Back on Stage

I have two little shows coming up. Haven't done a play since May. Interesting feelings being back.

This weekend, I'm doing a quick scene in the Penny Dreadful series at the Brick.

Penny Dreadful Episode 10

The Science and the Seance - Two Tales of Love and Horror

Saturday, January 17, 2009 at 11PM and Sunday, January 18, 2009 at 2PM

The Brick Theater

575 Metropolitan Avenue

btwn Union Ave. & Lorimer St. (L to Lorimer / G to Metropolitan)

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY

(read about the series -- Time Out NY Blog)

Then the week of Valentine's Day, I'll be in a short play by Jennifer Haley at Center Stage.

The Great Lover's Rumpus

Tuesday, February 10th, Wednesday the 11th & Thursday the12th @ 7:00pm

and Saturday, Feb 14th @ 7:00pm

CENTER STAGE, NEW YORK

48 West 21st Street, between the 5th & 6th avenues - 4th Floor

This piece will cap an evening of shorts by Ed Valentine, Janet Zarecor, M.Z. Ribalow, Mark St. Germain, Eric Walton and Don Nigro

Kung Foolery

Contrary to what it might seem like, there is more to my life than my workout regime. Take, for example, this little play I directed (and had a small part in) last night.

It was part of a festival of One-Acts put on by the Algonquin Theater. I believe we were one of five shows last night, and at the end of each night, one play is selected for publication and will be performed again on Sunday.

When I got home, I was delighted to find an email titled "Tuesday Night Selection", which read:

Tonight the judge's selection was "Kung Foolery" by Brett Hursey, directed by Robin Reed.

It feels good to have been chosen, and it will be fun to do this little play again. The story is simple and funny: a man, Barry (played by the hilarious Matt Hanley) is married to a woman, Karly (the incredibly talented Libby Winters), and when Karly's Mom Lois (me, in a wig that makes me look frighteningly like my own mother, highlights and all!) comes to visit, hilarity ensues.

If you want to check it out, we'll perform again this Sunday, July 13th at 1pm. The Algonquin is located at 123 East 24th St between Park Ave South and Lexington. For ticket info, call (212) 730-4664.

Get Your Heels On, Y'all, It's Time to Go Grocery Shoppin'.

A week or so ago I was lucky enough to have a night free to see my good friends Dan O'Brien and Julie Shavers' new show, Silver Bullet Trailer.

Julie wrote it and you can hear her southern roots and biting humor throughout. Without giving too much away, I'll tell you that Julie plays a very pregnant Sari, whose unborn child longs for a name and takes off (yes!) in search of his maverick cowboy of a daddy. Along the way, the little chap encounters a merry band of crazies and has a considerable adventure for a fetus. Dan directs and hits one zinger after another. It's sharp, smart, funny and harshly realistic in its absurdity. And if I'm not mistaken, this marks the screen debut of their most adorable and already talented son, Ammon O'Brien (in photo with banjo).

It's got another two weeks at the Ohio. I highly recommend you check them out.

An Extra Side of AWESOME

There aren't enough positive adjectives in the English Language for me to describe how just plain BADASS and SUPER AWESOME the Vampire Cowboys' current show, Fight Girl Battle World, is.

Will and I saw it last night and were both completely engrossed-- it is a rare chemistry when we both like a show so much that we're simultaneously belly laughing throughout. It's smart, it's oddly sexy (for being so, in their words, "comic geek chic") and it's laugh-out-loud hilarious.

I'm late to the game, since the show closes on Sunday, but if you're in the area, Go See This Show!

In other news, also from the AWESOME department-- I'm off today to do my spot on Sesame Street. Triangle Man is waiting for me in Queens-- I've just got to pack up all my most colorful garb and head out there. I'll be back over the weekend with photos, I'm sure. Today will most likely be one of the most fun days of my life.

Busy. Mind-blowingly So.

My to-do list as of late has gotten out of control. So much so that yesterday I cancelled my debit card, convinced that I had lost it.

This morning I turned my chair 90˚ to the left from my desk and there it was, in all its Citibank-y glory.

Luckily my new card comes tomorrow.* And not a moment too soon. Operating strictly on cash makes me uneasy for some reason.

Anyway, what's keeping me busy is all good. I have a bunch of performances coming up, including my improv class show this Thursday at 7pm at the Magnet Theater.

Also, be on the lookout for Babylon, Babylon, coming in April to the Brick.

Until then, I may seem like a distant memory, but rest assured, I'm alive.

