Here’s a little something from the annals of McSweeney’s: a letter from the Chair of the Marshall College Department of Anthropology explaining why Dr. Henry Jones, Jr. - better known to the world-at-large as Indiana Jones - was denied tenure. (Courtesy of my sister, Carla, who was awesome to send this to me. Thanks, Carla!)
No Comments » | 
Miscellaneous, Movies, nytheatre mike posts | 
Permalink
Posted by nytheatremike
Last month, I wrote the following blog post about my current theatrical endeavor, Babylon Babylon, the latest extravaganza from Piper McKenzie Productions. Writer, director, and co-star, Jeff Lewonczyk, responded on the show’s official blog with tongue firmly in cheek. With the show’s opening weekend firmly under his belt, Jeff finally dropped by the ol’ blog to talk about his much-talked-about opus and to refute those salacious claims he talked about.
Okay, let’s get the basics out of the way: what the hell is this show?
To state it in layman’s terms, it’s 31 actors onstage recreating events in the Babylonian Temple of Ishtar in the year 539 B. C. as the Persians prepare to invade the city. To put it in a more technical vein, it’s f%#$-ing nuts.
You’ve apparently been wanting to do this show for years. How’d you come up with the idea and what took you so long?
The original idea came from Herodotus – I was fascinated by his description of the practice of ritual prostitution in the Temple of Ishtar , and how pervasive he claimed it was. According to The Histories, every woman in Babylon had to visit there at one point in their lives and have sex with a stranger. This claim seems to be pretty well debunked (Herodotus is called both the Father of History and the Father of Lies, after all), but it set my mind in motion imagining a world in which such an activity would be seen as normal. Of course, I was reading Herodotus on the subway during the weeks leading up to 9/11, and so his description of the Persian sneak attack on the oblivious city of Babylon carried great resonance, and allowed me to sort of expand the vision into a meditation on the joys and dangers of the urban experience. As time went on, I drew from sources as diverse as The Bible, D. W. Griffith ’s Intolerance, Robert Altman’s Nashville, and the oeuvre of Kenneth Anger for inspiration and material.
You’ve used a lot of improvisation to help develop and write the script. Tell us a little bit more about that process and what it means exactly.
Well, I had always conceived of this is as a large-scale show with a sizable cast. I’ve never written a play for 30-plus characters before, and so I never actually sat down to write a script during the whole time I was thinking about it – the prospect was just too daunting. Piper McKenzie’s work in recent years on the Bizarre Science Fantasy dance-theater series helped to pave the way, because the pieces were wordless, and so it taught me a lot about how a piece can be developed in the absence of a written text with actors in the room. Of course, I’d never worked with 30-plus actors, and never used dialogue in those projects, so needless to say there was a bevy of novel challenges when we started work on Babylon Babylon. But the gist was that I had a long list of characters and incidents that I wanted to see. I wrote down character descriptions on index cards and passed them to the group – randomly at first, but with more careful selectivity as we proceeded – and then had everyone get up and do improv exercises as these characters, with a few simple rules to try to keep chaos at bay (the jury’s out on how well we succeeded at that last part). This led directly to casting, after which we did more exercises in character and made recordings, some of which became the basis for certain scenes in the script. Between and around all this work I was also building other scenes and text, and we ended up combining everything into a huge script that got whittled down throughout rehearsals to its current state.
The show is being done with a cast of 30-plus and environmental staging. What made you go with both?
Well, in the first place, I don’t think 30-plus actors would even have fit in The Brick’s proscenium setup, so it was partly practical. More than anything, though, for me the visual hook of the show had always been a grid of mats, or “stations” as we call them, on which the women in the show wait for their co-worshipers to choose them and take them out to the Holy Ground where, well, you know. To me the grid was a symbol of our own city – I’ve always been inspired by the variation and creativity that occurs within the tight geometric frame of Manhattan . And like Manhattan , you can never see the whole thing at once – you have a section, a home territory, that you call your own, and even if it changes (by the day, hour, minute, whatever) you look out at the rest of the city from that vantage. That’s the audience experience I wanted to provide – I wanted the audience to feel that they were somehow part of this world, implicated in it, rather than holding it off at arm’s length.
How did you initially go about casting such a large group?
