As the audience settled into their seats in the Lerner Black Box Theater on the opening night of the Black Theatre Ensemble’s production of Suzan-Lori Parks’s “Fucking A”, electric curiosity surged through the atmosphere. Would the piece be a comedy? Would it be a tragedy? Would it be a musical? As the lights dimmed, the audience couldn’t help but wonder what exactly “Fucking A” would be. However, after having watched the play, there is still no cut and dry label one can apply to this innovative, but ultimately uneven production.

This stylistic ambiguity however, is not entirely due to the choices made by the director (Nailah Robinson, CC ’12), cast, and crew. “Fucking A” is set in a dystopian city-state where characters alternate between contemporary English and TALK, a jarring colloquial dialect comprised of a mixture of several languages. The play includes songs, but the music is employed in a less “musical theatre” sense and in a more Brechtian one, underscoring emotional tensions and causing the audience to reevaluate the scenes they’ve just witnessed. The play chronicles its protagonist, Hester Smith (Jasmine Sudarkasa, CC ‘13), in her attempts to free her son from jail via payments to the governmental “Freedom Fund”, and the ensuing hardships that befall her as she is swept into a maelstrom of political and personal tragedy.

Noah, as Eugene Morris Jerome

Mere days after Noah Robbins, CC ’14, got his Columbia acceptance letter in the mail, he was cast as Eugene, the wisecracking narrator and alter ego of playwright Neil Simon, in a Broadway production of Brighton Beach Memoirs. “It was a good couple of days,” he admits. To fully commit to the production, Noah chose to take a gap year, deferring his entry to the freshman class. He starred opposite Laurie Metcalf (Jackie Harris from Roseanne) and Jessica Hecht (Susan Bunch from Friends) as his mother and his aunt. “I, on the other hand, had just finished starring as Max Bialystock in my high school’s production of The Producers, so I felt like things were about even experience-wise,” Noah joked.

Despite rave reviews, poor ticket sales and and bad marketing forced Brighton Beach Memoirs to close shortly after it opened. Noah still relishes the experience, particularly when it comes to meeting his theater idols. While he was waiting for the elevator one day, his personal hero, Nathan Lane, stood beside him, preparing for his first rehearsal for The Addams Family. Noah stood there, sweating profusely and wrestling with the decision of whether or not to attempt and make eye contact with his Broadway idol, until the star exited the elevator. Noah found out shortly afterwards that Laurie Metcalf was a friend of Nathan Lane’s and she offered to introduce this new Broadway star to his inspiration. “Later that week, outside of the building, he waved to me on the street while I was in mid-conversation with someone else. I waved back and continued my conversation. No big deal.”

Nathan Lane isn’t the only celebrity Noah encountered during his gap year. One night, the playwright of Brighton Beach Memoirs, Neil Simon, visited the cast. “No one knew why. We were all a little on edge about it, and we all hoped it wasn’t because he was unhappy with our performances.” It turns out Neil Simon had just rediscovered the brainstorming, stream-of-consciousness narratives written 30 years earlier that inspired Brighton Beach Memoirs, and he wanted to read them to the cast. “It was absolutely incredible, and really moving. I still can’t believe any of it happened.”

Isn't she lovely?

Spring Awakening, a racy story revolving around teenage sexuality and the winner of eight Tony awards, has touched the hearts and streamed through the speakers of musical theater and alternative music aficionados alike. But while most of us were rocking out to “My Junk” and “The Bitch of Living” in our dorms, Remy was performing them live on Broadway. Remy played Thea, one of the German schoolgirls struggling with the woes of growing pains, alongside Lea Michele, Jenna Ushkowitz, Jonathan Groff (all of recent Glee fame), and many other talented actors.

Remy became involved with the show during her junior year in high school while it was still an Off-Broadway production. When the show transferred to Broadway the following fall, it became wildly successful. Faced with her love for singing and acting and the ever-increasing popularity of the production, Remy decided to defer a year of school.

Given her newfound musical theater fame, Remy had the opportunity to meet an impressive assortment of celebrities, including Tina Fey, Danny DeVito, and Stephen Spielberg. While working on the show, Remy learned the correct way to interact with a celebrity, and today, she generously shares some of her wisdom. “Genuinely tell them that you like/love their work, if you do. They’re very appreciative,” she advises. “Then, if you want, you can politely ask for a picture with them. They most likely will say yes. This doesn’t work if you’re interrupting them from something important, like eating, talking to their friends, or using the restroom.”

But behind the glitz and glamour of Broadway, there are always bloopers! “One time during the hayloft scene, the hayloft ropes could not pull the bottom off of the stage, so Jon and Lea had to do ‘I Believe’ right in front of us,” Remy explains. “We had rehearsed the scene like this before, and we knew what to expect, but still, it was quite a shock to have them simulating sex literally inches away from us.”

Even Remy admits to flubbing her lines onstage. “It is the scariest feeling in the world because time seems to slow down, and you feel like everyone knows that you’re forgetting your lines, when in reality, it’s a minor hiccup,” she confesses. “I remember looking at Phoebe with huge deer-in-headlights eyes and thinking, ‘What’s my next line?!,’ and then it came back, just as quickly as I had forgotten. The brain is so weird.”

