Dearly beloved, we are gathered here tonight to get through this thing called the Artsies. Preferably before midnight.
Many things happened at tonight's Richmond Theater Critics Circle awards show, many of them in glittery shoes and sparkly clothing.
I wore neither, yet the man who won "Best Actor in a Leading Role, Musical" complimented my ensemble as sexy and demure ("How are you pulling off both?") and referred to his own striking suit as looking "like a couch."
For the record, few couches are that shiny.
Naturally, things got topical. There was last year's Best Supporting Actor - a child actor, mind you - playing the Donald in a blond wig and patriotic ball cap and, when challenged on his fitness to do so given his diminutive stature, responded, " My hands are the right size!"
When the cast of "Green Day's American Idiot" did a medley, it involved a figure in a Trump mask and the entire cast finishing by giving the audience the finger. I like to think they were really giving it to Trump.
Calling a spade a spade, the Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Play called Richmond Triangle Players the "best-run theater in town," and he should know having worked for almost all the others as well.
Even her move to D.C. didn't prevent last year's Best Actress in a Play from being the butt of jokes about her frequent nude scenes, from showing up as a presenter tonight and from reminding us that we are more than a piece of ass.
Winningly, the multi-talented Best Actor nominee in both leading and supporting roles sang a song with green frog hands on.
Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" became the basis for the winner of Best Actress in a Lading Role, Musical and the winner of Best Director, Play to imagine a gospel-inspired MLK musical set to the Purple One.
One of the actors who was part of the deserving group who won the Ernie McClintock Best Acting Ensemble award - the one who's leaving us after five years for a bigger sandbox to show off in - announced, "If you're not seeing TheatreLAB's shows, you're not really paying attention."
Five awards tonight? Everybody should be paying attention by now.
Because last years's winner of Best Director, Play was unable to attend, her esteemed Shakespeare leanings became the basis for jokes involving tests, balls and cunning linguists set to iambic pentameter.
Behold a 97-year old dancer (who could have passed for 75) accepting an award for Ongoing Contribution to Richmond Area Theater who not only did a few dance movements when she walked onstage, but also said, "I'm grateful to have had a long lifetime in order to achieve so much."
The young 'uns (particularly) in the audience gasped audibly when her age was given and clapped mightily when she sashayed offstage.
Just as moving was the 87-year old actress and mezzo-soprano accepting the same award and sharing her black history in the process. When told by a restaurant server in her youth that, "We don't serve n****rs here," she had the presence of mind to answer, "We don't eat 'em."
And when she told us to hold hands with the people on either side of us, we did while she prayed for a less divisive country and better treatment of women.
One critic's reviews were mocked as too short and another as too long. Both statements were true.
The audience went nuts when nominees for Best Supporting Actress, Play and Best Actor in a Leading Role, Musical sang "Suddenly Seymour" with charm and drama to spare.
There was more Girl Power than you could shake a stick at, like last year's Best Actress winner pointing at another actor in Colonial garb a la "1776" and saying, "This is what a President looked like in the past," and then doffing her own Revolutionary costume to reveal a sexy red dress underneath.
"And this is what a President will look like in the future!" Hear, hear.
Oh, and for the record, 5th Wall does more than "plays where smart women holler at each other." Why is it "hollering" when we do it and "discussing" when men do the same?
You'd never hear the Dowager Countess say such a thing.
Showing posts with label evan nasteff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label evan nasteff. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Nothing to Do
It's rare that I swap day for night. Rarer still when I get up to an empty page in my datebook.
So with absolutely nothing planned for any part of the day or night, I punted, also known as trolling Facebook to see what I'd been invited to while I'd been out of town so much lately.
Barely over a week since my last live music show at a bakery, I returned to Sub Rosa for an afternoon of music by Yeni Nostalji Lite, which is to say vocalist Christina, guitarist Vlad and, on a few songs, Tim on acoustic guitar. It was such a casual performance that they were all seated in the big front window.
Vases of zinnia, marigolds and sunflowers sat on every table, all of which were occupied, in some cases with groups of strangers. I spotted the Italian speaker at the bar, a French food-loving teacher in the back and waited, knowing that the artist would make the effort to come over for a hug and to say hello.
He did.
Between Sub Rosa's usual Sunday business and patrons who came for music but also got seduced by the baked offerings, it was pretty much a constant line at the counter, breaking up my view from a stool butted up against the glass of that counter.
Not that I could blame anyone.
Despite having already eaten, I was unable to resist the siren song of roasted pepper quiche calling to me from behind the glass next to me. "Karen, eat me, eat me..." it wailed directly to me. The guy sitting next to me approved of my choice, noting, "I look forward to that quiche every week." Tellingly, his plate contained nothing but crumbs.
I'd gotten my quiche along with a Pentiman's rose lemonade because it was a hot day, never more obvious than when a woman walked outside and promptly fainted. The Turkish folk songs stopped mid-note and several people rushed outside to help her.
Turns out she'd gone for a long bike ride this morning but hadn't had anything to eat or drink. Foolish girl. She was packed off into her boyfriend's SUV and taken to an undisclosed location, presumably to fuel her body so it didn't give up on her again.
Yeni Nostalji returned to playing things such as 300-year old anti-war songs sung in obscure Turkish dialects (a guy in front of me leans over to his partner and wonders, "What language are they singing in?") with Christina shaking her armful of silver bangles when percussion was needed.
At the counter, the line continued with my favorite customer being the guy who began by asking what everything was and then ordering one of everything - seeded braids, almond croissants, shortbread cookies, chocolate croissants, beef borek - except quiche because I'd gotten the last one.
The attentive audience laughed when Christina announced, "I'm sorry, but this song is typically a duet so I'm going to have to sing a love song to myself." Never was baker (and fellow bandmate) Evrim so missed.
No woman should have to sing a love song to herself.
They ended their set with the same song with which they'd begun, making for perfect Turkish symmetry.
Leaving Church Hill for Jackson Ward, I'd decided to go see TheatreLab's production of "The Altruists" because I'd been hearing so much good about it and they were offering a great deal today. Patrons had only to roll a die and pay whatever the roll was plus five. I rolled a "6" so I paid $11 for my ticket.
The only problem was, I mistakenly assumed everyone had done the same until the woman next to me, a scientist who always enjoys the theater but too rarely makes the time to see it, shared that she'd paid full price ordering her ticket online earlier this afternoon.
Oops. This is why they say loose lips sink ships, Karen.
I spotted a few more familiar faces - an actor, a critic - before the lights went down and the audience was thrown into the back seat of a bus that was already hurtling down the road at breakneck speed.
McLean Jesse was chewing scenery and picking her teeth with the splinters as the actress Sydney (who plays a character named Montana Beach in a soap opera called, what else, "Montana Beach") who is telling off her unfaithful boyfriend Swallow as he sleeps the sleep of the drunk in bed.
"I see now I was just drunk with sex!" she shrieks at the unresponsive Swallow. "No man's perfect, but some are better."
This is the only thing that gives the straight females of the world a reason to keep trying.
In another bedroom, her brother Ronald is professing his love to Lance, a male prostitute, not that Ronald knew that when they hooked up. Already he's in love.
And in the third bedroom of the cleverly designed set, we see that Swallow (played at fever pitch as an unrepentant womanizer by Evan Nasteff, wearing a "F*ck SeaWorld" t-shirt) is just waking up after a drunken night of sex with Cybil, the purported lesbian.
So who was Sydney yelling at in that bed then?
Everyone but Sydney here is an aspiring activist (she doesn't like sweating or too much sun exposure), eager to attend protests and have a part in changing the big, bad world.
The problem is, they only want to do it if it's easy and convenient. Most of the time, none of them can even recall what this week's protest is about. Black lesbian rights or gay Latinos? School funding or government free cheese?
They all claim to want to do the right thing, but they all sponge off Sydney's money, using her house and car for "the cause" and with no acknowledgement of the bigger picture.
Sydney has done a bad thing, a criminal act, but they put their collective consciences on the back burner and protect her rather than losing their cash cow.
If, as John Mayer sang, "Numb is the new deep," these "altruists" are as deep as the ocean. It's tough not to sell your soul down the river when surrounded by nothing but people with no moral compass.
TheaterLAB has done it again, choosing a play with strong and thought-provoking dialog executed by a cast so strong it's impossible to shine a light on just one when all five shone in their roles. The set was brilliant, each room expressing its owner's life and place in the world. Lighting design played a starring role as the action shifted from one room to another at the drop of a hat.
I'd lucked into a fabulous afternoon of ensemble acting at its strongest.
Even after a walk to Cafe 821 for dinner set to a little thrash, I was home by 8:30. As in, before 9:00. Looks like I'll finish my beach read tonight, miles from the sound of the ocean.
Heard some beautiful live music, laughed and winced to a smart play and ate out twice. No days are perfect, but for one that began with an empty slate, I'd say I did pretty well.
Don't go getting any wild ideas about me, though. I still think nights are way better.
So with absolutely nothing planned for any part of the day or night, I punted, also known as trolling Facebook to see what I'd been invited to while I'd been out of town so much lately.
Barely over a week since my last live music show at a bakery, I returned to Sub Rosa for an afternoon of music by Yeni Nostalji Lite, which is to say vocalist Christina, guitarist Vlad and, on a few songs, Tim on acoustic guitar. It was such a casual performance that they were all seated in the big front window.
Vases of zinnia, marigolds and sunflowers sat on every table, all of which were occupied, in some cases with groups of strangers. I spotted the Italian speaker at the bar, a French food-loving teacher in the back and waited, knowing that the artist would make the effort to come over for a hug and to say hello.
He did.
Between Sub Rosa's usual Sunday business and patrons who came for music but also got seduced by the baked offerings, it was pretty much a constant line at the counter, breaking up my view from a stool butted up against the glass of that counter.
Not that I could blame anyone.
Despite having already eaten, I was unable to resist the siren song of roasted pepper quiche calling to me from behind the glass next to me. "Karen, eat me, eat me..." it wailed directly to me. The guy sitting next to me approved of my choice, noting, "I look forward to that quiche every week." Tellingly, his plate contained nothing but crumbs.
I'd gotten my quiche along with a Pentiman's rose lemonade because it was a hot day, never more obvious than when a woman walked outside and promptly fainted. The Turkish folk songs stopped mid-note and several people rushed outside to help her.
Turns out she'd gone for a long bike ride this morning but hadn't had anything to eat or drink. Foolish girl. She was packed off into her boyfriend's SUV and taken to an undisclosed location, presumably to fuel her body so it didn't give up on her again.
Yeni Nostalji returned to playing things such as 300-year old anti-war songs sung in obscure Turkish dialects (a guy in front of me leans over to his partner and wonders, "What language are they singing in?") with Christina shaking her armful of silver bangles when percussion was needed.
At the counter, the line continued with my favorite customer being the guy who began by asking what everything was and then ordering one of everything - seeded braids, almond croissants, shortbread cookies, chocolate croissants, beef borek - except quiche because I'd gotten the last one.
The attentive audience laughed when Christina announced, "I'm sorry, but this song is typically a duet so I'm going to have to sing a love song to myself." Never was baker (and fellow bandmate) Evrim so missed.
No woman should have to sing a love song to herself.
They ended their set with the same song with which they'd begun, making for perfect Turkish symmetry.
Leaving Church Hill for Jackson Ward, I'd decided to go see TheatreLab's production of "The Altruists" because I'd been hearing so much good about it and they were offering a great deal today. Patrons had only to roll a die and pay whatever the roll was plus five. I rolled a "6" so I paid $11 for my ticket.
The only problem was, I mistakenly assumed everyone had done the same until the woman next to me, a scientist who always enjoys the theater but too rarely makes the time to see it, shared that she'd paid full price ordering her ticket online earlier this afternoon.
Oops. This is why they say loose lips sink ships, Karen.
I spotted a few more familiar faces - an actor, a critic - before the lights went down and the audience was thrown into the back seat of a bus that was already hurtling down the road at breakneck speed.
McLean Jesse was chewing scenery and picking her teeth with the splinters as the actress Sydney (who plays a character named Montana Beach in a soap opera called, what else, "Montana Beach") who is telling off her unfaithful boyfriend Swallow as he sleeps the sleep of the drunk in bed.
"I see now I was just drunk with sex!" she shrieks at the unresponsive Swallow. "No man's perfect, but some are better."
This is the only thing that gives the straight females of the world a reason to keep trying.
In another bedroom, her brother Ronald is professing his love to Lance, a male prostitute, not that Ronald knew that when they hooked up. Already he's in love.
And in the third bedroom of the cleverly designed set, we see that Swallow (played at fever pitch as an unrepentant womanizer by Evan Nasteff, wearing a "F*ck SeaWorld" t-shirt) is just waking up after a drunken night of sex with Cybil, the purported lesbian.
So who was Sydney yelling at in that bed then?
Everyone but Sydney here is an aspiring activist (she doesn't like sweating or too much sun exposure), eager to attend protests and have a part in changing the big, bad world.
The problem is, they only want to do it if it's easy and convenient. Most of the time, none of them can even recall what this week's protest is about. Black lesbian rights or gay Latinos? School funding or government free cheese?
They all claim to want to do the right thing, but they all sponge off Sydney's money, using her house and car for "the cause" and with no acknowledgement of the bigger picture.
Sydney has done a bad thing, a criminal act, but they put their collective consciences on the back burner and protect her rather than losing their cash cow.
If, as John Mayer sang, "Numb is the new deep," these "altruists" are as deep as the ocean. It's tough not to sell your soul down the river when surrounded by nothing but people with no moral compass.
TheaterLAB has done it again, choosing a play with strong and thought-provoking dialog executed by a cast so strong it's impossible to shine a light on just one when all five shone in their roles. The set was brilliant, each room expressing its owner's life and place in the world. Lighting design played a starring role as the action shifted from one room to another at the drop of a hat.
I'd lucked into a fabulous afternoon of ensemble acting at its strongest.
Even after a walk to Cafe 821 for dinner set to a little thrash, I was home by 8:30. As in, before 9:00. Looks like I'll finish my beach read tonight, miles from the sound of the ocean.
Heard some beautiful live music, laughed and winced to a smart play and ate out twice. No days are perfect, but for one that began with an empty slate, I'd say I did pretty well.
Don't go getting any wild ideas about me, though. I still think nights are way better.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Play What You Know
If I'd been a student, my teacher would have told me to stop horsing around.
Walking up the brick walkway to happy hour at the Anderson Gallery, I spotted tonight's musical guest - Dave Watkins -being posed for some pictures under a tree.
I could have paused to stay out of frame, could have breezed by and into the gallery, but, no, I all but ran up behind him and used my hand to stick rabbit ears behind his head.
His newly shorn head, I might add, since Dave was sporting a very attractive curly on top, high and tight on the sides summer do.
It was my first time photo-bombing, just for the record, and I'm pretty pleased with myself about it.
Saying hello to a gallerist and an artist, I was almost immediately joined by other members of the Dave Watkins fan club: neighbors from J-Ward, the photographer and his cute wife, the motorcyclist, the DJ, the one with the new state job.
Hail, hail, the gang's all here.
A friend immediately complimented my hair, asking me where I'd gotten it cut. As if. I love how much credit people give me.
When I told her it had been Hair Cuttery in August 2013, she told me she asks her husband to just lop off the end of her ponytail when she needs a trim (he won't, by the way). I guess we'll just keep growing it out then, she and I.
Once everyone in our little group had a beverage in hand, we sat outside on the brick patio catching up.
