Pen World Voices Festival, Leslie Kritzer and More Set for Joe's Pub, Now thru 5/5
By: BWW News Desk Apr. 29, 2013
This week at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater, April 29 through May 5, 2013, performances will feature: The New Yorker, Leslie Kritzer, Paris Combo, Pen World Voices: McSweeney's, Pen World Voices: Monkey Business, Pen World Voices: Languages on the Edge, Lady Rizo, Pen World Voices: An Evening with Cabinet, Talavya, Jay Brannan, Pen World Voices: Watching the Meter, Pen World Voices: Lapham's Quarterly, Gianmaria Testa, Pen World Voices: Granta 2013, and Villalobos Brothers.
April 29 at 7:00 PM
SOLD OUT
Join Adam Steltzner, the rock musician turned rocket scientist who led the landing team for the Curiosity rover, for a conversation with the New Yorker staff writer Burkhard Bilger about the search for life on Mars. Monday, April 29th, at 7 P.M., at Joe's Pub (425 Lafayette Street).
LESLIE KRITZER: BEAUTIFUL DISASTER
April 29 at 9:30 PM & May 4 at 11:30 PM
$25
Before Lena Dunham became Jesus. Before anyone cared about your Facebook status. Before Russell Crowe ruined Les Mis. There was KRITZER. Welcome to 1995, where a teenaged Jewrican musical theatre addict's life is about to be turned upside down in a tour-de-force one-woman comedy starring Broadway favorite Leslie Kritzer (Elf, Legally Blonde, A Catered Affair, Sondheim on Sondheim, Hairspray). Featuring a colorful array of New Jersey characters and a score ranging from Alanis Morissette to Jule Styne, Beautiful Disaster explores what happens when shit hits the fan and rebellion meets reality.
PARIS COMBO
April 30 at 7:30 PM
$25
Four albums and a decade spent touring the globe playing to enthusiastic audiences from Sydney to San Francisco and Berlin to Beirut have enabled Paris Combo to create its own unique world, establishing itself as one of the most piquant, intriguing groups on the international music scene. Fronted by the mischievous vocals of chanteuse Belle du Berry, the combo has struck a positive chord with critics and audiences for their fun-loving mix of jazz, French pop, cabaret, gypsy, Latino and Middle Eastern rhythms. The quintet is back with their fifth studio recording simply titled "5", released in North America on DRG Records.
PEN WORLD VOICES: AN EVENING WITH MCSWEENEY'S
April 30 at 9:30 PM
$15; $12 for PEN/Public members
Join us for a celebration of the art of translation. McSweeney's contributors will read excerpts from their translations inMcSweeney's Issue 42 - an ambitious experiment which took twelve stories through six phases of translation of a variety of languages, granting each translator a liberal creative license to change the story at will.
PEN WORLD VOICES: MONKEY BUSINESS: A CABARET WITH A PUBLIC SPACE
May 1 at 7:00 PM
$15; $12 for PEN/Public members
East meets West meets Uptown meets Downtown. PEN World Voices joins with Asia Society, A Public Space, and Monkey Business International - the acclaimed English-language anthology of newly translated Japanese writing - for a cabaret-style night of readings, conversation, and music. Hosted by Japanamerica author Roland Kelts.
PEN WORLD VOICES: SPEAKING IN LANGUAGES ON THE EDGE
May 1 at 9:30 PM
$15; $12 for PEN/Public members
Speaking in Languages on the Edge will showcase performances and readings in Welsh, Mexican indigenous languages, and Native American languages, among others. A rare chance to take in the beautiful and unique sounds of these languages on the edge.
May 2 at 9:30 PM
$20 in advance; $25 at the door
The incomparable "cabaret star" (NY Magazine) Lady Rizo is back for an unchaperoned evening of song and decadence. You may have seen her here at Joe's Pub with her "glam bottom baring dance troupe the Assettes" (Village Voice), celebrating the billboard top ten in the monthly series Our Hit Parade, or midtown at the gothic Night Hotel co-hosting the weekly transnational lounge Foreign Affairs. But here is your chance to have her all to yourself. Her seamless mix of baudy humor and elegance has been likened to Mae West but it's her vocal chops that have garnered recent attention: collaborating with both Yo-Yo Ma & Moby on albums this year, singing selections of the American Songbook in front of the internationally acclaimed 36-piece orchestra The Knights, and at MOMA for a sold out cabaret for the Kirchner Exhibit.