QuickTix exists to help you use your CUID and the TIC to the fullest (and save some money while you’re at it). It runs every other Wednesday.

Most popular events at the TIC:

• Columbia University Players present Chase Scenes: Oct 14th – 15th
• QUAM presents GenderF*ck: Qrave: Oct 15th
• Met Opera Satyagraha: Dec 1st
• Kenneth Cole Engagement Forum at Miller Theater: Oct 28th, 9:30 am and 1:30 pm
• Barnard Theatre’s Marisol: Oct 27th – Oct 29th

Campus events on sale now:

• CU Feel Good Bonsai People: Oct 20th, 6 pm, Lerner Hall Cinema, Free w/ CUID. Registration required
• Latino Heritage Month — Stand Up Comedy Night: Oct 20th, 8 pm, Diana Center Cafe, $3 w/ CUID. Tickets
• Latenite Fall Anthology: Oct 20th – 22nd, 11 pm (8 & 11 pm on the 22nd), Austin E. Quigley Black Box Theater, Free w/ CUID. Registration required
• Muslim Student Association — Fast-a-Thon: Oct 21st, Roone Arledge Auditorium, $2 -12. Tickets
• Cabaret Club —The Colored Museum: Oct 21st (8 pm), Oct 22nd (3 pm, 8 pm), Glicker-Milstein Theatre, $10 w/ CUID. Tickets

Off campus events on sale now:

• Morphoses Dance Company presents Bacchae at the Joyce Theatre: Oct 20th, 8 pm, Joyce Soho, $36. Tickets
• Cries and Whispers at BAM: Oct 29th, 7:30 pm, BAM Harvey Theater, $30. Tickets
• Venus in Fur on Broadway: Nov 10th, 8 pm, Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, $28. Tickets

The model for Muhammed Yunus’ microeconomic reform via Wikimedia Commons

Barnard's was a different kind of Lady Macbeth than this one

Bwog’s Thesp Crit Joshua Sorenshine caught the last show of the thesis festival last night:

This weekend, the Barnard theater department opened its doors for the annual thesis festival, giving audiences a performance that left this reviewer heartily satisfied. Both Alex Brinkman-Young’s, BC ’11 rendition of Tom Stoppard’s Cahoot’s Macbeth and Katie Lupica’s, CC ’11 sampling of Erik Ehn’s Saint Plays entertained and challenged the audience throughout the course of the evening.

The night began with Cahoot’s Macbeth. In a quaint, and slightly skewed home owned by our hostess, played by Tara Pacheco, CC ’13 we found a rag-tag group of actors furiously trying to put on a performance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth while constantly fighting off, around, and even over the interference of a particularly nasty police inspector, played by the fabulously funny Christina McCarver BC ’13. The abrupt transitions from the world of Macbeth to the hostess’ home and back were made possible by the talent of Lorenzo Landini, CC ’13 as Pavel Landovsky (playing Macbeth) and Ben Russell, CC ’11 as Cahoot (playing Banquo, Duncan, and Macduff). The pair worked well together, never faltering as characters within Macbeth or their struggle against the inspector. The play grew more absurd by the minute as all the characters “caught” the nonsense language “Dogg,” which is passed like a disease from person to person. Easy, the unfortunate lumber-delivery girl, played by the brilliant Bethanie Mangigian, BC ’11, was the source of the Dogg, and could not do her job until everyone caught her inconvenient linguistic disease. In the play’s final moments the entire cast speaks in Dogg and Brinkman-Young’s directing shines. Creating the final moments of a play without comprehensible language is no small feat, but Brinkman-Young accomplished it with grace, giving her actors strong motivations and utilizing the entire stage to leave us laughing and questioning the lengths to which we can go to make ourselves heard.

After a brief intermission, Lupica’s Saint Plays began with a near-bare stage. Four separate plays made up Lupica’s piece, each loosely tracing the life of a Catholic saint. First, the execution of Joan of Arc, played beautifully by Elizabeth Poleski, BC ’11, is told through Joan’s eyes and her fiery, passionate love for God. Next up was an ‘alternate-history’ to the tale of Saint George in which George, played by Jonathan Gutterman, GS ’13 rips the wings off of Gunna. Maya De La Rosa-Cohen, CC ’11 played the young Gunna, and Naomi Andebrhan, CUMC ’11 played her as an adult. The play about George was bound to be an audience favorite because of its strong narrative structure, a feature notably absent from the subsequent two plays. Though it was difficult to piece together the story of the final two plays, which centered on Saint Agnes and Saint Christopher respectively, the extraordinary efforts of Katie Craddock, BC ’13 as Agnes and Maya De La Rosa-Cohen as Agatha made the plays easier to follow. Both these actresses managed to imbue their roles with sincerity (an especially difficult task for Craddock who had to become a thirteen year old leprosy-healer who was burned, drawn and quartered, and then decapitated) that made their journeys compelling to watch even if we didn’t quite understand what was happening. To enjoy Lupica’s offering and to appreciate her own touch on these plays, we had to simply take in the experience. Lupica’s creativity showed itself in all sorts of ways, from the eerie dance of the Angels in Joan of Arc’s play to her simple presentation of a car in the final play with little more than a square of light and a small religious icon dangling from the ceiling.

