Here’s Hoover

December 13, 2014
Sometimes I do things now that remind me of how different life was before Ivy. Last night, Alaina and I did something incredibly rare that we did frequently until 16 months ago. Seeing a show together involves many more calculations now but occasionally we make it happen. We hired a baby sitter and went to see Les Freres Corbusier's new production, "Here's Hoover!" at the Abrons Art Center. It was a blast: Herbert Hoover's Comeback Special as a rock star dead set on re-telling his legacy and escaping the pack of below average presidents. It is fun and ridiculous with…

Summer Swing

July 8, 2013
And then it was Summer! Hot and sunny with a two-day-a-week work schedule, the shift is quick and extreme and I am thoroughly enjoying it. One of my favorite aspects of the city at this time is the wealth of free outdoor cultural events. Concerts in Prospect Park have been supremely fun, with Amadou and Mariam, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Os Mutantes and Javelin providing the early season entertainment in my backyard. The venue is perfect and free events promote attendance, so bringing a group of friends to see a show by a band few have heard is easy; everyone has…

Here Lies Love

April 24, 2013
I am pretty sure my wife is the greatest stage manager in the history of stage management. Every show she works on is amazing and everyone she works with loves working with her. I am always impressed by her dedication to the process and I always enjoy the product. Her latest, Here Lies Love, is probably her best work yet! An Imelda Marcos-inspired dance party with music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim and directed by Alex Timbers stretches the boundaries of theater; the audience stands while platforms shift and spin around, with actors dancing tight choreography and singing beautiful…

Summmmmer

June 27, 2012
Summer always arrives hot and heavy. My work schedule declines (to 3 1/2 days a week) but my social schedule explodes to the point where I have even less free time! This summer's weekends are booked solid with great adventures and the next two months are bursting with potential goodness... June 11 brought a great start to Summer '12 with the arrival of my nephew, Lincoln Eustace Taylor! Andrew and Rachel instantly became amazing parents dedicated to offering their child the best life he could dream of... Lincoln was born into battle; within 24 hours was having an MRI and…

Book of Mormon

July 13, 2011
I love a spectacle and Book of Mormon delivers. Broadway is all about over-the-top song and dance and this show pays homage to the medium while simultaneously mocking its culture. The ridiculousness of of our obsession with entertainment is one micro-target of this show, and Broadway/Orlando worship is akin to religious worship here, with Mormonism serving as the kebab of this perfectly executed skewering. In a way, bashing this religion is too easy; it seems obvious that it was completely invented by a mortal man with a keen sense of drama who hooked his followers with a tale that makes…

Shakespeare In The Park

June 28, 2011
The man could write. His works are still the standard by which all theatre is judged. Every play is epic; a dense thicket involving love, betrayal, violence and wisdom. The characters are the grandest ideals or darkest corners of our own psyche and play out macrocosms of the subtle moral conflicts we engage daily. Every word he writes carries ten more words' worth of meaning and twist the plot dizzyingly. It is great literature and scintillating theatre. Alaina is hooked up at Central Park's Delacourt Theatre, which means we don't have to queue up beforehand for the always free tickets.…

Sleep No More

May 25, 2011
I am still baffled by what I witnessed last night and have been thinking about it constantly since I left the performance; it takes place inside the abandoned McKittrick hotel in Chelsea and audience members are free to explore four floors of exquisitely decorated rooms, each one an art installation of bizarre bric-a-brac that conjures an eerie mystique. Performers move through the spaces and interact with one another and audience members, all of whom are instructed to wear uniform white masks concealing identities and reactions. The piece is based on Macbeth and while the scenes allude to the events of…

What’s New?

May 24, 2011
In a tree in the Green-Wood Cemetery across from my balcony is a Robin's nest I have been binocularing in on and today I saw three little beaks open above the lip of the nest to be fed from mom. It was beautiful. It is hard to believe its been a month since I last wrote here, but it has been a month full of good entertainment. We saw some great Theatre (Blackwatch, Under Construction, Warhorse, Sister Act and seeing Sleep No More tonight), have experienced some great outdoor Brooklyn events (Fifth Ave Street Fair and Food Truck Rally), started…

Peter and The Starcatcher

March 23, 2011
This is amazingly fun theater. It is creative and celebrates imagination in so many ways, appealing to all ages and is a play in the best, most playful, sense of the word. The story is a prequel to Peter Pan with an absurdly hilarious cast of misfits sailing the high seas using spartan props to create elaborate scenes with Gondry-style guerrilla effects. The wordplay is fast and clever, slipping in something for everyone, young or old or high or low. Nobody is excluded in this world. I love working with kids because they are so creative and always flowing with…

The Pitmen Painters

December 4, 2010
A group of miners in Northern England in the 30s discover their hidden artistic talents in this beautiful Broadway show. Under the tutelage of an art professor in weekly meetings, they develop a folk style that becomes a phenomenon and gain international art fame while continuing their daily labors in the mines. It is a nice story, and although there is very little drama to it (minor conflicts weave into the dialogue occasionally but have little impact on the development), I was inspired by the two hour dissection of art, culture and meaning. While these men may lack the technique…