Victoria Ordin - Page 2

When it comes to theater, there's immersive and there's immersive. Siobhan O'Loughlin's BROKEN BONE BATHTUB is immersive in a literal sense: the Brooklyn-based playwright sits in a bathtub full of bubbles as she tells the story of her most severe bicycle accident, though the play is really about the existential crisis triggered by the collision in Grand Army Plaza.

In a world with so many peddling-and profiting from--faux inspiration, SILENT NO MORE: A THEATRICAL DOCUMENTARY offers the real thing. Directed by Michele Christie, Ed.D., Executive Director and Founder of No Limits, SILENT NO MORE is by turns heartbreaking and hilarious as it traces the struggles and successes of courageous men and women variously affected by hearing loss. Some three decades after Children of a Lesser God, the conflict rages on in the deaf community between those who (only) sign and those who speak. A major theme of of SILENT NO MORE is that those in and beyond the deaf community need to support, rather than criticize the choices of those with partial or full hearing loss.

Nothing in the press release prepared me for the power and beauty of THE MAR VISTA, an ambitious autobiographical theater-dance piece by Brooklyn-based Yehuda Hyman which ranges over four countries on two continents in 90 years. This is no one's fault (though a tissue alert would have been nice), as the collaboration between Hyman's Mystical Feet Company and LABA: The Laboratory of Jewish Culture does not lend itself to neat description. A brief review of Hyman's artistic background--choreographer, playwright, poet, translator of poetry, and teacher of dance at Sarah Lawrence (from which he earned his M.F.A), Princeton, NYU, Barnard, and USC, among others-would best, perhaps, indicate the play's epic sweep, both emotionally and historically.

HOLIDAY HOUSE: CHRISTMAS BENDS, the latest from Tracy Weller's experimental theater company, Mason Holdings, bills itself as a 'darkly comedic... psychological study of how we experience childhood as outsiders.' A brief perusal of Weller's fascinating website, Tracy Weller Land-a rabbit hole in the best sense--would make clear that this is not a show for anyone under 16, notwithstanding the pre-show holiday party with cookies, egg nog, and a live Santa. And in spite of the star's evident talent, the play is disjointed and incoherent.

Gideon Irving is an original. One-man (or woman) shows are by definition personal, but even by the yardstick of solo performance, MY NAME IS GIDEON, I'M PROBABLY GOING TO DIE EVENTUALLY is unlike anything I've seen in theater or cabaret. The 30-year-old actor born at Roosevelt Hospital on 58th Street (along with his twin brother Isaac, a singing abalone) has performed his musical show in six countries and 504 livings rooms, along with fringe festivals and the occasional theater.

A DOG STORY is that rare musical comedy that manages to be sweet but not cloying, accessible but not banal, and light but not unsubstantial. With most of the city still in deep mourning over the election (and facing a logistical nightmare in Midtown for the next four years), this new musical--with a strong book by Eric H. Weinberger and excellent lyrics and music by Gayla D. Morgan-could not have come at a more perfect time. The show was an extended-release happy pill, after which you felt-if only for an hour or two-that everything will somehow be okay.

Billed as a dark comedy about 50-something children faced with 80-something parents in decline, IN THE CAR WITH BLOSSOM AND LEN is a semi-autobiographical play by Joni Fritz (and directed by Tony nominee Lynne Taylor-Corbett) making its New York debut at the Queens Theater. 'I write about what I know, and what I know is family,' Fritz notes in the program's poignant note about her own theater-loving father, who did not live to see this play produced.

In BLACKTOP HIGHWAY, Performance Artist John Fleck Muses on Simulacra, Animals (Live and Dead), and Trump. Taking on ten characters and mimicking as many animal sounds, the NEA 4 artist weaves a multi-media tale of horror that manages, incredibly, to make us laugh.

Lynn Henderson delighted a small but enthusiastic audience at Don't Tell Mama in the final performance of her new show, T'AIN'T NOBODY'S BIZNESS IF I DO! With musical director Douglas J. Cohen, a multi-award winning songwriter (including a Drama Desk Award nomination and the Noel Coward Prize), and bass player Bob Sabin (himself the winner of numerous jazz awards, who sits on the music faculty both at the prestigious Hunter College High School and NYU), the veteran big band, choral, and lounge singer combined material from her 2014 CD, If We Only Have Love, with classics from the Great American Songbook (George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Kander and Ebb, among others). Ably directed by 10-time MAC Award winner Barry Kleinbort, the show also included more contemporary material by Billy Joel, Jerry Herman, and Randy Newman.

The first annual HARVARD-YALE CANTATA at Feinstein's/54 Below, a musical competition modeled on the legendary boat race, was nothing short of electrifying. The sold-out show directed and produced by Tom Toce (Yale '78) was one of those evenings that make you grateful and happy to live in New York among so many brilliant and passionate artists. And if you happened to attend either school, it produced a particular pride in all that is wonderful about institutions fashionable to bash in an age of reverse snobbery. (Full disclosure: I graduated from Yale in 1995.) While the second CANTATA played to a slightly smaller crowd, the show featured songs by lyricists who have made lasting contributions to popular music in the 20th Century: Alan Lerner (H '40), Tom Lehrer (H '46 and MA '47), and John Forster (H '69). In more recent years, Cambridge and New Haven have produced Broadway composers such as Larry O'Keefe (H '91 HEATHERS, LEGALLY BLONDE) and Bobby Lopez (Y '97, BOOK OF MORMON, AVENUE Q, and songs from FROZEN), the youngest of only 12 people to win an Emmy, Tony, Grammy, and Oscar.