The couple who'd just returned from the Red Wing Roots music festival told a funny story of having their pirate flag stolen from the pole (which they didn't steal) beside their tent. Far more valuable stuff was ignored, but the thieves got the skull and crossbones.
My friend loved the poetry of a pirate flag having been pirated.
Because there are even more music shows this week than normal, we all compared notes to see who is going to which shows.
An artist I know from another lifetime came over and told me she had seen me running up behind Dave and how great I looked. "You never change," she said, "no matter how many years go by. I hope that means you're happy!"
I dare say I am.
When we moved inside for music, Dave proceeded to not only blow minds with his music but also put on a sound-activated light show on the walls of the gallery.
Is there nothing the man can't do?
Building up layers of musical phrases with his electric dulcitar - you know, the one he built himself just like the new haircut he gave himself - and looping them so he could produce the sound of an entire band instead of just one guy, I watched minds being blown as first-timers became part of the cult of Dave.
Me, I've been a card-carrying member of his fan club for five years now and he knows it.
When his set ended, there was major applause and extended mingling. My neighbors asked me to join them for dinner, but I had plans. Neither was surprised.
"Do you go out every night?" the husband asked. I do, I told him. I can't think of a good reason not to.
The plans that kept me from eating with them were at Richmond Triangle Players where brothers Evan and Chris Nasteff were doing a cabaret/rock show.
Plus it was going to be an interactive show so every attendee got to put two song requests in the hat (bribes were suggested). The only rule was that there could be no show tune requests because they didn't know what a show tune was until eight years ago and show tunes are difficult...or so they claimed.
Considering Evan's an actor (I'd seen him do a terrific job in "Cabaret" last month), their aversion to show tunes was unexpected.
No surprise, I ran into an actor friend and we got to talking about auditions for "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," my excitement over The Basement (the new theater space coming to my neighborhood where "Hedwig" will play) and, of all things, the Pump House in Byrd Park, which he'd heard was finally being renovated.
If the Pump House is ever redone, he thinks the preview event should be a tea dance to kick off pride week. I can't think of a better way to christen the old dance floor than having a bunch of queens break it in. Can I get an amen?
Finally taking my seat in the second row, when I was asked where I'd come from, I said happy hour.
"Are you happy?" he wanted to know. Oh, yes, I'm happy.
All of a sudden tonight's star, Evan, was onstage and demanding of the room, "Sit down!" followed by his best "Cabaret" German accent saying, "You VILL sit down!" so we did.
He and his band - brother Chris on guitar, Grant on guitar, Bobby on bass and Bentley on drums- were all in tank tops and they enthusiastically crashed into the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There," making for a fabulous start to the evening.
We all yelled our approval.
Partway through, Richmond icon Marjorie Lee Stewart VanderCamp (aka Maggie) took the stage before being shooed away while Chris and Grant got out their acoustic guitars and did "And I Love Her" with Bentley hand drumming, which I love the sound of.
Meanwhile, the Nasteff parents were in the front row, alternately taking pictures and looking rather proud.
Next Evan called the platinum blond Grey up (she's currently doing "Hair," which I'd also just seen) and she took the stage looking like a million bucks in pink satin pants, a black sequin top and silver platform shoes before destroying the room (or at least me) doing a slow burn of the Foundations' "Baby, Now That I Found You" with Chris on guitar.
You better believe I hooted and hollered after that one.
The next guest was the ringer. Nick, also taking a night off from "Hair" joined Chris and Evan on Crosby, Stills and Nash's magnificently alliterative "Helplessly Hoping," complete with three part harmonies. Absolutely beautiful.
Afterwards, Evan quipped, "As you can see by the words written all over Nick's arms, that's not his last song with us." Sure enough, both arms were covered in lyrics.
Admitting that they couldn't stand John Mayer but admired his music, the band rocked through "3 x 5" and then went in a whole different direction with Chris doing R. Kelly's "Remix of Ignition" and I screamed even louder at the end.
After singing about stroking it and feeling that body, Chris looked over at the woman who had birthed him and said, eyes down, "Hi, Mom."
And what better to follow sexual pleading than with "Hey Ya," with the line, "I don't wanna meet your Mama, I just want to make you come-a"?
Sorry, Mama Nasteff.
The always energetic Matt did a couple of Green Day songs - "She" and "Pullin' Teeth"- with Marjorie, claiming they only learned them yesterday. If so, well done, you two.
Who needed show tunes when these guys were killing it with rock?
That was when we got to the request box and Evan pulled out some wiseacre's suggestion for Lindsay Buckingham pre-Fleetwood Mac.
"Are you kidding?" Evan said, tossing it aside. "I'm going to take your dollar anyway."
The next request was for "Genie in a Bottle," followed by a another for the same song. Who are you people?
Only problem was Evan didn't have his phone so he couldn't look up the chords. Aw, too bad.
"Yea, we thought this through," Chris deadpanned at the mic for the third time tonight, his go-to announcement every time things got chaotic onstage.
They decided the smart thing to do was break for intermission, let everyone get drinks, they'd find the chords and start the second act with "Genie."
After a mad rush for the bar (with Will Smith playing on the sound system) and a friend saying to me, "This is crazier than the Ghostlight after party," which is really saying something because that's always a pretty silly evening, the audience mostly took their drinks to their seats so the Nasteffs could carry on.
Because that's what they'd come to do and, by gum, they were going to do it.
Evan sang lead on "Genie," while Marjorie did the best interpretive dance and backing vocals and the band members just cracked up the entire time.
When you think about it, that's actually an appropriate reaction to that silly song.
Midway through the Killers' "When You Were Young," Evan flashed Chris a smile and said, "See, I did learn that last chord." Apparently brotherly one-upmanship never dies.
Nick returned, studying his lyric-filled arm during the intro to "My Sharona," before belting it out which got lots of audience squeals, but then they went into OK Go's "Here We Go Again" sung by Evan, before reverting to "Sharona."
Ye gads, a medley!
Walking offstage, someone called to Nick asking, "Who's Sharona?" and he yelled, "Mine!"
Chris did "Life in the Slaw Lane," an acoustic ode to fruits and vegetables that had the crowd cracking up with every line of wordplay ("Her name was Peaches, a soiled but radishing beauty with huge gourds"), laughing himself at points.
Naturally they had to follow that with something crazy like Tenacious D, resulting in Papa Nasteff calling out from the first row, "Play something you know!"
No matter how old you get, they still think they're the boss of you. Pipe down, Daddio.
"We're gonna do a Dire Straits song as re-imagined by the Killers because we're not old as shit," Evan said before trading off vocals with Chris on "Romeo and Juliet," a song I admit I hadn't heard before and I am old as shit, despite what artists might tell me.
Nick and Majorie returned ("Yes, Nick, it's that arm!"), ready to regale us with a song from "School of Rock" while having a dance-off with each other. "Teacher's Pet" was definitely the song where the band rocked out hardest.
"Rock and roll!" someone shouted as they finished. That's what we'd come for.
"We're gonna play our encore as our last song and then do one request," Evan said before "Hey, Jude" and the whole audience joining in for the "na, na, na" chorus, a true kumbaya moment.
Because I've been to the Ghostlight after party plenty, I more or less was certain that "Hit Me, Baby, One More Time" would be the big finale (Evan always closes the show doing it) and I wasn't disappointed.
With the band cracking up, the crowd singing along, tonight's cabaret/rock show ended on the happiest of notes.
The brothers who have always wanted to do a show together can now scratch that off their bucket list after a well-executed performance.
I'm pretty sure they were having as good a time as we were.
Some things you don't have to think through.
Walking up the brick walkway to happy hour at the Anderson Gallery, I spotted tonight's musical guest - Dave Watkins -being posed for some pictures under a tree.
I could have paused to stay out of frame, could have breezed by and into the gallery, but, no, I all but ran up behind him and used my hand to stick rabbit ears behind his head.
His newly shorn head, I might add, since Dave was sporting a very attractive curly on top, high and tight on the sides summer do.
It was my first time photo-bombing, just for the record, and I'm pretty pleased with myself about it.
Saying hello to a gallerist and an artist, I was almost immediately joined by other members of the Dave Watkins fan club: neighbors from J-Ward, the photographer and his cute wife, the motorcyclist, the DJ, the one with the new state job.
Hail, hail, the gang's all here.
A friend immediately complimented my hair, asking me where I'd gotten it cut. As if. I love how much credit people give me.
When I told her it had been Hair Cuttery in August 2013, she told me she asks her husband to just lop off the end of her ponytail when she needs a trim (he won't, by the way). I guess we'll just keep growing it out then, she and I.
Once everyone in our little group had a beverage in hand, we sat outside on the brick patio catching up.
The couple who'd just returned from the Red Wing Roots music festival told a funny story of having their pirate flag stolen from the pole (which they didn't steal) beside their tent. Far more valuable stuff was ignored, but the thieves got the skull and crossbones.
My friend loved the poetry of a pirate flag having been pirated.
Because there are even more music shows this week than normal, we all compared notes to see who is going to which shows.
An artist I know from another lifetime came over and told me she had seen me running up behind Dave and how great I looked. "You never change," she said, "no matter how many years go by. I hope that means you're happy!"
I dare say I am.
When we moved inside for music, Dave proceeded to not only blow minds with his music but also put on a sound-activated light show on the walls of the gallery.
Is there nothing the man can't do?
Building up layers of musical phrases with his electric dulcitar - you know, the one he built himself just like the new haircut he gave himself - and looping them so he could produce the sound of an entire band instead of just one guy, I watched minds being blown as first-timers became part of the cult of Dave.
Me, I've been a card-carrying member of his fan club for five years now and he knows it.
When his set ended, there was major applause and extended mingling. My neighbors asked me to join them for dinner, but I had plans. Neither was surprised.
"Do you go out every night?" the husband asked. I do, I told him. I can't think of a good reason not to.
The plans that kept me from eating with them were at Richmond Triangle Players where brothers Evan and Chris Nasteff were doing a cabaret/rock show.
Plus it was going to be an interactive show so every attendee got to put two song requests in the hat (bribes were suggested). The only rule was that there could be no show tune requests because they didn't know what a show tune was until eight years ago and show tunes are difficult...or so they claimed.
Considering Evan's an actor (I'd seen him do a terrific job in "Cabaret" last month), their aversion to show tunes was unexpected.
No surprise, I ran into an actor friend and we got to talking about auditions for "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," my excitement over The Basement (the new theater space coming to my neighborhood where "Hedwig" will play) and, of all things, the Pump House in Byrd Park, which he'd heard was finally being renovated.
If the Pump House is ever redone, he thinks the preview event should be a tea dance to kick off pride week. I can't think of a better way to christen the old dance floor than having a bunch of queens break it in. Can I get an amen?
Finally taking my seat in the second row, when I was asked where I'd come from, I said happy hour.
"Are you happy?" he wanted to know. Oh, yes, I'm happy.
All of a sudden tonight's star, Evan, was onstage and demanding of the room, "Sit down!" followed by his best "Cabaret" German accent saying, "You VILL sit down!" so we did.
He and his band - brother Chris on guitar, Grant on guitar, Bobby on bass and Bentley on drums- were all in tank tops and they enthusiastically crashed into the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There," making for a fabulous start to the evening.
We all yelled our approval.
Partway through, Richmond icon Marjorie Lee Stewart VanderCamp (aka Maggie) took the stage before being shooed away while Chris and Grant got out their acoustic guitars and did "And I Love Her" with Bentley hand drumming, which I love the sound of.
Meanwhile, the Nasteff parents were in the front row, alternately taking pictures and looking rather proud.
Next Evan called the platinum blond Grey up (she's currently doing "Hair," which I'd also just seen) and she took the stage looking like a million bucks in pink satin pants, a black sequin top and silver platform shoes before destroying the room (or at least me) doing a slow burn of the Foundations' "Baby, Now That I Found You" with Chris on guitar.
You better believe I hooted and hollered after that one.
The next guest was the ringer. Nick, also taking a night off from "Hair" joined Chris and Evan on Crosby, Stills and Nash's magnificently alliterative "Helplessly Hoping," complete with three part harmonies. Absolutely beautiful.
Afterwards, Evan quipped, "As you can see by the words written all over Nick's arms, that's not his last song with us." Sure enough, both arms were covered in lyrics.
Admitting that they couldn't stand John Mayer but admired his music, the band rocked through "3 x 5" and then went in a whole different direction with Chris doing R. Kelly's "Remix of Ignition" and I screamed even louder at the end.
After singing about stroking it and feeling that body, Chris looked over at the woman who had birthed him and said, eyes down, "Hi, Mom."
And what better to follow sexual pleading than with "Hey Ya," with the line, "I don't wanna meet your Mama, I just want to make you come-a"?
Sorry, Mama Nasteff.
The always energetic Matt did a couple of Green Day songs - "She" and "Pullin' Teeth"- with Marjorie, claiming they only learned them yesterday. If so, well done, you two.
Who needed show tunes when these guys were killing it with rock?
That was when we got to the request box and Evan pulled out some wiseacre's suggestion for Lindsay Buckingham pre-Fleetwood Mac.
"Are you kidding?" Evan said, tossing it aside. "I'm going to take your dollar anyway."
The next request was for "Genie in a Bottle," followed by a another for the same song. Who are you people?
Only problem was Evan didn't have his phone so he couldn't look up the chords. Aw, too bad.
"Yea, we thought this through," Chris deadpanned at the mic for the third time tonight, his go-to announcement every time things got chaotic onstage.
They decided the smart thing to do was break for intermission, let everyone get drinks, they'd find the chords and start the second act with "Genie."
After a mad rush for the bar (with Will Smith playing on the sound system) and a friend saying to me, "This is crazier than the Ghostlight after party," which is really saying something because that's always a pretty silly evening, the audience mostly took their drinks to their seats so the Nasteffs could carry on.
Because that's what they'd come to do and, by gum, they were going to do it.
Evan sang lead on "Genie," while Marjorie did the best interpretive dance and backing vocals and the band members just cracked up the entire time.
When you think about it, that's actually an appropriate reaction to that silly song.
Midway through the Killers' "When You Were Young," Evan flashed Chris a smile and said, "See, I did learn that last chord." Apparently brotherly one-upmanship never dies.
Nick returned, studying his lyric-filled arm during the intro to "My Sharona," before belting it out which got lots of audience squeals, but then they went into OK Go's "Here We Go Again" sung by Evan, before reverting to "Sharona."
Ye gads, a medley!
Walking offstage, someone called to Nick asking, "Who's Sharona?" and he yelled, "Mine!"
Chris did "Life in the Slaw Lane," an acoustic ode to fruits and vegetables that had the crowd cracking up with every line of wordplay ("Her name was Peaches, a soiled but radishing beauty with huge gourds"), laughing himself at points.
Naturally they had to follow that with something crazy like Tenacious D, resulting in Papa Nasteff calling out from the first row, "Play something you know!"
No matter how old you get, they still think they're the boss of you. Pipe down, Daddio.
"We're gonna do a Dire Straits song as re-imagined by the Killers because we're not old as shit," Evan said before trading off vocals with Chris on "Romeo and Juliet," a song I admit I hadn't heard before and I am old as shit, despite what artists might tell me.
Nick and Majorie returned ("Yes, Nick, it's that arm!"), ready to regale us with a song from "School of Rock" while having a dance-off with each other. "Teacher's Pet" was definitely the song where the band rocked out hardest.
"Rock and roll!" someone shouted as they finished. That's what we'd come for.
