Staff Picks No. 22
chryptochrome: Evan Silver aka Tiresias the Oracle
The Cell Theatre
November 30th - December 16th 2023
If you missed this last year at Exponential Festival, you're in luck: Evan Silver's kaleidoscopic look at kingdom Animalia returns. "cryptochrome" advances the artist's lineage of work that celebrates biological life's grandeur while simultaneously uplifting its mysteries and reminding us our interconnected existence. A must-see for more than just horse girls.
Staffer: Billy McEntee
The Caretaker & Moor Mother at Unsound Fest
Lincoln Center
Monday, December 4th 2023
The Caretaker’s “Everywhere at the End of Time” is a six hour, heartbreaking, celebratory, impossible sound journey through the stages of dementia explored in reverb, noise, and sampled and processed 78” records. Moor Mother builds radical strange groove liberatory sonic declarations and revolutions with poetry, tap, jazz, and experimental R&B. These two bright beacons share a pay-what-you-can evening at Lincoln Center. Come through!
Staffer: Joshua Dumas
Christmas in Nickyland 2023: The Return
Nicky Paraiso and ...
Yoshiko Chuma & The School of Hard Knocks / Eszter Balint, Jim Fletcher (Dec 16 only) / Billy Martin, Dennis O'Connor (Dec 17 only) / Ivo Dimchev / Maura Donohue, Perry Yung & Family / Pyotor Gawelko / Devon Granmo / Potri Ranka Manis/Kinding Sindaw / George Emilio Sanchez (Dec 17 only) / Paz Tanjuaquio (Dec 17 only) / Ri Tornello
The Club at La Mama
December 16th - December 17th 2023
National treasure Nicky Paraiso is bringing a very special gathering into reality and I cannot wait to see what the hell happens. I actually have no idea. And that excites me.
Staffer: Theresa Buchheister
Land Back: Urban Creation Stories: Andrina Smith (Shinnecock) and Murielle Borst-Tarrant (Kuna & Rappahannock)
La Mama
Thursday, November 30th 2023
An evening of storytelling about the urban experience of different tribes in NYC, and the stories of the people who have lived here for ever. Hear the history you don't read on plaques and LinkNYC kiosks.
Staffer: Travis Amiel
Ashley Chen: Unisson, Rush, Distances & More
La Mama
November 30th - December 10th 2023
From the trailers of the pieces that will be presented I see many of my favorite things: jolty choreography and pedestrian gestures performed by a large ensemble, a big mess on stage, performers pushing their limits, and some silly costumes!
Staffer: Travis Amiel
Open Stage | Fall Movement: Juli Brandano, ALEXA GRÆ and Stephanie Acosta, Dominica Greene, Nazareth Hassan / Paratheater, and Cherrie Yu
Center for Performance Research
Friday, December 1st 2023
CPR's Open Stage show: stacked line-up, a range of truly delightful, strange, radical, and technical performers and makers here. My rec: go to the families march in the afternoon, hit Pita Palace for the best falafel and Turkish coffee, and strut on into CPR for this evening.
Staffer: Lena Engelstein
The Idiots of the World Unite Against the Idiot System Circus: Bread & Puppet
Theater for the New City
December 6th - December 17th 2023
There's been a ton of buzz around this show -- I see it all over instagram! And also all of my puppeteer friends always talk about Bread & Puppet, so I'm excited to see what they're bringing to NYC. :)
Staffer: hillary gao
Tim Platt’s A Holiday Made of Bugs: Tim Platt, Julio Torres, Simple Town, Spike Einbinder, Richard Perez
Littlefield
December 17th 2023
Tim Platt is great because there is absolutely nobody like him. His humor comes from all these genuine corners of interest and expresses itself in absurdly beautiful skillsets that keep revealing themselves over time.
Does that make sense?
It does to me.
It funny. It done real well.
Plus, there are some pretty exciting people on the line-up.
Staffer: Theresa Buchheister
As I Eat The World: Luis Roberto Hererra, Scout Davis
The Tank
November 30th - December 17th 2023
I've lately been very obsessed, to a bed-anchored state even, to the concept of entropy, so something about devouring the world in defiance to one's own eating disorder is ridiculously appealing to me.
Staffer: kanishk pandey
The Gaza Monologues: Ashtar Theatre (Iman Aoun, Osh Ashruf, and Nemuna Ceesay), co hosted by Movement Research, Performance Space New York, Mabou Mines, and Writers Against the War on Gaza
Movement Research (and online)
Wednesday, November 29th 2023
Performed by Again Amin, Jen Elias, Abou Farman, Sahar K., H. Sinno, and more. Sound by Muyassar Yousef Kurdi.
ASHTAR Theatre’s Iman Aoun created a worldwide call-to-action for monologues to be performed by theatremakers; these are all personal stories from children in Gaza. If you know me, I’m a big fan of Deepa Iyer’s Map of Social Change Ecosystem Map. This virtual event with Noor Theatre isn’t just taking on Storyteller, but also the Weaver, Healer, Disturper, and Experimenter. Along with Noor, many other theatre makers and companies are doing this today, 11/29: The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Free Palestine. 🇵🇸
Staffer: Marissa Joyce Stamps
Ashtar Theatre issued an urgent request to theater makers around the world to publicly read or perform The Gaza Monologues on November 29th, 2023; The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People:
"The Gaza Monologues are testimonies written by ASHTAR youth in 2010, after the first war on the Gaza Strip. Tragically, these Monologues are still accurate today. They are highlighting the horrors, hopes and resilience of the courageous Gazans to a wider audience, bringing out the voices of children and people in Gaza."
Staffer: Lena Engelstein
I'll be tuning into the livestream for this event because my brain can process stories much better than anything else. Created in 2010, these monologues written by youth in Gaza illustrate what we cannot understand from The News' presentation of numbers, photos, reports, and pithy quotes.
Staffer: Travis Amiel
The Cock Painter + The Human Musician + The Danswer: Magda San Milan
The Elyisan
December 5th 2023
** ALERT!! ALERT!!! NON-NYC BASED SHOW!!! **
This rec will get trouble for breaking the NYC-shows-only rule and probably get relegated to some side page on Staff Picks BUT I have to tell everyone about this tryptic of shows by Magda San Millan. Before I was friends with Magda, I was deeply intimidated by her. When I saw her perform 'feral wild girl child'—that show where she intubated herself on stage(!)—I didn't know if she was my peer or an incredibly youthful-but-ancient-wise-woman who drank from a spring of life that keeps her alive for generations a la Tuck Everlasting.
The way Magda holds life, grief, humiliation, desire, desperation, and love in her shows (and her writing classes) feels like the grip of someone well beyond her years—or well beyond the basic traps of competition and capitalism.
The Cock Painter was the first alter-ego character show that Magda made, the Human Musician and the Danswer being subsequent studies, in her attempts to amplify the parts of herself she dislikes (hates?) in order to...well, come to love them. The Cock Painter takes her deadpan piercing vision to girlhood, self-loathing, and the twin coin of disgust/love. And it is deeply funny. I can't recommend it enough.
Staffer: Lena Engelstein