Come see CROSSROADS - a new play!

What: CROSSROADS

By Meri Wallace
Directed by DeLisa M. White

Featuring: Leah Vanessa Bachar, Edgar Caraballo*, Nat Cassidy*, Erinn Holmes*, Annalisa Loeffler, Kristopher Monroe,* Julio Neira*, Ron Sanborn*, Jason Xaysittiphone and Sheila York.* The production is an Equity Showcase.

Stage Manager: Laura Schlachtmeyer
Lighting Designer: Lauren Parrish
Fight Choreographer: Gregory Oliver Bodine
Sound Designer: Alan Dolderer
Costume Designer: Catherine Fisher
Produced by Howling Moon Cab Company

SYNOPSIS:
At the Crossroad’s Hair Salon, styling hair is a breeze compared to the employee’s personal lives. From infidelity, abuse, denial and outright lies (to others and to themselves), these employees are having the ultimate (and seemingly infinite) “bad hair day” in Meri Wallace’s comedy-drama CROSSROADS at the Midtown International Theatre Festival. When their boss decides to sell the shop, Angela and Nicole pool their resources in attempt to buy it and really stand on their feet for the first time in their lives. However, it’s not long before a deliberate act of violence may change the course of everybody’s future. Can the employee’s come together to repair the damage done, or will the scissors be silenced forever??




WHERE:
WorkShop Theatre, MainStage Space

312 West 36th Street (between 8th & 9th Avenues)
4th Floor
Part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival

(Please note: the theatre is wheelchair accessible)

WHEN:
July 16th – August 2nd
Thursday, July 16th at 8:30pm
Sunday, July 19th at 12pm
Wednesday, July 22nd at 9pm
Friday, July 24th at 7pm
Monday, July 27th at 6:30pm
Sunday, August 2nd at 6pm

TICKETS: $18.00.

RESERVATIONS: 866-811-4111 or www.midtownfestival.org.

SUBWAY INFO: Take the A, C, E, 1, 2, 3 Trains to 34th Street

Augusto Boal (1931 - 2009)

This is an extraordinary post from an amazing teacher about a truly important artist and one of my great lifetime influences as well. It could never have been said better. Thank you, Shakespeare Teacher...

The Yellow Wallpaper

Come see...

THE YELLOW WALLPAPER
a new one-woman play
adapted from the classic short story
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Adapted by Greg Oliver Bodine
Directed by DeLisa M. White
Starring: Annalisa Loeffler

What if the one person who has vowed to love you… for better or for worse… in sickness and in health… took you away… from everyone that you cherish? From everything that sustains you? In essence, the sum of yourself. Where would you go? What would you do?


THE YELLOW WALLPAPER tells the shocking story of one woman’s isolation, obsession, and descent into madness.

The Story: New England, 1891. Jane, a sensitive and imaginative woman, finds herself sequestered on a remote estate that her husband, a physician, has rented for the summer. She is forbidden to write, and must hide her journal entries as she recuperates from what he has diagnosed as a "temporary nervous depression” following the birth of their baby. Without anything or anyone to stimulate her, Jane becomes obsessed by the wallpaper in her bedroom as the effect of her domestic oppression and stifled creativity begins to take a toll on her sanity.

Costume Design by Jeanette Aultz Look
Lighting Design by Lauren Parrish
Asst. Director / ASM: Jenny Rosenbluth
Stage Manager: Laura Schlachtmeyer

Limited engagement: 2 performances only!

Monday & Tuesday
March 23-24 at 8:00pm
Tickets: $15
Reservations: (212) 501.4751
www.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/640655

Note: Due to stage configuration late comers will not be seated.

We've got tonight....

So it looks at this point that the show itself will have more surprises than the winners, but I'm hoping I'm kind of wrong. Not in all categories. Just in some? Here's my "will" and "should" picks for tonight:

Best Pic:

Will Win: Slumdog Millionaire
Should Win: Milk

I truly think our children will be astonished if MILK doesn't win Best Pic as they'll all be required to see it in history classes when studying civil rights. It's also - incidentally - by FAR the best film on the list. The Slumdog love affair will, I think, look very naive and silly...it's the CRASH of this year.

