Reaching out on behalf of The Greens with exciting new programming in partnership with West Side Comedy Club! Starting Wednesday, February 2, the famous NYC comedy destination will be popping up at Pier 17’s indoor rooftop bar to serve up laughs accompanied by seasonal cocktails and delicious bites. Run by Felicia Madison, a comedian and manager who translates her fun, intelligent humor into an atmosphere where comics love to perform and where audiences love to laugh, the West Side Comedy Club shows will occur every other Wednesday and host 4-5 NYC based comics during each show.
Located at the Seaport on The Rooftop at Pier 17 overlooking the Lower Manhattan skyline, The Greens is a destination dining experience that features 32 custom-built 10’ x 10’ private dining cabins, community cabins, and The Greens bar, where the comedy shows will take place. Complete with intimate lounge seating, toasty fireplaces, and a well-stocked drink selection, The Greens bar is the perfect setting for a night of laughs and good company.
Shows will occur every other Wednesday from 7:00 – 8:30pm, starting February 2, 2022; lineup of comedians includes:
Mark Normand
Wednesday, February 2: Ashley Austin Morris, Eagle Witt, Jocelyn Chia, Mark Normand and Adam Gabel
Wednesday, February 16: Black History Month show (artists TBC)
Wednesday, March 2: Artists TBC
Wednesday, March 16: Artists TBC
Wednesday, March 30: Artists TBC
Wednesday, April 30: Artists TBC
Reservations required. Tickets are $15 (21+ only.) An a-la-care menu will be available, and all cocktails are $12
Death is not a subject one wishes to consider during the Yule season, but Adrian Sexton stares it down with her new one-woman show, DEATH! A Macabre Cabaret, premiering this weekend at Solocom.
The Titian-haired Sexton is a delightfully unique figure in the NYC comedy scene. Her passion for history, classic cinema, and music has been incorporated into her eclectic stage incarnations: Merchant Ivory films, tarot readers, a long-running improv tribute to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? …and even all four Beatles. Her character-driven comedy channels that of Tracey Ullmann, French & Saunders, and Amy Sedaris, but with a generous twist of Blackadder. She uproariously transcends time and space.
In this performance, Adrian Sexton reimagines Death as having been cursed by a wizard and forced to live out a human life (Sexton herself), enduring the experience of watching a loved one pass away. Through storytelling, humor and song, she explores the complexities of dying from her personal standpoint.
“Death is a character that has existed since the dawn of time, so it’s seen some shit!” says Sexton. “What DOES Death think? What makes Death sad? But Death’s still a heightened version of me…so I’ll throw some Duran Duran in there.”
Sexton notes that dying is still quite taboo, despite it being a universal experience for everyone. Last year, Sexton’s beloved father passed away after a long illness. She hopes to strip the mysteries and fears surrounding mortality, and wants people to cherish those moments of happiness, love and empathy that still exist in the darkest of times.
“Death is fluid and neutral. It takes king and peasant alike, so there is no empathy in death. And yet, we, the living, can show stunning compassion when someone experiences a loss. Even if you want to be alone and sad, you’re suddenly confronted with others’ feelings and hangups…which in retrospect I found quite humorous. Go away! No…stay! Also, the show takes place over Christmas, which is a ridiculous juxtaposition of joy and grief. I incorporate Christmas songs with lyrics that reflect what I was experiencing. You need to keep laughing.”
Inspiration for this show struck her at a hip-hop class at Freestyle Love Supreme Academy.
“Freestyling my truth was a revolutionary moment. I can be funny AND sad and speak honestly? At the same time? Whoa! That was the seed I needed to have the guts to write something this vulnerable.”
Sexton also credits tarot as a source of inspiration…after repeatedly pulling the Death card when applying to Solocom. She toyed around with various ideas, but all led back to the recent experience of losing her father. Director Zak Sommerfield suggested Sexton simply tell her story for the show.
‘The Death card doesn’t mean literal death. It’s about endings and new beginnings, so pulling it made me think about what my work will reflect going forward. Imagine if I pulled another card? You’d never hear from me again if I pulled the Hermit!”
Death! A Macabre Cabaret debuts Saturday, 23 November at 7:30 PM at the PIT Underground. Future performances to be determined.
