Staff Picks No. 93
Seed Meditation : Jemila MacEwan
Washington Square Park
April 10th-19th 2025
Jemila MacEwan offers a wildly gorgeous, tender, profound durational performance this week, sitting in silence, from sunrise to sunset, for 10 straight days, cupping a seed in her hands until it germinates. MacEwan is in a different location each day throughout Washington Square Park and has coded each day with a color and meditation on a specific theme (details in the link below and daily documentation at https://www.instagram.com/jemila_macewan/). The devotional attention to a tiny other life is so moving to me; this is beautiful and vital work. The piece began on April 10 and concludes April 19. Come through!
Staffer: Joshua Dumas
?!:New Works Week 2! : JoyBoy da Clown, Prostalgia HD, Lucyana Randall & Ryland Duncan, Sophie Tegenu, Matt Romein, Seth Bockley/Make New Species, Rae Su & Paolina Gómez Gonzales, Jo Warren, Meaghan Robichaud, Sidney San Martin, Dan Hasse, Emma Callahan, Opal Elwell/Naughty Little No, Emmanuelle Zagoria / The Department NYC, Billy McEntee
The Brick Theater
April 16th-22nd 2025
Heavens to Betsy, the line-up for Week 2 of ?!:New Works is making me swoon, pass out, revive, pass out again and then levitate. Take a peek back at last week to see my thoughts about ?!:New Works, as I wrote wayyyyy too much. Staff Picks are supposed to be short! - I say to myself every time I write one.
Anyway...
?!:New Works Week 1 was a total blast, according to many trustworthy sources. And the second week is looking pretty great, as well. Same as last week, there are some folx I know and of whom I would call myself a fan, and others that are new to me and very intriguing! I shouted out Meaghan and Jo last week and they perform again this week! Do not miss out!
New to this week are Lucyana Randall, who I met years ago at the open mics that would happen after PRAYERZ at Vital Joint. Lucyana is form AND content - utterly stylish, devastatingly clever and always surprising. Matt Romein is also this week! Nobody I know knows how to do what Matt does (often brutal video game vibes + often comedic performance vibes) AND he has James LaBella writing?! And Matthew Antoci and Meaghan Robichaud performing?! WHAT?! I can promise you, spice levels will be high with this one. AND Emmanuelle Zagoria will bring a wild sparkly cacophony of magic to the stage. AND Billy McEntee is giving us full Jersey with this one, it seems. Yessssssss! Wear your favorite animal print and strap in!
It is all too much, really, which is wonderful. Every single night will be special, without a doubt.
Staffer: Theresa Buchheister
Lobster : Kallan Dana, Hanna Yurfest, Emma Richmond, Needy Lover
The Tank
April 25th-May 17th 2025
I caught Kallan Dana’s tricksy, soul-freezing examination of toxic relationships in palindrome RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR and was, happily, wildly wow’d by the play and way Dana did what they did with their writerly magic. And now comes LOBSTER, a show about…Maine’s favorite crustacean? Legendary Sam Shephard/Patti Smith collab COWBOY MOUTH? All of the above? And features the brilliant Annie Fang and Cricket Brown in the cast, like c’mon!
Staffer: Reuven Glezer
Organizational Strategic Consultant : Nile Harris
Performance Space New York
April 23rd-24th 2025
I, infamously, missed the legendary THIS HOUSE IS NOT A HOME…twice. And then I made it right with the universe by seeing Nile Harris’s resplendent-in-chaos TEMPORARY BOYFRIEND this year - so when I heard he had a new show(?) at PSNY, I jumped at the chance. Full disclosure: no clue what this performance-lecture about “the wackest performers of corporate America” entails but that’s the fun of it! Knowing what (little) I know, I am sure you will leave titillated.
Staffer: Reuven Glezer
I love the term "inside baseball." And I hope there is a lot of it in this lecture-performance about the intricacies of Performance Space New York (PSNY). People have shared some grumblings and gossip about yesterday's PS122 vs today's PSNY to me, but I still have questions.
Harris is both a subversive performance artistic and co-leader at a different storied not-for-profit, so he knows how the sausage is made, served, and ate.
Staffer: Travis Amiel
I need everyone to go to this and then try tell me all about it.
Staffer: Theresa Buchheister
Macbeth in Stride : Whitney White
BAM
April 15th-27th 2025
Whitney White has (rightfully) of late become known for her rigorous, imaginative directing work. Coming fresh off of the opening of the new Broadway revival of The Last Five Years, she returns to her writer/performer roots by bringing her Macbeth in Stride theatrical concert to BAM this month. Last seen as part of the 2019 Under the Radar Festival (which would end up being one the last under the auspices of the Public Theater), White (backed by a full band) refracts the first lady of the Scottish play through the vision and ambition of a Black female performer in an intoxicating world of R&B sound. What could in lesser hands be a superficial gloss brings to vivid life the interior world of one of Shakespeare’s most fascinating and elusive characters- White is as electrifying a performer as she is a director, and she transforms her years long fixation with Lady M to explosive life that you won’t soon be able to wash clean the energy of.
Staffer: Eric Shethar