September 2011

I’d say that Mark Gindick had me at “hello” with his one-man comedy performance Wing-Man (directed by Barry Lubin) but he actually never said “hello”.  In fact, he didn’t say anything.  For a solid hour Mark Gindick doesn’t really say a word  but as surely as he arrives on the scene with a rose and [...]

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  I don’t even know how to start explaining how or why Neon Lights (created and performed by Chris Manley and Jeff Seal) became the show that had me laughing so hard that I was literally wheezing.  Truthfully, if I gave you a rundown of everything they did in their act it would sound like I’m [...]

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  Ever wonder what it might be like to hang out for a weekend with the casually wealthy?  Ever yearn to be part of a clique of old friends who sit around and poke fun at each other for small transgressions such as packing five pairs of shoes for a four day trip or dropping, [...]

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Barry Lubin: From Grandma To Wing-Man

by Karen Tortora-Lee September 24, 2011 Brooklyn

Barry Lubin as Grandma I’ve known Grandma The Clown for as long as I’ve known the Big Apple Circus.  Grandma is as much a part of that circus arena as the sawdust and the trapeze rigging.  But it wasn’t until I saw the PBS documentary CIRCUS that I got to know Barry Lubin – the [...]

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The Woman Standing On The Moon

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson September 23, 2011 Manhattan

  Attempting to grapple with the national ideological landscape of the present, James Haigney‘s new drama, The Woman Standing on the Moon, playing at United Stages on 30th Street, is undeniably ambitious. This is a serious minded engagement with the extremism of the times – religious and atheist. Set around Fayetteville, NC in 2006, the [...]

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Morro And Jasp GONE WILD – No More Stops Left To Pull Out (Amuse Bouche NY Clown Theatre Festival)

by Karen Tortora-Lee September 18, 2011 Brooklyn

Morro and Jasp Gone Wild is what happens to two teen sisters when, on their way to the beach for Spring Break, they take a wrong turn and find themselves with a wrecked car, a trunk full of props, a book outlining Maslow’s Theory of Hierarchy some possibly mood altering substances, and the threat of [...]

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Mark Gindick Explains The Serious Business Of Clowning Around

by Karen Tortora-Lee September 16, 2011 Brooklyn

  Mark Gindick in Wing-Man (Photo by Florence Montmare)   If you were lucky enough to catch the PBS documentary Circus then you’ve already met Mark Gindick whose antics as a Big Apple Circus clown were prominently featured in that six-part mini series which followed the lives of the performers and crew during their 2008 season.  Or, [...]

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Mike Milazzo — Open Mike

by The Happiest Medium September 15, 2011 Event

interview done by Karen + Stephen Tortora-Lee Mike Milazzo – The Show from Mads Jeppesen on Vimeo. If you’ve ever seen Mike Milazzo play the guitar then you already know what an amazing experience it is to watch him – his fingers fly effortlessly over the strings producing almost unbelievably complex sounds that are not [...]

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The Domestic Crusaders – Fundamentally Challenged

by The Happiest Medium September 14, 2011 Brooklyn

The Happiest Medium Review by guest contributors Anjali Koppal and Saurabh Paranjape   It has been a rocky decade for America’s relationship with the Muslim world, and while we have heard the voices of everyone from politicians and pundits to ‘Islam experts’ and firebrand evangelicals about the motivations, implications and myriad other ‘-ations’ of the [...]

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Bill Connington Is Unstoppable With *Zombie* And *The Thornhills Of Park Avenue*

by Karen Tortora-Lee September 14, 2011 Event

We recently wrote about Bill Connington’s success with his award winning play, Zombie (based on the novella by Joyce Carol Oates).  The short film based on the play- winner of “Best Short Film (Horror)” at the Washington D.C. International Film Festival will be shown as part of The Williamsburg International Film Festival — Knitting Factory | [...]

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Ampersand’s Rockstar – A Chat With Lauren Hennessy

by Karen Tortora-Lee September 14, 2011 Festivals

It’s no secret that Mariah MacCarthy’s beautiful Ampersand: A Romeo & Juliet Story struck a deep chord with me; I loved so many things about it.  For me it was one of the highlights of this season’s Fringe Festival.  So when the wonderful Lauren Hennessy was the recipient of an award for overall excellence for [...]

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BogBoy, By Deirdre Kinahan, At The Irish Arts Center

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson September 13, 2011 Manhattan

Immediately arresting in this production of Deirdre Kinahan‘s new play, BogBoy, at the Irish Arts Center, is Ciaran Bagnall‘s simple stage set of several scrim panels reflecting projected landscape imagery. The mood is heavy and still – darkening flat vistas of bogland stretching off to meet a cloud-crowded sky broken only in places to admit [...]

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Flocked (Amuse Bouche – NY Clown Theatre Festival)

by Karen Tortora-Lee September 11, 2011 Brooklyn

If you were a bird and your entire kingdom consisted of the tiny cage where you slept, ate, drank, preened and otherwise just hung out you’d feel really threatened if another bird came along and tried to knock you off your perch, as it were.  Let alone another bird with habits, styles and affectations much [...]

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