Staff Picks No. 84
The Fuck You Revue - Send Out the Clowns : Bambi the Mermaid, The Maine Attraction, Fem Appeal, Tiger Bay, Sweaty Eddie, Uncle Freak and your producers Zoe Ziegfeld and Fancy Feast
The Brick Theater
Wednesday, February 19th 2025
This line-up. Period.
Staffer: Theresa Buchheister
The Barbarians : Jerry Lieblich, Paul Lazar, Chloe Claudel, Jess Barbagallo, Anne Gridley, Jennifer Ikeda, Steve Mellor, Naren Weiss
LaMama
February 14th-March 2nd 2025
I have a lot of good friends working on this show, so I've been hearing excited buzz about it for the last few months! I was a fan of Jerry Lieblich's Mahinerator, and between that & the La Mama description of this show, I'm excited to see The Barbarians. I mean, anything that explores language & its use will have me seated front row!
Staffer: Hillary Gao
My First Vagina : Laura Jacoves, Agnes Walsh, Ian Faria, Pierce Campion, Brian Fiddyment, Nick Naney, Spike Einbinder, and Ben Wasserman
Brick Aux
February 13th-16th 2025
Laura's show is one that I realllllly wanted to happen and then I moved to Kansas and I was like - this better still happen!!!!!
And it is. Thank the universe. This week! AND it guest stars so many of my favorite comedians, it is wild.
Go support My First Vagina. And the inevitable sequels. One vagina is never enough.
Staffer: Theresa Buchheister
Charlene Live : Charlene Incarnate
C’mon Everybody
Friday, February 14th 2025
Don’t sleep on the Valentine’s encore performance of “Charlene LIVE,” Charlene Incarnate’s immaculate lipsynch re-performance of Patti Lupone’s immaculate 1993 cabaret recording. Recorded as Lupone’s farewell to LA before she embarked on what would turn out to be an ill-fated turn in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard” (before being unceremoniously replaced for Broadway), Charlene perfectly captures Lupone’s wit, range, and even optimism in a raucous homage by one master to another.
Staffer: Eric Shethar
Screen Memories gallery opening : Yara Asmar, Mona Benyamin, Huda Takriti, May Makki
Abrons Arts Center and Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space
February 14th-April 14th 2025
I am a huge fan of Beirut-based new media artist Yara Asmar! Her sound and music experiments, her puppetry, her video and glitch work are totally beguiling, sweet, scary, curious, light and dark and strange and funny and ghostly. I’m so excited to see this work in person, in a May Makki curated show that also includes work by Palestinian filmmaker Mona Benyamin, and Syria-born multidisciplinary artist Huda Takriti. Opens February 14; exhibit runs through April 14. Come through!
Staffer: Joshua Dumas
Anywhere : Dream Music Puppetry
HERE
February 6th-March 2nd 2025
In this reimagining of a classic, Oedipus is an ice puppet (yes, a puppet made of ice). His dissolving into water and then into mist perhaps parallels the strange stages of loss as his daughter (Antigone) attends to him. Okay...sign me up for unique spectacle and a weird craving for fro-yo that may or may not follow the performance.
Staffer: Billy McEntee
Eiren Caffall : Reading and Conversation : Eiren Caffall and Kelly McMasters
Greenlight Books
Thursday, February 13th 2025
I had the honor and delight to read a very early draft of Eiren Caffall’s “All the Water in the World” a new climate-futures novel set in New York and the Hudson Valley. Just published by St. Martin's Press, I'm so excited to see this story find new readers! It is a tender and humane look at what we can save, what we can promise one another, and how to care and give care, in a world of tumult and flood. Caffall reads from the novel and chats with author Kelly McMasters. Come through!
Staffer: Joshua Dumas