Pictured (L to R): Daniel Kornergay, Luis Guillen, and Joshua Lazarus. Photo by Izaliya Safiullina
Shakespeare was funny, and not the kind of humor that you’d expect from a literary titan. His work often had a Seth Rogan sense of humor, reveling in the crude, crass, and sexual. You’d expect that 9th graders would love The Bard.
But then again maybe not. That sense of humor and playfulness is often missing when you’re learning about Shakespeare in school, and that affects a lot of performances. Performers think they’re being respectful to the text, but they’re missing the point of it.
Director Thomas G Waites’ version of Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Gene Frankel Theatre embraces that bawdy humor and playfulness. If this was your first experience with Love’s Labour’s Lost, you’d be confused to hear that it’s considered one of Shakespeare’s least popular plays. The cast’s performance–themed around Woodstock 1969–pumps new life into the show with innuendo, physical comedy, timely references, and song and dance numbers. They breathe life into a side of Shakespeare’s comedies that rarely translates onto the stage. All while wearing the vibrant colors of hippie culture in all of its glory.
Pictured (L to R): Daniel Kornegay, Luis Guillen, Steven Smith (foreground), Joshua Lazarus, and Jonathan Mastrojohn. Photo by Izaliya Safiullina.
Pictured (L to R): Melissa Molerio, Grace Langstaff, Chandler Robyn, and Julia Spina. Photo by Izaliya Safiullina
Pictured (L to R): Josh Rubenstein and Brandon Hynum. Photo by Izaliya Safiullina
Waites’ Love’s Labour’s Lost is hilarious. The cast, especially the criminally under-utilized Brandon Hynum and Josh Rubenstein as Don Armado and his page, lean into the show’s humor and innuendo with physical comedy, pulling chuckles and laughs out of the audience. Most of Shakespeare’s patrons were peasants paying a penny to stand in a crowded yard, cheering and laughing in front of the stage. His audience was not high-brow. Some of the jokes are off-color by nature of origin, but Waite’s cast plays along with them to maximum effect. The effect is that a bell-bottomed and flower-dressed cast manages to transport you back in time much farther than 1969. You can almost hear the laughter in the yard.
Waites has also managed to rework many of the reference-based humor. And it’s needed. Even the best political jokes get stale after their subjects have been dead a couple of hundred years. What is a Muscovite? Did you know without googling it? What would it add even if you did know? Far better for Boyet to proclaim of four disguised lovers: “They do, they do: and are apparell’d thus/ Like Hippies or Beatles, as I guess.” The costumes, complete with wigs, had the whole crowd laughing. Other lines reference our own current events, as the originals did in their time. I’ll leave those as treasures for you to find on your own.
The biggest diversion, though, is music. Where Love’s Labour’s Lost is conspicuous for its lack of music, Waites’ production added a musical interlude between each scene, with characters singing ‘60s music and dancing to multi-colored lights. It feels like the musical transitions from the Austin Powers movies, but longer. The songs are all classics and the cast performs them well. But at the same time, the music rarely added anything and often detracted from the scene.
Pictured (L to R): Melissa Molerio, Julie Spina, Chandler Robyn, Joshua Lazarus, and Grace Langstaff. Photo by Izaliya Safiullina.
Pictured (L to R): Grace Langstaff, Robert Thorpe, Chandler Robyn, Melissa Molerio, and Julia Spina. Photo by Izaliya Safiullina
When the king and his men approach disguised as Beatles, the princess and her ladies resolve not to dance with them no matter their seductions. But as soon as the “Beatles” enter, the cast bursts into a rendition of ‘With a Little Help From My Friends,’ and all begin to dance. When the play resumes, the refusal to dance feels empty and the scene has lost all stakes.
Overall, though, the show is a lot of fun. The cast is energetic, the performance is sharp, and the joy the actors take in the work shines through in every scene. If you love Shakespeare, or if you hate Shakespeare, or if you just happen to be free one night, check out this unique and fun adaptation.
Cast
The cast of LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST features Luis Guillen, Olivia Hardin, Brandon Hynum, Daniel Kornegay, Grace Langstaff, Joshua Lazarus, Robert Thorpe, Johnathan Mastrojohn, Melissa Molerio, Chandler Robyn, Will Rosenfelt, Josh Rubenstein, Annie Sizova, Steven Smith, and Julie Spina.
LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST is adapted and directed by Thomas G. Waites. Set design is by Tekla Monson; costume design is by Jason Vincent; lighting design is by Gilbert Pearto; and props design is by Thomas R. Gordon, also serving as Stage Manager. Roger Cacciotti produces.
Villains is the story of a couple of petty criminals who stumble into a nightmare when they meet a pair of real “villains.” It stars Bill Skarsgård and Maika Monroe as the young couple, with Burn Notice’s Jeffrey Donovan and The Closer’s Kyra Sedgwick as their older counterparts. Unfortunately, a cast of competent actors couldn’t save the patchwork plot, plodding pace, and confusing characters.
When stickup artists Mickey and Jules (Skarsgard and Monroe) run out of gas after their latest heist, the couple breaks into the only nearby house looking for a new ride. They complicate their plans when they discover a young girl tied up in the house’s basement. When they confront the house’s owners, George and Gloria (Donovan and Sedgwick), the younger couple become prisoners themselves. Mickey and Jules must choose between their own safety and the safety of the girl.
Photo via IMDB
The story of Villains covers worn ground, especially in the wake of critically acclaimed Don’t Breathe. Another film where burglars break into a house only to get their comeuppance from the house’s frightening owner. Even with Villains’ liberal use of cliche to build the plot, the story becomes unclear and unfocused when it tries to build momentum. Don’t Breathe has Stephen Lang’s terrifying blind homeowner as an antagonist. George and Gloria, in contrast, are mostly just wacky, or perhaps eccentric. Sedgwick’s Gloria is so ambiguously “crazy” that she nearly stops being a character. Jeffrey Donovan fares better, bringing a true-killer edge to his persona that makes him fun to watch, but awkward writing hampers his performance.
The tone of villains is stilted. It tries for horror/comedy, or perhaps a “black comedy,” but it mostly toggles between the two without managing to build either. One scene near the middle drags, taking up 10 full minutes in a film with a runtime under 90 minutes. It feels less like a genre fusion and more like genre indecision.
The writing aside, the film is easy on the eyes. The sets are detailed and fun, the strange 1950’s vibe lending itself well to the specific aesthetic of the film’s “villains.” The use of color, whether in set design, lighting, or clothing, is also excellent, building tone throughout. I wish as much time and care had been spent on the writing.
Lenae Day (left) and Wendy McColm (right) in Birds Without Feathers.
Neil gets Jo to pose for her instagram in Birds Without Feathers.
Cinema reflects an idealized world. Films tend to project an ease of existence that ignores the awkward parts of life: the pauses, the tangents, the missed cues and forced repetitions. Cool characters don’t stumble. Even “awkward” characters never mumble unless they’re supposed to. Characters are perfectly crafted to travel from the beginning of the story to the end.
Birds Without Feathers, the directorial debut of actress Wendy McColm, chooses instead to look those awkward moments in the face. In this black comedy, characters wrestle with stilted attempts at conversation to agonizing moments of aborted self-reflection. The realism with which McColm and co-writer Lenae Day pull this off is uncanny, and makes for some good laughs.
The film centers around the mostly-disconnected stories of six isolated individuals searching for meaning. There is Sam (William Gabriel Grier), a wanna-be comedian with stage fright. He briefly dates Janet AKA Neil (Wendy McColm), who dreams of Instagram stardom. Neil meets and befriends Jo (Lenae Day), a desert-dwelling identity thief with more wigs than cigarettes, whose ex, Daniel, (Cooper Oznowicz) is a self-help motivational speaker with no social or communication skills. She also meets Tom (Alexander Stasko), a Russian man trying to become an American cowboy and meet his idol Jeff Goldblum. Sam, on the other hand, runs into Marty (Sara Estefanos) a self-victimizing nurse at a home for the elderly.
Tom meets the wrong Jeff Goldblum in Birds Without Feathers.
If that sounds confusing, it can be. Feathers wanders between these stories, with the “friendship” between Neil and Jo being the most significant crossover. When they do cross over, they rarely share the space. Instead, the story leans into one perspective or the other. There is one scene, between Neil and Tom, which does feel shared, but it is perhaps the strangest in the film. I won’t say which it is, but I think you’ll know it when you see it.
