Crazytown

WE'RE ALL MAD HERE.

In this review: SPOILERS for the experience of seeing Then She Fell. You've been warned.
By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

I am a sucker for immersive theatre experiences. I loved Sleep No More. I want all of my future theatre experiences to involve snacks and/or alcoholic beverages and even slightly intense prolonged eye-contact. Perhaps because I know what it feels like to be on the actor's side of the fourth wall, I love shows that totally destroy that wall and ask the audience to step over the crumbled ruins of it and into the action. If Sleep No More offers a voyeuristic haunted house for guests to explore masked, unguided, and at will; Then She Fell is a much more intimate, playful, disorienting experience that you engage in alone but constantly accompanied by members of the cast as well as nurses and orderlies of the institution. Oh, did I mention that you'll be spending the evening in a Victorian mental hospital? 

Inspired by the works of Lewis Carroll and his real-life, possibly romantic relationship with the child Alice Liddell, Then She Fell is a theatre piece I have come to, rather typically, several years after it started getting rapturous reviews in the Times. Honestly, it fell under my radar for a while, and then when it popped onto my radar I had to wait to rationalize the ticket price (admittedly, not cheap, but then the experience is WORTH IT), which I'm glad I did because they have a closing date of April 30, 2017. They've extended before, but who knows? So if you want to definitely go see this amazing production, I recommend getting tickets now and seeing it this spring.

Knowing that you're seeing a wildly popular show that only sells 15 tickets a performance is intimidating. For most of it, you are being directly performed to. I spent several minutes sitting silently across from an actor who was a sort of non-literal representation of the White Rabbit, painting a white rose red with a tiny paintbrush, feeling a genuine stress that we wouldn't be done in time. I participated in a mad tea party, smashing my tea cup on the table with the White and Red Queens, Rabbit, and Hatter, and then sipping a deliciously brewed concoction that I had helped choose before being whisked away again for a bedtime story (and being literally tucked into a crisp, white bed). I watched two Alices dance through a mirrored glass, once from inside the Red Queen's luxurious apartment, and once from inside a sparkling fairy burrow, while being fed purple grapes by the White Queen. Later, one of the Alices had me hand her clothing after her bath, all while asking me questions about love. At the end of that scene, we were looking directly into each other's eyes between the bannister of a staircase and she queried if I had lived happily ever after with that first person, that first person I ever loved. When I laughed lightly and said "No," her face darkened abruptly, and she ran up the stairs in a huff, too fast for me to run after. 

After the show, my husband Daniel and I tucked ourselves into a nearby bar and over a nightcap excitedly exchanged stories of everything that had happened to us since we'd been split up. We had seen part of the show together. For a few scenes, like when the Red Queen spiraled into insanity with a bottle of pills in a locked ward, we had been the only two audience members watching. But once we were separated, Daniel was led off by the Mad Hatter, a redheaded chanteuse whom we'd watched dance on top of a wardrobe earlier in the evening, and was asked riddles. I was redirected into a room with a gramophone and instructed to open increasingly large books with bottles hidden inside as a Doctor concocted me a cocktail. Then he left me alone with a stack of letters to read and the voice from the gramophone reciting The Walrus and the Carpenter. I barely had time to skim the first letter before the White Rabbit retrieved me to come paint roses with him. Meanwhile, Daniel peeled and ate an orange with one of the Alices while I, somewhere else in the building, was watching the other Alice wrestle with the Red Queen. 

