I’m sitting at a coffeeshop, working on this very post, when I get a text from Mike Daisey: “Surprising development: there will be a tremendous amount of bacon cooked live when least expected.” Daisey, a New York-based monologuist who’s gained a considerable local fanbase over the past few years (including just about every writer at […]
Performance
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Review: Kyle Abraham, Live! The Realest MC
Following his company’s weekend run of The Radio Show, the multi-talented Kyle Abraham performed last night a solo preview of Live! The Realest MC, a work in development that will eventually be an ensemble piece. Here’s a clip: Kyle Abraham Solo Excerpt of Live! The Realest MC (work-in-progress) Part 4. I predicted this piece would […]
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Review: Andrew Dinwiddie, Get Mad at Sin
It’s rare that a show at TBA is as easy to summarize as Andrew Dinwiddie’s Get Mad at Sin: a Message to the Young People of Today by Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart . I bet I can do it in ten words: Andrew Dinwiddie re-enacts a 1971 sermon by preacher Jimmy Swaggart. Bam. Now, I’ve spent […]
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Taylor Mac: Counterpoint
I saw Taylor Mac’s Comparison is Violence, or The Ziggy Stardust Meets Tiny Tim Songbook last night. It was much, much funnier than I expected, and Mac did some of the best crowd work I’ve ever seen, through a combination of provocation, bullying, and an implied “you’re not a fully actualized person unless you’re willing […]
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THE WORKS: Whispering Pines 10
Shana Moulton bathing, with Daisy Press on vocals Opera meets New Age meets Spandex. Last night was the single performance of Whispering Pines 10. Nick Hallett (vocalist and composer) is the collaborator to Shana Moulton, a Brooklyn-based artist, who has been working on her Whispering Pines series for nearly a decade. (This particular performance was […]
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tEEth Does PDX Proud
Powerful, gripping, challenging; adjectives can only tell you so much about tEEth’s Home Made. In many ways the piece defies definition, beckoning the audience to grapple with its themes in a very experiential way. Which is what ultimately makes Home Made a successful work; it communicates, engages, questions, and specifies without words. Which for all […]
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Abraham.In.Motion, The Radio Show
Oops, there goes his shirt. Up over his head. Oh, MY. Yup. No doubt about it, Kyle Abraham is a beautiful, beautiful specimen. So are his six dancers. Abraham is the choreographer and emotive mastermind behind The Radio Show (which has received a fair amount of press, deservedly). It only makes sense that the troupe […]
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Jesse Sugarmann’s Lido (The Pride Is Back)
PICA I’ve been looking forward to Jesse Sugarmann‘s Lido (The Pride Is Back)— easily my most-anticipated TBA:11 offering. It’s billed as a minivan ballet of sorts, in which three Chryslers are parked on 42 air mattresses. The air beds are inflated, forcing the bulky vans to rise into the air (and possibly topple into a […]
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An Evening with Taylor Mac
It was undoubtedly clear from the get-go: to see Taylor Mac live on stage, is to be placed in the hands of a master performer. Even before the actual beginning of Mac’s TBA contribution, Comparison is Violence, or The Ziggy Stardust Meets Tiny Tim Songbook, his charisma and charm were on display as he escorted […]
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Rude Mechs, The Method Gun
Alan Simons The premise of The Method Gun is so convoluted and navel-gazing that it creates the understandable impression that the production itself will be those things. On paper, it sounds like an indulgent exercise in theater people justifying their own questionable life choices. In fact, The Method Gun is anything but: The show, from […]
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Opening Night at The Works: David Eckard
“There’s a supernova on the handle of the big dipper,” says PICA communication director Patrick Leonard. Tonight, he explains, the exponentially expanding star will reach peak brightness. We’re talking in the beer garden, thick with opening night attendees— all ready for TBA’s nighttime programming, The Works. Everyone looks unintentionally glamorous in the moody blue and […]
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Staying Awake With Blackfish
Or rather, doing my best to stay awake with Blackfish. Which I found to be a slightly hard endeavor. But more on that soon.Blackfish is the musical duo (James Everest and Joel Pickard) that composes and performs the music for Emily Johnson’s multimedia dance piece, The Thank-You Bar. When I was first introduced to these […]