*The Customer Service Lady said that it would take a week, but if I needed it sooner she could get it to me by Wednesday. Who doesn't "need it sooner"??

Temporary Distortion at PS122

You may remember back in October I produced a podcast for nytheatre.com about Temporary Distortion's current work, Welcome to Nowhere (Bullet Hole Road).

Well, those guys are packing up their signature set of plexiglass boxes and neon lights and heading to France (lucky bastards!). But first, they're re-mounting the show this week at PS122 for a very limited engagement.

It's a really cool show that I'm sure is unlike anything you've seen before (unless you're familiar with their work). I highly recommend checking it out!

last chance to see
Temporary Distortion's
WELCOME TO NOWHERE

FEBRUARY 20-23 at 8pm

P.S. 122
150 1st Avenue (at 9th Street)

Box Office:
212-352-3101
www.ovationtix.com

[Use "TD10" for half-price ($10) tickets]

Angst & Burlesque

I went to go check out my good friend The Bitter Poet last night at his show with the awesome Howling Vic (aka The Beautiful Downtown Performance Artist) at Dixon Place.

Seriously, it's some of the most fun you can have in under an hour. If you check out the Bitter Poet's MySpace Page, you can get an idea of some of his, well, bitter poetry. But nothing compares to this live show which mixes his very funny comedy/musical stylings with the twisted-yet-hilarious-yet-naughty burlesque striptease of Howling Vic.

They have another show at Dixon Place next Wednesday at 8. Check it out! And laugh your ass off!

Just Reviewed on NYTheatre.com: Under the Radar Festival

I saw two shows at the Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival this week:

Regurgitophagy

The gimmick is set up as the show is beginning: the machine they've devised "captures responses from the audience and turns them into electric discharges into the actor's body. Please turn off your cell phones."

Michel Melamed enters, dressed in black clothes that walk an odd line between high couture and the discarded gear of some strange brethren of monks. He is instantly likeable even with the severe intensity coursing across his face. He is adorned with strange jewelry. On his wrists and ankles he wears metal clamps, onto which he attaches cables akin to those with which you would jump-start a car. These cables are attached to boxes that are attached to pulleys that run up to the grid. I looked, but couldn't quite tell if they were plugged in or not.

That was my first question: is he for real? He started speaking and the first time anyone in the audience made a peep, be it a laugh or a cough, a bare bulb upstage left lit up and Melamed twitched from the charge that supposedly surged forth into his wrists and ankles.

Read the rest of the review here.

and Disinformation:

Reggie Watts is one cool cat. The man, the voice, the Afro—a total package. Charming, funny, and compulsively watchable, he is one of the most distinctive performers to come down the pike in a while. And blending his vocals and grounded-then-out-there-then-grounded-again style of storytelling with live-mixed sound makes for a a highly entertaining evening.

In fact, my companions, avid theatergoers, said it was the best show they've seen in a while. I agreed, in that it is not like anything I've seen recently on the current New York theater scene, because it is so many things all at once.

Read the rest of the review here.

Both shows run through Sunday the 20th.

Upcoming-- Tuesday, 18 Dec 07, 8pm

A reminder, friends and lovers of truly experimental theater and text:

Julia Lee Barclay is coming to town next week to present a reading of a new work, Besides, you lose your soul or the History of Western Civilization. Julia wrote Word to Your Mama, which I performed in London and New York back in 2003. Nearly everyone from that show, plus a couple of others who worked on the early stages of Julia's work will be involved in the reading.

I'm excited to get back together with everyone. And if Julia's work in London has continued down the same path, I imagine that Tuesday will offer a lot of surprises. Please join us if you can-- 8pm at The Brick. Here's the official invite:

You are cordially invited to attend a
performative-response to

Besides, you lose your soul or the History of Western Civilization
a new stage text
written and directed by
Julia Lee Barclay

performed by:
Bill Aitchison, Fred Backus, Maggie Cino, Nicole Higgins, Daniel O'Brien, Robin Reed, Julie Shavers and Eva van Dok.

December 18, 2007 at 8:00pm at The Brick 575 Metropolitan Ave. in Williamsburg
(between Union Ave and Lorimer St.) – take the L to Lorimer Street or G to Metropolitan.
For detailed directions, go to The Brick’s website www.bricktheater.com.

This event, the first manifestation of this new text and the first time Barclay has shown her work in New York since 2003, features an extremely talented veteran cast who have worked with Barclay over the years in NYC and London. They have experience with her style of working improvisationally with text, gesture and theatrical space, so this event will be more a performative response to Barclay's new text than a traditional reading - more jazz jam than chamber recital.