Like Sleep No More, this is dance theatre. Most of the scenes have a movement-heavy element driving them. Unlike Sleep No More, the experience feels tailor-made for you and you alone. You aren't eavesdropping on these people, they are inviting you to take part, have a sip, take a bite, answer a question. "Do you take dictation?" the actor playing Lewis Carroll asked me in a room that would have been a regular writer's study, except for the pools of water sinking into the floor in unexpected places. After I wrote his letter, he signed it, placed it in a bottle, and waded into the black water barefoot to send it off with all the others. The Doctor retrieved me and brought me upstairs to play a game of chess with him. I knew immediately that it was the chess game from Through The Looking Glass. He explained the entire sequence of moves to me, guiding me through playing Alice's white pawn, as if he was reading a particularly perplexing case study. At the end, he handed me a cup of tea, retrieved the ring of keys I'd been entrusted with during the performance (and encouraged to use on any lock I found), and suddenly orderlies began bringing the 14 other people of the audience, including Daniel, into the room where I sat. The show was over. I had been the only one, maybe, to play chess with the doctor. I definitely had been the only one to finish my stay in Wonderland with the chess game scene. 

As a long time lover of Lewis Carroll's Alice books, I was delighted to recognize so many moments from the stories and from the sad and strange real-life tale of Carroll and Alice. The show is a beautiful and beautifully sympathetic exploration of duality, sanity, reality, and the magic of childhood. At the beginning of the show, just as the audience members are starting to be whisked off by different actors to begin their own personalized journey through the piece, the Doctor offers a definition of liminality. From the Latin limin, meaning "threshold". We get our English word "lintel" from here. Liminality is the quality of ambiguity and disorientation experienced by participants in a ritual, usually magical or spiritual, that occurs midway through- before the participant has been changed completely by the ritual, but are no longer what they were before they began. The show attempts to make adolescent Alices of us all. Not quite big, not quite small, not quite having drunk all of the bottle yet, but definitely having taken a nice sip. Few shows have touched me and haunted me as much as this one has, and I am excited to see more from Third Rail Projects, who developed this and other immersive pieces, as theatre like this becomes more and more prolific and available. I look forward to the day when the idea of seeing a piece of theatre that isn't located in a repurposed warehouse space in Brooklyn is unusual. 

The only photo here that I actually took (after the show was over of course) of my "prescription" for the tea I chose during the Mad Tea Party and the stamped program I was given at the end of the show. The two other pictures in this article are press photos. The current company of Then She Fell can be found here.

 

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer who did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
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WHEN THE BAD BOYFRIEND DOES GOOD

AKA I fell in love with theatre again this weekend.
By Kathleen Choe (actor/singer/writer)

Amy Poehler said to treat your career “like a bad boyfriend” and that “…it is healthy to remember you can always leave and go sleep with someone else.”

I feel the theatre has been a “bad boyfriend” as of late. I love it and I always will, but it’s been on the outs with me: the lack of diversity in the stories being told, lack of diversity in casting, the unwillingness to pay actors a living wage, the defensiveness of members of the community when any of this gets called out. When I tried to talk to it, it refused to listen and shut down all the arguments, smiling and repeating over and over, “But it’s getting better.”

So Iike a bad boyfriend I pushed it to the side, loving it but needing space. Until last Friday when it asked me away for a long weekend.

Last Friday, I went up to the Geva Theatre Center to work on a devised piece based on the idea of the American Dream—what it is, what it has become, if it still exists. For four days, I got to be in a room with nine other very talented people:

Got to be in a room that looked like this.
Missing: our awesome Stage Manager, Becca Poccia.

...to hash out and exchange thoughts over this idea to create something completely new. At the end of the process we put up what we had devised in front of an audience to hear and exchange ideas with them.

To add icing on top of this very delicious cake, I even got paid to do it.

And what d’ya know? I fell in love with the theatre again.  I remembered what excited me about theatre in the first place. Collaboration. Conversation. To be sure those two are not always comfortable when put together, but when they combine something beautiful almost always emerges: possibility.

How to devise a play in four days = Good people + coffee + laughter 

Theater is not just feel-good bedtime stories for rich people, it’s not just where you go for the experience of being part of a standing ovation in the audience at the end. Watching a fellow human being in front of you and seeing their story unfold has a power that can open perceptions, and as a wise man once said, with great power comes great responsibility.

To entertain is only an iota of what the theatre can do, and yet these days it seems that’s mostly what the theatre is being used for.

