Archive for July 19th, 2007

Only at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre can you start a show 30 minutes late & nobody gives a damn! My only guess is that everybody knows they’re about to see a raunchy, hilarious show- and this was no exception.

UPLATE! with Lord Voldemort was a Harry Potter spoof in the form of a late night talk show to celebrate the long awaited release of the final Harry Potter book. This “live taping” was complete with Lord Voldemort as the host with his trusty sidekick Wormtail at his side and (of course) the obvious late night talk show band.

The costumes & makeup were horrible & atrocious in the BEST possible way- smiles were beaming at the campy & half-assed quality of it all.

So, Voldie was convinced that the Harry Potter series was his own biography (not a story about our beloved HP) & he hasn’t even read the books! He must be the only one in the entire world (including Muggles & Wizarding folks). He & Ms. Rowling had a little disagreement over who’d been through the darkest times.

According to He Who Must Not Be Named, the studio set was actually IN Hogwarts, but “it was enchanted to look like a comedy theatre set in a grocery store basement”. The audience was seated in the four houses of Hogwarts. (I was in Slytherin- gulp!) The show’s producer kept having to interrupt the Dark Lord to remind him that the word Mudblood was not politically correct and, of course, to keep giving airtime to the important corporate sponsors of the wizarding community.

Special guest stars included J. K. Rowling, The Boy Who Lived (aka Harry Potter), Ron & Hermione, the Weasley Twins & Professor Snape. Oh & guess what?!- Sirius Black had a makeover into a dancin’ pimp daddy & was working for the show as a bodyguard.

A few crowd favorite moments were:
1) The sorting hat, which was rigged on a simple rope & pulley system & just ALMOST worked. A few lucky audience members were selected to be sorted into the appropriate Hogwarts houses.

2) Erotic Reading by Professor Snape, which believe it or were dirty stories taken from real internet postings of X-rated adventures betwixt our Hero Harry & the despised Draco Malfoy. It’s kinda funny to see what people write about on the internet, a bit disturbing, but quite funny nonetheless- crowd was groaning, grimacing and smiling all the way through.

3) Those jokester Weasley twins were at it again with their own rendition of Who’s On First, but of course the sport in question was Quidditch. What’s on the Quaffle?! And, Who’s the Seeker anyway?!

And I can’t forget…

4) The Video Tribute to Albus Dumbeldore set to Boyz II Men’s “It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye to Yesterday”, detailing his life through the familiar JK Rowling inspired events & then some epic events that I didn’t remember him attending, but I’m sure were completely accurate (MLK speech, Tenement Square, Abu Ghraib & so on)

Overall, OMG, seriously- why was it one night only? It was so funny I would see it again. Do it again! Do it again! Do it again!

When an art exhibit gets extended, it’s worth taking notice. That’s the case with Sarah Peters’ Being American. The exhibit was supposed to close at Winkleman Gallery (637 West 27th Street, New York) this Saturday, but it’s been extended until next Friday, July 27. For her first-time having a solo exhibition in a city that eats, sleeps, and breaths art, that’s a noble accomplishment.

What makes Being American impressive is Peters’ ability to look past herself as a comtemporary American artist to argue that it took a lot of bad art to get to where we are today in the art world. She question the very foundations of art in the United States as she considers the failed aesthetic ideals of the eighteenth century.

Through a series of hurried black-and-white drawings, Peters shows the rejected, castaway works of time gone by. It’s a landscape of passionate yet abortive attempts to create beauty that was based on European eccentricities. She even includes a bust that although is a self-portrait actually references William Rush, America’s first classical sculpture.

Being American has been getting rave reviews from critics, so go see for yourself what all the fuss is about. And we want to know what you think: Apart from its critique on early art, does Being American aesthetically hold up its own values?