“Besides, you lose your soul” is the last line of an interview of a U.S. Army officer from a New Yorker article about the inefficiencies of the use of torture for gathering accurate information. Besides, you lose your soul attempts (with the humor that results from certain failure) to search through the remnants of Western Civilization in order to find out who's to blame for the creation of the individual soul (that can apparently be lost or recovered) which can lead to those we do not recognize being branded soul-less. It's a bumbling cut-up detective story searching for clues as to how to get out of this mess. ‘This mess’ meaning the use of God v. Godless (soul v. soul-less) to justify the ruthless realpolitik of all the unholy Holy Wars (on Terror, on the Godless Infidels, on the Axis of Evil, on women’s bodies, etc.). We will fail of course, but perhaps we will stumble onto something in the course of our struggling that can open up a door to...not sure where really.

Julia Lee Barclay is a self-exiled New Yorker living in London in full flight from the Bush administration. She accidentally started a theatre company in 2004 from a month-long lab, which has been called Apocryphal Theatre (www.flyingoutofsequence.org). Apocryphal (meaning "of dubious authorship or authenticity") has since produced plays and experimental lab showings in theatres, art galleries and music venues internationally. Work created in collaboration with Bill Aitchison under the name AB has been commissioned and produced in Finland, Germany and Portugal. Before fleeing to London in 2003, she lived in NYC where her work was awarded, published (Plays and Playwrights 2001) and produced in many venues and festivals, such as The Present Company, HERE (American Living Room), Mabou Mines, Ohio Theatre (Soho Think Tank) and FringeNYC.

After the performance, we would be happy if you stayed to give us your feedback.

Au Revoir, Parapluie at BAM

I saw this show at BAM the other night, and I can't recommend it strongly enough! Here, an excerpt from my review:

Stop reading this right now, go to bam.org and get tickets for this show. If you know any children, get them a ticket too—it will immortalize you in their memory years on end, that amazing show you brought them to see that expanded their imaginations beyond any heretofore seen parameters. They will thank you.

And if you can’t make it while they’re at BAM, book your tickets to Sydney. Yes, Australia. You know you’ve been meaning to get there-- it’s the next stop on their tour. In other words: this is one you do not want to miss.

I’m serious. Au Revoir Parapluie (Farewell, Umbrella) is simply inspiring, the dream from which you won’t want to wake. Not since reading C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia as a child have I gone on a more fantastical journey into a timeless and fully captivating world.

The rest of my review is here.

Buy tickets here.
Watch a video preview (but not if you're going to see the show-- the surprises are so delightful!) here.

It runs through 12/16.

Not Checking Your Calendar May Lead to Stand Up Comedy

This fall I decided to throw myself back into taking classes in the hopes of opening any and every channel of inspiration toward The Project (I'll explain more about The Project in the coming weeks).

I have been taking an ass-whomping Fight Choreography/stage combat class with Qui Nguyen and the Vampire Cowboys. I rejoined my on-going acting class with Kelly Kimball just in time for Bootcamp Month. And I have dipped my toe back in the pool of improv comedy-- I'm taking class with Armando Diaz at the Magnet.

I had studied improv at the UCB what seems now like a hundred years ago, and though I never pursued performing at the theater, what I learned in my classes has been invaluable to me as an actor. It can be such a terrifying form of performance, flying without the net of a script, but doing it puts you just a millimeter closer to feeling invincible, at least on stage.

Taking class at the Magnet makes you eligible to perform in The Magnet Mixer, a Thursday night show that forms improv "teams" based on who shows up. Newbies can perform with pros. It's very socialist.

After an inspiring class at Kimball Studio last night, I was ready to head up there and get my improv on. I wanted to go last week, but a combination of shyness and going out for a drink with people from class kept me off the stage. Mixers also happen at midnight on Saturdays, but I was long asleep by that time this weekend.

So I trudged up to 29th and 8th last night, raring to go, only to find out that the Thursday Mixer only happens ever other week! This week was a stand-up show, which I stayed to watch. The comics (Sean Crespo, Larry Murphy, Greg and Lou, and Joe Derosa) were pretty funny, so it wasn't all for nothing.

Even though I basically ended up with the performance equivalent of blue-balls. I did have a five minute fantasy of throwing all caution to the wind and improv-ing a stand-up routine. Luckily (?) that was not an option.