To engage an audience with a diverse cast and different stories is possible, yet the struggle to see diverse casts or hear different stories goes on.

To pay artists for to what they love—create—is possible, and yet the resistance against doing so persists.

So, bad boyfriend. You reminded why you’ve made me happy in the past, of your potential, of what you’re capable of when you pause, and stop, and listen. That you have the ability and capacity to treat me and my fellow artists well.

Thank you for that.

Let’s see what else you’ve got.

 

KATHLEEN CHOE is a NYC based actor, singer, and writer. www.www.kathleen-choe.com
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PROTEST IS THE NEW BRUNCH

It's only February.
By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

When satire has become reality, when those leading our government are making Orwellian propaganda seem tame by comparison, when the creators of South Park don't even know how to make fun of the current administration, because truth has become too much stranger than even the fictions of their twisted minds... what is the right approach? What tone do artists take during times like this to resist fascism and authoritarian moves like literally attempting to destroy the amendment that maintains our government's fine line of separation between church and state? It isn't funny anymore, and making fun of it feels daunting. Why bother satirizing a man who can tweet stuff like this with a dead-straight face: "I don't know Putin, have no deals in Russia, and the haters are going crazy..." I mean.... okayyyyy, dude. I literally don't know what to say about that. When you spend your entire Black History Month speech talking about how everyone likes you and you got more votes than anyone in the whole world ever and everyone else is losers, and then say things like: "Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice," as if Frederick Douglass is a real up-and-comer in middle management of a small but promising office supplies company... I just literally don't know what to say. 

Which is why I'm realizing more and more that the only way to respond to this preposterousness is with total and complete sincerity. (Although, there is absolutely a time and place for wit, and this is making me laugh today in the face of the utterly ridiculous confirmation of Betsey DeVos as Secretary of Education.) So. What do I mean by sincerity? I don't mean a total lack of irony. I don't mean "eschewing the lifesaving gift of comedy altogether". I just mean like, show up. I, a total and utterly insincere jerk, have been going to protests. Singing "This Land Is Our Land" alongside people holding homemade signs. Writing postcards to my congresspeople. Calling my senators and representatives EVERY SINGLE DAY (and also calling the ones in Florida, where I grew up, because I still have a Florida area code, and enjoy calling Marco Rubio and reminding him that he got bought by Betsy DeVos). 

Some people have gotten really fired up about caring about the future of our democracy. A lot of awesome people I know have always cared about the political climate of our country, and are not foul-weather activists like myself, who suddenly realized a few months ago that being mildly displeased about things but only actually bothering about them when they affect you is a really shitty way to be a human. But some of us needed things to become really horrible to become involved. As a kid I remember reading about Anne Frank and Sojourner Truth and the French Revolution and thinking: "Oh, so like if I ever saw things get bad politically, it would be pretty clear who the good guys and bad guys are. Everyone I know and care about would also be like 'Yeah, clearly those are the bad guys and here's our secret hiding place and here's our box of stolen ration cards.'" But that's not how things are. Yeah, it's pretty easy to see who the bad guys are, but it's really unclear how to deal with them and how bad they actually have to let things get before it's justified to begin calling them bad guys. And it is certainly surprising how many people don't clearly see the same distinctions between good guys and bad guys. 

I guess what I'm saying is, life is way more complicated than I expected when I was eleven, but is also surprisingly way more simple. I'm mortified that our country isn't accepting refugees from the country my own family escaped from during the last century, and I'm even more mortified that I feel so utterly helpless about how little I can ultimately do. Some of my friends are deciding to refocus their careers and run for office and help become one of the good guys in our government. Others are leading the resistance and gently pushing back on every human rights-compromising decision coming out of the White House today. Educators like myself have their work cut out for them for these next few years. Raising more tolerant, kind, inquisitive, questioning, inclusive humans is clearly in order. Humans who don't bully, who understand that the success of a group can be really good for the success of each individual in the group. Humans who are confident enough to accept that not everyone has to think exactly the same way, but we do all have to find a way to work together or our planet is doomed. Humans who recognize that just because someone believes in a different religion than you, that doesn't mean they're dangerous. Humans who are students of history and encourage others to be lifelong students as well. 

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair… we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…”
- Charles Dickens "A Tale of Two Cities" (how did he KNOW, AMIRITE?!) -

If you live in (or are planning a visit to) NYC, and you'd like to partake in some art that embodies the sentiment of "resist, with sincerity", may I recommend a few things that I'm currently interested in?

-The Museum of Modern Art's curated displays of art from the countries affected by the administrations' unconstitutional travel ban.
- An upcoming production (starring a former director of mine, Kevin Del Aguila! Yay, Kevin!) of Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, a parable play about a dictator to be performed on February 20th, with ticket sales benefiting the Southern Poverty Law Center. 
- Sweat, a widely acclaimed Public Theatre drama about the struggle of the working class transfers to Broadway in March.

A couple other things I'd love to recommend this week are an Oscar-nominated documentary that I loved (and at our house where Daniel tries and frequently succeeds at seeing every nominated film every awards season, I can tell you that I see a lot of Oscar-nominated documentaries): Life, Animated- a beautiful story about a young man with autism who communicates through the films he loves. Also, this week's This American Life was heartbreaking and timely.

A picture I took during this week's protest in Washington Square Park. #thisiswhatdemocracysoundslike
I am proud to live in a city that stands strong with refugees from the devastation in Syria (and every other place in need of hope and freedom). 

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer who has no idea why La La Land has been nominated for so many Oscars.
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OUR LITTLE WORLD IS PERFECT (OR: I CAN! I'M IN TECH!)

Tech week makes things in theater really real. It's awesome!
By Owen Panettieri (playwright, lyricist)

This Friday November 4th, my latest play, A Burial Place, will have its world premiere at the Dorothy Stelsin Theatre in NYC. We run for 3 weeks in that sweet spot of the year in between Halloween and Thanksgiving where things aren't TOO too crazy and you should come out and see what we've been cooking up! Tickets available here! It's been an incredibly rewarding rehearsal process for me and I have to thank New Light Theater Project, Sarah Norris and 5000 Broadway Productions for producing the show, my director and great friend Joey Brenneman, for once again brilliantly bringing a vision to my words, my cast Max King, Evan Maltby and Deshawn Wyatte for being fearless and supportive of each other on stage and for the entire creative team who have come together to create a special little world together. I'm an incredibly lucky guy.

I'm writing this from Load-In at the theater, right as the set goes up. Hooray for Tech Week! Moving into the theater is probably my favorite time during a production. It's when the whole creative team really gets their time to shine. We step into a blank space together, and in roughly 48 hours we'll have created our own little universe inside the theater. Sets, lights, sound, props and actors combine to create something that never existed before. It's a special moment. It's an exciting moment! We create the environment and then welcome in an audience to complete the experience. Tech hours are long. Sometimes the process can be tedious. But still, I love every second of it.

THERE AND BACK AGAIN

Encountering the Amazon without taking off my headphones.
By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

Last week I had the opportunity to see the opening night of the first play to open the 2016/17 season on Broadway, Simon McBurney's one-man immersive audio-experience, The Encounter. 

The circumstances that led me to be sitting in the very first row (in front of Kevin Kline, no less!) of this production were related to my husbands' work, so I actually had not prepared myself in any way for the show I was about to see until the lights were dimming. Well, unless you consider preparing yourself to include spending an inordinate amount of time deciding what to wear because I really wanted to feel fabulous at the party afterwards. "What's this called again?" I whispered to Daniel as we were instructed to put our headphones on and check that they were working. 

Opening night curtain call of The Encounter.
You can actually see Daniel's head just under the "T" of the "Exit" sign there in the front row, clapping. 
I was there too, but I'm about a foot shorter and standing to his left, so. 

The best way I can describe the experience of seeing The Encounter is.... well, have you ever done any drugs? Haha, I kid. But seriously, have you? Simon McBurney, alone, on a stage full of microphone and audio equipment and a whole lot of water bottles creates an aural experience that can only be described as a live psychedelic podcast. Both wildly broad and incredibly intimate, he is able to recreate the sounds, colors, and damp heat of the Amazon rainforest using only his ability to speak directly into your ears through an anthropomorphic microphone that sits in the center of the stage for the entire production. Silent, almost talismanic, his solitary high-tech scene partner is the only other humanoid on stage with him. And yet, you feel surrounded by an entire tribe of people, an entire jungle of creatures, and occasionally if feels as if the stage has transformed into the interior of a mind grappling with it's own consciousness.

So, trippy. It's very trippy. As in the literal meaning of that word: "trip". I have never felt so transported by so little while surrounded by so many people. At one point, I disengaged from the production happening before me to check in with my real-life surroundings. There I was, sitting in a huge Broadway theatre full of people wearing headphones. None of us could hear anything other than what was being piped directly into our ears. Someone arriving late, into the back of the theatre, would hear nothing but a faint distant whispering coming from the stage, perhaps. See an entire crowd, enraptured, but silent, fixated on a man presumably audio-mixing something from the stage using little else but his voice, water bottles and occasionally rolls of undeveloped film for sound. 

Perhaps the best suggestion for how to encounter The Encounter is to do so as I did. Knowing absolutely nothing about what you're getting into. (And also, pee first. There is no intermission and it's a solid 2 hours long). (If you can't handle the suspense, feel free to give yourself a few spoilers via all the rave reviews it's getting.) I will say that, for myself, I enjoyed it a lot, and we all know how much I love a good podcast and McBurney tells a hell of a story. The perfection (or was it irony?) of learning through this highly sophisticated aural technology about a little-known indigenous culture while simultaneously being confronted with how technology is destroying indigenous cultures was not lost on me.

But is a really good podcast, watching someone essentially produce a radio performance piece in front of you, a legitimate immersive theatre experience? More importantly, is it a play? These are the kinds of technological conundrums surrounding art that begin dividing the olds from the youngs as they do every twenty or fifty or a hundred years or so. Are selfies legitimate portraiture? And if it is, is Kim Kardashian a legitimate artist? Bach and the Beatles are both composers of great music, and even though McBurney's play can only be experienced via headphones, who is to say that it's not just natural artistic evolution: the theatrical medium simply adapting to encompass the way we currently consume media? 

No matter what, The Encounter is a limited engagement, and unlike other forms of theatre, there will be no way to enjoy it except for seeing it live. No script book, cast recording, or YouTube clip could even begin to do this one justice. And maybe that is exactly what makes it theatre at its most theatrical. 

image via. 

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer whose favorite Kevin Kline movie is A Fish Called Wanda. Thanks for asking.
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BIRTHDAY LIFE LESSON: LET SOMEONE ELSE DRIVE

It's OK to let go of the wheel.
by Kathleen Choe (actor/singer/writer)

It was my birthday this past Tuesday. People asked me what I wanted to do. Readings of plays I love the weekend before, I said. I liked the idea of going into the birthday being creative.

Albee. Goldman. Brilliance.

That answer satisfied some, but my sister and some other friends pressed on. What about the actual day, they asked? We should celebrate. When I told them I was doing nothing, they flatly told me that was unacceptable. If I didn't come up with an idea they were going to take me out. Dinner, at least.

So sister, said friends and I decided on dinner at one of my favorite places. I insisted that I would pay for myself. My friend Jess laughed. “If you think you’re paying for your own dinner, on your own birthday, you’re fucking out of your mind. Happy Birthday.” My sister and other friends agreed and ordered another round of wine.

I could have done what I’ve done in the past: said no way, absolutely not, sat on the check when it came to the table (a trick I learned from my mother). But I’m learning something as I get older: it’s OK to let someone else take the wheel in my life and drive for awhile, especially when I’m tired.

I’m good at taking the wheel. Hand it to me. I've got it. Change the oil? Pump the gas? Tweak the transmission? I'll take care of it, or I'll learn how. It’s nice to be thought of as a good driver, good “fixer”, good at life. It was a role I fell into when I was a kid, and continued into my adulthood.

I haven’t felt good at life lately. It’s been two months of day job hunting, final callbacks, and scraping together what income I can. My pride has taken a hit. Faith has been hard to hold onto with self-doubt whispering in my head. I’m just so tired.

I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday because I didn’t feel worth it.

I’m glad I let others take the wheel and made me.

Above: Drivers of Birthday 2016.
Below: Passenger.

They’re still making me…I’ve been informed from others that my birthday celebration is going to extend into next week, and to shut up and just say thank you.  You know what? That actually feels pretty good.

I don't always have to drive. Let others take the wheel. What a concept.

So begins another year in the life.

KATHLEEN CHOE is a NYC based actor, singer, and writer. www.www.kathleen-choe.com
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SAW YOU THROUGH MY BINOCULARS AGAIN. NICE FURNITURE.

m4w (in the darkness)
By Jennifer Anderson (actor/singer/on Craig's list)

Five years ago, one of my friends from college approached me and a few other alumni with an idea: a show made-up entirely of postings from Missed Connections, the notorious shot-in-the-dark millennial matchmaking tool of Craigslist. I'd never really been on the website before, so at first the idea was a little odd to me. A show where we just read posts about people who had fleeting glances with strangers on the train at rush hour? It seemed a little mundane. Then I did my research. That's when I found gems like these:

DRAGON TAMER MISSES HIS DRAGON - m4w - 48 (oakland west)
i did not even know i was a dragon tamer until this special dragon came into my life. A special bond is created between a dragon and her dragon tamer that can never be forgotten or removed. I miss my dragon. I think of her all the time. If i stay busy, i wish i was sharing whatever it is i am doing with her as i did for several years. And when I am alone, it gets unbearable at times, not being with my dragon but being surrounded by her memories. The last time I saw my dragon was probably the worst moment of my adult life. The mistakes both of us made...

And that's when I realized that this was a brilliant idea.

BOHEMIAN DREAMS: RAQUEL ALMAZAN

Discover NYC's most talented starving artists - before they're rich and famous. This week meet performance artist Raquel Almazan, and hear what she has to say about Butoh dance, pornography, and being a vegan.

 by David Davila (playwright / songwriter)

Performance artist, playwright, and actress, Raquel Almazan, has been making people laugh, cry, and think for several years on the downtown theatre scene with shows like SHE WOLVES: WOMEN IN SEX, DEATH, AND REBIRTH, and DEATH OF THE DOLL which explore modern female sexuality and social power.

Originally from Spain, the Spanish/Costa Rican artist moved to the US at an early age and lived in every Hispanic part of the country from Texas to Florida before setting her roots in NYC. I first met Raquel at the weekly Salon at INTAR THEATRE where artists share new works for a group of non-judgemental peers. Almazan was presenting a comical look at the her mother's travels through a racist, Southern, USA and I was rolling on the floor with laughter. Now she's presenting a new one-woman show at Dixon Place for one night only that explores a porn star's journey from celebrity to outer-space refugee using mixed-media and Butoh dance that has me intrigued to say the least.         

Porning the Planet Trailer- Sizzle Reel from raquel almazan on Vimeo.

I caught up with the avante-garde performance artist, and hilarious stand-up comic, over soy-lattes at our local Brooklyn Bagel in Astoria to talk about her involvement with Butoh dance, its correlations to pornography, and how she wants to be Orson Wells...

Here's what she had to say:

(David Davila) How did PORNING THE PLANET come about?

(Raquel Almazan) The play was inspired by the book “female chauvinist pig movement”, by Ariel Levi. For fifteen years I’ve worked with marginalized women and girls (including sex workers) in schools, prisons and centers. This lead my work to demand a political process. Holding interviews in strip clubs and pornographic environments. The platform for my current piece comes from five years of processing with women, research, and public art presentations. I am now armed for the ultimate challenge of embracing and unearthing pornography in all its forms.

The piece strives to connect ancient women’s mythology with modern media, pornographic images, and how women’s sexuality is used as a weapon against themselves. I’m working to fuse today’s whore as the power symbol in finding ways to honor the virginal whore that refuses to go mainstream porn but instead redefines what it is to be feminine. (Cont.)

THE BUZZIEST SHOWS AT NYC FRINGE (2016)

A guide to which shows you should see this year...

by David Davila (playwright / songwriter)

It's August in NYC, which means two things: gay guys wearing practically nothing, and experimental theatre. Yes sir, it's NYC's turn to host the Fringe, which means downtown NYC will be buzzing with the energy of over 200 shows night and day. Deciding which show to see this year can be a little daunting, so I thought I'd help you out by pointing out a few that everyone is talking about. 

WALKEN ON SUNSHINE

Writer: Dave Droxler, Music by James Rushin
Director: Marcus Stevens
An anxiety-ridden filmmaker accidentally lies to investors about having Christopher Walken in his movie and embarks on a ridiculous quest to get Walken. Neuroses, quirky love, bad guys and cowbells emerge to derail him. Will he ever find Walken??

LET THE DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST

Writer: Maya Contreras
Director: Lorca Peress
Set in 1969 Washington DC, Vera, an African American math teacher and her husband Pablo, a Latino Art Professor, attempt to make sense of a violent decade, their rocky marriage, and what the future holds for their politically active daughter.

ZUCCOTTI PARK

Writer: Catherine Hurd, Composer: Vatrena King
Director: Luis Salgado
Choreographer: Luis Salgado
What does it mean to be an American? After eight years of war, Sergeant Cooper visits childhood sweetheart, Kate, in NYC. They meet at Zuccotti Park, home of Occupy, where she and her friends protest the government he fought for.

THE ILLUSORY ADVENTURES OF A DREAMER

Writer: Michael Bradley
Director: Chris Goodrich
Inspired by Ibsen's "Peer Gynt," a young man goes on a fantastical journey to find himself. Peer must confront a crisis of sexual identity as he encounters gluttonous Trolls, a mischievous guardian, and his one true love. #WhoAmI?

DEBRIEFING

Writer: Maximillian Singh Gill
Director: Joan Kane
A young Pakistani-American activist has been recruited to infiltrate a militant group in the Middle East. When she disappears, her recruiter has to determine whether she has changed sides or been betrayed. He finds out the truth is more complicated.

THE SUTHERBY TRIPLETS

Writer: Kelly Barrett-Gibson
Director: Kelly Barrett-Gibson
Dueling divas, squirrel warfare, and a lifetime of skeletons dragged from the closet. A weekend with the Sutherbys is never dull! With so many egos under one roof, one thing is certain: "Everyone wants to be in the spotlight!"

THE MUSCLE IN QUESTION 

Writer: Samantha Stone
Director: Mariana Rose Benjamin
The Muscle in Question is a magical realism full length play in one act about how the technical structure of a human’s brain has an effect on their day to day well-being, experiences and existence. 

HELD

Writer: Kelly Maxwell, Music by Meghan Rose
Director: S.C. Lucier
Held is a musical set in a fantasy world. Korin, a dreamer. Mera, a warrior. Bardo, a baker. Piano, cello, and bass set a romantic score while the three struggle to escape a place where time stands still.

TARGET GOLDBERG (HELP! ROGUE GOVERNMENT AGENTS ARE TRYING TO FRAME ME!)

Writer: David J Goldberg
Director: Conrad Kluck
A civil war is unfolding today within the intelligence world, and David J Goldberg finds himself caught in the middle. With the help of disgruntled insiders, Goldberg tries to sabotage a rouge entrapment program by going public with his story.

For more info on all of these productions you can obviously google them or visit fringeNYC.org

DAVID DAVILA is the composer of MANUEL VS THE STATUE OF LIBERTY, VOX POP, #52SONGS and author of the Tex-Mex plays ADAN Y JULIO, MEN OF GOD, ABUELAS OR THE POVERTY CYCLE, CREDO, REQUERDOS OF MY LIFE, ANIMAL HUSBANDRY, and AZTEC PIRATES AND THE INSIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE ON MARS. He is a self proclaimed Voxist, a Diva enthusiast, and founder of Lone Star Theatre Co. Wanna talk about it? www.daviddavila.net
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BOHEMIAN DREAMS: JUDITH LEORA

Meet NYC's most promising starving artists before they're rich and famous. This week meet playwright Judith Leora, and find out what she has to say about dating drug dealers, American sitcoms as an art form, and tiny buckets of pennies.

by David Davila (musical theatre writer)

It was four years ago when nine other musical theatre writers and I were set-up with the impossible task of writing a full length musical about the Occupy Wall Street movement in just three weeks. There was a lot of screaming, a lot of coffee, and a lot of big personalities with crazy ideas. Out of the madness emerged Judith Leora, and her idea for a wacky scenario in a Dunkin Donuts that became the basis for OCCUPY: THE MUSICAL. Wacky scenarios in American chain-restaurants are a pretty big theme in the work of this visionary playwright who tackles big issues like racism and misogyny in hysterical and outlandish ways all while satirizing American consumer culture.

Since then, I've become one of Judith's biggest fans and have produced her work at my theatre company at every chance I could possibly get. Last year we produced a reading of her new play SHOWPONY about a group of under-appreciated women working in a male dominated advertising firm. It was brilliant, and it became utterly clear to me that it is only a matter of time before Judith Leora's name is uttered by everyone in the theatre industry.

This summer she has not one but two plays being produced. First came a production of her play GIDEON, her answer to WAITING FOR GODOT set in an Los Angeles apartment where two girls wait for the cable guy. Now her play THE COOKIE FIGHT is receiving a full production at the Bristol Valley Theatre. 

I caught up with this talented writer at Beer Authority in Times Square and chatted with her about "not" breaking fire codes, Christopher Durang, and drinking paint thinner. Here's what the playwright had to say:

(David Davila) Tell me about THE COOKIE FIGHT.

(Judith Leora) THE COOKIE FIGHT is the first play I wrote when I moved back to NYC from LA and started writing plays again. It’s a play about a family of adult siblings coming home for one last Christmas in the family home and must come to grips with their family issues in the middle of a national financial crisis. That doesn’t sound very funny, but it’s a comedy. Which is pretty typical of my writing. I write deeply political plays that sound like a sitcom. Which I mean in a positive way. I think really well-written sitcoms are a very American, very perceptive art form. Yes, I just called sitcoms an art form. I feel no shame!!  

(DD) How did the idea for this play come about?

(JL) It wasn’t inspired by a specific financial crisis, but by the succession of crises we’ve had in the last ten years. Enron. The electricity crisis in California. The collapse in 2008. I’m sure there were some deeply un-empathetic people involved in those situations but I imagine that the majority of them are people who consider themselves “good people”. They were just doing their jobs and trying to make as much money as possible for their company, which our culture tells them is the greatest good. I’m very interested in that dissonance. How you justify doing things, which ultimately hurt large groups of people? I’m also interested in how religion is complicit in excusing that behavior. Which is where the main character Joy comes in… 

(The cast of THE COOKIE FIGHT at VBT, Left to Right: EJ Cantu, Sara Fetgatter and Mark Poppleton)

(DD) And you're having a full production of The Cookie Fight this summer. Can you tell us about that?