“Coming, Aphrodite”-Cather Calls at La MaMa
Greg Henits & Liz Kimball - Photo by Steven Schreiber
SOURCE: wwwQonStage.com
by Sherri Rase
Mary Fulham’s adaptation of Willa Cather’s novelette “Coming Aphrodite” has just opened at La MaMa as it celebrates its 47th year of groundbreaking theatre. Having never been to La MaMa before, I was unaware of the myriad of performance spaces there-and the wealth of talent that abounds!
Waiting in the postage-stamp box office area, it is impossible not to stare at the walls. Papered liberally with photos of actors-some now famous, some locally Read more
“The Human Jukebox”-Keckler Victorious
Joseph Kekler- photo by Adam Gardiner
SOURCE: www.QonStage.com
by Sherri Rase
Sunday afternoon, February 22 was a dark and stormy one, as so many stories begin. The weather began at a balmy 40 and by the time the milky gray of the sky turned to slate gray, the temperature was dropping like a rock-quickly forgotten, though, when one steps into the timeless day-evening-night of La MaMa.
Just a few steps through a red door, then up a few flights in the historic building to an intimate performance space, The Club boasts a single row of chairs on each side flanking typical café tables. A rustic interior punctuated by a stage the size of a foreign postage stamp-slightly larger format than Anytown, USA-we are Read more
Rev. Dr. Charles Whipple, Passed Away - February 20, 2009 …
Rev. Dr. Charles Whipple - photo by Lorraine Michels
SOUCE: www.FireIslandQnews.com
by - Bruce-Michael Gelbert
Rev. Dr. Charles Whipple, born in 1913 in Hamilton, Massachusetts, passed away in New York City on February 20 after a long period of illness.
Viewing was scheduled for February 22 from 2 to 4 p.m., at St. Mary the Virgin, at 145 West 46th Street in Manhattan, with funeral mass to follow on February 23 at 10:30 a.m.
Spiritual leader to many in Cherry Grove, he presided at Sunday morning church Read more
Oh, Those Beautiful, Bad & Battling “Dolls,” Taking Center Stage in SF
Michael Phillis, author & performer of Dolls--photo credit Meg Messina Photography
SOURCE: www.QonStage.com
By Bruce-Michael Gelbert
“Dolls” is a new one-man play, written and performed by Michael Phillis and directed by Andrew Nance, which has been running since January 22 and is now in its last weekend at San Francisco’s New Conservatory Theatre Center, at 25 Van Ness Avenue, off Market Street. I caught “Dolls” on February 19 and-should it come East, as its powers-that-be would like-can heartily recommend that New Yorkers experience the wise, wild, whimsical, and very gay world of Phillis’ “Dolls” as well. Read more
Considering “The Book of Lambert”
Clinton Faulkner as Lambert, Sadrina Johnson as Priscilla and Howard L. Wieder as Clancy by Joe Bly
SOURCE: www.QonStage.com
By Susan Freedner
I attended a press viewing of the publicized world premiere of “The Book of Lambert” at La MaMa e.t.c., on February 14. I had high hopes for this production, as it was promoted as a ‘new’ play by Tony Award nominated and Obie/Audelco Award winning playwright Leslie Lee, head of the Negro Ensemble Company’s Playwrights’ Unit, currently teaching playwriting and screenwriting at New York University, and praised by a personal friend who knew him at NYU. The press packet also noted that the play was to feature Lucille Lortel and Obie Award winning actor Arthur French, who recently performed at Lincoln Center in Horton Foote’s “Dividing the Estate,” which I had seen and very much enjoyed. I believe I was disappointed due to unwarranted expectations. Read more
“L’Isola Disabitata,” Haydn’s Just Desserts
Takesha Meshé Kizart, Vale Rideout, Valerie Ogbonnaya, Tom Corbeil - Photo by Richard Termine
SOURCE: www.QonStage.com
by Sherri Rase
The New York stage premiere production of Franz Joseph Haydn’s “L’Isola Disabitata” opened on February 18 at the beautiful Gerald W. Lynch Theatre of the John Jay College, under the auspices of Gotham Chamber Opera. Haydn’s tenth opera written for the Esterhazy court, and his personal favorite of the operas he penned, it is not only fresh in this approach and staging, but also provides a revealing glimpse of early opera.