At first, back in November, I sent out an APB to a large group of actor friends describing the project and asking who wanted to get involved. We had a preliminary rehearsal/meeting in November, and most of the people who attended are still with us. When I realized I wanted the cast to top 30 I started reaching further afield, to people I had barely met or whose work I had enjoyed in a show. I received a few personal recommendations from friends along the way, and trusted them even when I didn’t know the person’s work. In general, my rule was no auditioning – I wanted to meet and talk with people and make sure there was a personal connection at all times. Despite the various places everyone came from, a project like this would never work if everyone didn’t have some sort of common ground, no matter how tenuous.
In addition to writing and directing Babylon Babylon, you’re also in it. Are you nuts?
You’re in the show too, you tell me.
So far, so good. Now tell everyone who you’re playing.
My character is named Logios – he’s sort of the narrator/storyteller who sets the whole thing in motion. He’s based on Herodotus, but a young Herodotus, who’s still trying to earn his chops regaling audiences with outlandish stories. The depiction is in no way autobiographical.
Your wife, Hope Cartelli, is also in the show. You two have worked together frequently for a long time now. How have you both managed to successfully balance your lives together on stage and off?
Well, if she wasn’t my partner I wouldn’t even HAVE a life on stage – she’s essential to everything that I do, and without her support, imagination, talent, and madness I’d be lurching around half empty. As for the offstage life, well, doing shows together means that we never run out of anything to talk about. Casting her as the High Priestess of Ishtar was no accident – she holds the action together much the way she holds the show and our lives together.
Do you mind telling us a little bit about the history of your theater company, Piper McKenzie Productions - for instance, where’d you get that name?
When we graduated from Bard in winter 1998 we stuck around to put together a show with some friends during the break. It was actually our first – and for many years last – attempt at creating something improvisationally with a group, and as such we were still figuring out what the hell the show was about when the producer of the space asked us to come up with a title for the press release. We sat around for fifteen minutes trying to devise the dumbest name we could come up with, which ended up being Piper McKenzie Presents the Tinklepack Kids in the Great Yo-Yo Caper. When we did a production of The Tempest in the same theatre that fall, we decided, what the hell, let’s keep the “Piper McKenzie Presents,” and after that it just stuck. We moved to the city in 1999 and have been churning out a show or two every year since then, getting ever more hubristic as time goes on.
How the hell can you possibly follow this show up?
I’m hoping to do our next show on a Russian space ship, for a select audience of thrill-seeking millionaires. It will integrate most of the major works of the Western Canon and run for forty-seven hours straight, with a full orchestra and live animals (bears, mostly, but also a shark), all performed in zero gravity.
Are you already thinking about the next show or are you going on a long vacation after this?
Oh, I’m thinking. Always thinking. If I stopped thinking my molecules would unravel. We have The Film Festival: A Theater Festival coming up at The Brick in June (for which I’ll be directing a staged reading of William Peter Blatty’s new play, Demons Five Exorcists Nothing, which is quite possibly more insane than Babylon Babylon), and in December we’re hoping to mount something called The Granduncle Cycle, a series of linked short plays that take place in a mythical Arctic society. If theatre offered benefits I would be happy to take some vacation, but Piper McKenzie is a cruel taskmaster.
No Comments » | Directing, Directors, Movies, Performers, Playwrights, nytheatre mike posts, nytheatre mike shows | Permalink
Posted by nytheatremike
I was at home throwing out some old magazines earlier this morning, and came across the April 2006 issue of Premiere magazine, which featured their list of “The 100 Greatest Performances of All Time.” Their top choice? None other than the man pictured above - Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia.
Now, I love Peter O’Toole, and there’s no denying that his portrayal of Lawrence stands as one of the high watermarks of his extremely distinguished and memorable career.
But, the BEST movie performance EVER? Personally, I think not.
This sort of thing is, of course, highly subjective. No one can ever have the definitive word on it. Nevertheless, as a list whore from way back (looooooong before they ever became trendy and popular), I find these types of things endlessly fun to think about.
For instance, my list of The Best Movie Performances of All Time would start with these four from Marlon Brando, in this order:
Next up would be Orson Welles as the title character in Citizen Kane. After that, it becomes a virtual free-for-all. Here are some other favorites off the top of my head, in no order whatsoever:
Highly idiosyncratic, as you can see.
