Results tagged “fringefestival”

ART: The Bronx Museum of Art is getting on board the First Friday bandwagon. They'll be opening their doors every first Friday of the month for free, and add a little something extra each time. Tonight their theme is “Say it Loud! I’m Black & I’m Proud” in celebration of Black History Month. There will be a tribute to the late James Brown, and a showcase of independent artists paying tribute to black music.

In 2003, Sopranos star Michael Imperioli opened the intimate Studio Dante theater with his wife Victoria, who designed the elegantly formal space. In his capacity as director, producer and actor, Imperioli has been busy turning the theater into a well-regarded hotspot for new plays. The current production is a solo show by Glasgow native Russell Barr entitled Sisters, Such Devoted Sisters. In the largely autobiographical play, Barr plays Bernice, a drag queen who herself portrays over a dozen characters to tell her sordid, harsh and hilarious story of Glasgow’s nightlife underworld. Reviewing the play for the Times, Jason Zinoman called it “crudely effective... Imperioli stages the play at Studio Dante with an unsentimental intensity, and at times it reminded me of the sudden shocks of violence in that much missed HBO series.” The production continues through February 16th; tickets cost $35.

MOVIE: Nessie's taking off from the Marine Park salt marsh in Brooklyn, but you can catch the creature on the big screen. The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep stars Emily Watson and Ben Chaplin and traces a boy's discovery of a mysterious egg that hatches into the sea creature of the Scottish legend. Way better than finding a sea monkey.

MOVIE: In the unlikeliest of scenarios, rapper (and jeweler) Paul Wall, his grills, Reggaetón king Tego Calderón and Wu-Tang's Raekwon traveled to Sierra Leone. The outcome is an informative documentary called Bling: A Planet Rock which focuses on "the flashy world of commercial hip-hop jewelry played a significant role in the ten-year civil war" in West Africa.

TIP: Starting today and running through the 16th you can see some of Off-Broadway's best for only $20! Go here for more details about the 20at20 deal.

EXPLORE: Last call to visit the historic Governors Island this season! Free ferry rides depart hourly right next to the Staten Island Ferry terminal. Sitting 800 yards off the southern tip of Manhattan and about 400 from the Brooklyn waterfront, it isn't often you can get a view of the city and a house like that one to the right all from the same place.

I Dig Doug, a new production in this year’s Fringe Festival, concerns a status-obsessed uptown debutante who decides she should so get involved in presidential politics. When the farcical story begins, the unnamed teen (Karen DiConcetto, called Girl in the program) and her equally self-absorbed friend Nicole (Rochelle Zimmerman) are coasting along on their parents’ money, only mildly concerned about their imminent college application essays – Girl is smart enough to know that if they “can get into Bungalow 8” they can get into Harvard. But Girl’s perfect world is soon torn asunder when she discovers that her personal hero, a lovelorn reality TV star, is nothing more than a phony, craven opportunist. If a Girl can’t believe in reality TV, what can she believe in?

THEATER: Described as Damn Yankees meets Ed Wood, the screwball musical LOST IN HOLLYWOODLAND is a goofy retelling of the Faust myth, with a lowly production assistant’s assistant standing in for the good doctor. (Naturally, a film producer serves as the devil.) The fun begins when the peon signs away his soul for fame and fortune. Having killed ‘em in Buffalo, the production now takes Manhattan via the New York Fringe Festival. - John Del Signore

Back before the turn of the century, and concurrent with the spread of air conditioning in Off-Off Broadway theaters, theater buffs John Clancy and Elena K. Holy seized a golden opportunity to exploit the only brief lull in New York’s raging theater scene – when conventional wisdom held that no slob stuck in town during mid-August would want to get stickier in a stuffy theater up two flights of stairs. And so The New York International Fringe Festival slouched toward downtown to be born. Now in its 11th year, and with smash hits like Urinetown under its belt, FringeNYC has swelled to Category 4 proportions – featuring 188 productions in some 20 theaters, it’s expected to make landfall as early as tomorrow! [Disclosure: We participated in the festival in ‘02 and ’04.]