"We're gonna play our encore as our last song and then do one request," Evan said before "Hey, Jude" and the whole audience joining in for the "na, na, na" chorus, a true kumbaya moment.
Because I've been to the Ghostlight after party plenty, I more or less was certain that "Hit Me, Baby, One More Time" would be the big finale (Evan always closes the show doing it) and I wasn't disappointed.
With the band cracking up, the crowd singing along, tonight's cabaret/rock show ended on the happiest of notes.
The brothers who have always wanted to do a show together can now scratch that off their bucket list after a well-executed performance.
I'm pretty sure they were having as good a time as we were.
Some things you don't have to think through.
Friday, March 7, 2014
May the Bard Be with You
Last time, it was for brisket. Tonight, iambic pentameter.
Tonight the Weinstein JCC lured me in, not for food but because they were hosting HenShakes' one night production of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Abridged. Revised."
Abridged so we weren't there until our butts fell off. Revised so they could insert topical humor and current references.
Meaning an evening for the intellectually flaccid of 37 plays in 97 minutes by three of Richmond's finest actors: John Mincks, Evan Nasteff and David Janosik, with a whole lot of fake vomiting, sexual references and dramatic dying going on.
Because, you know, all the world's a stage.
They began with a stripped down version of "Romeo and Juliet" that had Romeo saying, "I wanna kiss you, dude" and Juliet waxing poetic with, "That which we call a nose would still smell."
When Romeo begins to muse, saying, "Call me but love," Juliet interrupts with, "Did you call me Butt Love?" Naturally this becomes her new term of endearment, as in, "Parting is such sweet sorrow, Butt Love."
While the three energetic actors spent a whopping twelve minutes on "Romeo and Juliet," they went much briefer on the primitive revenge drama, "Titus Andronicus," which they managed to turn into a cooking show because after a long day of killing, severing and cannibalizing, who really feels like cooking?
Hilarious.
Moving on, the trio discussed whether they should do "Othello" in black face ("Do you want to piss off Tyler Perry?" pause "Kind of"), finally deciding to don sunglasses and rap it while throwing gang signs.
Seeing that time was ticking, they chose to condense all Shakespeare's comedies into one with hysterical results.
David, easily the largest of the three actors, took all the female roles throughout the evening, including the heroine for the mass comedy.
In a blond wig and skirt, he used his most lilting voice to say, "Oh, Father! I am so young and pubescent on this island," as he skipped around the stage.
But in Shakespeare's plays, girls always pretend to be boys and when he/she comes on to our hero, he responds to her as if she's a he. "I swingeth not that way, boy!" Poor thing, she never realizes she's bi-curious.
Macbeth required the trio to don plaid knickers and adopt thick Scottish accents (very well executed, too), funny enough but the dialog was even better.
I was from my mother's womb untimely ripped.
I support a woman's right to choose.
"Julius Cesar" lasted about 60 seconds before someone decreed, "On to my play," and "Antony and Cleopatra" got underway.
There was another onstage discussion, this time about the lost play "Two Mobile Kinsmen," except not really. That turned out to be "Two Noble Kinsman," one of the plays that is neither comedy, tragedy or history. An obscure play.
The only one of these the trio deemed worth doing was "Troilus and Cressida" because, as Evan said, "It's not crap at all."
He read a synopsis off his phone while David and John did an interpretive dance of the plot that involved wings and getting between Evan's legs.
"Richard II" and "Richard III" were done as a football game, with each taking a turn as the announcer, often sounding a lot like Howard Cosell, and saying things like, "Poisoned on the ten yard line."
There was a penalty for "fictional character on the field" when King Lear put in an appearance and he was disqualified.
They ended with a cheer, yelling, "Henry V, Richard the third, the whole royal family is fricking absurd. Go sports team!"
By now all three were looking pretty sweaty after countless costume changes, much running in and out of the audience and more sword fighting and death scenes than I could keep track of.
As if I was trying. It was enough just to keep up with the rapid fire dialog and shenanigans of the actors.
Then they realized that they still had "Hamlet" to do ("Oh, crap, Hamlet!") and John asks for a summary of it.
"A young prince struggles with his conscience after his uncle kills his Dad." Evan looks at him like he's crazy. "Dude, that's the "Lion King."
Wait a minute...
That's when intermission kicked in but afterwards only John returned. He tried to stall by showing us an index card with all 152 of Shakespeare's sonnets on it, saying Even had told him he couldn't cover them all.
He laid the card on the stage, and laid his hat over it. Covered, done.
The entire second act was given over to "Hamlet" with Horatio being called fellatio and "To sleep, perchance to dream" devolving into, "To sleep, perchance to nap, perchance to snooze, perchance to doze."
During Evan's important "to be or not to be" speech, he broke down about a dilemma on "Full House," a show her admits he's currently watching in reruns.
But it's when David does Hamlet's "Man delights me not" soliloquy that you could have heard a pin drop in the room, his voice and perfect diction feeding the soul of every Shakespeare lover in the room.
A volunteer was plucked from the audience (and called Bob despite her name being Julia) to do the screaming of Ophelia's id, but the audience was soon asked to join her in a group scream-a-thon.
Of course, David played Ophelia and to play her drowning scene, threw a cup of water in his face.
As you may already know, all did not end well there, either. That's why they call it a tragedy.
Just when the last of Shakespeare's plays had ended, the actors got even sillier.
First they did a two minute version of "Hamlet." Then a 30 second version.
Then, perhaps most brilliantly, a backwards version, with the classic line, "Be to not or be to?"
Moving backwards, undying and, yes, Ophelia spitting water out of her mouth to un-drown.
"You thank!" they yelled to the standing ovation the audience gave them.
Effort fine damn, gentlemen. Truly one for the books.
Abridged and revised. I definitely swingeth that way.
Tonight the Weinstein JCC lured me in, not for food but because they were hosting HenShakes' one night production of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Abridged. Revised."
Abridged so we weren't there until our butts fell off. Revised so they could insert topical humor and current references.
Meaning an evening for the intellectually flaccid of 37 plays in 97 minutes by three of Richmond's finest actors: John Mincks, Evan Nasteff and David Janosik, with a whole lot of fake vomiting, sexual references and dramatic dying going on.
Because, you know, all the world's a stage.
They began with a stripped down version of "Romeo and Juliet" that had Romeo saying, "I wanna kiss you, dude" and Juliet waxing poetic with, "That which we call a nose would still smell."
When Romeo begins to muse, saying, "Call me but love," Juliet interrupts with, "Did you call me Butt Love?" Naturally this becomes her new term of endearment, as in, "Parting is such sweet sorrow, Butt Love."
While the three energetic actors spent a whopping twelve minutes on "Romeo and Juliet," they went much briefer on the primitive revenge drama, "Titus Andronicus," which they managed to turn into a cooking show because after a long day of killing, severing and cannibalizing, who really feels like cooking?
Hilarious.
Moving on, the trio discussed whether they should do "Othello" in black face ("Do you want to piss off Tyler Perry?" pause "Kind of"), finally deciding to don sunglasses and rap it while throwing gang signs.
Seeing that time was ticking, they chose to condense all Shakespeare's comedies into one with hysterical results.
David, easily the largest of the three actors, took all the female roles throughout the evening, including the heroine for the mass comedy.
In a blond wig and skirt, he used his most lilting voice to say, "Oh, Father! I am so young and pubescent on this island," as he skipped around the stage.
But in Shakespeare's plays, girls always pretend to be boys and when he/she comes on to our hero, he responds to her as if she's a he. "I swingeth not that way, boy!" Poor thing, she never realizes she's bi-curious.
Macbeth required the trio to don plaid knickers and adopt thick Scottish accents (very well executed, too), funny enough but the dialog was even better.
I was from my mother's womb untimely ripped.
I support a woman's right to choose.
"Julius Cesar" lasted about 60 seconds before someone decreed, "On to my play," and "Antony and Cleopatra" got underway.
There was another onstage discussion, this time about the lost play "Two Mobile Kinsmen," except not really. That turned out to be "Two Noble Kinsman," one of the plays that is neither comedy, tragedy or history. An obscure play.
The only one of these the trio deemed worth doing was "Troilus and Cressida" because, as Evan said, "It's not crap at all."
He read a synopsis off his phone while David and John did an interpretive dance of the plot that involved wings and getting between Evan's legs.
"Richard II" and "Richard III" were done as a football game, with each taking a turn as the announcer, often sounding a lot like Howard Cosell, and saying things like, "Poisoned on the ten yard line."
There was a penalty for "fictional character on the field" when King Lear put in an appearance and he was disqualified.
They ended with a cheer, yelling, "Henry V, Richard the third, the whole royal family is fricking absurd. Go sports team!"
By now all three were looking pretty sweaty after countless costume changes, much running in and out of the audience and more sword fighting and death scenes than I could keep track of.
As if I was trying. It was enough just to keep up with the rapid fire dialog and shenanigans of the actors.
Then they realized that they still had "Hamlet" to do ("Oh, crap, Hamlet!") and John asks for a summary of it.
"A young prince struggles with his conscience after his uncle kills his Dad." Evan looks at him like he's crazy. "Dude, that's the "Lion King."
Wait a minute...
That's when intermission kicked in but afterwards only John returned. He tried to stall by showing us an index card with all 152 of Shakespeare's sonnets on it, saying Even had told him he couldn't cover them all.
He laid the card on the stage, and laid his hat over it. Covered, done.
The entire second act was given over to "Hamlet" with Horatio being called fellatio and "To sleep, perchance to dream" devolving into, "To sleep, perchance to nap, perchance to snooze, perchance to doze."
During Evan's important "to be or not to be" speech, he broke down about a dilemma on "Full House," a show her admits he's currently watching in reruns.
But it's when David does Hamlet's "Man delights me not" soliloquy that you could have heard a pin drop in the room, his voice and perfect diction feeding the soul of every Shakespeare lover in the room.
A volunteer was plucked from the audience (and called Bob despite her name being Julia) to do the screaming of Ophelia's id, but the audience was soon asked to join her in a group scream-a-thon.
Of course, David played Ophelia and to play her drowning scene, threw a cup of water in his face.
As you may already know, all did not end well there, either. That's why they call it a tragedy.
Just when the last of Shakespeare's plays had ended, the actors got even sillier.
First they did a two minute version of "Hamlet." Then a 30 second version.
Then, perhaps most brilliantly, a backwards version, with the classic line, "Be to not or be to?"
Moving backwards, undying and, yes, Ophelia spitting water out of her mouth to un-drown.
"You thank!" they yelled to the standing ovation the audience gave them.
Effort fine damn, gentlemen. Truly one for the books.
Abridged and revised. I definitely swingeth that way.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
The Only Bee in Your Bonnet
Ignoring my disdain for beer, I went to a brewery.
It's not like I hadn't been to Hardywood before; I had and between the crowd of hat boy types and young parents, had decided it just wasn't my thing.
I overlooked that tonight for the sake of bringing back geek chic.
Some theater friends were hosting an evening of music, but not just some band I could see elsewhere. Good bands, even friends' bands, play there all the time and I don't go.
No, tonight they were presenting their first "Cover to Cover" concert featuring a live band doing every song in order off They Might Be Giants' seminal 1990 album, "Flood."
Needless to say, I had to be there.
Luckily, in addition to hordes of moderately drunk people, I also found a few friends in the crowd, including a lot of actors and musicians.
The handsome bass player, inexplicably wearing a red clown nose, found me first and we commiserated about the distasteful smell of a brewery, an odor that had him gagging the first time he'd come to Hardywood to play a show.
But I can't just talk to one person, and before long I ran into the jeweler, one of last night's drummers and a Jackson Ward neighbor.
The evening was hosted by Matt, the same Matt who hosts the Ghost Light Afterparty with aplomb and high heels.
After the band played the brief "Intro to Flood," Matt and Evan sang the classic "Birdhouse In Your Soul," only messing up a little.
After mad clapping, Matt observed, "You guys are far too forgiving." Copious amounts of beer will do that to you.
After a few minor adjustments to the sound system, Evan informed us, "We're gonna turn up the vocals higher in the mix so you can hear us better not knowing the words."
Meanwhile, the girl standing in front of me turned and said to me, "If my hair gets too big, just flip it out of your way."
Will do, honey.
Symphony violinist Treesa came onstage for "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" after having lost an hour of her life learning the part yesterday and promptly nailed it, making the song just about perfect.
It was during "Your Racist Friend" that Matt got jiggy with it, knocking into the pianist's music stand and light.
The Richmond symphony librarian, who happened to be in the crowd, vaulted onstage, adjusting the light for him like it was his job, which it wasn't.
Maggie did "Particle Man' complete with hand gestures just short of interpretive dance.
By then the crowd was pretty big and Evan said, "Sorry to those of you in the middle and back who can't hear us. Scooch closer and we'll all sweat to the oldies.
"We'll only bite if you want us to," Matt added, probably not kidding.
After "We Want a Rock," the Star Foster Dance Project showed up on two stages for several songs, including for "Minimum Wage," where a dancer named Egbert did a frenetic dance that perfectly mimicked the song's energy.
Katrinah and Maggie did a killer version of "Women and Men" with Matt singing back-up crouched on the floor at the women's feet. Appropriate, I thought.
Before "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love," Matt warned us, "Here comes a song we never practiced." In other words, it was just like being at the Ghost Light Afterparty.
After the final song, "Road Movie to Berlin," they had time to kill before the art raffle, so they did "Birdhouse in Your Soul" again, this time to a far more, um, lubricated crowd.
The theater crowd, grouped to the right of the stage, created a big dance party, getting everyone else dancing, too.
Of course, once they'd done that, how could they not bring Treesa back onstage for one last rousing rendition of "Istanbul"?
"Look at all the invisible panties being thrown up here on stage!" Matt yelled, in the finest GLAP tradition.
And speaking of those fine GLAP folks, Matt and Maggie, tonight was only the first in the"Cover to Cover" series designed to raise money for their new production company, Spin, Spit and Swear, an apt metaphor for anything they do.
Once the music was over, I said my farewells to the good people and headed back to J-Ward for dinner at Lucy's.
Walking in, I heard my name called and found a wine rep, a pizza mogul and their husbands eating dinner before journeying out to Short Pump to see Eddie Murphy's brother at a comedy club.
Asking where I'd been, I shared, only to see my friend's face fall.
"I love that album! How did I not hear about that?" she wailed. Knowing about the first time for anything new is always the hardest.
After they left, I settled in at the bar where the bartender asked if I wanted Espolon, but I needed something better suited to warming me up on a cold night.
Her memory was excellent, but no, I was hoping for a glass of Stefano Antonucci Rosse Piceno, a Sangiovese and Montepulciano blend from Santa Barbara, a place with fond memories for the abundance of wine tasting I'd done there on vacation a few years back.
Playing on the screen was Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat," a 1944 film I've never seen, but with no subtitles, couldn't really follow. I did question how Tallulah Bankhead was able to look so well-groomed stuck in a lifeboat for so long.
It was while I was eating a Cesar salad with white anchovies (perfectly dressed, too often not the case and I can't stand greens dripping in dressing) that I heard my name called again, this time by an actress I knew who had moved to Washington, D.C.
She's back to do a role in "The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity" at Firehouse Theater, promising flesh, fighting and a whole lot more inappropriate behavior if I come see it.
Sounds like a superb night of theater to me.
While eating some addictive spicy walnuts (cayenne, sugar, salt), I heard the table behind me talking about Black Iris Studio and the "suitcase exhibit," so I wasted no time in twirling around in my bar stool and telling them plenty about this terrific traveling music installation, which I've not only written about but done myself.
They asked me questions and thanked me profusely, despite my eavesdropping.
You guys are far too forgiving.
And while you're at it, keep the nightlight on inside the birdhouse in your soul.
It's not like I hadn't been to Hardywood before; I had and between the crowd of hat boy types and young parents, had decided it just wasn't my thing.
I overlooked that tonight for the sake of bringing back geek chic.
Some theater friends were hosting an evening of music, but not just some band I could see elsewhere. Good bands, even friends' bands, play there all the time and I don't go.
No, tonight they were presenting their first "Cover to Cover" concert featuring a live band doing every song in order off They Might Be Giants' seminal 1990 album, "Flood."
Needless to say, I had to be there.
Luckily, in addition to hordes of moderately drunk people, I also found a few friends in the crowd, including a lot of actors and musicians.
The handsome bass player, inexplicably wearing a red clown nose, found me first and we commiserated about the distasteful smell of a brewery, an odor that had him gagging the first time he'd come to Hardywood to play a show.
But I can't just talk to one person, and before long I ran into the jeweler, one of last night's drummers and a Jackson Ward neighbor.
The evening was hosted by Matt, the same Matt who hosts the Ghost Light Afterparty with aplomb and high heels.
After the band played the brief "Intro to Flood," Matt and Evan sang the classic "Birdhouse In Your Soul," only messing up a little.
After mad clapping, Matt observed, "You guys are far too forgiving." Copious amounts of beer will do that to you.
After a few minor adjustments to the sound system, Evan informed us, "We're gonna turn up the vocals higher in the mix so you can hear us better not knowing the words."
Meanwhile, the girl standing in front of me turned and said to me, "If my hair gets too big, just flip it out of your way."
Will do, honey.
Symphony violinist Treesa came onstage for "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" after having lost an hour of her life learning the part yesterday and promptly nailed it, making the song just about perfect.
It was during "Your Racist Friend" that Matt got jiggy with it, knocking into the pianist's music stand and light.
The Richmond symphony librarian, who happened to be in the crowd, vaulted onstage, adjusting the light for him like it was his job, which it wasn't.
Maggie did "Particle Man' complete with hand gestures just short of interpretive dance.
By then the crowd was pretty big and Evan said, "Sorry to those of you in the middle and back who can't hear us. Scooch closer and we'll all sweat to the oldies.
"We'll only bite if you want us to," Matt added, probably not kidding.
After "We Want a Rock," the Star Foster Dance Project showed up on two stages for several songs, including for "Minimum Wage," where a dancer named Egbert did a frenetic dance that perfectly mimicked the song's energy.
Katrinah and Maggie did a killer version of "Women and Men" with Matt singing back-up crouched on the floor at the women's feet. Appropriate, I thought.
Before "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love," Matt warned us, "Here comes a song we never practiced." In other words, it was just like being at the Ghost Light Afterparty.
After the final song, "Road Movie to Berlin," they had time to kill before the art raffle, so they did "Birdhouse in Your Soul" again, this time to a far more, um, lubricated crowd.
The theater crowd, grouped to the right of the stage, created a big dance party, getting everyone else dancing, too.
Of course, once they'd done that, how could they not bring Treesa back onstage for one last rousing rendition of "Istanbul"?
"Look at all the invisible panties being thrown up here on stage!" Matt yelled, in the finest GLAP tradition.
And speaking of those fine GLAP folks, Matt and Maggie, tonight was only the first in the"Cover to Cover" series designed to raise money for their new production company, Spin, Spit and Swear, an apt metaphor for anything they do.
Once the music was over, I said my farewells to the good people and headed back to J-Ward for dinner at Lucy's.
Walking in, I heard my name called and found a wine rep, a pizza mogul and their husbands eating dinner before journeying out to Short Pump to see Eddie Murphy's brother at a comedy club.
Asking where I'd been, I shared, only to see my friend's face fall.
"I love that album! How did I not hear about that?" she wailed. Knowing about the first time for anything new is always the hardest.
After they left, I settled in at the bar where the bartender asked if I wanted Espolon, but I needed something better suited to warming me up on a cold night.
Her memory was excellent, but no, I was hoping for a glass of Stefano Antonucci Rosse Piceno, a Sangiovese and Montepulciano blend from Santa Barbara, a place with fond memories for the abundance of wine tasting I'd done there on vacation a few years back.
Playing on the screen was Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat," a 1944 film I've never seen, but with no subtitles, couldn't really follow. I did question how Tallulah Bankhead was able to look so well-groomed stuck in a lifeboat for so long.
It was while I was eating a Cesar salad with white anchovies (perfectly dressed, too often not the case and I can't stand greens dripping in dressing) that I heard my name called again, this time by an actress I knew who had moved to Washington, D.C.
She's back to do a role in "The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity" at Firehouse Theater, promising flesh, fighting and a whole lot more inappropriate behavior if I come see it.
Sounds like a superb night of theater to me.
While eating some addictive spicy walnuts (cayenne, sugar, salt), I heard the table behind me talking about Black Iris Studio and the "suitcase exhibit," so I wasted no time in twirling around in my bar stool and telling them plenty about this terrific traveling music installation, which I've not only written about but done myself.
They asked me questions and thanked me profusely, despite my eavesdropping.
You guys are far too forgiving.
And while you're at it, keep the nightlight on inside the birdhouse in your soul.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
As We Stumble Along
My plans were to go to the Quaker meeting house for music. No, seriously.
But then a review and a play dropped in my lap and my evening took a southward turn.
My friend Moira shared the meal with me before returning to work for a photography assignment while I felt my way through the dark to Swift Creek Mill theater, a place I'd never been.
I'm directionally-challenged in broad daylight, so at night, I'm at a complete loss when looking for someplace new to me.
Let's just say I allowed 45 minutes to get someplace that was 20.5 miles away - and 17 of the miles were highway so I was going 60 miles per hour.
In my defense, I got stopped for a train (coming and going, now what are the chances of that?), had to stop and ask for directions twice (once at a 7-11 where a young guy who'd just bought a 40 ounce leered and asked if he could drive me there) and made it to the theater with five minutes before curtain.
After a quick trip to the bathroom, I joined a couple of guys on the elevator up to the theater, listening to them rave that the elevator was the highlight of the renovation.
Explaining that it was my first time there, one of the men extended his hand and introduced himself as the president of the Mill.
I found out during the introduction of the show that the theater's grand re-opening had been just last weekend.
"Make sure that while you're here tonight you pee," the director (I think) told us to great laughter. "You can actually turn around now. And the new elevator is an uplifting ride."
How about that? Brand new to SCM theater and I'd already managed to experience its strengths.
"Act like normal people tonight so the actors can find out where the laughs are so we'll be ready for the paying customers tomorrow night," he added.
All I could do was try.
With that, the dress rehearsal began with a dark stage and a voice intoning, "I hate theater."
The Man in the Chair talking was a key character who narrated the play, set in 1928, deconstructing its story and characters for us throughout the show.
First we were instructed to listen to the overture ("a musical appetizer, a pu pu platter of tunes") and then he explained a few things.
"The Drowsy Chaperone" was his favorite musical and he liked to play the two-record set when he was feeling a non-specific sadness.
So he begins playing the record and the story comes to life in his living room. It's everything a musical-hater hates about musicals. It also won a Tony award and played on Broadway for a year and a half.
The drowsy chaperon of the title was a hilarious character, a seasoned woman who liked to drink despite it being set during Prohibition and the one responsible for ensuring that the bride did not see the groom before the wedding.
When asked if it wasn't a bit early in the day to be drinking, she responds, "I don't understand the question." When asked if she'd ever been married, she says, "No, I drink for pleasure."
Her big showstopper of a number is a rousing anthem about alcoholism.
The groom and best man have a tap dancing scene where they are joined by the narrator, also tapping, and eventually the older butler, who does full on turns and almost steals the scene.
It's been a while since I've seen any tap dancing.
Even more impressive was the scene where the bride ("We spooned briefly, then he proposed") explains that she's willing to give up her show biz career to be married to the man of her dreams.
During the course of the song "Show Off," she sings, "I don't wanna change keys no more, I don't wanna striptease no more," while doing cartwheels, handstands and splits. Oh, yes, and Rockette kicks.
Truly impressive.
Evan Nasteff, as one of two gangsters disguised as pastry chefs, had some of the cleverest wordplay of the evening, not to mention their ability to flip trays of pastries mid-dance step. Then there was their masterful jazz hands as they danced in flowered aprons over plaid knickers.
The bride's Feldzieg Follies producer is determined to stop the wedding so he won't lose his star, so he begins plotting.
"I need someone with loose morals," he muses. "I need, what do you call it? A European!"
Enter Adolpho, played by the always brilliant Matt Shofner, this time in a black pompadour wig with a white streak, a mustache and as full of himself as any Latin lover.
His broad comedy and thick accent had the audience in stitches every time he was on stage.
During intermission, I took my second trip to those fabulous new bathrooms, where I heard several women say they'd seen the play before, including one who saw it on Broadway.
All of them agreed that the play was great entertainment and the notion of a "musical within a comedy" was awfully amusing.
When the show resumed, our narrator asked if we'd enjoyed intermission because he hadn't, didn't like the interruption of reality.
"Whenever a character is in crisis, they sing and dance. That's musical theater!" he said, cheered up that the second act was coming.
Like a good Shakespeare play, eventually all the romantic problems are sorted out and all of a sudden everyone is in love with someone and wanting to marry them.
One of the most hilarious moments comes when the chaperone announces that she and Adolpho are in love. Smiling and putting his hands over her ears, he mouths, "Help me!"
But he doesn't really want help and before long there are four marriages in the offing, with the hostess and her butler singing "Love is Always Lovely in the End," she citing lovers as examples and him reminding her they all ended badly.
"We'll all get married in a clump, like they do in Utah!" they decide.
The nuptials are done on a plane which also flies up (and kind of away), a nice effect, to symbolize happiness and honeymoons in Rio to come. And, musically, the end of non-specific sadness.
Just goes to show you where alcohol and spooning can lead.
But then a review and a play dropped in my lap and my evening took a southward turn.
My friend Moira shared the meal with me before returning to work for a photography assignment while I felt my way through the dark to Swift Creek Mill theater, a place I'd never been.
I'm directionally-challenged in broad daylight, so at night, I'm at a complete loss when looking for someplace new to me.
Let's just say I allowed 45 minutes to get someplace that was 20.5 miles away - and 17 of the miles were highway so I was going 60 miles per hour.
In my defense, I got stopped for a train (coming and going, now what are the chances of that?), had to stop and ask for directions twice (once at a 7-11 where a young guy who'd just bought a 40 ounce leered and asked if he could drive me there) and made it to the theater with five minutes before curtain.
After a quick trip to the bathroom, I joined a couple of guys on the elevator up to the theater, listening to them rave that the elevator was the highlight of the renovation.
Explaining that it was my first time there, one of the men extended his hand and introduced himself as the president of the Mill.
I found out during the introduction of the show that the theater's grand re-opening had been just last weekend.
"Make sure that while you're here tonight you pee," the director (I think) told us to great laughter. "You can actually turn around now. And the new elevator is an uplifting ride."
How about that? Brand new to SCM theater and I'd already managed to experience its strengths.
"Act like normal people tonight so the actors can find out where the laughs are so we'll be ready for the paying customers tomorrow night," he added.
All I could do was try.
With that, the dress rehearsal began with a dark stage and a voice intoning, "I hate theater."
The Man in the Chair talking was a key character who narrated the play, set in 1928, deconstructing its story and characters for us throughout the show.
First we were instructed to listen to the overture ("a musical appetizer, a pu pu platter of tunes") and then he explained a few things.
"The Drowsy Chaperone" was his favorite musical and he liked to play the two-record set when he was feeling a non-specific sadness.
So he begins playing the record and the story comes to life in his living room. It's everything a musical-hater hates about musicals. It also won a Tony award and played on Broadway for a year and a half.
The drowsy chaperon of the title was a hilarious character, a seasoned woman who liked to drink despite it being set during Prohibition and the one responsible for ensuring that the bride did not see the groom before the wedding.
When asked if it wasn't a bit early in the day to be drinking, she responds, "I don't understand the question." When asked if she'd ever been married, she says, "No, I drink for pleasure."
Her big showstopper of a number is a rousing anthem about alcoholism.
The groom and best man have a tap dancing scene where they are joined by the narrator, also tapping, and eventually the older butler, who does full on turns and almost steals the scene.
It's been a while since I've seen any tap dancing.
Even more impressive was the scene where the bride ("We spooned briefly, then he proposed") explains that she's willing to give up her show biz career to be married to the man of her dreams.
During the course of the song "Show Off," she sings, "I don't wanna change keys no more, I don't wanna striptease no more," while doing cartwheels, handstands and splits. Oh, yes, and Rockette kicks.
Truly impressive.
Evan Nasteff, as one of two gangsters disguised as pastry chefs, had some of the cleverest wordplay of the evening, not to mention their ability to flip trays of pastries mid-dance step. Then there was their masterful jazz hands as they danced in flowered aprons over plaid knickers.
The bride's Feldzieg Follies producer is determined to stop the wedding so he won't lose his star, so he begins plotting.
"I need someone with loose morals," he muses. "I need, what do you call it? A European!"
Enter Adolpho, played by the always brilliant Matt Shofner, this time in a black pompadour wig with a white streak, a mustache and as full of himself as any Latin lover.
His broad comedy and thick accent had the audience in stitches every time he was on stage.
During intermission, I took my second trip to those fabulous new bathrooms, where I heard several women say they'd seen the play before, including one who saw it on Broadway.
All of them agreed that the play was great entertainment and the notion of a "musical within a comedy" was awfully amusing.
When the show resumed, our narrator asked if we'd enjoyed intermission because he hadn't, didn't like the interruption of reality.
"Whenever a character is in crisis, they sing and dance. That's musical theater!" he said, cheered up that the second act was coming.
Like a good Shakespeare play, eventually all the romantic problems are sorted out and all of a sudden everyone is in love with someone and wanting to marry them.
One of the most hilarious moments comes when the chaperone announces that she and Adolpho are in love. Smiling and putting his hands over her ears, he mouths, "Help me!"
But he doesn't really want help and before long there are four marriages in the offing, with the hostess and her butler singing "Love is Always Lovely in the End," she citing lovers as examples and him reminding her they all ended badly.
"We'll all get married in a clump, like they do in Utah!" they decide.
The nuptials are done on a plane which also flies up (and kind of away), a nice effect, to symbolize happiness and honeymoons in Rio to come. And, musically, the end of non-specific sadness.
Just goes to show you where alcohol and spooning can lead.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Stirring Up the Lewdly-Inclined
With Bootleg Shakespeare, you gotta want it.
Meaning, you gotta be willing to eat a late lunch (3:45 at Garnett's, where I run into the guy who recently gave me a mix tape and thank him for his mix making) and stand in line for a good, long while.
Say, from 4:45 to 6:10 when Pru and I finally procure tickets and are free until the 7:30 curtain time.
Waiting for tickets, the head usher comes out in an ensemble that could stop traffic: leather lace-up pants, a vest, heels and a red, white and blue stars and stripes shirt he bought for his first concert back in the '70s. Naturally, I had to inquire what that show was and was told it was the Fifth Dimension at Franklin Street gym. He came *this* close to dancing with Marilyn McCoo, he said.
Whoa.
Another usher is dressed in silver lame pants with silver boots and lots of bling. It's a magnificently '70s ensemble. The man in line ahead of me eventually joins our conversation about the people butting in front of the line and later gives me a quizzical look and says, "You're the one who writes the blog, right?"
How the hell did you know that? "I figured it out," he claims. Yea, right.
Leaving the ticket line to kill time, we pass the waiting line, now well past Staples, and I hear someone call out to me, "Hey, beautiful!" As Pru and I discussed, those are words no woman ever tires of hearing.
Back inside, director James Ricks explains that the beauty of doing a play like "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" is that it's infrequently produced, thus there are no expectations. No ghosts of Richard Burton, as he explains it.
Just 17 actors, no rehearsals and absolute fun.
The bootleg production has a band and they begin the play by playing Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" with the entire cast dancing like Charlie Brown characters in the Christmas special.
Nick Aliff is immediately awesome as Antiochus, complete with Brando-like mumbled vowels and an incestuous relationship with his daughter, played by the lollipop-sucking, knee sock-wearing McLean Jesse. John Mincks' character is at once getting laughs as he continually loses a lens to his glasses.
Fittingly for bootleg, sailing ships are depicted with paper cut outs and sticks bobbing behind the backdrop. When Pericles lands on famine-starved Tarsus, he saves them with candy corn and bags of Cookout burgers.
Because of the lack of rehearsals and time to study lines, the evening is filled with actors calling, "Line!" as well as creative ways to bring dialog onstage: inside a breastplate, written on a palm, using a phone, reading off a "letter."
The French get skewered by Adam Mincks wearing a turtleneck, smoking a cigarette, saying "merdre!" and dancing like a '50s beatnik. Absolutely hysterical.
Led Zep is played between scenes, songs like "Black Dog," "Rock and Roll," and, for a moment, "Stairway to Heaven," before the cast revolts and shouts, "No 'Stairway to Heaven'!" Thaisa's suitors do a dance-off to determine who will win her hand while she (Grey Garrett) sips a juice box.
One of the most charming scenes involved baby Marina, held in the arms of the nurse and following Evan/Pericles side to side, watching him everywhere he moved.
During intermission, one lucky attendee won the raffle to play a pirate in the second act, hook, parrot and all.
Late in the play when John Mincks' character is trying to make a deal with McLean Jesse's, his shorts around his ankles, he repeatedly asked for his line until eventually letting prompter Kerrigan Sullivan read the entire passage. "All of that!" Mincks shouted with a flourish and walked off stage.
Yet again, the beauty of the bootleg.
He wasn't the only one feeling the fatigue of a long play and little rehearsal; eventually during Pericles' rough period, Evan said, "I am great with wine," when the line was really, "I am great with woe."
Wine, woe, potato, potah-to.
Because I'd never read or seen "Pericles" produced, it was a pleasure to watch the story unfold, never quite sure what might happen. Who knew there'd be so many presumed dead still alive? So much incest? So much attempted prostitution?
Few love to hear the sins they love to act.
I love to hear whatever the participants of bootleg Shakespeare want to act.
Line!
I am great with bawdy appreciation.
Meaning, you gotta be willing to eat a late lunch (3:45 at Garnett's, where I run into the guy who recently gave me a mix tape and thank him for his mix making) and stand in line for a good, long while.
Say, from 4:45 to 6:10 when Pru and I finally procure tickets and are free until the 7:30 curtain time.
Waiting for tickets, the head usher comes out in an ensemble that could stop traffic: leather lace-up pants, a vest, heels and a red, white and blue stars and stripes shirt he bought for his first concert back in the '70s. Naturally, I had to inquire what that show was and was told it was the Fifth Dimension at Franklin Street gym. He came *this* close to dancing with Marilyn McCoo, he said.
Whoa.
Another usher is dressed in silver lame pants with silver boots and lots of bling. It's a magnificently '70s ensemble. The man in line ahead of me eventually joins our conversation about the people butting in front of the line and later gives me a quizzical look and says, "You're the one who writes the blog, right?"
How the hell did you know that? "I figured it out," he claims. Yea, right.
Leaving the ticket line to kill time, we pass the waiting line, now well past Staples, and I hear someone call out to me, "Hey, beautiful!" As Pru and I discussed, those are words no woman ever tires of hearing.
Back inside, director James Ricks explains that the beauty of doing a play like "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" is that it's infrequently produced, thus there are no expectations. No ghosts of Richard Burton, as he explains it.
Just 17 actors, no rehearsals and absolute fun.
The bootleg production has a band and they begin the play by playing Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" with the entire cast dancing like Charlie Brown characters in the Christmas special.
Nick Aliff is immediately awesome as Antiochus, complete with Brando-like mumbled vowels and an incestuous relationship with his daughter, played by the lollipop-sucking, knee sock-wearing McLean Jesse. John Mincks' character is at once getting laughs as he continually loses a lens to his glasses.
Fittingly for bootleg, sailing ships are depicted with paper cut outs and sticks bobbing behind the backdrop. When Pericles lands on famine-starved Tarsus, he saves them with candy corn and bags of Cookout burgers.
Because of the lack of rehearsals and time to study lines, the evening is filled with actors calling, "Line!" as well as creative ways to bring dialog onstage: inside a breastplate, written on a palm, using a phone, reading off a "letter."
The French get skewered by Adam Mincks wearing a turtleneck, smoking a cigarette, saying "merdre!" and dancing like a '50s beatnik. Absolutely hysterical.
Led Zep is played between scenes, songs like "Black Dog," "Rock and Roll," and, for a moment, "Stairway to Heaven," before the cast revolts and shouts, "No 'Stairway to Heaven'!" Thaisa's suitors do a dance-off to determine who will win her hand while she (Grey Garrett) sips a juice box.
One of the most charming scenes involved baby Marina, held in the arms of the nurse and following Evan/Pericles side to side, watching him everywhere he moved.
During intermission, one lucky attendee won the raffle to play a pirate in the second act, hook, parrot and all.
Late in the play when John Mincks' character is trying to make a deal with McLean Jesse's, his shorts around his ankles, he repeatedly asked for his line until eventually letting prompter Kerrigan Sullivan read the entire passage. "All of that!" Mincks shouted with a flourish and walked off stage.
Yet again, the beauty of the bootleg.
He wasn't the only one feeling the fatigue of a long play and little rehearsal; eventually during Pericles' rough period, Evan said, "I am great with wine," when the line was really, "I am great with woe."
Wine, woe, potato, potah-to.
Because I'd never read or seen "Pericles" produced, it was a pleasure to watch the story unfold, never quite sure what might happen. Who knew there'd be so many presumed dead still alive? So much incest? So much attempted prostitution?
Few love to hear the sins they love to act.
I love to hear whatever the participants of bootleg Shakespeare want to act.
Line!
I am great with bawdy appreciation.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
15 Minutes of Fame
I'm feeling really lucky about all the art history-themed theater in town lately.
First there was "Red" about Mark Rothko and now there's "Pop" about Andy Warhol, being produced only for the fourth time, playing at Firehouse.
My only disappointment with the performance was not taking a front-row seat when it was offered because the play began with Warhol taking a Polaroid of the woman sitting in front of me, in the seat I turned down.
Curses!
Once I got over my error in judgement, I was dazzled by the circa 1968 costumes of Edie Sedgwick and Viva, two of Warhol's hangers-on and film subjects.
Much as I loved Viva's glammy, bell-bottomed jumpsuit, if it were 1968, I'd have to go with Edie's leopard mini to better show off the legs.
The play was narrated by the lovely (and formerly male) Candy Darling, star of many Warhol films, who won audience hearts with lines like, "It was a dark and stormy night and we were all at Andy's factory. It was the place to be when we had no one better to do."
Andy kept Viva around because of her intelligence, a fact she came to resent. "When you talk smart during all the sex, it's not dirty, it's art."
And there you have the basis of any Warhol film.
One of the most hysterical scenes, at least to this art history geek, was when a trio of abstract expressionists, Pollak, Kline and Motherwell, showed up as suspects in the shooting.
Warhol brilliantly puts them in their place, infuriating them by saying, "I'm such a fan of your work. It looks so easy and fun!"
I don't know if non-artsy types see how hilarious that is, but I laughed long and hard.
During intermission, the bar was serving mimosas ('cause it's Sunday!) and the play's signature drink, the Factory Fizz, which director Jase Smith had promised us before the show would make the second act even more fun.
Even sans drink, I had lots of fun during the second act, especially when Mrs. Warhol sang a eulogy for her "dead" son while he watched unhappily from the casket.
The showstopper was "Big Gun" about Valerie Solanas' anger at Warhol for losing her script of "Up Your Ass," the play she'd been hoping he would produce for her.
With Viva and Edie in opera-length white gloves singing back-up, Audra Honaker as Valerie nailed it as the angry feminist who'd written the SCUM Manifesto (Society for Cutting Up Men) and had a slight problem with all men.
Audra was the standout (even her dancing impressed), but the entire cast was strong, with Warhol's assistants (also playing hapless NYPD cops), Gerard and Ondine, especially strong on physical comedy, drug humor and dancing over people and couches.
And how can you not love a musical with a song called, "Untitled Brawl No. 1"?
Today's matinee was a pay-what-you-will performance and after a highly entertaining afternoon of art history with terrific singing and dancing, I'm not sure I paid nearly enough.
But then, I'm not sure I can afford to pay what it was worth.
First there was "Red" about Mark Rothko and now there's "Pop" about Andy Warhol, being produced only for the fourth time, playing at Firehouse.
My only disappointment with the performance was not taking a front-row seat when it was offered because the play began with Warhol taking a Polaroid of the woman sitting in front of me, in the seat I turned down.
Curses!
Once I got over my error in judgement, I was dazzled by the circa 1968 costumes of Edie Sedgwick and Viva, two of Warhol's hangers-on and film subjects.
Much as I loved Viva's glammy, bell-bottomed jumpsuit, if it were 1968, I'd have to go with Edie's leopard mini to better show off the legs.
The play was narrated by the lovely (and formerly male) Candy Darling, star of many Warhol films, who won audience hearts with lines like, "It was a dark and stormy night and we were all at Andy's factory. It was the place to be when we had no one better to do."
Andy kept Viva around because of her intelligence, a fact she came to resent. "When you talk smart during all the sex, it's not dirty, it's art."
And there you have the basis of any Warhol film.
One of the most hysterical scenes, at least to this art history geek, was when a trio of abstract expressionists, Pollak, Kline and Motherwell, showed up as suspects in the shooting.
Warhol brilliantly puts them in their place, infuriating them by saying, "I'm such a fan of your work. It looks so easy and fun!"
I don't know if non-artsy types see how hilarious that is, but I laughed long and hard.
During intermission, the bar was serving mimosas ('cause it's Sunday!) and the play's signature drink, the Factory Fizz, which director Jase Smith had promised us before the show would make the second act even more fun.
Even sans drink, I had lots of fun during the second act, especially when Mrs. Warhol sang a eulogy for her "dead" son while he watched unhappily from the casket.
The showstopper was "Big Gun" about Valerie Solanas' anger at Warhol for losing her script of "Up Your Ass," the play she'd been hoping he would produce for her.
With Viva and Edie in opera-length white gloves singing back-up, Audra Honaker as Valerie nailed it as the angry feminist who'd written the SCUM Manifesto (Society for Cutting Up Men) and had a slight problem with all men.
Audra was the standout (even her dancing impressed), but the entire cast was strong, with Warhol's assistants (also playing hapless NYPD cops), Gerard and Ondine, especially strong on physical comedy, drug humor and dancing over people and couches.
And how can you not love a musical with a song called, "Untitled Brawl No. 1"?
Today's matinee was a pay-what-you-will performance and after a highly entertaining afternoon of art history with terrific singing and dancing, I'm not sure I paid nearly enough.
But then, I'm not sure I can afford to pay what it was worth.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
A Glass Case of Emotion
It's a slow road catching up on my cultural touchstones.
9:55 Comedy is doing their part to help me with their tongue-in-cheek staged readings of movies that everyone but me can quote.
Last time it was "Clerks" and tonight it was "Anchorman," set in that long ago time before cable when people believed everything they saw on TV.
Actually, I wasn't watching any more TV back then than I do now, so I never believed anything anyway.
Knowing the drill, I rounded up some "Anchorman" lovers (they're surprisingly easy to find) and made it to Bottoms Up in time to get the front table facing the "stage" area.
As people trickled in, we did some major damage on a spinach salad and a Karen Combo (ordered as much for its ricotta, sausage, spinach and onions as its name), adjusting it from a red to a white pizza.
While we ate '70s music played and I was told by those far more knowledgeable that a lot of it was from the movie.
After a brief delay to allow those stuck on a snarled I-95 to arrive, the splendor that is "Anchorman" began with the multi-talented Evan Nasteff as Ron Burgundy.
Evan's got a knack for playing smarmy and the role gave him carte blanche to do so, which was hilarious.
WCVE's theater critic John Porter had narrator duties, frequently cracking up at the shenanigans onstage (and cheering on the actor who played a public TV reporter).
From the get-go the entire cast was laugh-out-loud funny, as much to the people who'd seen it dozens of times as to an "Anchorman" virgin like me.
The guy playing Ron's dog Baxter gets a special nod just for his standout performance as a bi-lingual dog, not to mention his cute fur hat.
Not missing an opportunity to bring the script home, several lines about reporter Brian's Sex Panther cologne (it's illegal in nine countries, you know) had been Richmond-ified.
It smells like Shockoe Bottom after 2 a.m.
It smells like the Mars bar bathroom!
During what was apparently a seminal scene where Ron tries to impress Veronica by playing jazz flute, Evan grabbed a three-hole punch and played it throughout the room.
Hey, Aqualung!
Ridiculous as it looked for him to be blowing into a hole punch, it was the never-ending trail of little white paper holes coming out of it that kept the crowd in stitches.
There was also a crazy funny group singalong to "Afternoon Delight," complete with harmonizing, a thumb war between the two lovers and a reference to a Fotomat, which couldn't have meant much to most of the audience but was the site of my first job.
No, seriously, I was a Fotomate. But I digress.
During the big fight scene between Channel 4 news and Channel 9, the actors left the stage and instead we got a video screen showing an epic battle between warriors, complete with cheetahs, cliffs and shields.
Even the environs played into the story when required, like when a train went clanging by making screeching noises just after Ron Burgundy told the TV audience off and an angry mob gathered at the station to heckle him.
So once again, I have upped my cultural literacy thanks to a bunch of actors and comedians who barely had to look at their scripts because they knew every line so well.
Milk was a bad choice.
Got it. "Anchorman" was kind of a big deal.
9:55 Comedy is doing their part to help me with their tongue-in-cheek staged readings of movies that everyone but me can quote.
Last time it was "Clerks" and tonight it was "Anchorman," set in that long ago time before cable when people believed everything they saw on TV.
Actually, I wasn't watching any more TV back then than I do now, so I never believed anything anyway.
Knowing the drill, I rounded up some "Anchorman" lovers (they're surprisingly easy to find) and made it to Bottoms Up in time to get the front table facing the "stage" area.
As people trickled in, we did some major damage on a spinach salad and a Karen Combo (ordered as much for its ricotta, sausage, spinach and onions as its name), adjusting it from a red to a white pizza.
While we ate '70s music played and I was told by those far more knowledgeable that a lot of it was from the movie.