Best Actor:
Will Win: Mickey Rourke
Should Win: This is an exceptionally impressive category, there'd be no one I'd be unhappy with winning. Rourke will give the best speech and by a slim margin Penn is the "should" winner.

Sean Penn is one of my least favorite all-time (over)actors. But his work in MILK is subtle and seamless. It's the best performance of his career. He's unrecognizable in it. I would have to vote for him in good conscience (which I did for the Indie Spirit Awards), but I'm perfectly happy for a Rourke win.

Best Actress:

Will Win: Winslet
Should Win: Winslet

There's a weird scenario where Streep and Winslet split and Leo or Hathaway surprises. But it's likely Winslet's LONG OVERDUE night finnnaaalllyyyy and I'm very much looking forward to it!!! :)

Best Supporting Actor:

Will Win: Heath Ledger
Should Win: Heath Ledger

Nuff said.

Best Supporting Actress:

Will Win: Penelope Cruz
Should Win: It's tight but I'm going to go with Viola Davis.

Tomei is astonishingly good in a role that no where near written as well as she plays it. Everyone else is terrific, including Cruz (who in some ways gave this same solid performance in BLOW) but I'm pulling for Davis who manages to convey - not a string of subtext - but a full TAPESTRY of subtext in a few short minutes. It's the best short story you've ever read and it's all in her face.

Best Director:
Will Win: Boyle
Should WIn: Fincher

Boyle's work is impressive. It is. But Fincher actually achieves the most impressive technological feat presently imaginable in cinema and he does it all to serve the story, the humanity and the sometimes brutal truth of life and death and everything in between, without EVER pointing out his own prowess (unlike Boyle) and saving the films most powerful moments from the surges of sentimentality in the script.

Adapted Screenplay:
Will win: Slumdog
Should win: Doubt

This is a pretty middling category actually. The screenplay is the thing I have the most problem with in Slumdog, but it's pretty much a shoo-in here. If this is BUTTON's "consolation prize" I may be inconsolable as the screenplay is singlehandedly the worst thing about it.

Original Screenplay:

Will Win: Milk
Should Win: Milk

In fact, if it doesn't win - then wherever you are - you will hear a vague screaming and smashing coming from somewhere in Brooklyn....

Best Documentary:

Will Win: Man on Wire
Should Win: Encounters at the End of the World

Otherwise expect lots of well deserved technical awards for Button and annoying amounts of self-congratulations for the love affair with Slumdog (as if that somehow makes the Academy "humanitarians by proxy")... Last note: If Dark Knight wins Sound Editing I might break something. It's got TERRIBLE gaps and sticky mixes all over it.

Enjoy!!!! :-)

The Wrestler - A Review

THE WRESTLER may not seem like a new story. In fact it covers a lot of what we might think is familiar ground. The has-been looking for redemption, the stripper with a heart of gold and the disgruntled daughter are hardly new fodder for film. But the lack of showcase shots and the earnest, committed and infinitely understated performances - particularly by Rourke whose performance is a master class in completely inhabiting a character for the characters sake, rather than the actor's acclaim and consequently is sooooo rightly acclaimed - succeed in making us understand the complexity and ubiquity of the formulas on which they are based. While the has been athlete has a legendary treatment in Raging Bull - the wrestler succeeds not in evoking that precendent, but in unexpectedly mining the flaws and crippling failure that follows any and every man who has invested all of his self-worth in his work, no matter how spectacular or mundane the profession may be. At first, I wanted to take issue with the screenwriter for falling into formula, but as the movie settled in, it became ever so clear that the banality and brutality of the context of minor league professional wrestling gives us opportunity to refresh the formula and recapture it's emotional power. Note, that much like Darren Arronofsky's previous work, particularly REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, there are moments in the film that are not at all for the faint of heart. The brutal toll these men take for entertainments sake, no matter how "fake" the outcomes of matches are - is shocking. Arronofsky's direction is stunning, mainly because it's it's simple. PI and REQUIEM (two films close to my heart) make clear the showy cinematic wonders of which his camera is capable, but rightly and generously he foregos all of them to achieve the timeless mandate of a film director, which is to show you want you need to see, in precisely the way you need to see it. It's masterful - much like Rourke's performance - because it doesn't appear to be or announce that it is. It's dramatic and profound because he revels in precisely the moments that filmmakers have been cutting out of movies since their birth. A swig of beer, a silly thank you card, a a scoop of potato salad, a brief and somewhat awkward kiss...these are the tentpoles of life. Arronofsky honors our lives and his audience by lingering on them and leaving so many questions unanswered. Just like life.

WWOW - The Shadow of February

February 2nd is Groundhog Day, a day when everyone anticipates the groundhog seeing his shadow because it's a harbinger of spring, along with baseball's spring training and the first robin. Around these parts, however, February 7th is the day that fills us with anticipation, because it means we'll be seeing The Shadow, and that just means a really good time.

Both shows are already reserved full, but we get cancellations right up until the day of the show, so you might want to call the number below frequently and see if any seats have opened up. Also, if you're near the bookstore that evening, we start a waiting list about a half-hour before each show time. Again, often groups wind up being smaller than expected or people don't show, so there's a good chance of getting in.

Here’s the lowdown:


THE DATE:

February 7th


THE SHOWS:

THE ADVENTURES OF SAM SPADE: "The Tears of Night Caper"
THE SHADOW: "The Isle of the Living Dead"


THE CAST:

Alan Dolderer, Heather Edwards*, Karla Hendrick*, Michael H. Johnson, Annalisa Loeffler, Rebecca Roe*, Bob Rutan, Steve Viola and DeLisa M. White
(* denotes member of Actors' Equity Association)


WHERE:

Partners & Crime Mystery Booksellers
44 Greenwich Avenue (between Sixth and Seventh Avenues), NYC

TIMES:

6 PM, repeated at 8 PM

PRICE :

$7

FOR RESERVATIONS & INFORMATION CALL:

212-462-3027


Hope to see you there!

Deranged Penguins and other Encounters at the End of the World

Werner Herzog - the filmmaker whose documentary ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD – just received an Academy Award nomination – once made good on his promise to eat a shoe (yes EAT A SHOE) as a motivation ploy for fellow filmmaker Errol Morris. It worked, Morris’ classic GATES OF HEAVEN was completed and released, and made the name of it’s now legendary filmmaker.

This anecdote should tell anyone, whether their familiar with his work or no, that Herzog is wackier than your average bear (his last film was GRIZZLY MAN, get it? Get it? heeehehhheeee :-)), and - btw - no less effective.

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD chronicles Herzog’s trip to the South Pole. He makes it clear from the get-go that this is no travelogue, no NOVA episode, and no romantic mediation on the demands of life as a cute penguin. His explorations have the same wanderlust as its subjects, whose reasons for being at the South Pole count as many as there are inhabitants of this unfriendly terrain. Herzog avoids entirely the “checklist of important facts” approach of so many television science docs, instead asking the kinds of random questions which beset any curious mind in a bizarre environ. Nor does he over-sentimentalize. Herzog’s voice sways from so many extremes that he could seem scattered. He could, that is, if these switches didn’t ultimately create a strange kind of balance. Just when you think Herzog is getting uncomfortably pretentious, he undercuts himself with self-aware humor. Just when he’s exploring the banal disappointments inherent in any visit to an exotic locale, he side swipes you with images full of true wonder. And where the film finds its most haunting resonance, in: the futility of nature, the isolation of the truly unique, the delay of science, the potential of extinction, etc. Herzog is savvy enough – and generous enough as a filmmaker - to refrain from stating those themes too explicitly. Instead, Herzog invites the most powerful ideas swim through the audience’s thoughts like the deep sea divers under the world’s icebergs, who inspired his adventure in the first place...