Birds Without Feathers is, for the most part, a fascinating exploration of the awkwardness of searching for identity in isolation. The sometimes-absurd and very personal stories give us the opportunity to laugh at our own most awkward moments and insecurities–if we’re brave enough–without falling into the tired trope of “Black Mirror” social media critique. The meandering plotlines occasionally leave you feeling lost but, for the most part, hold together Feathers’ bizarre yet fun plot. I will be interested to see where McColm goes next.
Birds Without Feathers will be playing at the Roxy Theater for the next week. Get tickets here.
If anyone could be considered an online dating expert, it might be NYC Comedian David Piccolomini. His podcast, Tinder Tales, explores the often-bizarre world of online dating and has released more than 180 episodes over the last three and a half years. Each week, Piccolomini and a guest swap stories and examine dating habits, leading to strange revelations and good laughs.
He also understands why online dating can be so confusing. Many of his listeners found his podcast while googling for Tinder advice. “People get on tinder and they’re freaked out,” he says, “There are so many options and so many people. Either nobody’s swiping on them, or too many people are swiping on them. It’s a lot. And then they’re like, ‘Well, there’s gotta be a podcast about this.’ And there is!”
Online dating might seem like a recent phenomenon, but Piccolomini has been at it for more than 15 years. As a young teen in Wilmington, DE, he spent a lot of time in AOL chatrooms talking to women he’d never meet. “It was kind of like I was prepping myself for the world of dating at large, or for this world that we’re in now, and I didn’t even know it. I was just like, ‘Oh, hey, this is the one way I connect.’”
A decade later, he moved to Philadelphia to pursue stand-up comedy and picked up online dating again, this time actually landing dates. It became a hobby–one which he continued when he moved to NYC.
It didn’t take long for Piccolomini to realize that he had something that others wanted. “I saw friends’ profiles and was like, ‘Oh, you look like a serial killer. That’s why no one’s matching with you.” He started to give advice, helping his friends find dates and partners. The more advice he gave, the more stories he heard. The podcast seemed like a logical next step.
The first episodes of Tinder Tales were recorded in the living room of his Brooklyn apartment. His first guests were other comedians who, he says, often make the best guests because they’re natural storytellers and not afraid of being honest. It’s a big part of what he values in a good episode of Tinder Tales: great stories, vulnerability, and humor.
Photo courtesy of David Piccolomini.
“Part of what I like about doing tinder tales is the number of people I’ve talked to where they’re like, ‘Oh, I thought I was the only one who had this story,” or they listen to one of the episodes and are like, ‘I thought my story was crazy!” Some comedians will listen to each others’ episodes before they go out on a first date, just so that they’ll be prepared.
The stigma of online dating isn’t as bad as it was when Piccolomini started his podcast, but there are still a lot of misconceptions about it. “People look down on it sometimes, but I think it makes dating a more interesting experience. When I meet people through online dating, I know at the start that we have things in common. I don’t have to guess.”
Learning to find those people with similar interests is a common subject on Tinder Tales. The advice: find a way to work it into your profile. Piccolomini, a self-described “board game dork,” finds other fans with a dating profile which, among other things, asks a potential date to “settle the catan of my heart.”
After three and a half years of Tinder Tales, Piccolomini has become more thoughtful about dating. One of his biggest takeaways, he says, is that–for the most part–nobody does dating “wrong.” It’s just a matter of preference. What is ghosting? When should things get sexual? It changes from person to person. “What I’ve learned,” he says, “is that the more you communicate, the better your overall experience will be.” Whatever your expectations are, make sure you let the other person know.
That being said, he does have some general dating advice, no matter who you are or what you’re looking for in a date.
1. Ask Questions, preferably something personal–anything that makes it easier for them to respond. Stand out by actually saying something of interest, and whatever you do, don’t open the conversation with ‘Hey.”
2. Have Opinions, even if you disagree on those opinions. Chances are that any big differences were going to come up on date three anyways.
3. Listen. If you’re not listening, you’re not responding or engaging. That sounds like a very boring date for the other person.
For more advice, and for some of the wildest true dating stories you’ll ever hear, you’ll have to listen to his podcast, Tinder Tales, available on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, tindertalespod.com, as well as most other podcasting apps.
If you’re looking for a good place to start listening, try one of these episodes:
