Month: March 2004

  • Talking to 13P, part 1

    A friend of a friend told me about this new playwright’s collective called 13P. Committed to collaboratively producing each other’s plays, this ambitious project starts on April 17th with a production of Anne Washburn’s The Internationalist at 45 Bleecker Street. Ambitious or crazy? I couldn’t decide, so I thought I’d meet with two of the…

  • Talking to 13P, part 2

  • Top Five Reasons to see STEW

    5. Props, monologues and general outlandishness. 4. Melodies as infectious as funky measles. 3. He can even make your mean granny laugh. 2. “this one is about getting high at church, you know, I’m trying to keep these themes universal, not alienate anyone…” 1. Can you say, “Afro-Baroque Cabaret”? Stew (of the L.A. band Stew…

  • Bread of Affliction

    Culturebot’s favorite holiday is fast-approaching! That’s right – it’s time for all of Moses’s peeps to kick it old school and celebrate gettin’ the heck out of Egypt. Take That, Pharaoh! And since this is NYC there’s lots of performance-y ways to celebrate Passover. On Sunday, April 4th Michael Dorf from The Knitting Factory along…

  • un elephant terrible

    I saw an excerpt from Un Elephant Terrible when it was at the Dance In Progress Series at The Kitchen. It was rocking. So go check it out this weekend at LaMama. Here’s the description: Un Elephant Terrible is a tragicomic vaudeville involving obnoxious re-interpretations of minimalist music in a film-noir setting. It will also…

  • a theater grows in brooklyn

    wow! brooklyn is the new upper west side. far out. (full article on nytimes.com, login required)

  • the long arm of justice

    This doesn’t really have anything to do with downtown theater at all, I think. But I needed some place to write about it. 1n 1993 Mia Zapata, lead singer for the Seattle punk band The Gits, was raped and murdered. On Thursday morning, March 25th, 2004, her murderer was finally convicted. Eleven years is a…

  • Black Masks

    Just found out that the journal Black Masks, which covers African-American performance, is online. They have a great article/interview with performance artist Peggy Pettitt.

  • rites of spring

    In case you didn’t read my earlier post on Julie Atlas Muz’ Rite of Spring at DTW, I’m writing again. I dragged myself, despite my cough and cold, to DTW for the opening last night.

  • Accidental Cynthia

    Accidental Nostalgia, a genre-defying music/theater piece examining the pros and cons of amnesia, opens on March 26th at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Cynthia Hopkins, who wrote and performs the show with her band, took a break from rehearsals to talk with me about her life, her universe, and this show.

  • slut puppet

    My personal guess is that this whole Puppet Renaissance thing started with Basil Twist’s Symphonie Fantastique. Whether that’s true or not, we are definitely living in the Age of the Puppet. From Ave Q. to Hiroshima Maiden to Tiny Ninja to The Jolly Ship Whiz-Bang puppetry is busting out all over. If you want to…

  • The Man Behind The Curtain

    Um. So. If you want to know a little bit about your editor, Mr. Culturebot, I’ve been interviewed over at Gothamist.com