Staff Picks No. 63
New York Burlesque Festival: Daphen Always, The Maine Attraction, Stormy Leather
Various venues
October 3rd - October 5th 2024
New York Burlesque Festival. Are there four more fun words? I'm not sure. Four amazing words for four amazing nights, Oct 3-6. If you don't come back with glitter or feathers or sweat on your brow, try again next year.
Staffer: Billy McEntee
CATCH 76: Lisa Fagan + Lena Engelstein / leahlaia / Hiera Jihye / Kennie Zhou / Laura Ortman / Paris Alexander / River L. Ramirez / Shawn Escarciga / Sol Cabrini / a Collective Action by Yanira Castro
Chocolate Factory Theater
Saturday, September 14th 2024
What a line up!!!!!!!
Staffer: Hillary Gao
I was so sad to miss the return of CATCH, but elated to see a lineup chock-full of artists I adore watching. My understanding is that this is the kind of event that includes ~socializing~ so I'm 50/50 in it for the performances-in-progress, as well as for the gabbing and yapping.
Staffer: Travis Amiel
They Have a Very Lovely Life: a reading of Sex and the City: Alex Bedder, starring Chiquititas, Joan Summers, Cherry James, Macy Rodman, and narrated by Harron Walker
C’Mon Everybody
Tuesday, September 17th 2024
From the twisted mind of conceiver Alex Bedder- an all-star (and all-doll) reading of the screenplay of an infamous season 3 episode of Sex and the City (with proceeds to benefit the late Cecilia Gentili’s Legacy Fund). Featuring a veritable Avengers cast of “Eating For Free’s” Joan Summers as Carrie, musical and comedic mastermind Macy Rodman as Samantha Jones, and Chiquititas and Cherry James (who both recently gave such exquisite shows at the second annual Fire Island Doll Invasion) as Miranda and Charlotte, and narration by Normal Woman Scholar Harron Walker, it promises to be C’Mon Everybody’s answer to Masterpiece Theater.
Staffer: Eric Shethar
CatVideoFest: Cats (global)
Museum of the Moving Image
September 14th - September 15th 2024
At the time I'm submitting this you have TWO more chances to see CatVideoFest - a "compilation of the latest and best cat videos culled from countless hours of unique submissions and sourced animations, music videos, and classic internet powerhouses."
I'll forever be jealous of people who aren't allergic to cats. My allergies are so intense that most of the time I spend with the species is through a screen. This weekend I'll be doing that with other people. And proceeds go to CATstoria Rescue! mew.
Staffer: Matthew Antoci
DOWN&OUT: A New Club Performance: Ife Olujobi, Garrett Allen
Jupiter Disco
Wednesday, September 18th 2024
What happens when you have to shake ass in the club with your anxieties and fear and problems? I don't know because I've only gone clubbing twice, but Ife Olujobi certainly has answers in this club performance looking at bringing the b a d in a community space that's meant to be euphoric.
Staffer: Marissa Joyce Stamps
Orient’s Influence: Works in Progress by William Steeple Davis Artist-in-Residence Joey Merlo
Poquatuck Hall, 1160 Skippers Lane, Orient, NY 11957
Friday, September 20th 2024
It's giving day trip! What's Joey Merlo been up to in his year-long residency over in Orient, NY? He's been the artist-in-residence at the William Steeple Davis House and is sharing some new work as part of the culmination of his residency. I wish I could share more, but that's all there is to know--that it's new work! Yay!
Staffer: Marissa Joyce Stamps
Flood Sensor Aunty: Sabina Sethi Unni,
Various chai shops
September 21st - September 29th 2024
A flood sensor really wants to be a movie star but is working at her aunt's chai shop instead. Okay??? Hooked. This piece is traveling around Queens and Long Island while also serving (literally) chai goodness, emergency preparedness packets, and site-specific comedy. What a concept!
Staffer: Billy McEntee
I will never not pick a Sabina show.
Staffer: Laia Comas
A MEAL: XIMENA GARNICA, SHIGE MORIYA, LEIMAY Ensemble
HERE Arts Center
September 11th - September 29th 2024
The intertwining of food and performance always harkens back to the ritualistic primordial ooze all our little crafts came out of. This show, which has a distinct interest into investigating our relationship with food, I think promises a communal experience that will be affecting.
Staffer: kanishk pandey
Goner: Marikiscrycrycry
Abrons Arts Center
September 19th - September 22nd 2024
I think I saw clips of this on instagram a while ago, and it stuck in my head. Seeing it come to Abrons is so exciting.
Staffer: Hillary Gao
Laura Ortman and Ryan Sawyer
Roulette
Tuesday, September 17th 2024
The sun was setting and Laura Ortman was bowing her fiddle with a branch from a cedar tree, and I was enraptured! Ortman’s stuff is volatile, sometimes slowly soaring, sometimes digging, noisily, aggressively. Skyward, earthbound, ghosts, spells, remembrances, dreams, nightmares, the sound of wandering, the sound of stretching toward liberation. On Tuesday September 17, she debuts new music in duet with percussionist Ryan Sawyer. Come through!
Staffer: Joshua Dumas
The 16th Annual Weasel Festival: Tracy Carns, Nurit Chinn, Lori Felipe-Barkin, Leslie Gauthier, Utkarsh Rajawat, Madison Wetzell
BAM Fisher Theater
September 19th - September 22nd 2024
weasel: (noun) 1. a small, slender, carnivorous mammal related to, but generally smaller than, the stoat.; 2. a deceitful or treacherous person.
I've spent the morning looking at weasel pics and have a feeling we're in store for more of the latter definition. Weasel Fest annually showcases new short plays from the graduating grad playwriting class at Brooklyn College and has been going for 16 years strong. The description promises "explosive, form-bending new works" and the six plays are split into two programs, HEAVEN and HELL. Now to pick my poisón....
Staffer: Matthew Antoci
Weasel Fest is back! Inspired by "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" by poet William Blake, this year's festival is divided into two programs--you guessed it: Heaven and Hell. There'll be a weird salesman, ooey gooey slime, a pooping pigeon, panicking at the disco, a cowboy, and a printer working with (and maybe on) acid. | (My bias is that I'm directing Leslie Gauthier and Madison Wetzell's plays!).
Staffer: Marissa Joyce Stamps
Y’all Are Fucked Up: Charlene Incarnate
The Sanctuary at St Mark’s Church
Friday, September 20th 2024
As part of The Poetry Project’s "Alien and Ordinary: A Poets Theater Symposium” (which also includes a variety show hosted by Morgan Bassichis, and a new Nile Harris piece) Brooklyn Drag pillar and downtown icon Charlene Incarnate brings the storytelling sister piece to her spring cabaret debut “Cuntpany.” Expect thinly-veiled dish, and absolutely bring a bump for mother.
Staffer: Eric Shethar
Sons of an Unknown Father: Reynaldo Piniella
The Cell
Monday, September 16th 2024
If you're tired of religion and spirituality being whitewashed, check out Piniella's play about, Martin de Porres, the first Black saint of the Americas. This is a play about someone that was once deemed the second son of God (big no joke stuff here okay) after healing with his bare hands, and having to grapple with saving himself or his community.
Staffer: Marissa Joyce Stamps