This opera is written in the Baroque style, but having made its debut in 1779, it is technically beyond Baroque and on tiptoe into the Classical period. Elements of stylistic change are audible, as style change harbingers manifest the way a key change does. Read more
Imperial Court & Chorus Notables Help Make Center Valentine’s Dance a Stellar Event
photo by Joe Fiore
SOURCE: www.NewYorkQnews.com
by Joe Fiore - Coordinator, Center Dance:208
On Valentine’s Day, February 14, at the annual Dance:208 Valentines party, DJ Randy Bettis spun gold out of chocolate hearts and love was in the air for the more than 250 romantics. Randy kept the mood hopelessly romantic with upbeat love songs, like “Hopelessly Devoted To You,” and a couple of slow songs, like a pre-rehab Whitney belting out “Saving All My Love For You!” We couldn’t decide whether love would keep us together or tear us apart!
The Imperial Court of New York was represented splendidly by Bon Bon Larue, former Empress Demi-tasse, Fannie Fondue, Peter B and bevy of beauties, while the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus’ Chorus Butch Alan Anderson & Chorus Queen Millie Read more
On One Fine Day, City Opera Honored Camilla Williams, Its 1st African-American Diva
Giuseppe Valdengo & Camilla Williams 'Pagliacci' photo by FredFehl
SOURCE: www.QonStage.com
By Bruce-Michael Gelbert
On February 11, in honor of Black History Month, the New York City Opera (NYCO) and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture joined forces for a splendid evening, at the Schomburg Center in Harlem, coordinated by NYCO dramaturg Cori Ellison and billed as “‘One Fine Day’: a Tribute to Camilla Williams,” the company’s first African-American prima donna (1946-1954), now 89. Many of the noted soprano and teacher’s family members, longtime friends, classmates, students and colleagues filled the center’s Langston Hughes Auditorium to see Williams once again and hear her, cheer her, pay homage to her, and share memories of her matchless music, wisdom, wit and charm. It was clear that we were in the presence of a legend or, as Ellison put it, a “national living treasure.” Read more
Ever-Inventive NYFOS Finds the Haimish, Highbrow & Horror in Diaspora Song
Michael Barrett & Steven Blier - photo by Joseph R. Saporito
SOURCE: www.QonStage.com
By Bruce-Michael Gelbert
For its February program, at Merkin Concert Hall, the New York Festival of Song examined the diversity of “Voices of the Jewish Diaspora,” with NYFOS’ ever-inventive founders Steven Blier and Michael Barrett sharing pianistic duties. The expressive vocal trio comprised luminous-toned soprano Dina Kuznetsova, plush-voiced mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham, and theater and opera’s singing actor, tenor Steven Goldstein. The February 10 performance is discussed here and the encore is on February 12 at 8 p.m. Read more
Ye Innocents Beware, There’s “Music in the Air”
Ryan Silverman, Kristin Chenoweth, Sierra Boggess & Douglas Sills - photo by Joan Marcus
SOURCE: www.QonStage.com
By Bruce-Michael Gelbert
Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s “Music in the Air” (1932), at the beginning of this month, was the second production this season by Encores!, the series of music theatre revivals at City Center, following Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and Jerome Robbins’ “On the Town” this past November. Based on the performance I attended, the last of the run of five, on February 8, “Music in the Air” is a curious hybrid, some of it a throwback to escapist Viennese operetta, with its sweeping waltzes and wholesome peasants, and some of it the very model of then modern musical comedy sophistication. It also demonstrates the clash that occurs when simple country (Edendorf, Bavaria) meets big, bad city (Munich) and seems to teach the familiar, conservative lesson that ‘there’s no place like home.’ “Music in the Air” had a respectable enough Broadway run-342 performances, or about a season-when new and had a brief revival, in a revised version in 1951. I daresay that, despite the mostly distinguished cast, effectively guided by music director Rob Berman and director Gary Griffin, this won’t be one of the Encores! efforts that proceeds to a Broadway run. Read more
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