Pop Quiz. Becky Shaw is:
a) your old college roommate who reconnected with you on Facebook
b) your boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend - who still has her ski boots in his closet
c) your mother’s bingo partner who keeps asking if you want to be fixed up with her recently divorced son
The answer is actually: d) the play I saw recently, written by Gina Gionfriddo, directed by Peter DuBois and currently being produced at the 2econd Stage Theatre (307 West 43rd Street off Eighth Avenue).
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Tags:
2econd Stage Theatre,
Becky Shaw,
Theatre Buzz
I was lucky enough to snag some deeply discounted tickets to the limited engagement of The Cripple of Inishmaan (by Martin McDonaugh and directed by Garry Hynes) last week. Let’s face it, when someone offers you discount tickets that cost less than a movie ticket, as long as the plot is a shade better than Death Race you’re already ahead of the game. So excited was I by the chance to see live theatre for ten dollars, that I barely glanced at the synopsis which informed me that The Cripple of Inishmaan was set in 1934, on an island off the west coast of Ireland, and that it involved events surrounding the time filmmaker Robert Flaherty came to the area to film his movie Man of Aran. I mean, I’m not really one for blurbs. Anything loses its zing when boiled down to a few sentences. I’m more of a jump-in-with-both-feet-and-then-decided-if-I-like-it type of gal, ’specially when, as I’ve mentioned before, the tickets are ten bucks.
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Tags:
Garry Hynes,
Martin McDonaugh,
New York City,
new york city theater,
The Cripple of Inishmaan,
Theater
If Christmas in New York could be found on the map I think most people would agree that its address would be Rockefeller Center, filled as it is with the tree and the giant decorations, and the fabled City of Radio … where Rockettes dress up as reindeer and dance their little hearts out, doling out Christmas Miracles to the tourists one high kick at a time.
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Tags:
Christmas,
New York City,
Radio City Christmas Spectacular,
Radio City Music Hall,
Rockefeller Center,
Rocketts
My husband’s home town in Michigan is so small that, to them, the word “theatre” is 1) spelled “theater” and 2) always preceded by the word “movie”. And if you want to get to that “movie theater” you’ll need a car — because the closest one is 13 miles away in the next town over. Growing up, if he wanted a theatre experience of ANY kind he needed to head to Chicago.
Meanwhile, New York is so rife with theatre space that you can’t go to a Starbuck’s without being within a stone’s throw of one. Heck … there’s one in the building where I work. There was even a theatre connected to the restaurant I had dinner in last night. If you climb on any mailbox and squint, you can see independent theatre going on everywhere in New York.
I’m particularly fond of theatre companies who put on well crafted plays written by up and coming writers. Johnna Adam’s Angel Eater’s Trilogy is just such a work, and FLUX Theatre Ensemble is just such a company.
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Tags:
8 Little Antichrists,
Angel Eaters,
Flux Theatre Ensemble,
indie theatre,
interview,
Kelly O'Donnell,
Rattlers,
Theatre Buzz
You know you’re at a David Mamet play when, before the show even starts, you’re asked to turn off your fucking cell phones.
While the play was first produced in the seventies, the subject matter is hardly dated; nothing gives away the time period (except for John Leguizamo’s crazy-patterned shirt — which could easily be more of a nod toward his character’s thrift-store-shopping-habits than the decade); even in the program “The Time” is listed only as “One Friday”.
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Tags:
American Buffalo,
belasco theater,
broadway,
Cedric the Entertainer,
david mamet,
Haley Joel Osment,
John Leguizamo,
Mamet,
play,
Revival,
theatre