PEN WORLD VOICES: AN EVENING WITH CABINET: IN DEFENSE OF FORGETTING
May 3 at 7:00 PM
$15; $12 for PEN/Public members
In The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera writes: "The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." This perspective - one that bears the mark of life under a totalitarian regime in which repression often took the form of enforced forgetting - assumes that remembering is always a virtue, and that to not remember is a failure. But can forgetting be a virtue? How do we understand the relationship between what needs to be forgotten in order for other things to be remembered? This event will explore how the humanities and the sciences engage with the various functions and values of forgetting.
May 3 at 9:30 PM
$15 in advance; $18 at the door
Globe-trotting percussion ensemble Talavya brings the Indian hand-drums tabla to the center stage, distilling its age-old spirit and practice into a high-energy, highly accessible celebration of rhythm. Composed by Indian music maestro Pandit Divyang Vakil, the ensemble plays complex rhythmic structures with split-second perfection, gliding between meditative trance and explosive rock drum power.
May 3 at 11:30 PM
SOLD OUT
NYC-based Jay Brannan has been writing and performing his own sweet & sad folk songs--with a healthy dose of cynical humor--around the globe since 2006. He also appeared as an actor in John Cameron Mitchell's indie film sensation Shortbus, in which his song "Soda Shop" was the highest selling song on the film's soundtrack album (released by Bright Eyes' Team Love Records). From there, Brannan released a string of albums, all of which topped the iTunes Singer/Songwriter & Billboard Heatseekers charts: goddamned, produced by Will Golden (Meiko, Michelle Branch); In Living Cover, a collection of 2 originals & 7 covers, recorded from a bedroom in his friend's apartment in Brooklyn; and Rob Me Blind, produced by the legendary David Kahne (Regina Spektor, The Bangles, Paul McCartney, Ingrid Michaelson, Kelly Clarkson, Lana Del Rey, Shawn Colvin, Stevie Nicks, etc.) Brannan's touring has taken him multiple times around the world, through the USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Greece, Brazil, South Africa, Israel, and Australia. He is currently writing & recording his next album, and will be previewing some of the new material at limited engagements this Spring 2013.
WATCHING THE METER: POETRY FROM THE TAXI DRIVERS WORKSHOP
May 4 at 2:00 PM
$15; $12 for PEN/Public members
Life on the meter. PEN World Voices Festival invites you into the world of the New York City cabbie: a fractured place where isolation meets socialization and entrepreneurial impulses can be at odds with the job description of getting from point A to point B. Poet Mark Nowak builds on last year's event with trade unions with this panel of taxi drivers, who will read from their writings, authored during a series of six writing workshops with Nowak. A discussion with the audience will follow.
PEN WORLD VOICES: AN EVENING WITH LAPHAM'S QUARTERLY
May 4 at 7:00 PM
$15; $12 for PEN/Public members
Lapham's Quarterly and PEN World Voices present an evening on "Bravery." Enjoy a cabaret-style program of historical readings and songs by actors and writers on the theme of bravery at Joe's Pub.
May 4 at 9:30 PM
$20
Gianmaria Testa sings in Italian and lives in Italy. The cases of the life have wanted that its first three albums have been produced in France (Montgolfières, Extra-Muros and Lampo), but in five years he imposed himself as artist of talent: the press (both French and Italian) has been unanimous in individualizing him such as one of the most important actual Italian singer songwriters. Gianmaria is a deeply popular and at the same time refined singer songwriter; a songwriter of the hoarse and velvety voice that makes his true strength in the "naked song". Texts could be considered as small poetries that speak of fogs and meetings, of loneliness and of hills and music that evoke the tango, the jazz, the bossanova, the habanera, the waltz and they create warm suggestions, intense, that can wrap. His singing images and feelings is simple, of popular matrix, traditional, and therefore winning, it goes beyond banal comparisons and easy approaches and it is deposited directly in the intimate of whom listens.