After a brief delay to allow those stuck on a snarled I-95 to arrive, the splendor that is "Anchorman" began with the multi-talented Evan Nasteff as Ron Burgundy.
Evan's got a knack for playing smarmy and the role gave him carte blanche to do so, which was hilarious.
WCVE's theater critic John Porter had narrator duties, frequently cracking up at the shenanigans onstage (and cheering on the actor who played a public TV reporter).
From the get-go the entire cast was laugh-out-loud funny, as much to the people who'd seen it dozens of times as to an "Anchorman" virgin like me.
The guy playing Ron's dog Baxter gets a special nod just for his standout performance as a bi-lingual dog, not to mention his cute fur hat.
Not missing an opportunity to bring the script home, several lines about reporter Brian's Sex Panther cologne (it's illegal in nine countries, you know) had been Richmond-ified.
It smells like Shockoe Bottom after 2 a.m.
It smells like the Mars bar bathroom!
During what was apparently a seminal scene where Ron tries to impress Veronica by playing jazz flute, Evan grabbed a three-hole punch and played it throughout the room.
Hey, Aqualung!
Ridiculous as it looked for him to be blowing into a hole punch, it was the never-ending trail of little white paper holes coming out of it that kept the crowd in stitches.
There was also a crazy funny group singalong to "Afternoon Delight," complete with harmonizing, a thumb war between the two lovers and a reference to a Fotomat, which couldn't have meant much to most of the audience but was the site of my first job.
No, seriously, I was a Fotomate. But I digress.
During the big fight scene between Channel 4 news and Channel 9, the actors left the stage and instead we got a video screen showing an epic battle between warriors, complete with cheetahs, cliffs and shields.
Even the environs played into the story when required, like when a train went clanging by making screeching noises just after Ron Burgundy told the TV audience off and an angry mob gathered at the station to heckle him.
So once again, I have upped my cultural literacy thanks to a bunch of actors and comedians who barely had to look at their scripts because they knew every line so well.
Milk was a bad choice.
Got it. "Anchorman" was kind of a big deal.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Buy Less, See More, Eat Anything
All I'm shooting for is to be a better person. That's all.
But I'm a lousy consumer, I've got no faith and I say yes to blood.
So, yea, it was just another Friday night.
First up was the opening of Brian Ulrich's shows, "Copia" and "Closeout" at the mobbed Anderson Gallery.
(sniff) Wasn't it just a few weeks ago when we were all reveling in unlimited parking and the absence of students when, wham, bam, thank you ma'am, they're back and looking earnest and trying to understand photographs from the mid-20th century?
The show was a fascinating look at our culture of consumerism, from surreptitious photos taken in big box stores to posed thrift stores shots to vintage photographs of people during the Great Prosperity.
While the photographs taken since 9/11 had an uneasy familiarity, not to mention over-saturated colors, the pre-1970 black and white photos had a dense sense of texture and tone that gave them a rich look no longer attainable with a digital camera.
And while the show raises all sorts of questions about how we buy and why, I can rest assured that my infrequent trips to the thrift store have little in common with the desire to own more of the latest and greatest.
From the VCU campus, it was but a short trip to exchange the artsy student crowd for the rabid theater crowd for the Acts of Faith Festival preview.
Walking into the November Theater, a concession stand host called out that the orchestra seating was full, so to head upstairs to the balcony.
Once comfortably ensconced in the front row of said balcony, a look down confirmed that there were still plenty of available seats downstairs.
The couple who sat down next to me mentioned the same thing.
Then he said, "I'm not sure I've been here since I saw John McCutcheon here 25 years ago."
Well, my dear sir, then you aren't getting out enough.
The Reverend Alex Evans began the evening by welcoming us to the 9th year of the Acts of Faith Festival and then doing a roll call of all the church groups represented tonight.
Each one clapped and hooted to show their presence, but since he didn't call out a category for "heathen," i had no opportunity to clap or hoot.
Let's not leave out the faithless, Reverend.
We have lack of faith and surely that's part of the festival, too.
From there, we were off and running with a preview of the 18 plays that will comprise the festival.
Some had casts to do a scene (Henley Street's "Faith Healer"), some had films or stills because the show was already in production tonight (Virginia Rep's Children Theater's "Magic Flute) and some had key people talking about the play-to-come concerning bright young things (Noel Coward's "Hay Fever").
A couple had full musical numbers (Hanover Tavern and "Breast in Show"), one taught us an Arabic greeting (For Our Children Productions), and one began with the reliably amusing Evan Nasteff dressed circa 1984 as an announcer (Cadence's "Sons of the Prophet").
Not surprisingly, the announcement and arrival of Carol Piersol (formerly of the beleaguered Firehouse Theater Company) got a standing ovation from the theater-savvy in the room.
The little company that could (TheaterLab) did a rousing scene from "Riding the Bull," with two Ghostlight Afterparty regulars, Deejay Gray and Maggie Boop.
Richmond Shakespeare performed an act of faith when they had an actor do a monologue from "The Tempest" when rehearsals don't even start until next week.
It was a pleasant surprise to learn that Friends of Dogwood Dell are now doing a winter season and the talented Todd Schall-Vass was part of the cast for "ECCE."
Richmond Triangle Players had one of the best lines ("The 1970s have a great deal to answer for") and the always-hilarious Chris Hester as a manchild in porcupine-land.
All in all, it was a satisfying look at the plays that will provide the community talkbacks about all kinds of issues of faith for the next couple of months.
As someone pointed out, national theater performance groups are looking at our model of how the faith and theater communities can work together annually to engage the community in meaningful conversation about important issues.
So, yea, we're pretty cool. Even the heathen part of the audience, I might add.
But here's the dilemma.
Say we've evolved to where Richmond has a vibrant scene, where on any given Friday night, a person can go to a compelling art opening followed by a theater preview and when she walks out at 10:15, she's yet to have dinner.
Where in this happening city can a person go have something more than bar food, something as interesting as the art and theater she's seen tonight?
This person decided on Belmont Food Shop, knowing that they have a late night cook's menu that offers no choices and impressive offerings.
I slid in next to a couple discussing music with a musician next to them and was immediately at home.
The wine list yielded up Negroamaro Corte Salice Salentino Riserva, which the barkeep promised would deliver "black and bitter," as fitting a match for whatever was going to come out on the cook's plate as I could hope for.
Meanwhile, the pleasantly chatty couple ("You look familiar," she said, leaning in. "Are you a singer?" Ha! It is to laugh) next to me were sharing desserts and ordering after-dinner drinks and coffee.
The bartender made up a drink to accompany her French silk pie and after one taste of the amaretto/elderflower/bubbly concoction, she noted, "Well, that'll make me a better person."
What more could a person ask of a drink?
My cook's plate arrived and it was magnificent: chicken leg confit with frisee, radishes with butter, sliced lamb heart with pickled okra and pickled onion and blood sausage cake with a fried quail egg atop it. Oh, yes, and wedges of bread.
There may be people who would turn up their nose at this array of offbeat and offal, but I was thrilled and dove in like I hadn't eaten since afternoon (I hadn't).
I think it's brilliant for Belmont to offer a safe menu for evening dining and to pull out the interesting stuff for late night adventurous types.
Hell, I don't even care what's on the plate because the kitchen is so adept at deciding what to offer.
My bar companions asked me where I liked to go for music, acting like they'd hit the jackpot when I began over-sharing my favorite haunts and why.
More black and bitter followed to accompany a chocolate truffle and some candied orange peel, the latest sweet offerings from a kitchen that always seems to be trying something new.
Sitting there finishing my Italian wine, listening to music from the '20s, with the bartender singing along to "Ain't Misbehaving," the server and I got in a discussion of the pleasures of green Chartreuse.
I told her of an impossibly hot, humid summer night on nearby Floyd Avenue with a a handful of overheated friends and a bottle of Chartreuse that was still memorable fifteen years later.
"Wow, yea, I'll have to try that," she said, clearly intrigued by my story of misbehaving, no ain't about it.
It should make her a better person. Or, at the very least, a heathen.
But I'm a lousy consumer, I've got no faith and I say yes to blood.
So, yea, it was just another Friday night.
First up was the opening of Brian Ulrich's shows, "Copia" and "Closeout" at the mobbed Anderson Gallery.
(sniff) Wasn't it just a few weeks ago when we were all reveling in unlimited parking and the absence of students when, wham, bam, thank you ma'am, they're back and looking earnest and trying to understand photographs from the mid-20th century?
The show was a fascinating look at our culture of consumerism, from surreptitious photos taken in big box stores to posed thrift stores shots to vintage photographs of people during the Great Prosperity.
While the photographs taken since 9/11 had an uneasy familiarity, not to mention over-saturated colors, the pre-1970 black and white photos had a dense sense of texture and tone that gave them a rich look no longer attainable with a digital camera.
And while the show raises all sorts of questions about how we buy and why, I can rest assured that my infrequent trips to the thrift store have little in common with the desire to own more of the latest and greatest.
From the VCU campus, it was but a short trip to exchange the artsy student crowd for the rabid theater crowd for the Acts of Faith Festival preview.
Walking into the November Theater, a concession stand host called out that the orchestra seating was full, so to head upstairs to the balcony.
Once comfortably ensconced in the front row of said balcony, a look down confirmed that there were still plenty of available seats downstairs.
The couple who sat down next to me mentioned the same thing.
Then he said, "I'm not sure I've been here since I saw John McCutcheon here 25 years ago."
Well, my dear sir, then you aren't getting out enough.
The Reverend Alex Evans began the evening by welcoming us to the 9th year of the Acts of Faith Festival and then doing a roll call of all the church groups represented tonight.
Each one clapped and hooted to show their presence, but since he didn't call out a category for "heathen," i had no opportunity to clap or hoot.
Let's not leave out the faithless, Reverend.
We have lack of faith and surely that's part of the festival, too.
From there, we were off and running with a preview of the 18 plays that will comprise the festival.
Some had casts to do a scene (Henley Street's "Faith Healer"), some had films or stills because the show was already in production tonight (Virginia Rep's Children Theater's "Magic Flute) and some had key people talking about the play-to-come concerning bright young things (Noel Coward's "Hay Fever").
A couple had full musical numbers (Hanover Tavern and "Breast in Show"), one taught us an Arabic greeting (For Our Children Productions), and one began with the reliably amusing Evan Nasteff dressed circa 1984 as an announcer (Cadence's "Sons of the Prophet").
Not surprisingly, the announcement and arrival of Carol Piersol (formerly of the beleaguered Firehouse Theater Company) got a standing ovation from the theater-savvy in the room.
The little company that could (TheaterLab) did a rousing scene from "Riding the Bull," with two Ghostlight Afterparty regulars, Deejay Gray and Maggie Boop.
Richmond Shakespeare performed an act of faith when they had an actor do a monologue from "The Tempest" when rehearsals don't even start until next week.
It was a pleasant surprise to learn that Friends of Dogwood Dell are now doing a winter season and the talented Todd Schall-Vass was part of the cast for "ECCE."
Richmond Triangle Players had one of the best lines ("The 1970s have a great deal to answer for") and the always-hilarious Chris Hester as a manchild in porcupine-land.
All in all, it was a satisfying look at the plays that will provide the community talkbacks about all kinds of issues of faith for the next couple of months.
As someone pointed out, national theater performance groups are looking at our model of how the faith and theater communities can work together annually to engage the community in meaningful conversation about important issues.
So, yea, we're pretty cool. Even the heathen part of the audience, I might add.
But here's the dilemma.
Say we've evolved to where Richmond has a vibrant scene, where on any given Friday night, a person can go to a compelling art opening followed by a theater preview and when she walks out at 10:15, she's yet to have dinner.
Where in this happening city can a person go have something more than bar food, something as interesting as the art and theater she's seen tonight?
This person decided on Belmont Food Shop, knowing that they have a late night cook's menu that offers no choices and impressive offerings.
I slid in next to a couple discussing music with a musician next to them and was immediately at home.
The wine list yielded up Negroamaro Corte Salice Salentino Riserva, which the barkeep promised would deliver "black and bitter," as fitting a match for whatever was going to come out on the cook's plate as I could hope for.
Meanwhile, the pleasantly chatty couple ("You look familiar," she said, leaning in. "Are you a singer?" Ha! It is to laugh) next to me were sharing desserts and ordering after-dinner drinks and coffee.
The bartender made up a drink to accompany her French silk pie and after one taste of the amaretto/elderflower/bubbly concoction, she noted, "Well, that'll make me a better person."
What more could a person ask of a drink?
My cook's plate arrived and it was magnificent: chicken leg confit with frisee, radishes with butter, sliced lamb heart with pickled okra and pickled onion and blood sausage cake with a fried quail egg atop it. Oh, yes, and wedges of bread.
There may be people who would turn up their nose at this array of offbeat and offal, but I was thrilled and dove in like I hadn't eaten since afternoon (I hadn't).
I think it's brilliant for Belmont to offer a safe menu for evening dining and to pull out the interesting stuff for late night adventurous types.
Hell, I don't even care what's on the plate because the kitchen is so adept at deciding what to offer.
My bar companions asked me where I liked to go for music, acting like they'd hit the jackpot when I began over-sharing my favorite haunts and why.
More black and bitter followed to accompany a chocolate truffle and some candied orange peel, the latest sweet offerings from a kitchen that always seems to be trying something new.
Sitting there finishing my Italian wine, listening to music from the '20s, with the bartender singing along to "Ain't Misbehaving," the server and I got in a discussion of the pleasures of green Chartreuse.
I told her of an impossibly hot, humid summer night on nearby Floyd Avenue with a a handful of overheated friends and a bottle of Chartreuse that was still memorable fifteen years later.
"Wow, yea, I'll have to try that," she said, clearly intrigued by my story of misbehaving, no ain't about it.
It should make her a better person. Or, at the very least, a heathen.
Monday, October 29, 2012
A Freckle on the Nose of Life's Complexion
For those not afraid of going out tonight, the message was clear.
Come in out of the mist and sing show tunes, the wind seemed to whistle.
Of course the only wind that would whistle such a thing is the one coming from Richmond Triangle Players for the Ghost Light Afterparty.
No surprise, it was a costumed event.
And while I'm not particularly the costume type, I made an exception and costumed my leg.
Others were far more creative.
Along with green hair and appalling make-up, host Matt Shofner wore a black leather mini-dress studded with squares of glass, claiming that they were from the mirror ball at Stonewall's in New York.
"I got it for my Lady Gaga show in New York," he explained as if there could be no other reason for having such a dress, but after a few drinks referred to himself as "a lipstick lesbian vampire something."
He was something alright, but his wasn't the only standout.
No, at this party were the unlikeliest of guests: Anne Frank and Hitler, two gods of wine, Carmen Miranda, Twiggy.
Starting the show, he pooh-poohed the impending hurricane, saying, "Allow me to introduce you to the real Sandy, our Hurricane Sandy," meaning the very talented accompanist Sandy, tonight wearing a fetching witch hat.
Matt referred to the impending weather event as "The Mist" as he moved around the stage, made spooky with candles, skulls, decapitated dolls and sculpture offering up human sacrifice.
Yep, just another night at the GLAP.
And by the second song, co-host Maggie Roop was doing interpretive dance, so it was another good night at the GLAP.
Things got rolling in the holiday spirit with the "Adams Family Theme" done with much audience singalong and finger snapping.
But the tone of the evening was defined by a Lady Gaga song that immediately had almost everyone singing and before long dancing.
The Scream Queens (currently performing at Pine Camp Cultural Center) sang a song before taking audience volunteers for a screaming contest, which went to a scream-off before a winner was chosen.
It's not often you get to hear people do their full-on bloodcurdling scream five feet in front of your face.
After another song, they screened their reel, "Full Moon Slumber Party" and you can probably guess that it didn't end well.
But it was the first time I'd seen film at the GLAP.
Matt sang "Sugar Daddy" while passing the hat for tips for Sandy, acknowledging afterwards, "Okay, we've done more tragic things than that at GLAP."
The man speaks the truth.
Annie got up to sing "I Can Do Better Than That" and her fine performance had the benefit of two pianists as Ben joined Sandy to "noodle around" on the high end.
Noodling is all but guaranteed at GLAP.
When Louise got up to perform in her Civil War-reproduction dress (it looked like something Scarlett O'Hara had worn, although she said it had been her grandmother's), Maggie announced that, "Louise is going to grace our stage with a monologue."
To be more precise, she graced the stage with a story about the maggots that had climbed up her father's dog's butt and how her Dad meticulously stuck his fingers up the dog's butt to retrieve them all.
"And the dog lived longer than my Dad. Now that's love."
Our second monologue (maybe the Mist had people wanting to wax poetic?) came courtesy of Bill, who said he would do an impression of a one-armed blind man counting change.
Let's just say the wordless punchline involved him unzipping his pants so something other than his fingers could feel the money.
Some people felt it was the highlight of the evening.
Maury replicated the first song he'd sung in a 3rd grade production of "H.M.S. Pinafore" a capella.
It was "Buttercup" and he had to shout down some friends, yelling, "Shut up!" to allow him to put his game face on.
Around the time the pizza arrived, the costume contest began.
The six finalists were Jessica Rabbit (who won Best Butt), Hitler and Anne Frank (Most Offensive), Carmen Miranda (Best Work with a Banana, hilarious because judge Deejay chastely kissed her in congratulations and she bent him over like a twig and sucked half his face off), the Black Swan ballerina (Scariest), the hipster Ariel (wearing a sign that said, "I got legs so I could wear skinny jeans") and the he and she Bacchuses (the female noted, "I made my costume out of my kitchen centerpiece") who won for Best Overall Costume.
How could I compete when I'd only costumed one leg?
I always enjoy evening-appropriate lyrics, as when Katie sang "Don't Rain on My Parade," changing the words to, "Hey, Mr, Shofner, here I am!"
Nicky Arnstein would understand.
Elizabeth did a song from "Peter Pan" while dancers danced, tambourines were shaken and pom-poms fell off shoes.
Suddenly Matt was back on stage, only now he was framed between panels and wearing a black bra and tan pants.
It was a different look, I'll give him that.
As he approached center stage, accompanist Sandy casually raised her shirt and flashed him her black bra.
I'd have done the same and shown off mine except the lights weren't on me.
There's always a Mad Lib or two at GLAP and when it came time to hear the filthy lyrics, Matt demanded some help, saying, "I need someone with some goodass rhythm."
The Mad Lib had been set to a song Matt considers incredibly creepy ("Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega) and the audience helped out immeasurably on the do-do--do-do-do-do-do dos.
After wards, someone yelled, "I love how Romney was a dirty word twice!"
Lady Gaga took over again when Micheal (in a black bustier, fishnets and blond wig) sang "Bad Romance" and the dancing began for real.
When Maggie introduced Nick, who just last night had been Horatio in "Hamlet," she said that, "He gets the award for looking the most riff-raffish."
He got everyone's attention with Lennon's "Watching the Wheels" or maybe it was his fake full sleeves of ink.
Just when I thought the night couldn't get any better, Evan (wearing a sign that said "Gangsta Parking Only") got onstage and said he was dedicating his song to me because he'd promised and never done it when I was there.
That's when I knew it was Britney time.
Despite urban legend that this was how the GLAPs used to end, with Evan doing Brit, I'd yet to see it.
Tonight, the Mist opened up and Evan did "Hit Me Baby One More Time" as the audience relived their childhoods singing and dancing along.
It was the GLAP climax I had been yearning for.
I almost wanted a cigarette when it was over.
Afterwards, Evan told me that he'd intended to wear a Catholic girl's school uniform, a la Britney, but hadn't had time to pull it together.
As far as I was concerned, the song had been plenty.
As thanks, I offered up my costumed leg, knowing he'd get it immediately.
I needed him to give me a sign.
"Malvolio!" he exclaimed. "Cross garter yellow stockings!"
Honestly, I don't know what was more satisfying, finally hearing the ultimate GLAP closer or having my costume instantly recognized.
If I'm going to dress up my leg for Halloween, there's only one place I can go and know that people will get it.
The Mist. GLAP. Halloween.
Better than a bad romance and with way more rhythm.
You just have to get past the maggots.
Come in out of the mist and sing show tunes, the wind seemed to whistle.
Of course the only wind that would whistle such a thing is the one coming from Richmond Triangle Players for the Ghost Light Afterparty.
No surprise, it was a costumed event.
And while I'm not particularly the costume type, I made an exception and costumed my leg.
Others were far more creative.
Along with green hair and appalling make-up, host Matt Shofner wore a black leather mini-dress studded with squares of glass, claiming that they were from the mirror ball at Stonewall's in New York.
"I got it for my Lady Gaga show in New York," he explained as if there could be no other reason for having such a dress, but after a few drinks referred to himself as "a lipstick lesbian vampire something."
He was something alright, but his wasn't the only standout.
No, at this party were the unlikeliest of guests: Anne Frank and Hitler, two gods of wine, Carmen Miranda, Twiggy.
Starting the show, he pooh-poohed the impending hurricane, saying, "Allow me to introduce you to the real Sandy, our Hurricane Sandy," meaning the very talented accompanist Sandy, tonight wearing a fetching witch hat.
Matt referred to the impending weather event as "The Mist" as he moved around the stage, made spooky with candles, skulls, decapitated dolls and sculpture offering up human sacrifice.
Yep, just another night at the GLAP.
And by the second song, co-host Maggie Roop was doing interpretive dance, so it was another good night at the GLAP.
Things got rolling in the holiday spirit with the "Adams Family Theme" done with much audience singalong and finger snapping.
But the tone of the evening was defined by a Lady Gaga song that immediately had almost everyone singing and before long dancing.
The Scream Queens (currently performing at Pine Camp Cultural Center) sang a song before taking audience volunteers for a screaming contest, which went to a scream-off before a winner was chosen.
It's not often you get to hear people do their full-on bloodcurdling scream five feet in front of your face.
After another song, they screened their reel, "Full Moon Slumber Party" and you can probably guess that it didn't end well.
But it was the first time I'd seen film at the GLAP.
Matt sang "Sugar Daddy" while passing the hat for tips for Sandy, acknowledging afterwards, "Okay, we've done more tragic things than that at GLAP."
The man speaks the truth.
Annie got up to sing "I Can Do Better Than That" and her fine performance had the benefit of two pianists as Ben joined Sandy to "noodle around" on the high end.
Noodling is all but guaranteed at GLAP.
When Louise got up to perform in her Civil War-reproduction dress (it looked like something Scarlett O'Hara had worn, although she said it had been her grandmother's), Maggie announced that, "Louise is going to grace our stage with a monologue."
To be more precise, she graced the stage with a story about the maggots that had climbed up her father's dog's butt and how her Dad meticulously stuck his fingers up the dog's butt to retrieve them all.
"And the dog lived longer than my Dad. Now that's love."
Our second monologue (maybe the Mist had people wanting to wax poetic?) came courtesy of Bill, who said he would do an impression of a one-armed blind man counting change.
Let's just say the wordless punchline involved him unzipping his pants so something other than his fingers could feel the money.
Some people felt it was the highlight of the evening.
Maury replicated the first song he'd sung in a 3rd grade production of "H.M.S. Pinafore" a capella.
It was "Buttercup" and he had to shout down some friends, yelling, "Shut up!" to allow him to put his game face on.
Around the time the pizza arrived, the costume contest began.
The six finalists were Jessica Rabbit (who won Best Butt), Hitler and Anne Frank (Most Offensive), Carmen Miranda (Best Work with a Banana, hilarious because judge Deejay chastely kissed her in congratulations and she bent him over like a twig and sucked half his face off), the Black Swan ballerina (Scariest), the hipster Ariel (wearing a sign that said, "I got legs so I could wear skinny jeans") and the he and she Bacchuses (the female noted, "I made my costume out of my kitchen centerpiece") who won for Best Overall Costume.
How could I compete when I'd only costumed one leg?
I always enjoy evening-appropriate lyrics, as when Katie sang "Don't Rain on My Parade," changing the words to, "Hey, Mr, Shofner, here I am!"
Nicky Arnstein would understand.
Elizabeth did a song from "Peter Pan" while dancers danced, tambourines were shaken and pom-poms fell off shoes.
Suddenly Matt was back on stage, only now he was framed between panels and wearing a black bra and tan pants.
It was a different look, I'll give him that.
As he approached center stage, accompanist Sandy casually raised her shirt and flashed him her black bra.
I'd have done the same and shown off mine except the lights weren't on me.
There's always a Mad Lib or two at GLAP and when it came time to hear the filthy lyrics, Matt demanded some help, saying, "I need someone with some goodass rhythm."
The Mad Lib had been set to a song Matt considers incredibly creepy ("Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega) and the audience helped out immeasurably on the do-do--do-do-do-do-do dos.
After wards, someone yelled, "I love how Romney was a dirty word twice!"
Lady Gaga took over again when Micheal (in a black bustier, fishnets and blond wig) sang "Bad Romance" and the dancing began for real.
When Maggie introduced Nick, who just last night had been Horatio in "Hamlet," she said that, "He gets the award for looking the most riff-raffish."
He got everyone's attention with Lennon's "Watching the Wheels" or maybe it was his fake full sleeves of ink.
Just when I thought the night couldn't get any better, Evan (wearing a sign that said "Gangsta Parking Only") got onstage and said he was dedicating his song to me because he'd promised and never done it when I was there.
That's when I knew it was Britney time.
Despite urban legend that this was how the GLAPs used to end, with Evan doing Brit, I'd yet to see it.
Tonight, the Mist opened up and Evan did "Hit Me Baby One More Time" as the audience relived their childhoods singing and dancing along.
It was the GLAP climax I had been yearning for.
I almost wanted a cigarette when it was over.
Afterwards, Evan told me that he'd intended to wear a Catholic girl's school uniform, a la Britney, but hadn't had time to pull it together.
As far as I was concerned, the song had been plenty.
As thanks, I offered up my costumed leg, knowing he'd get it immediately.
I needed him to give me a sign.
"Malvolio!" he exclaimed. "Cross garter yellow stockings!"
Honestly, I don't know what was more satisfying, finally hearing the ultimate GLAP closer or having my costume instantly recognized.
If I'm going to dress up my leg for Halloween, there's only one place I can go and know that people will get it.
The Mist. GLAP. Halloween.
Better than a bad romance and with way more rhythm.
You just have to get past the maggots.
Monday, September 24, 2012
A Sunday Kind of Love
First rule of Sunday: start high and get progressively sillier.
You really couldn't start much higher than a dazzling audio vision like "Koyaanisqatsi," the 1983 film about life out of balance with a Philip Glass soundtrack.
Sitting at UR's Modlin Center with a roomful of people willing to forsake a crystalline late summer day and the NFL for a non-narrative movie with only one word in it (the Hopi chant "koyaanisqatsi") surely qualified me as both a music and film nerd.
Unfortunately, not everyone in attendance was as enthralled with the movie as my companions and I were.
Directly in front of us was a UR student who moved constantly and restlessly from side to side in his chair, his head always in his hands as if he needed to hold it up.
In front of him, a kid napped through the whole thing.
Personally, I find the visuals of nature followed by technology followed by cultural references and eventually decay to be a meditation on the planet.
And of course, on the late '70s, early '80s when it was shot.
Like the billboard in Times Square advertising, "Sony Betamax."
And the beauty of implosions, long a fascination for me.
I am one of those people who got up at the crack of dawn to watch the old Times Disptach building imploded back in September '98.
The film had image after image of implosions, truly a combination of science and beauty.
But if you've seen the film, you know how tense the score and images make you by the end of the film.
We stayed for the talkback with UR's music director and the remaining devotees of the film for some additional insight.
Afterwards, the four of us dined at Don't Look Back, discussing the film and its two sequels, neither of which I've seen.
A Frito pie and Herradura Reposado helped clear my head of the apocalyptic vision we'd just seen on the big screen.
And, honestly, where can you go after apocalypse and Fritos but to the Ghost Light Afterparty?
This month's event was called "Sha-GLAP," leading me to suspect a '50s theme.
Walking in to a room full of poodle skirts, bobby socks and ponytails, I knew I was right.
My date guessed that there's be some '60s, too, and a chat with co-host Maggie confirmed this.
The decades may change, but the GLAP is essentially a piano bar with members of the theater community taking the stage to sing whatever the hell they want.
As co-host Matt said tonight, "If you wanna sing a song from Les Mis and then talk about how much you hate Les Mis, that's fine."
Maggie explained the housekeeping issues, including a plea for some appropriate music. "We do appreciate some theme-i-ness."
And we got theme-i-ness almost at once with the marvelous Wonderettes (currently in production at Swift Mill) doing "Son of a Preacherman," complete with choreography and praying hands.
And we were off and running.
Part of the drill at GLAP is always Mad Libs set to a song of the period and we were warned that two Mad Libs were now in circulation and to feel free to contribute any dirty words we cared to to the project.
"F**k hasn't come up and we only have one penis," Miss Mad Lib informed us.
"One penis is never enough," Matt quipped.
Lamentation gave way to opera as Stephanie and Ingrid got up and sang a piece from "Tales of Hoffman."
"Last month we had "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Matt laughed. "And now we have opera. That's what Ghost Light is all about."
Maggie sang "Let the Good Times Roll" with Matt on shaker balls, providing my favorite lyric of the evening, "Love can be such a swinging thing."
Warning us that, "This could be tragic, but we welcome tragedy here," Matt did "On Broadway" (with back up singers), even changing the lyrics to "On Broad Street" and ending with jazz hands.
We like jazz hands at the GLAP.
Elizabeth jumped decades and did "Sweet Baby James," Peter did a soulful version of "Let It Be Me" and Sarah did "Stand By Me" with an impromptu group of backup singers and shakers almost upstaging her.
The Wonderettes returned for a beautifully-executed "Mr. Sandman" and an hysterical "Lollipop" that included a take-off on a Saturday Night Live skit that had one of the Wonderettes wearing prosthetic tubes with doll arms attached.
Georgia was the brave one to sing the first Mad Lib to "It's My Party," full of innuendo and trash talk ("It's my party and I'll masturbate if I want to").
When Matt spotted Evan looking very much like Buddy Holly, he burst into Weezer song, "Ooh,we, ooh, you look just like Buddy Holly and Karen, you're Mary Tyler Moore."
Not gonna lie, it was my first musical shout-out from the stage and I could get used to it.
"The Lion Sleeps Tonight" got the bongos and shaker treatment.
One of the night's highlights was Katrina singing (with flowers in her hair) and Iman beat boxing to "Killing Me Softly."
It was the kind of sublime moment that you just had to be present for.
The TheaterLab group did "Summer Nights" from "Grease" and Evan added a mean tambourine to that.
Then it was intermission, meaning pizza time and Matt instructed, "Crank up that tuna-age!" so we had music to munch by.
