April’s all about HAVING A WEIRD TIME as I reminded everybody a few weeks ago – kicked off as it is by the whole bunnies coming out of eggs thing—and this April, it shouldn’t be hard at all to do this.
To begin with, EgoPo’s Life (and Death) of Harry Houdini is an UNMISSABLE performance. Go see it. Really. Go see it. You don’t have much time – it runs until the 7th. You’ll hate yourself if you miss it. Go see it. I’ll have a more detailed review up on the BSR soon (hopefully).
The Bearded Ladies’ Civil War Cabaret, which I also mentioned in March’s calendar, will keep runnin til the 6th. I’m gonna try to make it, too.
Cleanse your palet TONIGHT with some hot and untempered work in progress at Scratch Night at the Painted Bride. What more do you need to hear than this caveat on the show’s page: “Good experimental art is risky and Scratch Night performances may contain adult themes or nudity.” The highlight for me will be Lee Ann Etzold obsessing over my favorite space marine in Sigourney Weaving.
4/4-4/21: Plays and Players Theatre are putting up Suzan-Lori Parks’ The America Play & Other American Cousins. Parks, for those who don’t know her, is counted among New York’s celebrated language playwrights, and is known for playing with American slang and exploring issues of race and culture. In The American Play, a black Abe Lincoln look-alike offers to be shot to death by a John Wilkes Booth look-alike for a small fee.
One of the great voices of our theater – by which I mean, people vaguely our age still writing plays. Maybe she’s yesterday’s theater—she’s turning 50 next month—but this should be absolutely worth seeing either way.
4/9-4/13 You’ll only have a brief time to see Applied Mechanics’ Vainglorious at beautiful Christ Church Neighborhood House—but it’s time you’ll want to take full advantage of. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure style work, or as they put it, an “epic, 26-performer installation.” From what I hear, there’ll be the entire French Napoleonic army there, resplendent. Napoleon himself, and Marie Antoinette are supposed to pop in. They might even be crawling through the rafters. I will definitely be there.
4/11-20: The Trial of Murderous Mary. I don’t know much about this play, but I do know that Aaron Cromie (working with Gwen Rooker) is a bit of a theatrical genius with a delight for the odd and bloody. He was responsible for a puppet Titus Andronicus at the Shakespeare Theater last year, and this play, about murder, circus and a 5-ton elephant named Mary should prove an unmitigated weird time.
4/13: Check out Amanda Miller’s tumblr: see, this is exactly the kind of thing you wished there was more of but couldn’t find, right? Well, stop fretting, because at Detour on 2nd St this month you can catch her art—and on the 13th, show up for the reception, free booze and a low-priced art off the wall sale. I’ll see you there!
4/17-5/25: Arms and the Man – Quintessence Theatre. I talked about this last month, a bit, and I’ve been talking too much about George Bernard Shaw. I think he’s great; I think this play’s okay. It’s his lighter work, and if you’ve been enjoying my words about Back to Methuselah then you should love this.
4/18-4/21: Finally—and this should be attractive to a lot of you—freeze to death in a children’s story about the Shackleton Antarctica Expedition! Performers on stilts operate life-size marionette puppets—why? Get down off those stilts and act, it’d be easier! But theater isn’t always about doing the easy thing: puppetry, dance, film and photog will combine to create—I’m not actually sure what, but probably something cool: 69°S
Notes on Words 