The thesis festival at Barnard occupies a special place in the Columbia/Barnard theater community. It is the only opportunity (apart from possibly The Varsity Show) on this campus for students to take full creative ownership of a production that has so many resources at its disposal. For the whole production team, the particular difficulty of the thesis festival was how to take advantage of those increased resources without making the plays about those extra effects, gimmicks, or set pieces. In both plays, the teams managed to produce works of high-quality design while not overpowering their plays. Particularly noteworthy contributions came from Rolando Rodriguez, CC ’12 for the Cahoot’s set and Jacob Rice, CC ’12 for the lighting in both plays.

If this production left anything to be desired, it was a sense of unity between the two productions. While it is not required as part of the festival, it might have done both plays some good to have worked together to create a through-line or, at least, some semblance of continuity between the plays. The other noticeable struggle of the thesis festival was the difference in talent that was observable onstage. While no actor performed poorly, those with more commitment and energy overpowered other roles. While it will be sad to see Brinkman-Young and Lupica depart the Barnard theater community just as they are both coming into their own as directors, we wish them the best of luck!

Cattermole via Wikimedia.

As the lights went up in the Lerner Black Box theater, Rebecca Clark, CC ’13, invited the audience aboard the Celebrity Slave Ship and instructed them to fasten their shackles. The audience tensed, unsure if they should laugh or cringe. Much of the Black Theatre Ensemble’s production of The Colored Museum treads this line between comedic and grim, to great effect.

The Colored Museum, written by George C. Wolfe, tells the story of Black America’s struggle with its identity through a series of 10 satirical vignettes. The scenes range in length, style, and tone, and the three student directors do an excellent job pacing them. Slower pieces, such as the haunting “A Secret Soldier,” are couched between more comedic, punchy scenes. The entire play runs a little over an hour, making each vignette short and sweet.

The set is minimal; most scenes are adorned with little more than a boxes or a table. Costumes are more elaborate and just as effective, doing no more than contextualizing their respective characters. The lighting is simple. This leaves the audience to focus on the play’s greatest facets- the strong performances by each of its 12 actors and stellar directing.

The Colored Museum’s best moments lie in the extremes of the tragicomic spectrum. Jessica Johnson, CC ’11, and Ann-Kathryne Mills, CC ’14, had the audience in stitches with their sassy banter as two wigs in “The Hairpiece”- a feat all the more impressive considering their bodies were obscured, leaving them to act with only their inflection and facial expressions. Walter Jean-Jaques, CC ’14, provided another comedic highlight with his animated romp about stage as the caricature of an extremely disgruntled man.

Jonathan Dunn, SEAS ’11, acted the play’s most serious solo roles excellently and gave The Colored Museum a solemn core. In “Soldier with a Secret” his face was lit harshly from above as he haunted the audience with a war story. His final whispered lines elicited shivers. Tipsily toeing about the stage as Miss Roj, in “The Gospel According to Miss Roj,” he delivered a disturbing soliloquy on gay black culture spiced with just enough humor. Though less active than the other scenes in the play, Jonathan’s scenes kept the audience entranced with his mastery of voice and pace.

Excellent student acting makes The Colored Museum’s dark humor shine. Whether looking for satirical commentary on black culture or just great student acting, look no further. Catch the show today at 2 P.M. or 8 P.M. in the Lerner Black Box. Tickets are available at the TIC.

Photo via CUP

Megan McGregor was on hand to catch the CU Players’ final performance of Let Us Go Out Into The Starry Night: Three Plays.

Last night, Lerner’s Black Box seemed cozier than usual—a side effect of an encroaching audience. A nearly full house watched the cast of Let Us Go Out Into The Starry Night: Three Plays frolic and move props about the stage as a few last stragglers strolled into the theater. After one actor put a trunk under the feet of an unsuspecting and amused couple, the lights went out and the first play, The Red Coat by John Patrick Shanley, began.

In The Red Coat, Lorenzo Landini plays a drunk student who waits outside a party for the girl with whom he is in love, played by Hannah Kloepfer. Lorenzo’s portrayal of a drunkard was heartwarming, light, and surprisingly accurate for a college student. In all seriousness, Lorenzo plays a role that could have been easily overdone, yet he plays it with a charming easiness. Hannah Kloepfer, known for her role as a French hen in XMAS! 4, also gives a convincing performance. Hannah portrays her role of a kind girl grappling with the loss of her youth endearingly.

Jonathan Gutterman and Tina Garrity star in the second play, also by John Patrick Shanley, entitled Let Us Go Out into the Starry Night. The play opens with Tina arguing about her skinniness with a wooden doll while monsters/spirits play with an apathetic Jonathan. Perhaps the most haunting of the three plays, Into the Starry Night leaves the audience questioning the theme of all three plays of aloneness and togetherness.