Sarah did "Freddy, My Love" before raffle winners were pulled.
One prize was a bottle of malbec and Maggie read from the bottle's label that the winemakers selected from grapes that were 47 years old.
"That's so old!" Maggie exclaimed.
God, yes, 47, that's practically deathbed material.
Paul did a sweet version of "In My Own Little Corner" from "Cinderella," complete with high drama and an abrupt and unexpected ending, at least for him.
"That was very unceremonious and I loved it," Maggie observed.
Katie got Mad Lib duty this time and hers came with a warning at the top saying, "This is filthy."
Sung to Grease's "Sandra Dee" it included phrases like "pink velvet sausage pocket."
GLAP is not for the faint of heart, kids.
Nick did a rousing rendition of "If You Wanna Be Happy" with the sage lyrics "never make a pretty woman your wife" and three guys on heartfelt backup vocals plus bongos.
The crowd, now well lubricated, got vocal, testifying as Carla sang Streisand's "Evergreen" to shouts of "Come on!" and "Go, girl."
In a nod to the mood, she even changed a lyric to "Every day I am tipsy."
Katrina got called back up next, prompting her to say, "Oh, great! I have to go after Carla!"
Oh, great was right as she did "Stars and the Moon," noting midway through, "This song makes me cry."
Meanwhile you could have heard a pin drop in the room as everyone listened intently.
Even as our own bottle of Rose got lower and lower, Matt acknowledged, "I just accidentally chugged my bourbon and ginger and there's so many words on this page," before singing the hilarious "Therapy" from "Tick Tick Boom."
Paul did a song requested by Annie, saying, "To all you Glappers who have nothing better to do on a Sunday, there's nothing better than love, so here's "A Sunday Kind of Love."
Once again, he finished unceremoniously, getting many laughs for it.
The last song was "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)" with Carla, Matt, Maggie and even Evan shaking hismoneymaker tambourine along with everyone else who couldn't resist joining in the last big singalong.
Conclusion after nearly five hours of Glappage?
If it's love, if it really is, it's there in his kiss.
That, and I'm happy to concede that I have nothing better to do on a Sunday evening than let tipsy theater people sing to me.
Where else on earth am I going to be able to relive my youth singing along with a roomful of people to "Good Morning, Starshine"?
Only at GLAP, my friends, only at GLAP.
You really couldn't start much higher than a dazzling audio vision like "Koyaanisqatsi," the 1983 film about life out of balance with a Philip Glass soundtrack.
Sitting at UR's Modlin Center with a roomful of people willing to forsake a crystalline late summer day and the NFL for a non-narrative movie with only one word in it (the Hopi chant "koyaanisqatsi") surely qualified me as both a music and film nerd.
Unfortunately, not everyone in attendance was as enthralled with the movie as my companions and I were.
Directly in front of us was a UR student who moved constantly and restlessly from side to side in his chair, his head always in his hands as if he needed to hold it up.
In front of him, a kid napped through the whole thing.
Personally, I find the visuals of nature followed by technology followed by cultural references and eventually decay to be a meditation on the planet.
And of course, on the late '70s, early '80s when it was shot.
Like the billboard in Times Square advertising, "Sony Betamax."
And the beauty of implosions, long a fascination for me.
I am one of those people who got up at the crack of dawn to watch the old Times Disptach building imploded back in September '98.
The film had image after image of implosions, truly a combination of science and beauty.
But if you've seen the film, you know how tense the score and images make you by the end of the film.
We stayed for the talkback with UR's music director and the remaining devotees of the film for some additional insight.
Afterwards, the four of us dined at Don't Look Back, discussing the film and its two sequels, neither of which I've seen.
A Frito pie and Herradura Reposado helped clear my head of the apocalyptic vision we'd just seen on the big screen.
And, honestly, where can you go after apocalypse and Fritos but to the Ghost Light Afterparty?
This month's event was called "Sha-GLAP," leading me to suspect a '50s theme.
Walking in to a room full of poodle skirts, bobby socks and ponytails, I knew I was right.
My date guessed that there's be some '60s, too, and a chat with co-host Maggie confirmed this.
The decades may change, but the GLAP is essentially a piano bar with members of the theater community taking the stage to sing whatever the hell they want.
As co-host Matt said tonight, "If you wanna sing a song from Les Mis and then talk about how much you hate Les Mis, that's fine."
Maggie explained the housekeeping issues, including a plea for some appropriate music. "We do appreciate some theme-i-ness."
And we got theme-i-ness almost at once with the marvelous Wonderettes (currently in production at Swift Mill) doing "Son of a Preacherman," complete with choreography and praying hands.
And we were off and running.
Part of the drill at GLAP is always Mad Libs set to a song of the period and we were warned that two Mad Libs were now in circulation and to feel free to contribute any dirty words we cared to to the project.
"F**k hasn't come up and we only have one penis," Miss Mad Lib informed us.
"One penis is never enough," Matt quipped.
Lamentation gave way to opera as Stephanie and Ingrid got up and sang a piece from "Tales of Hoffman."
"Last month we had "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Matt laughed. "And now we have opera. That's what Ghost Light is all about."
Maggie sang "Let the Good Times Roll" with Matt on shaker balls, providing my favorite lyric of the evening, "Love can be such a swinging thing."
Warning us that, "This could be tragic, but we welcome tragedy here," Matt did "On Broadway" (with back up singers), even changing the lyrics to "On Broad Street" and ending with jazz hands.
We like jazz hands at the GLAP.
Elizabeth jumped decades and did "Sweet Baby James," Peter did a soulful version of "Let It Be Me" and Sarah did "Stand By Me" with an impromptu group of backup singers and shakers almost upstaging her.
The Wonderettes returned for a beautifully-executed "Mr. Sandman" and an hysterical "Lollipop" that included a take-off on a Saturday Night Live skit that had one of the Wonderettes wearing prosthetic tubes with doll arms attached.
Georgia was the brave one to sing the first Mad Lib to "It's My Party," full of innuendo and trash talk ("It's my party and I'll masturbate if I want to").
When Matt spotted Evan looking very much like Buddy Holly, he burst into Weezer song, "Ooh,we, ooh, you look just like Buddy Holly and Karen, you're Mary Tyler Moore."
Not gonna lie, it was my first musical shout-out from the stage and I could get used to it.
"The Lion Sleeps Tonight" got the bongos and shaker treatment.
One of the night's highlights was Katrina singing (with flowers in her hair) and Iman beat boxing to "Killing Me Softly."
It was the kind of sublime moment that you just had to be present for.
The TheaterLab group did "Summer Nights" from "Grease" and Evan added a mean tambourine to that.
Then it was intermission, meaning pizza time and Matt instructed, "Crank up that tuna-age!" so we had music to munch by.
Sarah did "Freddy, My Love" before raffle winners were pulled.
One prize was a bottle of malbec and Maggie read from the bottle's label that the winemakers selected from grapes that were 47 years old.
"That's so old!" Maggie exclaimed.
God, yes, 47, that's practically deathbed material.
Paul did a sweet version of "In My Own Little Corner" from "Cinderella," complete with high drama and an abrupt and unexpected ending, at least for him.
"That was very unceremonious and I loved it," Maggie observed.
Katie got Mad Lib duty this time and hers came with a warning at the top saying, "This is filthy."
Sung to Grease's "Sandra Dee" it included phrases like "pink velvet sausage pocket."
GLAP is not for the faint of heart, kids.
Nick did a rousing rendition of "If You Wanna Be Happy" with the sage lyrics "never make a pretty woman your wife" and three guys on heartfelt backup vocals plus bongos.
The crowd, now well lubricated, got vocal, testifying as Carla sang Streisand's "Evergreen" to shouts of "Come on!" and "Go, girl."
In a nod to the mood, she even changed a lyric to "Every day I am tipsy."
Katrina got called back up next, prompting her to say, "Oh, great! I have to go after Carla!"
Oh, great was right as she did "Stars and the Moon," noting midway through, "This song makes me cry."
Meanwhile you could have heard a pin drop in the room as everyone listened intently.
Even as our own bottle of Rose got lower and lower, Matt acknowledged, "I just accidentally chugged my bourbon and ginger and there's so many words on this page," before singing the hilarious "Therapy" from "Tick Tick Boom."
Paul did a song requested by Annie, saying, "To all you Glappers who have nothing better to do on a Sunday, there's nothing better than love, so here's "A Sunday Kind of Love."
Once again, he finished unceremoniously, getting many laughs for it.
The last song was "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)" with Carla, Matt, Maggie and even Evan shaking his
Conclusion after nearly five hours of Glappage?
If it's love, if it really is, it's there in his kiss.
That, and I'm happy to concede that I have nothing better to do on a Sunday evening than let tipsy theater people sing to me.
Where else on earth am I going to be able to relive my youth singing along with a roomful of people to "Good Morning, Starshine"?
Only at GLAP, my friends, only at GLAP.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
An Evening with Silent Bob
I figure at the rate I'm going, I'll be caught up on my cultural literacy by 2020.
The only problem will be that by doing that, I'll have missed out on the next eight years.
But I can't worry about that.
As part of my effort to catch up, I found myself at the unlikely location of Bottoms Up for a staged reading of "Clerks" by 9:55 Comedy.
It was a fundraiser for the Fan Free Clinic and billed as "a chance to see 'Clerks' as it was never intended."
How better to see it?
This is the group that regularly does stand-up at Pie and while I'd heard from a friend that it could get pretty hilarious, I'd never checked it out for myself.
Instead, here I was ready to watch a bunch of comedians act their way through the 1994 Kevin Smith classic.
About which I knew next to nothing, making me the exception in the room.
My partner-in-crime (for the grasshopper must experience the new with a worldlier one) and I took a table in the second row.
Settling in for the long haul (a day at a convenience store) we ordered a bottle of Camelot Pinot Noir.
Since it had been years since I'd been to Bottoms Up, I had no idea that they now did anything but their trademark thick crust pizza.
I saw that my namesake pizza, the Karen, was still on the menu and made a case for ordering it based on its ingredients: sausage, onions, spinach and ricotta.
Hell, I'd like that combo no matter what the dated woman's name was on it.
A large spinach salad with bacon and eggs tided us over and suddenly there was a clown called Vulgar standing in front of the room and removing his clothing.
You know, because that's what clowns do before "Clerks," it turns out.
By the time he was down to a vest, short shorts and fishnets, the reading was beginning.
He returned periodically to hold up signs setting the scenes ("catharsis," "denouement" and the like) and make some absurd commentary like, "Rage against the machine, bitches!"
It was laugh-out-loud funny coming from a man with a clown smile painted on his face.
As a first-timer, I had no reference point for the original, but I found lots to laugh about.
This group of comedians was acting their way through this 1994 script (when, I'm guessing, most of them were still in elementary school) like hilarious pros.
I was surprised to see a non-comedian friend in the production, although he's an actor (albeit one who'd stepped in at the eleventh hour) so last-minute line learning was well within his capabilities.
He played multiple characters, including one as a customer who reacted to hearing how many times clerk Dante's girlfriend had orally pleasured other guys.
"Thirty seven!" Dante tells him.
"In a row?" he asks incredulously. The room roared.
After our Karen pizza, we indulged in a brownie sundae while watching the travails of the mid-90s lifestyle in Jersey.
Not far into the reading, I realized that a lot of the people sitting around us were saying every line out loud.
Every line.
Things like, "Aside from the cheating, we were a perfect couple" and the recurring "Bunch of savages in this town."
Listening to the slacker jargon of a generation, I realized that I was seeing "Clerks" in a perfectly appropriate way: low key, D.I.Y and in a roomful of people who loved it.
Considering these were non-actors except for one, they did a surprisingly good job of pulling off the reading.
Dante was suitably passive, Randall's smarminess was a thing of beauty and the drug dealer Jay was so over the top cliched and funny as to be an act unto himself.
But credit goes to the entire ensemble because for a story that takes place entirely in a small store, it never lagged for a minute.
And at the end of the evening, $200 had been raised for Fan Free Clinic.
But more importantly, much more importantly, I'd finally added "Clerks" to my cultural touchstones, although, granted, nearly two decades late.
"I'm not even supposed to be here today!" Dante laments over and over.
Got it. Finally.
The only problem will be that by doing that, I'll have missed out on the next eight years.
But I can't worry about that.
As part of my effort to catch up, I found myself at the unlikely location of Bottoms Up for a staged reading of "Clerks" by 9:55 Comedy.
It was a fundraiser for the Fan Free Clinic and billed as "a chance to see 'Clerks' as it was never intended."
How better to see it?
This is the group that regularly does stand-up at Pie and while I'd heard from a friend that it could get pretty hilarious, I'd never checked it out for myself.
Instead, here I was ready to watch a bunch of comedians act their way through the 1994 Kevin Smith classic.
About which I knew next to nothing, making me the exception in the room.
My partner-in-crime (for the grasshopper must experience the new with a worldlier one) and I took a table in the second row.
Settling in for the long haul (a day at a convenience store) we ordered a bottle of Camelot Pinot Noir.
Since it had been years since I'd been to Bottoms Up, I had no idea that they now did anything but their trademark thick crust pizza.
I saw that my namesake pizza, the Karen, was still on the menu and made a case for ordering it based on its ingredients: sausage, onions, spinach and ricotta.
Hell, I'd like that combo no matter what the dated woman's name was on it.
A large spinach salad with bacon and eggs tided us over and suddenly there was a clown called Vulgar standing in front of the room and removing his clothing.
You know, because that's what clowns do before "Clerks," it turns out.
By the time he was down to a vest, short shorts and fishnets, the reading was beginning.
He returned periodically to hold up signs setting the scenes ("catharsis," "denouement" and the like) and make some absurd commentary like, "Rage against the machine, bitches!"
It was laugh-out-loud funny coming from a man with a clown smile painted on his face.
As a first-timer, I had no reference point for the original, but I found lots to laugh about.
This group of comedians was acting their way through this 1994 script (when, I'm guessing, most of them were still in elementary school) like hilarious pros.
I was surprised to see a non-comedian friend in the production, although he's an actor (albeit one who'd stepped in at the eleventh hour) so last-minute line learning was well within his capabilities.
He played multiple characters, including one as a customer who reacted to hearing how many times clerk Dante's girlfriend had orally pleasured other guys.
"Thirty seven!" Dante tells him.
"In a row?" he asks incredulously. The room roared.
After our Karen pizza, we indulged in a brownie sundae while watching the travails of the mid-90s lifestyle in Jersey.
Not far into the reading, I realized that a lot of the people sitting around us were saying every line out loud.
Every line.
Things like, "Aside from the cheating, we were a perfect couple" and the recurring "Bunch of savages in this town."
Listening to the slacker jargon of a generation, I realized that I was seeing "Clerks" in a perfectly appropriate way: low key, D.I.Y and in a roomful of people who loved it.
Considering these were non-actors except for one, they did a surprisingly good job of pulling off the reading.
Dante was suitably passive, Randall's smarminess was a thing of beauty and the drug dealer Jay was so over the top cliched and funny as to be an act unto himself.
But credit goes to the entire ensemble because for a story that takes place entirely in a small store, it never lagged for a minute.
And at the end of the evening, $200 had been raised for Fan Free Clinic.
But more importantly, much more importantly, I'd finally added "Clerks" to my cultural touchstones, although, granted, nearly two decades late.
"I'm not even supposed to be here today!" Dante laments over and over.
Got it. Finally.
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