While SFist cringed at the fatal dose of crime littering the Bay Area, it found solace in Hillary Clinton's San Francisco campaign headquarters opening, which featured loads of exposed mammary glands. In other news, SF Taxi Commission ruled that Satan's cab must keep its (in)famous medallion number, 666; and in an un-fashion-forward frenzy, San Francisco Fashion Week (chortle) bars bloggers from covering and getting smashed at their shows and parties, respectively. Also, they found a picture displaying the woes of cruising in a tacky limo on the streets of San Francisco.

THEATER: Continuing through the 29th, the East to Edinburgh Festival is showcasing some of the most adventurous American theater productions before they blast off for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Tonight’s your chance to witness one of the more colorful and timely selections: LA FEMME EST MORTE or Why I Should Not F%!# My Son. It’s a contemporary Phaedra adaptation that satirizes America’s celebrity obsession in the midst of war, featuring live music, “frenetic dance, fierce boxing, raw meat. Flash photography is encouraged. Be careful of blood splatter.” - John Del Signore

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unusual sexual assault on Broadway in Brooklyn, an unstable building on Sutphin Blvd. in Queens, and a shooting on West 142nd St. and Amsterdam Ave. in Manhattan.
• Central Park's Sheep Meadow was the first park location to upgrade its wifi Internet connection to high speed. The new 15-megabits-per-second service is five times faster than the previous connection.
• Madame Tussauds wax museum in Times Square wasted no time in dressing its likeness of Lindsay Lohan in prison stripes, after the young star was arrested for drunk driving and drug posession shortly after leaving rehab.
• Former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason is in talks to fill the morning time slot on WFAN left vacant by the abrupt departure of Don Imus.
• Williamsburg! The Musical will premiere August 11th as part of the 11th Annual Fringe Festival.
• Gridskipper has a guide to NYC record stores for vinyl enthusiasts.
• Turning Long Island City into a giant sundial, with the Citibank tower as the shadow-casting spire.
• The City Council is thinking of revising its cell phones-in-schools policy, to allow kids to bring them to school, but not use them there. Schools would be required to set up cell phone storage facilities to secure the devices during the day.

Banner week for SFist as the site's new editor introduced himself -- hooray for Brock! While the NY Times weighed in on SF's mayoral race, only SFist had the hard-hitting latest on candidate/activist Josh Wolf. Coverage of a protest vs. gentrification spawned a fantastic debate amongst SFist's readers. Finally, from the sublime to the ridiculous: video of a man that confused a Board of Supes meeting with "open mic night" and sang a custom version of Madonna's "Borderline" to a much-beleaguered board member.

READING: Jonathan Franzen reads at the Bam Cafe tonight, but not after a buffet that include wine from the Pine Ridge Winery and other treats. There will also be a live acoustic performance and a Q&A with Franzen.

MOVIE: The First Time I Was Twenty is playing tonight as part of the New York Jewish Film Festival. According to Paper, French director Lorraine Levy "tells the story of a smart, chubby Jewish girl who endures rampant sexism and anti-Semitism in order to fulfill her dream of joining her high school’s all-male jazz band. Pretty in Pink it is not."

Starting tonight, the Under the Radar Festival of new theater will be cleared for take-off. The three-year-old festival is produced by indie theater impresario Mark Russell, who, as Executive Artistic Director of P.S. 122 for over two decades, nurtured the venue into the alt-performance epicenter it is today.

THEATER: Adventures in Mating uses the “Choose Your Own Adventure” novel device to stage this comedy about “a girl, a boy, and their stunning inability to make even the most basic of decisions. Miranda and Jeffrey are on a blind date... a magical date? A disasterous one? Only you, the oh-so-fickle public, can decide.” The show opens tonight in New York after a successful debut at the 2005 Minneapolis Fringe Festival. - John Del Signore

READINGS: A handful of good readings on the slate for you tonight - Claire Messud reads from the highly anticipated . Too bad you've got to pick just one. - Krissa Corbett Cavouras

Will Franken grew up in Missouri where he huffed Freon, took acid, and aspired to be famous. He came to New York, became disillusioned, and went to San Francisco to make a name for himself. He's been named "Best Comedian of 2005" by San Francisco Weekly and performed his one man show at the New York International Fringe Festival and The Comedy Central Stage in LA . Now he's coming to NYC.

Brett: It's about the two of us, Flight of the Conchords, living in New York and trying to make it as a band.

THEATER: The Fringe Festival is over and pretty much every stage in town is dark tonight, but the Abingdon Theater Co. is producing a reading of Stephen Cone's Lacrimosa, about an famed evangelist and his wife who seclude themselves in their big mansion, thinking the Second Coming is near, but instead a strange girl arrives, and the evangelist's volatile brother, and with them all the problems and craziness of our mixed-up world, jolting them from their comfortable complacency. This reading will be even more interesting because minster and evangelical expert Cathy Gilliard is on hand for a talk-back. - Mallory Jensen

THEATER: The end of the Fringe Festival draws near, and the dilemma sharpens: what should you not miss? Of the shows that are still on, a good bet is Chris Harcum's http://www.chrisharcum.com/ Some Kind of Pink Breakfast, a solo comedy (but multi-character) with music by Debby Schwartz that melds '80's songs and movies with events from his own experiences, making for a hilarious yet poignant retro performance that should be a perfect way to end this year's festival. - Mallory Jensen

THEATER: Both the Fringe Festival and the wildly successful, but once Fringe-y, 24 Hour Plays are celebrating their tenth anniversaries this year, so why not do it together? Starting tonight, some of the original cast members and plays from the series that proved that a gimmick (conceive, write, rehearse and perform a play in a day) can produce fresh theatre, reunite in five totally different sets of five. - Mallory Jensen

THEATER: Among the many great things about the Fringe Festival is that it makes theatre available on Mondays, when almost all venues are usually blacked out. 34 different shows are on today, to be exact, including Armageddon Dance Party, David L. Williams' inspired, hilarious take on our precarious times, in which a couple does what comes naturally when they hear the end of times is nigh: invite people over and crank up the music to drown out the horror and sadness welling up from within. Smart writing and great acting got it a gold star in yesterday's reviews and is the sort of Fringe show that should get an extension, but in case it doesn't be sure to go now. - Mallory Jensen

Today in the Fringe Festival 89 of the 200+ shows for 2006 are on view. There is most assuredly something for everyone – just have a look at the listings. And here are five more reviews (see also seven from last weekend and four from yesterday), of Suicide, the Musical, Fatboy Romeo, The Yellow Wallpaper, Their Wings Were Blue, and Armageddon Dance Party, the last of which is going straight to the top tier of our recommendation list. Search for and buy tickets online, or go to Fringe HQ at 27 Mercer St., or call 212.279.4488. A week in the festival remains, but it will go fast!

Photo from Big Doolie by Stephen Kunken.

It's hard to believe if you've already taken in numerous performances, but the Fringe Festival is just picking up steam. Some productions haven’t even started their 5- or 6-night runs yet, including The Burning Cities Project from Dreamscape Theatre (a multimedia collage about the experiences of people who have seen their cities burn – a touch of comedy is promised); The Goods are Odd, by Julie Sharbutt and Liz Wisan (about two Alaskans looking for love in a place where, unlike NYC, men outnumber women – plus bears outnumber people); The Legitimate Theater Co.’s An Off-White Afternoon, a dramedy by Eric Meyer about a husband and wife with some strange issues, and Helen Stratford’s punk-rock opera Suicide, the Musical, which opens today. The word on the street is that Diving Normal, Flying on the Wing, and Open House are so far the hottest shows, having sold out every performance, though there are plenty others that are also sold out or are selling at the door -- plus plenty that you can still get into, and should.

MOVIES: Seriously, like there is anything else to see this weekend besides Snakes on a Plane. C'mon, you know you wanna.

MOVIE ART: Young artists with wtf?-attitudes come together to bring us "Risky Business" - a showcase of mixed media, including video, sculpture, collage, painting, and photography. A parents-out-of-town themed art party will follow the opening.

Open House; Nutmeat: A Fairytale Burlesque; House; The French Defense; The Bicycle Men; Hugging the Shoulder; and The Day the Universe Came Closer. Complete schedules and tickets for all are located on the Fringe listing site.