The final play, Am I Blue, by Beth Henley, was a perfect ending to the evening. Starring Jake Coppola and Victoria Pollack, Am I Blue tells of the meeting a drunk college student on the eve of his birthday and a delinquent high school-aged girl. The two meet at a bar, hating each other initially. By the end of the evening, they grow to understand each other’s loneliness. Jake plays an angsty frat boy who feels as though he is a “sheep.” Jake does so heartbreakingly and with great skill. Victoria’s up-and-down role of a cutesy delinquent is done flawlessly.

Over all, Into the Starry Night, directed by Jenny Vallancourt, was a brilliant combination of plays, all filled with great performances by talented actors. Columbia University Player’s Let Us Go Out into the Starry Night ran Thursday through Saturday this weekend.

Bwog’s Song and Dance Connoisseur Sean Zimmermann reports on Columbia Musical Theatr

“You never realize the role of directing until you see different directors back to back,” explained Will Brown, Production Designer for Columbia Musical Theatre Society’s production of Changing Direction. The production features numbers from a wide selection of famous musicals, from Into the Woods to Rent, each directed by a different student director. Will’s comment couldn’t ring truer in this production; while many of the numbers were quite good, there were others that came off as average.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the show was that I don’t think it showcased the performers; there were multiple times during the show when I felt a singer would have been better, if only she were singing something else. This was especially true in the case of the rendition of “Out Tonight” from Rent. Morgan Fletcher, who played Mimi, trilled on a number of notes, and I couldn’t determine if this was a decision of the director, or if Fletcher’s voice was actually quavering. However, when she appeared again in Aida’s “Easy as Life” and “Written in the Stars,” Fletcher was spectacular; she hit every note flawlessly. Therefore I don’t think it was that she couldn’t give a good rendition of “Out Tonight,” but that the direction was poor, or it was a poor choice for her. Other numbers, such as the rendition of “What Could Be Better” from Baby also suffered from this problem.Still other numbers suffered from sound issues, and most of the performers would have done better if they projected a bit more—even in the small space of the Diana Black Box, there were times when it was simply hard to hear. The performers were not wearing microphones, so of the few microphones used, all were handheld. Some performers, such as those in “96,000” from In the Heights, did not hold their microphones steady as they sang; as a result, their voices came in and out over the speakers—it sounded like they were doing a good job, but from where I was sitting, I couldn’t understand them.

Despite these complaints, most numbers were good, and overall there were quite a few excellent numbers. Both of the songs from Aida, directed by Louisa Levy, were especially well done by Fletcher as Aida and Ross Ramone as Radames. Becca Leifer’s “A Very Nice Prince” and “Moments in the Woods” from Into the Woods were very strong: the flustered baker’s wife (Kasia Borowiec), Cinderella (Maria Sulimirski) and the lecherous prince (portrayed brilliantly by Melaku Assegued) all did an excellent job, as did the entire cast of Becca Leifer’s “The American and Florence/Nobody’s Side” from Chess.

Honorable mentions go to Jenny Baker as Olive in “The I Love You Song” from Putnam County Spelling Bee, and to the director of “Forget About the Boy” from Thoroughly Modern Millie, Ruthie Fierberg, whose direction and choreography were excellent, even though the number itself suffered from sound problems.

Ultimately, Changing Direction is well worth the money, and I would encourage people to see it. However, don’t expect a constant quality among numbers; there are good works here, and there are moments when the performers and directors shine, but there are also moments where they simply don’t.

Remaining performances of Changing Direction are tonight at 8pm and 11pm in the Glicker-Milstein Black Box Theatre in the Diana Center. Tickets are $3 from the TIC.

Photo via TIC

At last night’s show of Fiddler on the Roof, the average age of the audience was significantly higher than any of the other shows Bwog has attended in the past. Producer Jonathan Jager shared that many families purchased blocks of 10 tickets to the show, explaining the surprising lack of college students. Among the few college students present, however, was Bwog’s very own Sean Zimmermann. Here, his review.

The Columbia Musical Theatre Society’s performance of Fiddler on the Roof, directed by Rebecca Victor, is spectacular. The cast, the costumes, the lighting the music — all is of an unusually high caliber. Perhaps most impressive is the quality of the acting, which at last night’s performance was on peak and at a very professional level for a college production.

There are a few actors whose performances deserve special note. Tevye, portrayed by Eric Lawrence, spoke with a thick accent which perfectly fit his role; his character’s monologues, during which all other characters would freeze, were well-executed — as were the freezes themselves, which gave the monologues an almost dreamlike quality. Other members of Tevye’s family, such as his wife Golde (Kathryn Maslak) and his three eldest daughters Tzeitel (Becky Greenstein), Hodel (Rivka Friedlander), and Chava (Emily Buttner) were portrayed very believably, as were the young student Perchik (Michael Seaman) and the poor tailor Motel Kamzoil (Josh Warshawsky). Some of the actors in smaller roles also stood out: Elizabeth Varner deserves praise for her hilarious portrayal of the matchmaker Yente, as does Tyler Benedict for his almost-sympathetic portrayal of the town Constable, Ben Bardin for his elderly Rabbi, and Bethanie Mangigian for her screeching ghost of Fruma-Sarah.

