Called "continuously entertaining" by Joe Regan. Jr of TheaterPizzazz.com, and following a triumphant world premiere in August at the 2015 UNFringed Festival at the Secret Theatre in Long Island City, besides a spectacular one-night run at the world-famous Duplex Cabaret Theater (61 Christopher Street, at the crest of 7th Avenue South and West 4th Street) in early November, award-winning writer/entertainer/radio personality Andrew Martin will bring his acclaimed original one-man play AN APPETIZING YARN back to the Duplex by popular demand, on the evenings of tonight, December 2, Wednesday December 9 and Sunday December 20, with all shows at 9:30 PM.
A ninety-minute autobiographical piece, AN APPETIZING YARN encompasses
Mr. Martin's family history as native New Yorkers, and a most-unusual childhood and adolescence in the Central Queens enclave of Rego Park. In telling his truth through humor, he touches on such subjects as having parents born completely on opposite sides of the tracks, finding himself studying theater by age nine, and briefly becoming a fixture of New York City's underground culture all before the age of eighteen. In addition, the play focuses on his lifelong passion for knitting and needlecrafting and, as such, he completes knitting a woolen winter hat right before the audience's eyes throughout, which at the end of the action is raffled off for one lucky spectator to take home as a door prize. A Q&A/talkback with the audience also takes place at the end of the narrative.
Andrew Martin was born in New York City on an outrageously hot Saturday in July in 1968, along with his twin sister. After theater study with a local dramatic coach for children and three summers as a student in the Musical Theater department at the Usdan Center on Long Island, he became a founding member of what would eventually become the internationally-acclaimed TADA! Youth Theater, in the summer of 1984 at the soon-to-be age of sixteen. From there he went on to appear in such venues as Theater for the New City,
Irish Arts Center, Grove Street Playhouse, The Knitting Factory, The
Medicine Show, 13th Street Repertory, Greenwich House and The Limelight besides roles in all manner of film and television. He received the 2010 PCTF Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in the title role for "Green! The Musical!" presented by the Planet Connections Theater Festivity at the
Gene Frankel Theater, and several awards as Outstanding Writer/Entertainer from the Spotlight-On Festival, as a founding member of the critically-acclaimed sketch comedy troupe The Mistake from 2004-07. He placed third in the "New York's Funniest Gay Man" competition at StandUpNY in 1998, received a 1994 MAC Award nomination for Outstanding Male Musical Comedy, and at the same time was named Personality of the Year on WBAI-FM Radio. His credits as an entertainment journalist and radio personality are endless, and his first book, "All For The Best: How Godspell Transferred From Stage To Screen" (with a Foreword by
Paul Shaffer) was published in 2011. More recently, he was honored and privileged to be a writer and actor on the ensemble work "What To Do In Case You Miss The Rapture," directed by Ashley Marinaccio at the Looking Glass Theatre, playing the title role in Shari Umansky's short play "
The Devil's Advocate" at the Midtown International Theater Festival, and to create the role of blind paramedic Bill Gordon in several staged readings of Steve Bluestein's comedy "How To Kill Your Mother Without Really Trying," the most recent of which took place at the 400-seat house at the White Plains Performing Arts Center in Westchester County.
AN APPETIZING YARN is directed by Dennis Gleason, and technical direction is provided by Armando Bravi.
General Admission tickets are $15, and can be purchased (with a small service charge) directly through the Duplex website by visiting
theduplex.com/site/calendar. However, tickets may also be purchased at the door for $20. And, for members of MAC (Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs) a discount is available for a ticket for $12 if purchased online using the code APYARN. A two-drink minimum applies to all attendees, and no person under twenty-one will be seated.
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