Monday, November 18, 2024Do you like unicorns? Baked goods? Balloons? That and more is packed into the New York Neo-Futurists' Wind-Up Variations at the Kraine Theatre, which winds up its brief run at The Kraine Theatre this Saturday. Written and directed by Rob Neill, the story is ostensibly about the quartet pictured above. Wind-Up Monkey (spirit animal of Daniel Mirsky) is finds himself alone following an unspecified disaster. Along the way he encounters a Dinosaur (spirit animal of Ayun Halliday), Robot (Spirit Animal of Eevin Hartsough) and Unicorn (Spirit Animal of T Thompson). Their journey is interrupted by their human counterparts talking over each other,
Author: Patricia Contino
Theatre: Two Local Festivals Celebrate Ancient Greek Theatre
Despite their rigid structure, Ancient Greek plays resonate in whatever era they are presented. Gods and demigods dealt with the same jealousy, conflict, passion, and humor mortals encounter in the real world. These powerful emotions are the centerpieces of two festivals: The Third Annual Onassis Festival, "Birds: A Festival Inspired by Aristophanes", offers Nikos Karathanos’s magical production of the comedy at Brooklyn co-producer St. Anne's Warehouse, and The Seeing Place Theater's "Whistleblower Series" at the Lower East Side Paradise Factory features Brandon Walker's timely and provocative recreation, The People vs. Antigone. "Where are the birds?" Pisthetaerus (Nikos Karathanos) and Euelpides (Aris Servetails) ask each
Music: Exploring the Sights and Sounds of ‘Symphonie Fantastique’
Recently, two opportunities arose to hear Hector Berlioz's "Symphonie Fanstatique" within days of each other. This isn't surprising - it's been a crowd pleaser since its 1830 premiere . With that also comes with a lot of "over"s" as in over-programmed and overwrought. Happily, both Bard College's Orchestra Now (TŌN ) conducted by Music Director/College President Leon Botstein at Lincoln Center's Frederick P Rose Hall and Basil Twist's landmark abstract puppet ballet at HERE encouraged audiences to forget everything they thought they knew about this music to discover it for themselves. Their thoughtful invitations to do so succeeded. Limited program notes made
Theatre: The Flea Theater presents ‘MS. ESTRADA’ by the Q Brothers Collective
This season female empowerment dominates two big Broadway musicals. Sure, both "Frozen" and "Mean Girls" have female leads but those #MeToo connections are slightly perfunctory: the only change Disney princesses and a SNL alum bring to commercial theatre are record ticket sales + pricing along with celebrity audience sightings on Instagram. For those in search of a night out with their tweens or long for an original musical with a positive message delivered by "woke" females there is "Ms. Estrada" - the Q Brothers Collective shrewd Hip-Hop adaptation of Aristophanes’ ancient sex farce in its world premiere at The Flea. If
Music: the little OPERA theatre of ny in collaboration with New Vintage Baroque presents the New York City Premiere of Johann Adolph Hasse’s ‘Piramo e Tisbe’
Because early opera is highly regimented and at times surprisingly experimental, the right performance space makes all the difference. The little OPERA theatre of ny (LOTNY) presented the NYC premiere of Johann Adolph Hasse's "Piramo e Tisbe" at the Baruch Performing Arts Center on the East Side. The CUNY campus housing the theatre is in the corporate, no-frills Kips Bay neighborhood - making its intimate size ideal for students and those new to opera. Since the sold-out audience consisted primarily of students, and Hasse's 1768 opera (revised, 1770) was new to most likely new to everyone else, LOTNY and the New Vintage Baroque orchestra conducted by Elliot Figg proved both outstanding musicians and
Music: Curtis Opera Theatre presents ‘A Quiet Place’ at the Kaye Playhouse
2018 marks the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein's birth. Accomplishments such as the first American music director of the NY Philharmonic, music educator who united the concert hall with television, and composer "West Side Story" fill more than one lifetime. Yet that formidable legacy overshadows his lesser-known work worth knowing, including "A Quiet Place." On March 13, 2018 his alma mater, the Curtis Institute of Music, visited from Philadelphia for a single performance of the 1983 opera at The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College. "A Quiet Place" is the sequel to Bernstein's 1951 "Trouble in Tahiti". Both are one act, and Bernstein
Theatre: The New Group presents ‘Good for Otto’ at the Pershing Square Signature Center
Non-spoiler alert: the title character never appears in David Rabe's "Good for Otto", making its New York premiere onstage at the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at the Pershing Square Signature Center. Unlike Harvey the rabbit, the beloved pet hamster really exists. His well-being is one of several crises in Rabe's passionate exploration of mental health providers and patients. Like the subject matter, there are no easy solutions. Such long-term perimeters limit the play's message that even its accomplished cast cannot answer in three hours. Rabe returns to his familiar theme of the extended family created by circumstance. Drs. Michaels (Ed
Theatre: Theatre of War presents “(Flying) Dutchman” at The Tank
He said nothing. She said nothing nice. He tried. She still made no effort. He got angry. She got violent. That is the double one-sided conversation at The Tank in Theatre of War’s reimagining of Amiri Baraka’s “(Flying) Dutchman”, which is as confrontational and relevant as it was in 1964. Rather than setting the interaction between middle-class African-American Clay (Malcolm B. Hines) and White poetess Lula (Jonathan Schenk) in a subway like Baraka did, director Christopher Stevenson has the two “talk” across a long table. Microphones provide the public performance Lula craves and testimony Clay provides her with regarding his life.
Theatre: The New Group presents ‘Jerry Springer – The Opera’ at The Pershing Square Signature Center
The title no joke. Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee’s “Jerry Springer – The Opera” is a raucous parody of many things, but most of all opera. Librettos make for dull reading, but this 90% unprintable one is laugh out-loud. It has taken over a decade for “Jerry Springer” to brawl its way to a NYC stage, but The New Group more than makes up for it with John Rando’s wild production. Thomas (music, lyrics) and Lee (book, additional lyrics) didn’t have to look hard for commonalities between “Jerry Springer and “opera”. Act I is the taping of Jerry’s (Terrence Mann’s) show.
Music: Rossini’s ‘Semiramide’ at the Metropolitan Opera House
Along with Rossini’s “Barber of Seville”, the Met in recent seasons has sucessfully presented his lesser known “L'italiana in Algeri”, “La Cenerentola” (“Cinderella”), “La donna del lago” (“Lady of the Lake”), and “William Tell”. Now after 25 years, his “Semiramide” returns to the repertory. For reasons other than Maurizio Benini and the Met Orchestra's spunky playing of the opera's Overture, soprano Angela Meade’s gallant singing of the serial killer Babylonian queen, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong's beautiful duets with Meade about their complicated relationship and tenor Javier Camarena’s star turn as the love-struck Prince Idreno, the production also provided an up-close look at