What are some of your favorite all-time performances? I’d love to hear what the blogosphere has to say about this. Let ‘er rip, people!
1 Comment | Acting, Movies, Performers, nytheatre mike posts | Permalink
Posted by nytheatremike
I was not tagged on this. I’m playing anyway. This is the latest meme that’s been sweeping the blogosphere. Here are the rules:
Look up 15 of your favorite films on IMDb and take a quote from each. List them below. When someone guesses the quote correctly, I cross it off the list. NO CHEATING.
Mind you, these are not my picks for The Greatest Movies Ever Made - just a collection of random favorites I thought of while putting this together. Here we go…
1. “The theater’s too deep for me. I prefer bicycling.”
2. “A woman never goes anywhere but the hospital without packing makeup, clothes, and jewelry.”
3. “Seems to me you fellows could stand a little less training from the F.B.I. and a little more from the Actor’s Studio.”
4. “Do you know why the number two hundred is so vitally descriptive to both you and me? It’s your weight and my I.Q.” Nice, James!
5. “This bucket of bolts’s never gonna get us past that blockade.” James, again.
6. “Micro changes in air density, my ass.”
7. “Whenever we needed money, we’d rob the airport. To us, it was better than Citibank.”
8. “I’ll chase him ’round the moons of Nibia and ’round the Antares Maelstrom and ’round perdition’s flames before I give him up.” I’m gonna give Johnna half of this one since she got it half right. Who can finish it? UPDATE: Nice assist, Matt!
9. “What a dear face! Interesting. What a nostril. A dramatic nostril. These people are extras. Extra people. Extras are so patient. They just sit. Extras. These humans are extras. Extra humans.”
10. “If I die, I’m sorry for all the bad things I did to you. And if I live, I’m sorry for all the bad things I’m gonna do to you.”
11. “Hey, you wanna hear my philosophy of life? Do it to him before he does it to you.”
12. “If you want to give me a present, give me a good life. That’s something I can value.”
13. “Since you’re new here, I’m gonna cut you a break… today. So, why don’t you make like a tree and get out of here?” James, do you really know all these quotes…
14. “If you were to try to assassination a king, sir, the… how shall I say it? The aura of royalty would cause you to miss. But, the president…I mean, why not shoot the president?” …or are you CHEATING?!
15. “I think that, uh, little story has considerable significance; but I’ve, uh, I’ve forgotten what it is.”
Having said that, is there anyone who hasn’t done this yet? Let’s see…I tag Trav, Patrick, Pete, Qui, and Mac.
4 Comments | Miscellaneous, Movies, nytheatre mike posts | Permalink
Posted by nytheatremike
You may have noticed my absence on here the last couple of weeks. Sorry for the disappearing act. A convergence of recent events have kept me occupied. Here’s the abridged version:
In other words: I’ve just been living my life. It’s all good, for the most part, and I’m really happy about where I’m at these days, both personally and professionally.
I’d also like to weigh in with a belated welcome to the newest member of the blogosphere, none other than Mr. Entertainment himself, Trav S.D. No doubt his will be a pithy and welcome addition to Theater Blog Nation.
No Comments » | Acting, Movies, Performers, Solo Performance, Upcoming Shows, nytheatre mike posts, nytheatre mike shows | Permalink
Posted by nytheatremike
Okay, I just read the funniest thing on ESPN.com: Shaquille O’Neal’s comments regarding his role with his new team, the Phoenix Suns:
“I’m more like a senior adviser so I don’t like to come in here and try to take over,” O’Neal said. … “Just like your basic karate movie where the young guys come to the old guys with beards who have them do weird stuff to get to the other side. That’s who I am, the old guy with a long beard.”
Teammate Steve Nash’s response to that statement comes in a close second. You can read the rest of this hilarious article here.
In other news, it’s been a quiet week here at the ol’ blog. The Companion and I have both been a little bit under the weather (numerous folks at both our workplaces are sick) and we’re persevering as only we know how: she’s rehearsing a staged reading that goes up later this week; I’ve been convalescing at home with Season 5 of The Shield, courtesy of Netflix. The weekend also brought with it repeat viewings of two old favorites, Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose and Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, neither of which The Companion had seen before. Good times.
