NY Comedy Festival: The Biggest Names in Comedy Converge on the Big Apple

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Parent Category: Other Festivals

Category: Theater

Published on Friday, 26 October 2018 17:01

Written by Brad Balfour

A week featuring the giants of comedy, the NY Comedy Festival is hitting NYC November 5 to 11. As the country's largest comedy festival to date, the NYCF will be featuring a variety of performances from over 200 comedians, including Tracy Morgan, Bill Burr, and Queer Eye's Jonathan Van Ness and Antoni Porowski.

Two Less Lonely Girls, the duo made up of Corinne Fisher and Rosebud Baker perform at the New York Comedy Club East Village where they dissect the most important subject in the history of media: Justin Bieber. LA based Cameron Esposito, who recently uploaded her special “Rape Jokes” online, will be performing at the Gramercy Theatre as she explores themes aroun the #MeToo movement and civil rights. Tim Dillon’s Real NYC Bus Tour, is an actual double decker bus tour of the city hosted by the comedian and former tour guide that talks about all the things that make New York fun: money laundering, international gangsters, intergenerational wealth, etc. The Office star, Craig Robinson & The Nasty Delicious, perform their fusion of comedy, electric funk, latin jazz, hard rock and soul at Team Coco House at Sony Hall. Speaking of Team Coco, Conan O'Brien will be taking part in Conan and Friends: An Evening of Stand-Up and Investment Tips with Flula Borg, Marina Franklin, Rory Scovel, and James Veitch.

To learn more, go to: http://nycomedyfestival.com/

NY Comedy Festival
November 5 - 11, 2018

Various venues

New York International Fringe Festival: All the Boroughs' a Stage

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Parent Category: Other Festivals

Category: Theater

Published on Thursday, 11 October 2018 11:25

Written by Brad Balfour

Featuring performance art from around the world, the New York International Fringe Festival, returns to NYC after a year long hiatus. Running October 12 to 28, the festival is now split into two segments: FringeNYC and FringeBYOV. FringeNYC takes place in Manhattan and is a jury selected slate of performances from artists around the world, giving leverage and exposure to underrepresented performers. FringeNYC will feature 84 different performances.

FringeBYOV (Bring Your Own Venue) is an “open access” part of the festival taking place at venues across the outer boroughs. Participating venues will include BAX|Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Branded Saloon and Irondale Center in Brooklyn and Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning, The Secret Theatre, and Q.E.D. in Queens.

Both tracks contain opera, comedic theatre, drama, experimental dance, performance art, improv, with a diverse assembly of artists, actors, and performers.

Deya Danielle Drake’s dark comedy, ESCAPE, will premiere at FringeNYC. In the aftermath of a violent incident onboard a commercial jet, an airline CEO and flight attendant fight to control the narrative of a news cycle in free fall. When the incident crosses over from news ticker headline to twitter #trending, the two women discover how fraught with turbulence the internet can be. ESCAPE paints a timely picture of the temptation to pursue power, by any means necessary, and the human need to solidify our own relevance in a world that is changing quicker than we are.

To learn more, go to: http://fringenyc.org/

New York International Fringe Festival
October 12 - 28, 2018

Various Venues

Celebrating New Theater Though New York’s Festival Scene

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Parent Category: Other Festivals

Category: Theater

Published on Tuesday, 14 August 2018 04:43

Written by Brad Balfour

“Birthday Boy”
The Planet Connections Theatre Festivity (Closed)

9th annual Dream Up Festival
Running August 26th -September 16th 2018
Theater for the New City
155 First Ave. (at E. 10th Street)

New York City has always been a home to live theater, especially musicals. And July and August are the months in which several festivals have taken place or are being staged that celebrate new theatrical productions. This city does a lot for workshopping new shows -- some of which become legendary hits.

While both The New York Musical Festival and The Planet Connections Theatre Festivity have finished up, they again demonstrated how such festivals nurture the creation, development, and public presentation of diverse new productions. 

So when I had a chance to see one show at this year’s Planet Connections Theatre Festivity — held on the lower east side  — I grabbed the opportunity and it was worth it. 

Titled “Birthday Boy,” it was a raw and unvarnished production with some inexperienced talent, but seeing such a show early on in its history is what make the experience all the more worthwhile when one realizes this is how big productions get started. Drawing on the playwright Jack Donahue’s personal experience, he and Brett Roelofs (featuring an original score by Roelofs), as well as director Angie Kristic, transformed a dark interlude into a musical drama.

The play documented in both song and dialogue one of those cultural tragedies shared by many —  abandonment by a substance-addicted mother in an orphanage run by the Catholic Church where those who are meant to protect turn out to be abusers. In a way, this piece was not unlike the Broadway hit “Dear Evan Hansen” — which takes a personally painful experience (teen suicide) and transforms it, not only into a narrative but into a musical entertainment experience.

Though this production was done with minimal set parameters and limited stage movements, it hints at what could come out of this touching and sometimes raw show.

But that what’s great about such festivals which present creation such as this. Usually, at this time of the year, the the big gorilla on the August scene is the three-week long New York International Fringe Festival. Though it offers much more than just musicals or theatrical productions,  it will happens this year in October rather than during the late summer as it has in the past,

So that leaves audiences with the upcoming 9th annual Dream Up Festival which takes place this August 26th to September 16th. Under the direction of Theater for the New City Artistic Director Crystal Field, the Dream Up Fest has an adventurous mix of world premieres, American premieres and New York premieres of new work dedicated to offering work by new authors and edgy, innovative performances.

The Fest presents 27 plays, of which 20 are world premieres and four are New York premieres. Contemporary controversies such as the #MeToo theme appears prominently in many of the productions. Others include a play on violence against LGBT people, two plays addressing stereotypes and race, and an investigative documentary play on corruption in Arizona. An epic musical, three movement theater works, an aerial dance work as well as a radical adaptation of Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler" and a new translation of Strindberg's acute psychological masterpiece, "Creditors" will also be presented. 

As the press release explains, “The festival does not seek out traditional scripts that are presented in a traditional way. It selects works that push new ideas to the forefront, challenge audience expectations and make us question our understanding of how art illuminates the world around us. 2018 marks the largest number of plays presented at one time by the Dream Up Festival.”

Curator/Festival Director Michael Scott-Price has directed at New York venues including Chashama, Dixon Place and Collective Unconscious. He has written and directed productions that were presented nationally as well as in Canada, Ireland and England. Currently, he is also Curator of TNC's "New City, New Blood" reading series and "Scratch Night" (works-in-progress) and is Artistic Director of an experimental theater company, Asteroid B612 Theatre Company, which made its debut in the 17th Annual HERE American Living Room Series in August 2006. 

Theater for the New City presents an assortment of distinct, exceptional events each year, including the Lower East Side Festival of the Arts (which celebrates the artistic and cultural diversity of TNC's Lower East Side community); an annual Village Halloween Ball and an annual summer Street Theater tour that presents a live, original musical in 13 neighborhoods in all five boroughs. Most of these are free to the public.

Dream Up Festival tickets are $12-$20 for the participating productions.

For tickets, go to:www.dreamupfestival.org or call TNC box office at 212-254-1109.