Interactions between characters, especially between Tevye and his daughters, were strong as well. In one scene, father Tevye bids goodbye to Hodel, his daughter, who is leaving their small town to go to her husband, the idealistic Perchik, who has been arrested and taken to Siberia. Both Rivka’s song, “Far From the Home I Love” and Tevye’s prayer after she leaves, “look after her, and see that she dresses warm,” were deeply moving.

The cast’s musical numbers were very professional, but the pit band, which was placed on the minimalist stage behind the actors, is worthy of extra accolades. Not only was the music throughout the entire show excellent, but the conductor, Elizabeth Laberge, fell ill during the show to be replaced mid-act by trumpet player Paul Lerner, who took over without missing a beat. Another musician who figuratively took center stage was violinist Suzanne Davies, who plays for Tevye twice through the show.

This reviewer has one grievance: the degree of commitment to accents within the show was very inconsistent and jarring at times. Though Eric Lawrence’s heavy accent for Tevye made his character much better on a whole, it became very noticeable when he would sing with other members of the cast, who were not singing in the same accents. Other than this small but noticeable dissonance, however, the show was excellent from start to finish and I would thoroughly recommend that more college students (and not just family members) show up for tonight’s performance

Tickets for tonight’s 8:00 show at Roone are available at the TIC. Tickets are $5 with CUID, $10 for general admission, and $25 for VIP seating.

Photo via CU Players

Grandma Sylvia’s Funeral brings the concept of interactive theater out of the realm of Italian stereotypes, so prevalent after the success of environmental theater pioneer Tony N’ Tina’s Wedding, and into the realm of Jewish stereotypes, a theme more fitting with trends in Columbian comedy. Beyond that, though, the show isn’t that original. But it is still pretty damn funny.

Here, as in Tony N’ Tina’s Wedding, the show incorporates the audience into the cast of players, in this case as the assembled attendees for the memorial service of Grandma Sylvia, matriarch of a feuding Jewish family. This motley clan is composed of both the dysfunctional members you’d expect (the drunk, the slut) and the ones you wouldn’t (the condescending psychologist, the gay vampire).

The interactive experience begins on the line outside the show, as the family members act as ushers, distribute yarmulkes, have loud arguments, and search for the missing rabbi. While this technique establishes the characters and makes the wait to get in more bearable, the audience reactions are sometimes unpredictable and not always cooperative: some dutifully played along, contributing reminiscences of the departed, while others did their best to mess with the actors, claiming that they had come to see a play, not a funeral, and weren’t sure who Sylvia was.

The show then moves downstairs into the Lerner Party Space, redecorated as the Helsenrott Jewish Funeral Home. As the “service” begins, with the actors scattered amongst the audience create a steady stream of disruptions. It’s a long service, but not a boring one, complete with a disastrous recorder performance, a sequined shirt, yams, a catfight, and a marriage proposal. The interruptions and arguments are mostly witty and well-acted, and Matt Herzfeld, CC ’12, stands out as an awkward Hebrew-Union College student drafted to lead the service at the last minute.

But while the general level of chaos is funny, the play doesn’t have much momentum—there’s no sense that the conflicts and disruptions are building towards anything bigger. The excitement of the family tension heating to a boil is missing, lost amidst funny bits. I wanted a humorous, climactic explosion, but the resolution simply slides out. Nevertheless, Grandma Sylvia’s Funeral is amusing throughout, and well worth seeing before it’s put to rest. The play runs this Friday at 7 pm and 11 pm and Saturday at 1 pm, tickets available at the Lerner Box Office.

Bwog’s Dane Cook ventured into Riverside Theater to attend last night’s performance of Black Snow.

The intrigue of Black Snow took hold even before the play began. As the audience filed past to take their seats, a young woman cautioned everyone entering the theater, “Don’t forget your package. It’s here waiting for you.” Standing beside a messy table strewn with documents, she gestured toward several metal pails, each filled with small brown envelopes that read, “Keep in your pocket. Keep closed. You’ll know when to open…”

This unexpected introduction sets the tone for the rest of the production, which follows Sergei, an aspiring writer in Soviet Russia, on a dark journey into a confounding world both comically cruel and utterly unusual. Disappointed by unfavorable reactions to his first novel, Sergei pursues the opportunity to become a playwright and sets out to engage the Russian theater scene. While struggling to make ends meet, he confronts marvelously zany characters and scenarios of dreamlike absurdity. And although he battles desperately to hang on, ultimately his fate spirals out of control.

As for casting, Black Snow suffers no weak links. Every actor exhibits the vivacity and energy that makes a performance truly fun to watch. Joe Cassidy (Sergei) narrates his journey throughout the show, developing an intimate relationship with the audience through long asides and musical numbers. He maintains such helpless conviction that we all felt reassured he was right there with us—equally as dumbfounded. Eric Slater (Ivan) also gives an especially strong performance as the ignorant and obnoxious, but extremely well respected, producer of Sergei’s play. Like Cruella Deville meets Patch Adams (if you can imagine it), Slater flushes out Ivan—conniving yet playful—with impeccable comedic timing.