Otherwise, it’s just been non-stop 3800 Elizabeth around here. Last Sunday saw the debut of Episode 3, “Sonja the Boneless,” which brought our biggest crowd yet. Lots of friendly faces and repeat visitors. Also a trio of regular civilians (i.e. not theater people or friends of ours) who showed up because they saw our listing in the Village Voice. We were even visited by an honest-to-God reporter from New York Press who’s writing a little something about us for an upcoming issue. (Don’t worry: I’ll be sure to let you know when it runs. In the meantime, you can enjoy this little write-up we recently got in The Brooklyn Paper.)
As happy as I was to see so many people in the audience - it’s great to see that we’re actually building an audience, and in record time - last week’s performance was a little lacking in the energy department, I must admit. ‘Twas wan. Boneless, as it were. We let it slip away from us a little bit due to a panoply of factors, all of which we identified and are confident we won’t repeat. I mean, everyone’s entitled to an off night every now and then, right?
Meanwhile, it’s full steam ahead, as usual. This week we’re brushing up for the rerun of Episode 1, “Knickerbockers” (for those of you who missed it because you were watching The Super Bowl instead), featuring special guest stars Hope Cartelli (filling in for Iracel, who’s on vacation this week) and Ian W. Hill (reprising his turn as Bob Slebodnick, the H.R. guy for the Knicks). We had a read-through with Hope on this past weekend, and she was typically outstanding. Peter and I remembered our lines pretty well, so this ought to be a real fun time.
In the meantime, I’m hoping to get a leg up on the following week’s episode, “The Man on the Silver Mountain.” This one showcases Peter’s character, AJ, so I thankfully don’t have as much script to memorize as usual. Ideally, I’d like to have Episode 4 under my belt by Sunday so I can be a week ahead of schedule. Fingers crossed. Let us pray.
Footnote: Ian subbed in as our stage manager on Sunday, and did a splendid job (check out his blog for the recap of the live commercial he and Gyda Arber did for us). He even took the time to photographically record the proceedings for posterity. I’ll leave you with one of the images he preserved in time for us - namely the entire 3800 Elizabeth crew in tech rehearsal action!
No Comments » | Acting, Movies, Sports, nytheatre mike posts, nytheatre mike shows | Permalink
Posted by nytheatremike
It’s Friday, so let’s get the important things out of the way first, namely: the brand new trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Can you say, “HOLY $#*%?!?!?” Thank you, Jesus!
Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, allow me to point you in the direction of some other cool happenings you will surely want to check out.
First among these is the Plays and Playwrights 2008 Book Launch Party at The Red Room & The Kraine Theatres this Sunday afternoon at 3pm. This event is always a cracking good time - Martin and Rochelle Denton know how to mobilize the indie theater scene better than anyone. You can hobnob and schmooze, catch up with old acquaintances, meet new ones, and see some damn good scenes from the published plays. Here’s what they’ll be doing excerpts from on Sunday:
Hot stuff, people. You should check it out.
I would be there myself, but, sad to say, I’m going to miss it on account of my afternoon tech rehearsal for Episode 3 of 3800 Elizabeth, which goes up at The Battle Ranch that very night at 8pm. You should come see it. This week’s episode is going to be particularly funny, I think, and will be a fine showcase for both me and my co-star, Iracel Rivero.
Hell, you could make a whole day of it on Sunday: hit the Plays and Playwrights party in the afternoon, then check out 3800 Elizabeth in the evening. And none of it will cost you a dime, my friend. That’s right: both events are totally and completely FREE. Now do you think you have a good reason to stay home and do housework this weekend? I didn’t think so.
If those aren’t enough for you, you could also take in both of these happening weekend events:
Finally, I’d like to wrap things up with this week’s Random Friday Top 10, inspired by Steven Spielberg, director of the new Indiana Jones movie. I hereby give you my Top 10 Favorite Performances From a Spielberg Movie (in chronological order):
(Honorable mentions to Oprah Winfrey in The Color Purple; the entire cast of Always; Robin Williams in Hook; Djimon Hounsou in Amistad; and Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me if You Can.)
That’s all for now, people. Happy Friday, and enjoy your weekend!