'Without Dietrich, there would have been no Madonna...and no Gaga,' Janice Hall announced at the outset of her brilliant revival of GRAND ILLUSIONS: THE MUSIC OF MARLENE DIETRICH, the most recent installment of Stephen Hanks' New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits. Co-produced by Father Jeffrey R. Hamblin and flawlessly directed by Peter Napolitano, Hall's show---for which the former opera singer won both MAC and Bistro awards in 2011 and 2012, respectively---seamlessly weaves together the music and life of the enigmatic movie star and international cabaret sensation whose greatest creation, in Hall's words, 'was herself.'

For her soulful, imaginative rendering of jazz, pop, and R&B music, Los Angeles native and septuple MAC Award winner Natalie Douglas has earned raves for two decades from American and British critics alike. Superlatives like 'transcendent,' 'heart-stopping,' and '[the] greatest' pepper reviews both of her live performances and work in the studio. Douglas' new show, STEVIE SONGS, which marked her 50th performance at Birdland, made clear why Clive Davis of The New York Times wrote, 'By the end [of a show], you want to her to carry on into the small hours.'

When one describes a meal or a performance as 'interesting,' it's usually a euphemism for awful, or at least deeply flawed. But Rosemary Loar's STING*chronicity, the musical theater and cabaret performer's second show devoted to Sting's songbook, is genuinely interesting---and ballsy. Featuring 13 characters who share little beyond a profound love for Sting (and mutual attendance at the Police reunion tour at Madison Square Garden in 2007), the show presents Loar's highly stylized and unusual interpretations of songs both from the Police era and Sting's forays into jazz as a solo artist.

When a show at the Metropolitan Room starts over thirty minutes late because the staff is frantically trying to find chairs and room for the better part of New York's cabaret community, you know you're in store for something truly special. And unless there's a chair thief on the loose in Flatiron who doesn't like Broadway, someone clearly oversold this show and/or lost track of comps; this was extremely vexing with a heat advisory in effect. Still, the mood was festive in anticipation of Jeff Harnar's 1959 Broadway Songbook, the 12th installment in Stephen Hanks' impressive (and increasingly well-known) New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits series. Harnar's show premiered 25 years ago at the Algonquin's Oak Room. Two years later, PBS filmed the collaboration with musical director Alex Rybeck, whose arrangements honor the original compositions but reimagine them in sometimes astonishing ways, making them genuinely creative acts.

Occasionally in cabaret, one encounters a performer with 'star power.' Other times, one sees a legitimate star in a cabaret setting---say, Patti LuPone or Ben Vereen---and knows instantly why the person is a star. But in his Feinstein's/54 Below solo debut show, Tony Danza: Standards & Stories, Tony Danza reminds audiences what it means to be a star, onstage as well as off.

The Illuminati Ball is indeed spectacular, though without divulging details I am sworn to keep secret, I cannot do justice to an experience which began on a rainy Saturday evening at 6PM on the Upper East Side---where a luxury limousine bus picked up 30 formally-attired 'candidates' for the Illuminati, and seven or so hours later, deposited what seemed like old friends to the same location---after a sumptuous eight-course meal by Erin Orr, craft cocktails by mixologist Bootleg Greg, and limitless red wine.

Fresh off her 2016 MAC Award for best original song after a successful revival of Portraits (1993) for Stephen Hanks' New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits series, Meg Flather paid tribute in Carly & Me to the 'artist who gave [her] her voice.' With her longtime musical director Paul Greenwood on piano and the versatile John Mettam on guitar and drums both singing backup, Flather performed hits and lesser-known songs alike from Carly Simon's oeuvre, along with a handful of original songs influenced by her musical heroine.

Cynthia von Buhler's Speakeasy Dollhouse: The Bloody Beginning grew out of the artist's lifelong fascination with the mysterious death of her Italian immigrant grandfather, Frank Spano, in 1935. Originally conceived as a one-night event, Speakeasy Dollhouse took on a life of its own and since 2011 has become one of New York's most innovative theatrical experiences, spawning other immersive plays including Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic and The Brothers Booth. Held in historic venues that transport audience members back in time (like Edwin Booth's former Gramercy Park mansion and the Liberty Theater in Times Square), von Buhler's productions are sensuous and visual triumphs which reflect her background in the fine arts. The Bloody Beginning made its Brooklyn debut on July 22 at the Weylin, formerly the stunning Williamsburgh Savings Bank, across the street from the legendary Peter Luger steakhouse.

In her A-line black and white polka dot dress with petticoats, a lively (and lithe!) Maureen Taylor delivered an entertaining tribute to lyricist Bob Merrill at the Metropolitan Room (on July 13). Originally directed by Peter Napolitano when the show debuted in 2008-09, Taylor Made is the latest installment of Producer/Promoter Stephen Hanks' outstanding New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits, which almost always lives up to its name.

If Lorelai Gilmore, with her lightning fast speech, did political satire while rapping and playing both the piano and acoustic guitar, it would look something like Katie Goodman's hybrid comedy and cabaret act. Her latest show, I Didn't F*ck It Up, ran at Stage 72 (The Triad) on June 17, her cabaret home in the city. The liberal Jewish daughter of Pulitzer-winning Boston Globe journalist Ellen Goodman is a longtime Park Slope mom who co-writes songs with husband Soren Kisel and leads the all-woman troupe, Broad Comedy. The whip-smart, wisecracking brunette with blue eyes and more than a passing resemblance to Gilmore Girls and Parenthood star, Lauren Graham, is a like a female Andy Borowitz—or John Fuselgang, who had a career in cabaret long before he became famous for his lacerating comic critiques of conservative politics.