Nevertheless, the highlight of this show is the prop-work and set design. Entering from all sides, and at times taking seats directly in the audience, the actors take hold of anything and everything to keep us guessing. Innovative work with simple props like picture frames and door panels allows for an ever-evolving set that is intricately choreographed and perfectly executed.

Written by Mikhail Bulgakov and adapted by Keith Reddin, with an original score by Andrew Gerle and lyrics by Royce Vavrek, Black Snow is a world premier event put on by Columbia University’s School of the Arts. It is director Mikhael Tara Graver’s “thesis” production as an MFA candidate. Running 8 to 10 p.m. through Friday, with a matinee on Saturday, tickets are available on the CU Arts website or at the box-office inside Riverside Church. Free for students, this is a great opportunity to see high-quality theater close to home at an unbeatable price. (And no, no one paid me to say that).

Photo: CU Arts

Taking a break from finals studying, Bwog’s North Pole Bureau Chief Sean Zimmermann reports from the production of “XMAS! 4: Shalom Alone” last night about the story of one little Jewish Santa:

As the audience walked in to Roone, the first thing to notice was the loud dance music filling the auditorium. Lady Gaga, who usually isn’t associated with holiday cheer, was a surprising choice and a stark contrast to the musicians warming up wearing Santa hats. However, “surprising” is indeed a good overall characterization of the musical. Surprising due to its very small budget, surprising due to its limited showings, and surprising due to just how good it turned out to be.

Ollie Klausberg, played by Brian LaPerche, opened the musical by giving a reading from the Torah during his Bar Mitzvah. However, the nervous Ollie wets himself while reading and runs off stage. After being comforted by his pagan friend Amethyst (Emily Feinstein), an elf named Marty (Reni Calister) greets Ollie and informs him that he is the grandson of Santa and needs to travel to the North Pole. Ollie, after some encouragement from Amethyst, agrees.

When Ollie and Amethyst arrive at North Pole City, they learn that it is not the perfect world of childhood fantasies. Prancer (Zach Ludin) is upset because everyone thinks he is gay, the toymaker Virgin Mary (Emily Wallen) is upset because she is still a virgin, and Joe the Intern Elf (David Offit) is upset because Marty treats him poorly.

Ollie then learns that Santa, played brilliantly by Michael Abraham, has gone insane, and he needs to take over. After working for Santa for hundreds of years, Marty becomes furious at Ollie for being chosen successor and attempts to sabotage him. Meanwhile, Ollie’s Jewish mother, Karen (Ilana Rice), becomes worried and hires the cavalier Captain Ernest Shackleton to help her travel to the North Pole. On the way, they encounter the dapperly dressed penguin, Preston P. Pennington (Alex Hare), who competes with Ernest to woo the anxious mother.

The script by John Goodwin and Nina Pedrad was funny, thoroughly entertaining, and filled with memorable moments. Incorrectly programmed Christmas robots were the basis for a notable scene when they began to perform an African dance while celebrating Kwanzaa. One of the robots, Kwanzaa-Bot (Alia Munsch), even becomes the love interest for the insane Santa. Another memorable moment comes when Virgin Mary and the intern Joe fall in love. Mary comments, “Thank God we found each other.” To which Joe replies, “Jesus Christ I know!” The show also references previous “XMAS!” productions: Charlie Brown, a character from last year’s show, arrives to help the citizens of North Pole City form a ring onstage.

The music and lyrics, written by Matt Starr and Benjamin Weiner, were also well done. Though all of the shows musical numbers were strong, a few that stood out. “I’m Not a Man Today,” sung by Ollie as he fails his Torah reading, garnered many laughs, as did the Kwanzaa robot song. “It’s a North Pole City Day,” in which everyone explained why they were unhappy, was exceptionally well done; the individual monologues mixed in with the chorus showcased the cast’s musical abilities.

In a production that ultimately ended up being much better than the last Varsity Show, and using just a fraction of the budget, “XMAS! 4: Shalom Alone,” directed by Ameneh Bordi, was one of the best shows Columbia has offered in the recent past. Regardless of what the Catholic League says.

Set in the Deep South in the era of Jim Crow segregation, Ossie Davis’ 1961 play tells the story of a young, charismatic black preacher—Purlie Victorious Judson, who has one of the play’s many bizarre names—and his attempt to save the local church from plantation owner Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee, a bullwhip-wielding ex-Confederate battle axe. This play is, indeed, about racism, but it has no didactic stories to tell; it’s always a comedy, and a very funny one at that. Though Davis’ script is not always easy to stomach, this production is simply not crafted to evoke blatant or predictable feelings of discomfort. Regardless of your identity, ethnic background, or predispositions, you can laugh at this show without hating yourself; it’s just that kind of performance, a truly inclusive experience for everybody.