2 Comments | Directors, Movies, Performers, Playwrights, nytheatre mike posts, nytheatre mike shows, nytheatre.com | Permalink
Posted by nytheatremike
My younger sister frequently sends me all kinds of stuff she finds online, including numerous “Best of” lists (she and I are big fans of these). Here’s a good one she recently sent me: the Best New York Movies as selected by MSN. Not a bad list. Some of my all-time favorite Gotham movies - Manhattan, Superman, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three - made the cut easily. Others that I figured would be shoo-ins - like After Hours, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Warriors - were nowhere to be found. (And how about a shout-out to Fort Apache, The Bronx, just because?)
What’s your take on these? Got any favorite New York movies of your own? I’d love to know. Jump into the fray and submit your picks.
6 Comments | Movies, nytheatre mike posts | Permalink
Posted by nytheatremike
I’d like to take a moment here at the ol’ blog to pay tribute to one of my all-time favorite actors, old-school veteran Roy Scheider, who died yesterday afternoon at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, AK. He was 75.
Scheider will most likely always be best known for his steady leading man performance as Police Chief Martin Brody in Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster classic, Jaws. And as terrific a performance as that is, there was so much more to him than just that. For me, Scheider always brought sly humor, cool toughness, and subtle intelligence to all of his performances, as evidenced not only by his work in Jaws, but in a number of other film roles as well: as Gene Hackman’s low-key partner in The French Connection (1971); an American scientist who goes on the galactic journey of a lifetime in 2010 (1984); a blackmailed businessman who takes justice into his own hands in 52 Pick-Up (1986); and a cruel, emotionally abusive patriarch in The Myth of Fingerprints (1997). Even though Scheider eventually came to prominence as an unlikely leading man, he could often make the most of smaller supporting roles, as he did in such films as Klute (1971), Marathon Man (1976), and The Russia House (1990).
For me, though, Scheider’s triumph will always be his performance as Joe Gideon in Bob Fosse’s gloriously messy, imaginative, self-indulgent, and spectacularly entertaining 1979 film, All That Jazz. He brought all of his usual trademarks in portraying Fosse’s alter-ego, a hard-living, chain-smoking, womanizing director-choreographer who knows how to charm his way out of almost any situation. But he learned to sing and dance for the role, and did so in such convincing fashion (he was about 47 when did All That Jazz) that you’d never guess he hadn’t done either before. It’s the kind of performance that makes one re-consider a familiar face in a whole new light. Not surprisingly, this was also Scheider’s personal favorite out of all the roles he’d played.
In an obituary posted on Yahoo! this morning, actor Richard Dreyfuss called Scheider “a knockaround actor [which] to me is a compliment that means a professional that lives the life of a professional actor and doesn’t yell and scream at the fates and does his job and does it as well as he can.” Indeed. Not only did his body of work speak to that, but he was regarded as such by many of his actor colleagues. My father knew Scheider from way back and always had nothing but the very best things to say about him.
In closing, I’d like to direct you to a film clip of the singing-dancing finale of All That Jazz, in which Scheider teams up with none other than Ben Vereen (be forewarned, however, the last several seconds of the clip spoil the very ending of the movie). May it inspire you to check out the rest of this knockaround actor’s outstanding body of work. You will definitely be glad that you did.
(For more on Roy, check out film director William Friedkin’s candid remembrances of him here.)
2 Comments | In Memoriam, Movies, Performers, nytheatre mike posts | Permalink
Posted by nytheatremike
The temp job is keeping me busy today, so I’ll have to make this brief.
First, I’ll start with this week’s Random Friday Top 10. I have to admit I’m cheating a little bit: I can’t listen to music here at work, so the Top 10 was culled from my Pandora Quick Mix two nights ago. Here it is:
Elsewhere, there’s word out of Iceland this morning that the sports world has lost one of its most bizarre, elusive, enigmatic, and legendary figures: Bobby Fischer. If the game of chess could boast a maverick outlaw, then Fischer was that guy. A jaw-droppingly non-linear life and career that, to my mind, is ripe for some sort of dramatic or literary rendering. Until that happens, you can rent this movie. It’s a freaking classic.
No Comments » | In Memoriam, Miscellaneous, Movies, Music, Sports, nytheatre mike posts | Permalink
Posted by nytheatremike