PEN WORLD VOICES: GRANTA: 2013 BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS
May 5 at 2:00 PM
$15; $12 PEN/Public members
The list that will define a generation of British writers. In 1983, Granta magazine devoted an entire issue to twenty of the Best of Young British Novelists. In doing so, the magazine created a snapshot of a generation of writers about to come into their own. Every ten years since, they've selected a roster of new talent to showcase. This decade's list will be announced by Granta editor John Freeman and Hari Kunzru (Best Young British Novelist 2003), followed by readings and a conversation with some of the newly revealed novelists.
May 5 at 7:30 & 9:30 PM
$15
Masterfully blending the indigenous rhythms and melodies of their native Veracruz, Mexico with the intricate harmonies of jazz and classical music, the Villalobos Brothers deliver an intoxicating brew of musical brilliance, cadence and virtuosity that awakens the senses as it redefines the notions behind Latin music. The Villalobos Brothers have been acclaimed as one of today's leading World Music and Classical Fusion ensembles. A trio of virtuoso violinists, singer-songwriters, composers, and arrangers, they have performed at the Latin Grammy Awards, Carnegie Hall, the Guggenheim Museum, Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the 60th Anniversary of the United Nations, Rockefeller Center, the New York Mets field at Shea Stadium, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, New Victory Theatre, and Teatro Amadeo Roldán in Havana among other historic venues.
Visit www.joespub.com for a complete list of shows or for tickets, call 212-967-7555 or visit in person at The Public Theater Box Office (1 PM to 6 PM) located at 425 Lafayette Street, NYC.
ABOUT JOE'S PUB AT THE PUBLIC Joe's Pub at The Public is one of New York City's most celebrated venues for emerging and established performance artists. Named for Public Theater founder Joe Papp, Joe's Pub debuted in 1998 and plays a vital role in The Public's mission of supporting young artists while providing established artists with an intimate space to perform and develop new work. Joe's Pub presents talent from all over the world as part of The Public's programming downtown at its Astor Place home, hosting approximately 800 shows and serving over 100,000 audience members annually. The diverse roster of programming featured at Joe's Pub includes top performers from Broadway, cabaret, dance, world, singer-songwriter, jazz, country and indie genres as well as New York Voices, its commissioning initiative, today's rising stars and GRAMMY Award winners. Joe's Pub also collaborates with other Public Theater programs to present events such as the Under the Radar Incoming series and the Public Forum lecture and debate series. The New York Times has praised Joe's Pub as at the "nexus" of "a downtown axis of clubs whose performers gleefully fuzz the boundaries between old and new, and between pop, rock, jazz, rhythm-and-blues, swing, country, world music and performance art." Its elegant neoclassical design, intimate atmosphere, and superior acoustics have consistently landed the venue on annual Best of New York lists. A top-to-bottom renovation was completed in 2011, leading to improved sightlines, expanded seating capacity and a new menu from acclaimed Chef Andrew Carmellini. www.joespub.com @joespub
ABOUT THE PUBLIC THEATER AT ASTOR PLACE: Under the leadership of Artistic Director Oskar Eustis and Executive Director Patrick Willingham, The Public Theater is the only theater in New York that produces Shakespeare and the classics, musicals, contemporary and experimental pieces in equal measure. The Public continues the work of its visionary founder, Joe Papp, by acting as an advocate for the theater as an essential cultural force, and leading and framing dialogue on some of the most important issues of our day. Creating theater for one of the largest and most diverse audience bases in New York City for nearly 60 years, today the Company engages audiences in a variety of venues-including its landmark downtown home at Astor Place, which houses five theaters and Joe's Pub; the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, home to its beloved, free Shakespeare in the Park; and the Mobile Unit, which tours Shakespearean productions for underserved audiences throughout New York City's five boroughs. The Public's wide range of programming includes free Shakespeare in the Park, the bedrock of the Company's dedication to making theater accessible to all, new and experimental stagings at The Public at Astor Place, and a range of artist and audience development initiatives including its Public Forum series, which brings together theater artists and professionals from a variety of disciplines for discussions that shed light on social issues explored in Public productions. The Public Theater is located on property owned by the City of New York and receives annual support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. The LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust provides leadership support for The Public Theater's year-round activities. www.publictheater.org
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