Director Nailah Robinson’s production is quite spare, with scarcely more than a few pieces of period furniture on the stage and a lighting and sound scheme that, while perfectly functional, is very low on atmosphere. As a result, the show’s energy is carried exclusively by the cast members, who never fail to deliver; the interplay between the actors is clearly as dynamic onstage as it is off, and watching the whole Ensemble at work is often absolutely exhilarating. Of course, the cast did have its highlights: Joshua Szymanowski is spectacularly crotchety as Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee, and relishes equally in the character’s moments of affected machismo and genuine malice. Morgan Ferguson plays the flighty Lutiebelle Jenkins with a wonderful cocktail of breathiness and insecurity, and Jonathan Smith portrays the young Charlie Cotchipee as delightfully, if tragically, inept. Overall, however, one must thank the entire Ensemble for the production—it is an extremely tight affair with little to no excess, and there is clearly not a single member of the cast or crew who does not contribute to the success of the play.

Unusually, this play ends in what the program calls an epilogue—a scene that I found somewhat jarring. It is perhaps the only moment in the play that evokes a legitimate sensation of unease, and it made me consider the overall risk-averseness of the production. This is a play that could very easily have been shoved down my throat like one of the main character’s sermons; at a different production, I might have spent the barely two hours of the show squirming instead of belly-laughing in my seat. Some may chastise the cast and crew for making light of a number of very serious issues, and this is perhaps a valid complaint; however, I can confidently say that this production worked for me. Maybe it’s ultimately because I was alone in the audience, but I found it a joy and an honor to be in on the joke.

Purlie Victorious plays in the Lerner Black Box Theater this Friday and Saturday.

Bill Clinton may be a tough act to follow, but the cast and crew of

You might say the ‘Secret’ is out of the Box: the passing of Columbia Musical Theatre Society’s biannual black box show, has left the Secret Garden as this semester’s main stage production. At their last dress rehearsal before a two-night run, the cast presented a small audience (including Lucy Simon, the composer of the original score, no less) with a somewhat unconventional twist on the old classic. The performance marks the culmination of the Columbia Musical Theater Society’s long proposal and approval process that lead first-time director Mary Jo Holuba, BC ’12, to take on the non-traditional project.

Unlike the story you may remember, the show is more thematic than plot-driven. Holuba emphasized healing as the driving theme by re-envisioning traditionally inert entities as dancing people: ghosts, plants, and exotic memories take on human form and remained a constant force onstage throughout the two-and-a-half hour performance, whether shifting silently in the background or executing wild turns center stage at movements of high tension. The dancing was, for the most part, entrancing, but the presence of the dancers occasionally distracted from what plot action did occur between the speaking characters as they acted out a story about young Mary Lennox, who comes to life after the death of her parents in an unlikely garden at an English estate. Though the set was fairly minimalist and the pit claims a sizeable part of the stage space, the blocking and choreography easily filled the rest of the space, making for an interesting but occasionally overstimulating show, at least in the visual realm. The music, however, was fitting, well-executed, and effective – ironically most noticeably so when the stage was most crowded.

Talent abounded onstage. Sophomore Victoria Pollock is startlingly well-suited to lead the show; with her expressive face and body and her gentle singing voice, she plays both a pitch- and picture-perfect Mary. Leigh Gerber also performed well as the chambermaid Martha, and Emily Buttner BC ‘13, is remarkably convincing as the crippled and prepubescent boy Colin, despite actually being mobile, post-pubescent and female. These three actresses constitute a fraction of the speaking and/or singing characters. Members of Orchesis (under the watchful eye of choreographer Mishi Castroverde) backed the cast in the aforementioned dance roles.

Holuba says she chose The Secret Garden in particular because it was the first Broadway musical “written by a woman, composed by a woman, and directed by a woman.” (Incidentally, the show’s “book” – i.e., script – is based on the actual book of the same name authored by Frances Hodgson Burnett, a major female literary figure.) The highlights of the show offstage appeared to be Simon’s interactions with cast and crew members. Simon had read about the production and stopped by to watch, much to the emotional distress of the music director and the pit musicians. After the final curtain Simon spoke of her relationship with the show, reflecting as its “mother” and ”nurturer” and giving praise along with some general notes and suggestions to the performers. She said she appreciated this take on the show, citing the “wonderful conception of using the ghosts as a constant presence.”

She had a point. In the end, what was most memorable was the dancing – classical with a touch of modern, just like Holuba’s unique vision of the show itself. Even though The Secret Garden hasn’t been revived on Broadway since its 1993 closing, here at 115^th and Broadway it took on a new life.

Purchase tickets for shows tonight and tomorrow night at TIC for $5 with or $10 without CUID.

“The way of sin is death, sweetheart,” preaches Jill Shackner, as elf-eared and vampire-fanged Bat Boy Ricky Schweitzer springs into her quaint three-bedroom house. With a brilliant production team and the return of the performing talent of last year’s Varsity Show, the “virgin territory”—as coined by director Nina Pedrad—of this student run production was more than a success. Despite what Nina may claim, it seemed apparent that the cast and production team had been around the block as the cast opened the show with a riveting performance of “Hold Me, Bat Boy.” Before reaching the confines of Lerner Black Box, Bat Boy began as the story of a half-boy, half-bat discovered in cave published on the a 1992 cover of Weekly World News. Soon after, there was a book written by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming, a musical composed, and thus, the sin of the “Bat Boy” was born.

