Dénes Orosz, a Hungarian director and producer,explores the ever-controversial subject of polygamy from the surprising angle of what would happen if someone’s coveted wish was miraculously fulfilled. A young Hungarian couple, Andrash and Lilla, have been [...]

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Catching Up With The Divine Carl Andress

by Karen Tortora-Lee August 20, 2010 Interviews

One of the first interviews I ever did as an “official” theatre reviewer was with Carl Andress who was not only charming and lovely but also heaps of fun to chat with.  Back then he was directing Charles Busch and Kathleen Turner in The Third Story which was a show that highlighted the talent of everyone [...]

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The Beátitudes: The Beat Goes On (Fringe Festival 2010)

by Stephen Tortora-Lee August 20, 2010 Festivals

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 [...]

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