Set in the farm country of the Deep South that just can’t be “rid of Christian charity,” Bat Boy, cleverly points to the triviality of town elections, the oppressiveness of religious authority, and the overwhelming popularity of cowboy boots. Ricky Schweitzer, Bat Boy or, as Meredith Taylor calls him, “Edgar”, brilliantly unveils the misery of a dysfunctional marriage, the triteness of small town south, and the simplicity of “any twit” receiving a Columbia degree as he evolves from a primitive birdlike creature into a stand up religious man who comes to understand the existential significance of a navel. In the same vein, Remy Zaken, as Bat Boy’s secretly incestuous sister Shelley, enthralled students as she, Jill Shackner, and the live orchestra directed by Evan Johnston revealed the need for a bigger box to accommodate their musical talent in “A Three Bedroom House.”

In addition to strong individual performances, scenes such as “A Joyful Noise” in which Brooks Morelock imbued the audience with the Holy Ghost and “Let Me Walk Among You” in which Bat Boy begs to “let me join your carpool,” place the Creative Team for this year’s Varsity Show in a tough position as the choreography, vocals, and acting were beyond impressive. Still though, it would do the show injustice not to mention the scandalous yet brilliant scene of sodomy in “Children, Children” as Yonatan Gebeyehu tickled the audience as he “erased the sin of man” donning an absurdly large feather and surrounded with cross-dressed critters fornicating through creative choreography. Closing with a touching scene of love, rape, incest, and murder, Bat Boy unveils the latent and blatant dysfunction of small-town America.

Of course, Columbia welcomed the social commentary as it would Bob Saget, but more than anything seemed to thoroughly enjoy the entertainment of highly talented and seriously devoted peers. But, I’ll defer to Nina as she defers to Oscar Wilde to say that Bat Boy was in fact, “ too important to be taken seriously.” So perhaps we should applaud the sheer talent, dedication, and the ability to evoke Columbia’s “beast side” for a good laugh at societal dysfunction that can so often elude the Columbia campus.

It is one thing to read the great works of Greek drama in Lit Hum, and quite another to bring them to life on stage – but CU Players’ production of Elektra, directed by Brian Bené, is a truly brave attempt at tackling Sophocles’ very difficult tragedy.  Lasting a tightly packed 90 minutes with no intermission, the performance can at times be laborious, but is ultimately extremely rewarding.

As Bené points out, the central themes of Elektra - suffering, loss, revenge, and the desire for justice – are all very modern ones which make the play both extremely accessible and uncomfortably relevant.  Thus, after having read virtually all of its modern translations, CU Players decided to adopt one of the most contemporary versions available – that of Anne Carson, published in 2001. Carson’s Elektra is so desperate and trapped by the fate of her family that the only course of action left to her is to lash out and ‘make noise’; a notable and distinctive feature of this version, as explained in the preface to the play which is helpfully included in the program, is Carson’s decision to transliterate the lamenting shouts of the characters, so that the audience hears “Oimoi!” instead of the expected “Alas!”

Apart from the arresting choice of translation, the production offers much in the way of directorial finesse. The scene-changes are seamless and the coordination of the characters, particularly the Chorus, is remarkable. The set is harshly backlit, but essentially evokes the set-up of a traditional Greek tragedy, with a screen behind which the murders can take place; a low droning, meanwhile, is the only sound effect, playing from your entry into the theater and gradually bearing down on your concentration.

The actors are mostly confident in their roles, although at times those with minor parts seem to be a bit lost in the overbearing presence of the two leads, Elektra (Danaya Almenares-Mesa) and Klytaimnestra (Melissa Macedo). Yet it is hard to blame them. Macedo’s face is exquisitely difficult to read, and her extreme control is matched by a devastating performance by Almenares-Mesa. Both actors come into their roles as the play progresses, despite initially being hindered by their somewhat unwieldy costumes.  

There is a clear attempt to make the play speak for itself and to remove all barriers of unfamiliarity with the audience. This is particularly effective in the synchronization of the chorus: its presence constantly ebbs and flows, accentuating Elektra’s anguish by banging on the floor and pleading to Zeus, or attempting to let her anger diffuse, looking on nervously from the background. Faced with such a demanding task, the team does at times slip in its coordination, but the members are easily forgiven by their collectively electrifying effect at crucial moments. The creative team’s meticulous attention to detail, such as the matching ribbons for each Chorus member, does deserve credit for effort, but the production could be further enhanced by somewhat less cumbersome outfits.

Despite these few reservations, you do become intently absorbed in the drama. The female leads’ astounding performances easily make up for any minor errors. And although Elektra has moments of emotionally taxing, nearly unbearable lamenting monologue, the culmination of the team’s efforts in the final scene is well worth the ticket price and hour and a half required to reach it.  CU Players’ Elektra runs tonight and tomorrow at 8pm and Sunday at 2pm at Lerner Black Box Theatre.